The S-word Sufficiency

If you can honestly agree that we, humanity, are (overall) the sum total of our cultural upbringing as a species, a process which occurred over the thousands of years of successive overlapping of cultural development, then it will not be difficult for you to accept that the real culprit of our social and environmental crisis is our human culture as transmitted from generation to generation.

No amount of denial can rationally reject this fact and still cling to a disassociated reality that paints a different image of what is going on outside of our window in the real world. Therefore, accepting the fact that what is needed is a fundamental upgrade of human culture is not so difficult. In fact, most people do and we have known that for over a century.

The big deal has been the questions of "what" can do the job and "how" can such an upgrade take place without creating a disruption that is as bad as the effect of our activities at present time without it.

The "what" needed to be an idea. The trouble was that it needed to be an idea that had never existed before in the context of human culture. Otherwise it will just amount to more of the same. The "how" also needed to be exterior to human culture because it is already obvious that we do not know how to do it. There is, however, only one other authority in the world with undeniable success in dealing with survival problems in interrelated multi-level complex systems and that is Nature. Therefore, the "how" needed to come from Nature.

The challenge was to discover the pattern, understand it somewhat, translate it to suit human patterns and incorporate the patch into human culture. I say patch because it will take several generations before the upgrade becomes its own true new culture. Anyway, all of this will become more evident if not altogether clear as this story unravels.

Today's post in this blog is a definite treat for your eyes and mind, as obscure and strange or even naive as it may seem, although glorious to me. Today, we get to share a moment in history whereby a new cultural "root precursor" or a harbinger of real transformation and hope for humanity and our world formally enters the landscape of human intelligence neatly packaged within the boundaries of a single word.

You are free to laugh, rejoice, reject, accept or ignore it. All that and more will happen anyway because that is our nature. However, I can safely predict that when the dust settles down a bit, Sufficiency will be the most important contribution made in the 21st century towards a favorable future for humanity and a sustainable continuity for life on Earth.

Well, that is a fairly large claim. Now, let me begin to back it up.

First, let's get on the same page about what I mean by a cultural "root precursor." I'm using "root" as the source or origin of a thing and "precursor" as the forerunner or predecessor of a more stable or mature form.

For comparison let's examine "fire" as a cultural root precursor or more precisely the "idea of using fire" (controlled fire) for our own purposes as we have for, say, the last 30,000 years. It becomes very easy to see the effect of that cultural root precursor on the development of our species to where modern civilization, like the small controlled fire in the cave of early Homo sapiens groups, still is powered by the idea of using fire to do the work.

That's how powerful a cultural root precursor is. So much that the idea to use fire was and remains the main driver behind Planet Earth 1.0. There are other precursors in the Planet Earth 1.0 history. But, on close inspection most if not all are fire dependant. Therefore, it is easy to see that (a) cultural root precursors of that kind are very rare indeed, and that (b) the introduction of a new one of similar magnitude is no small feat. At the least it is a valid cause to stop and take notice.

Dear friends, you read the papers and watch the news, too. Some of you may have done so for decades or long enough to notice that things have not changed (for the better that is). Try as we do with the tools that we have, we are just not going to be able to fix things, at least in time before it is too late for our kids to have their turn for something other than the same worsening routine.

What I'm presenting to you today encapsulated in a single word is the sum total of a lifetime of meticulous observation. Sufficiency, however, is above all an idea which similarly to the analogy of the use of fire is an idea so unique that it qualifies as a "root precursor" to a new cultural paradigm (ideal) for humanity.

Let's begin to look at it. I suggest that you keep a contact thread to what was written in previous postings in this blog which were really an introduction to this conversation.

The word "Sufficiency" is a word which historically has been (as far as words go) perhaps as uninteresting as the word (or sound) used for "fire" might have been to early humans before someone came up with the idea to use fire to cook raw meat and to keep an otherwise cold cave warm.

The analogy is truer than you might expect because Sufficiency or the idea of what to do with the word Sufficiency, is also new. But, as I said before, it is new in its truest sense as in never, ever present in the history of humanity.

To illustrate that sentiment, consider that at the time that the idea of fire for cooking was introduced by someone to the other cave dwellers thousands of years ago, all that was there to greet the idea was a persistent condition of tough raw meat and grains and a cold cave. It follows that the idea of using fire to cook food and generate warmth fulfilled an old need by solving the problem while setting off the species on a new course.

Let's assume then that what is really needed by humanity at this critical junction is a powerful idea to solve a problem like the one that the use of fire solved and which can, subsequently, generate a cultural shift in the direction of human development. Let's see what kind of use Sufficiency is good for, initially, that can cause a shift of the kind we need in order to get out of the mess we are in.

If you look in closely at the root of all human problems there is a void in our ability to measure the significance (the importance and consequence) of our ideas. I mean "measure" in the same sense as we measure the extent, dimension and quantity of things against a standard of which we can all agree as we do in the case of 60 seconds to a minute and 60 minutes to an hour and all of the other measuring standards that we all agree upon without any fuzziness.

It sounds crazy at first. But, it's true. We do not have a principle that allows us to measure the value of the ideas that structure human consciousness. Because of that deficiency we cannot agree on much of anything save to agree to disagree.

The story of why this is so is complicated because its history is embedded in so many cultural layers and goes so far back in time. But for now, it suffices to say that Nature does have a mechanism that constrains survival strategies for all creatures with a peculiar measuring scheme, or principle, whose intimation I have been interpreting and have ultimately attached to the word "Sufficiency" thereby incorporating its use into human culture in order to begin to deal with this pesky cultural void.

Let's experience the void together so that you know what I'm talking about.

What principle would you say we reach for when humanity finds itself (ourselves) in between two extremes of a problem (one is favorable the other unfavorable) and we wish to ascertain the comfort of a "middle ground" between them? While you think about it, try recalling some recent news headlines where leaders the world over invoke the need to find a "middle ground" between this and that to solve a given crisis.

The answer is that, up until now, we know of no principle that we may summon to produce such comfort, particularly no principle such as Sufficiency that can yield the comfort of a "middle ground" that is adaptable to variable conditions over time or as time moves forward. (This is a key point of enormous significance)

But, why is this so?

The short answer is that the cultural model in which we developed as a species outside of Nature never included the cultural root precursor for such principle. Therefore, we developed this far without it. That is why we do not have such a principle to fall back on to mediate our out-of-control problems.

There isn't an area of human activity that at present doesn't suffer from the inability to find a middle ground (or point of Sufficiency) where its operative recovery wouldn't greatly improve if a middle ground was found.

Sufficiency comes into the human realm at a time in which its cultural fabric has so many patches that it is hard to tell the difference between the original fabric and all of the patches. Moreover, in recent times there is the tendency where each patch wants to operate as if it was the entire original fabric.

Sufficiency is like a key that unlocks the next door in our development as a creature. You may think of it as a kind of pleasant and timely graduation present for our species. In that view, however, our past becomes no more than an essential prerequisite. After all, something wonderful needed to come out of all this. Otherwise, Homo sapiens (humanity) would have made a long and arduous trip for nothing.

It is important that we visualize what is happening here. Planet Earth 2.0 is a conception of humanity that upgrades an earlier version just as Planet Earth 1.0, Homo sapiens, was an upgrade to Homo heidelbergensis whose cultural development was upgraded by our better idea in the use of fire.

Are you familiar with "Russian nested dolls" also called "matryoshka dolls," a set of dolls of decreasing sizes placed one inside the other? If you are, you will instantly see in that analogy the simplicity of our transition from where we are to where we need to be. All of the evidence points to the unavoidable conclusion that we have just outgrown our cultural design and that the state of everything around us is telling us to transition to the next size up. Yet, the wonderful thing is that in a very real sense our former "we" will still be in there with the other versions of ourselves going all the way back. Nothing is lost. We will simply begin the transition to the design that suits us and the world. In taking that step, humanity enters a cultural path which will eventually define such culture as the new representative of our species.

Therefore, Sufficiency as a root precursor opens a door of opportunity for our species to inaugurate and enter the future as the very first representative of a whole new layer or level on the web of life. We will become, finally, distinct from all other creatures (which is what we always wanted) not because of our arrogance, superiority and technical know-how, but because we grew wise enough to step into the role of co-creators with Nature in a partnership to sustain the web of life in mutual Sufficiency and oversee the beginning of a new world.

Next, we get deeper into the word. Remember, folks, if it doesn't get created it doesn't exist.

For your own copy of "The S-word Sufficiency" click here or on the image above.

Tiité