Manifesto for Designing Self-Sustaining Democratic Societies
Abstract
Jared Diamond has written extensively on the demise of many dozens of societies and past civilizations, yet there is no record of the collapse and demise of a global civilization. If the global social, political, and economic crises continue and the viral pandemic, environmental, geophysical, and meteorological cataclysms continue, we can anticipate that our global civilization today will soon join the numbers of past societies, nations, cultures, empires, and civilizations that have risen, crested, declined, collapsed and disintegrated. For those of us who remain, will we choose to rebuild what has collapsed or will we rebuild using new social, political, and economic designs that will support social stability, social sustainability, and peace? And if those who remain choose to use self-sustaining designs, where will they get them? Not everyone is aware that our nations and civilization are now in the process of failing, and very few have thought it would be necessary to plan for recovery BEFORE the collapse is fully underway. What you will discover in these pages are the thoughts of historian and futurist Daniel Raphael who has given many decades of his life to the study and design of self-sustaining social systems that could be modified to suit the conditions of the future. “Self-sustaining” literally means that social systems do not have any inherent selfdefeating processes in their designs in order to create socially stable and peaceful societies and nations. Readers will discover a high degree of cognitive dissonance as they read through the pages, as there has never existed anything similar in the 20,000-year organizational history of humankind. What is provided here is not utopian. It is a wake-up call to humanity at a time when it is far too late to halt or deflect the coming collapse. The “tipping point” has passed a long time ago. There is one inventive option that is provided, the necessary step to reformulate the concept of social institutions as actionable associations of related organizations.
Presentation Description
.
Location
Room 106
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
Raphael, Daniel, "Manifesto for Designing Self-Sustaining Democratic Societies" (2022). Curriculum Studies Summer Collaborative. 37.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cssc/2022/2022/37
Manifesto for Designing Self-Sustaining Democratic Societies
Room 106
Jared Diamond has written extensively on the demise of many dozens of societies and past civilizations, yet there is no record of the collapse and demise of a global civilization. If the global social, political, and economic crises continue and the viral pandemic, environmental, geophysical, and meteorological cataclysms continue, we can anticipate that our global civilization today will soon join the numbers of past societies, nations, cultures, empires, and civilizations that have risen, crested, declined, collapsed and disintegrated. For those of us who remain, will we choose to rebuild what has collapsed or will we rebuild using new social, political, and economic designs that will support social stability, social sustainability, and peace? And if those who remain choose to use self-sustaining designs, where will they get them? Not everyone is aware that our nations and civilization are now in the process of failing, and very few have thought it would be necessary to plan for recovery BEFORE the collapse is fully underway. What you will discover in these pages are the thoughts of historian and futurist Daniel Raphael who has given many decades of his life to the study and design of self-sustaining social systems that could be modified to suit the conditions of the future. “Self-sustaining” literally means that social systems do not have any inherent selfdefeating processes in their designs in order to create socially stable and peaceful societies and nations. Readers will discover a high degree of cognitive dissonance as they read through the pages, as there has never existed anything similar in the 20,000-year organizational history of humankind. What is provided here is not utopian. It is a wake-up call to humanity at a time when it is far too late to halt or deflect the coming collapse. The “tipping point” has passed a long time ago. There is one inventive option that is provided, the necessary step to reformulate the concept of social institutions as actionable associations of related organizations.
