A Q&A Discussion With Doctor Z
Q: So you’re telling me you are a supporter of The Zeitgeist Movement? And your a doctor?
Dr. Z: I’m an oncologist, a cancer doctor. And you asked that as though I should know better?
Q: Yeah, kind of. I mean the Zeitgeist stuff just seems kind of crazy.
Dr. Z: What’s crazy is our current systems and worldviews. We are so out of sync with natural laws that our planet has now become a critically ill patient. A root cause of the fatal sickness is our monetary system. It has become what’s called a dominator hierarchy, which is a very serious pathology which behaves like a cancer spreading throughout a person’s body.
Q: Now you sound more like some rogue economics professor than a doctor.
Dr. Z: Well, actually that happens to be one of my skills…to be able to take higher perspectives, beyond just my specialty in medicine, to zoom far enough out to see the bigger picture.
Q: Cool
Dr. Z: Yeah, it is cool that I get to learn about things like holons…
Q: Here we go with the medical terms. I thought we were talking about money.
Dr. Z: Bear with me. The term “Holon” was coined by Arthur Koestler 1 to designate that which is simultaneously a whole in itself and also a part of a larger whole. So, an atom is a whole in itself. It is also part of a molecule so it becomes a holon, or a whole part. The molecule is also part of a cell, and so it too is a holon. And that cell is part of an organ, then part of an organism, and so on. This natural hierarchy of relationships is called a Holarchy. The concepts of holons and holarchy are fundamental to an understanding of the healthy functioning of complex living systems.
Q: Okay, I’m with you on holons.
Dr. Z: Good. So, in this book called the “Post-Corporate World”…
Q: There you go, switching gears on me again.
Dr. Z: You’ll see how holons and cancer and economics tie together in a minute. Anyway, in David C. Korten’s book “Post -Corporate World” he relates how these natural hierarchies are necessary to evolution, and how they allow us to “achieve ever-higher forms of complexity and competence by joining individual entities into new wholes with new capabilities”. But this requires that each of the whole-parts maintains its own identity and boundaries even as it functions as part of the larger whole. So the real key to evolution is not competition, but rather cooperation.2
Q: Now you sound like an evolutionary biologist or something.
Dr. Z: Sure, it’s biology…it’s systems theory…it’s quantuam mechanics…it’s all of it.
Anyway, Korten also said that “besides the concept of cooperation, mutuality is also a key principle in structuring healthy whole-part relations in living systems. When one holon within a holarchy acts as though it is the whole, as in the case of the cancer cell, it is a sign of pathology, and that holon must be rooted out to restore the whole to proper function”.
The point is that natural hierarchies are good and necessary. Dominator Hierarchies, on the other hand, are destructive and oppressive. The american philosopher Ken Wilber says that “it’s the dominator hierarchies that freak people out…when any holon in a natural holarchy usurps its position and attempts to dominate the whole, then you get a pathological or dominator hierarchy—a cancerous cell dominates the body, or a fascist dictator dominates the social system, or a repressive ego dominates the organism, and so on. …And we want to “attack” these pathological hierarchies, not in order to get rid of the hierarchy per se, but in order to allow the natural hierarchy to emerge in its place and continue its healthy growth and development.”3
Capitalism and a monetary-based economic system are rogue cancer cells threatening the life of the hierarchical living system…the organism…we call planet Earth.
Q: I guess I’ve always thought of the Earth as more of a machine. But I like how you describe it as more of an organism. And then the cancer metaphor really hits home…But aren’t you using pretty negative language for describing capitalism and money? Is it really all that bad?
Dr. Z: Well I could go on for days about the negative historical aspects of capitalism, but you know there have been positive aspects of capitalism as well, and it’s gotten us to where we are today. If you insist on some history though, let’s look again at it from a dominator hierarchy perspective.
In his latest book “Agenda for a New Economy”, Korten describes how “5,000 years ago, as a species, we moved away from more community-oriented forms of organization, and we began to organize ourselves by dominator hierarchy. That is, a move to empire. And it was not just about one nation dominating another, but it was about a dominator hierarchy at all levels of society, from the relationships among nations to relationships within families, relationships between gender, between races and so forth. Now, we have gone through some democratizing processes, but the fact is, we are still in that era of empire, of organization of society by dominator hierarchy. And whereas the rulers used to be kings and emperors, they are now corporate CEOs and hedge fund managers. And the system has morphed into where the real rule in society—put aside all our elections, democracy and so forth—the real rule has been by Wall Street institutions through the system of money, as money is a system of power.”4
I hope you can see how money is not merely neutral, as many contend. A capitalistic, money-based economy has mutated into a system of power and domination—a cancer that has spread globally and threatens the life of not only humanity, but all of life. It has served its purpose and has gotten us to where we are now, but now it is simply outdated, obsolete and dangerous.
Q: Jeesh! It sounds like it might be too late for chemotherapy Doc.
Dr. Z: Actually not. The cancer of capitalism feeds off of scarcity. Paradoxically, capitalism has brought about great advances in science and technology which are now beginning to eliminate scarcity—both real and perceived—and thereby cutting off the lifeblood of our economic system. And the final deathblow is coming, as technological advances are putting more and more people out of jobs that are never coming back, otherwise known as technological unemployment5, which reduces purchasing power, which then damages the cyclical consumption required for new purchases and taxes and future investment and so forth. So, fortunately, the cancer is already in the process of killing itself, but it in that process it will get dangerously close to killing its host first.
And there is also a hopeful message in John McMurtry’s book “The Cancer Stage of Capitalism”. He says that “the genetically-coded sequence of a “cellular” cancer cannot normally be altered by the life-host’s decision. [But] the value-coded sequence of a “social” cancer can always be modified or reset…the value code invading a society can, if it is recognized, be consciously limited or redirected by social decision…”6
So…what’s going to be our social decision?
Q: Man, this is a lot to absorb, but I think I’m getting what your telling me. I see what’s happening. I’m also getting depressed, because I’m not seeing what we can do about it. I mean, if we kill off the cancer—meaning we kill the monetary system through radiation, or surgical removal of the tumor, or whatever it’s gonna take—what comes next, what takes it’s place?
Dr. Z: Remember what Wilber said, “a natural hierarchy can emerge in its place and continue its healthy growth and development”.
Q: But what does that look like?
Dr. Z: Let me answer that, firstly by telling you what it would NOT look like. Or more precisely, what it looks like NOW. Author Riane Eisler, in her book “The Chalice and the Blade”, talks about how dominator hierarchies not only “inhibit personal creativity but also result in social systems in which the lowest (basest) human qualities are reinforced and humanity’s higher aspirations—traits such as compassion and empathy as well as the striving for truth and justice—are systematically suppressed.“7
Sound familiar? That’s how it is now.
Q: Very much so. But now you’re getting into human nature. Are you saying that things such as competition and greed and aggression and prejudice and corruption are not part of human nature?
Dr. Z: I am indeed. If human nature is not suppressed and oppressed, we are capable of great love and compassion and empathy. We are capable of leaps and bounds of innovation, the likes of which you can’t even imagine, compared to our current proprietary structures that have the tendency to squelch innovations that compete with existing technologies, or that can’t readily be monetized (aka, profit from).8
You asked what this future would look like. If the dominator hierarchy, the cancer, is removed we will aspire to our higher traits, not our sinful nature that some will have you believe. Can you imagine greater compassion and empathy and truth and beauty and goodness in the world?
Q: I’m struggling but yes, I sure want to be able to.
Dr. Z: Well it’s getting easier to see what our true human nature really is, with more and more studies now showing that we are not inherently evil beings, but instead are quite empathic creatures.9
Q: I like the sounds of that. But you are pointing out the problem and hinting at what can occur in the absence of that problem. But what happens once you remove the cancer of capitalism? What’s gonna take it’s place? What’s gonna get us there? What’s the actual solution?
Dr. Z: That’s the really cool part. I’ll point you in the right direction, but you’ll have to research it on your own. Hopefully, awareness of the systemic problems we have with our monetary system are starting to sink in. And if they are, I’ll proscribe that you take a couple of ibuprofens, and call me in the morning. But only after you’ve fully researched what’s called a resource based economy.10 And do so with a purely open mind. In a nutshell, a resource based economy is a system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter or any other system of debt or servitude. All resources become the common heritage of all of the inhabitants, not just a select few.
Q: Actually, far from having a headache, for the first time in a long time I think I have some hope for humanity. It sounds awesome Doc.
Dr. Z: Yes, and it’s the most comprehensive solution I’ve found so far to solve our global challenges and allow for humanity to thrive.
But one last thing. There’s a concept that applies to natural hierarchies, or holarchies, called “Transcend and include”. For example, the cell transcends—goes beyond—its molecular components, but also includes them. Molecules transcend and include atoms, which transcend and include particles.3 The point is that in natural hierarchies like this, individual holons can’t be taken out, they must be included. So you can’t take out a molecule without destroying the holarchy. The important point is that this only applies to natural hierarchies, not dominator hierarchies. In the dominator hierarchy that is our empire society with the Kings of Wall Street and the power system of money, I would put forth the concept of “Reject and Transcend”. In other words, we need to root out and “Reject” the cancerous cells of capitalism and money that indeed are killing us, so that we may “transcend” to increasing orders of holism and wholeness, and thus more beauty, truth and goodness.
Take care friend.
_______________________
Footnotes:
1. Arthur Koestler, The Ghost in the Machine
2. David C. Korten, Post-Corporate World, page 114
3. Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Eveything
4. David C. Korten, Agenda for a New Economy
5. Wiktionary Definition: Technological Unemployment - Unemployment caused by the replacement of workers by machines or artificial intelligence technology. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/technological_unemployment
6. John McMurtry, The Cancer Stage of Capitalism, page 133
7. Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade, page 215
8. Who Killed the Electric Car?
9. RSA Animate - The Empathic Civilization
10. The Venus Project; The Zeitgeist Movement
A good read. Understanding the great contrast between the self-oriented monetary economy and a cooperative resource-based economy is crucial. With economic/environmental crises looming around the corner, getting this awareness to others is just as important.
ReplyDelete