The Big Answer

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Social evolution is spinning its wheels.

The twentieth century and the early twenty-first century have been punctuated by an amazing series of rediscoveries. The amazing aspect of this series of rediscoveries is that each one was identical to the last one. All through this century and last, sociologists, psychologists, social commentators, columnists, clergy, and interested laypersons from all walks of life have rediscovered the same sociological fact-set: that negative environments produce negatively manifesting people, that abuse creates abusers, that emotional abuse can be as serious as physical abuse, that bad examples to emulate produce negatively emulating people, that too much authoritarianism or permissivism creates negatively symptomizing people, that people whose needs aren’t adequately filled in childhood usually are deficient in filling the needs of their offspring but those whose needs are filled in childhood can and usually do fill the needs of their offspring—in other words: ENVIRONMENTAL CAUSE AND EFFECT REALITIES FOLLOW THE GIGO RULE: GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT.

GARBAGE IN

GARBAGE OUT

Many important concepts about parenting are 'rediscovered' by the media once every few years as interesting sound bites

So it’s easy to see why social evolution is spinning its wheels. In other areas of life, when important discoveries are made that can significantly improve life, they are implemented. But not in this area. Why is that? Think about that as you read on . . .

It’s easy to see why social evolution is spinning its wheels

It’s easy to see why social evolution is spinning its wheels—ass clowns have taken charge of it!

Every few years the media rediscovers the connection between abuse and abusive backgrounds of abusers, criminality and abuse, sexual deviation and abuse, prostitution and abuse, intellectual deficiency and abuse, harsh discipline and abuse, etc. They always act as if the discovery is new and the researchers are very clever for their “breakthrough.” It’s as if: Now that we know this, we can improve human environments and most of life’s problems will go away. Right? Wrong.

1.8 million children are exploited in prostitution or pornography worldwide yearly. Most people working in the sex trade were abused when young—hardly a "discovery"!

In the first place, the only ones who really listen to the so-called “news” are those who are tuned in to these types of discoveries: sociologists, psychologists, social workers, clergy, and a few sociologically attuned columnists or laypersons. Abusers and abused alike do not tune in to the “news” because it’s either too revealing or it’s uncomfortably restimulating—i.e., it would “push the buttons” of abusers/abused and upset them, so they tune out and don’t listen. Why should they or anyone else upset themselves over such discoveries? It isn’t as though anything/anyone will change just because someone is talking about that ugly subject again.

So the academics bat the news around again, engaging in their token head-nodding ritual that includes the comment: “Yes—it’s just what I thought—this confirms my suspicions.”

These media morons have 'rediscovered' the same sociological fact-set that's been 'discovered' repeatedly for over a century: that negative environments produce negatively manifesting people

The wiser of the laypersons engage in their token throw-up-their-hands-in-frustration ritual that includes the comment: “Yes, yes, yes—we KNOW this—we’ve heard it all before—now when is someone going to DO something about it?" The quantity of negative sociological symptoms in our country—and our world—is way too high as well as unnecessary. "Why doesn’t anyone use this 'news' to create positive change—and maybe even cultural transformation?” they ask.

AS IF THERE WERE A BUNCH OF “ANYONES” OUT THERE WITH THE POWER, KNOWLEDGE, ABILITY, AND INTENTIONALITY TO SIMPLY ACTIVATE A CULTURAL EVOLUTION RAYGUN AND CREATE POSITIVE CHANGE!

There's no one out there with the power, knowledge, ability, and intentionality to simply activate a cultural evolution raygun and create positive change!

Besides, as everyone in the world (except the most jaded liberal socialists) agrees, social engineering attempts were the biggest source of evil in the twentieth century. Whether communism, fascism, or well-meaning welfare state programs that always just seemed to get out of hand and precipitate dependent, irresponsible, immoral people without character or ambition, it can be stated without hesitation when summarizing the social engineering experiments of last century: social engineering is a problem, not a solution; an evil, not a good; a degenerative force, not a regenerative force; regressive, not progressive; and it produces misery, not happiness. So, great programs, massive welfare spending, forced socialistic agendas and propaganda, or any other “tampering with the normal order of things,” are all summarily dismissed. As they should be. But . . .

Evil

The abuse cycles continue, negative environments/conditions/people produce more of the same, negative examples to emulate abound, and any constructive response to the media-presented “new sociological breakthrough” is once again paralyzed.

Besides, most fundamentalists of all religious persuasions are very sure that their authority-obsessed ways and harsh discipline are sanctioned by their holy books, which they are, unfortunately—especially in the book of Proverbs, which tells parents if they don't beat their kids with rods, they must hate them! Fundamentalists consider the "sociological breakthroughs" discoverers to be “those evil humanists.” The Enlightenment, to them, was a blasphemous period of social degeneration in which mankind evily ate enormous quantities of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Humanity inherited sin and guilt from Adam and Eve's sin of eating the tree's fruit after God forbade it, which logically means that knowledge, especially science, is evil in God's eyes, except that knowledge contained in the Bible. A radical belief if there ever was one! See The First Enlightenment Versus The Second Enlightenment.

Eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is evil—it dates back to Adam and Eve's sin of eating the tree's fruit after God forbade it, a sin we inherited. Therefore science and knowledge are evil—who knew?!

And finally, isn’t it obvious that this issue has been so politically polarized between the authoritarian right and the permissive (permissiveness is at least as bad an idea as authoritarianism) left that it’s a stalemate, a nonstarter, and a stillborn issue from the word “go”?

And since the abusers and the abused cannot bear to look this issue in the face and they’re the ones who society needs to change the most, it all turns out to be a catch-22 anyway: the ones who must change are the ones who cannot change. It's a Maine joke—"you can't get there from here."

Now let’s look at sources and forces. This country and the world are symptomizing wildly and most lifestyles are either partially or wholly about survival, not growth and inspiration. They’re about dashed hopes, anger, fear, projection, and making do, not about compassion, self-actualization, and wisdom. They’re about tripping over beliefs and more beliefs that only cripple and rarely empower—beliefs that stop any real thinking and insure that people never find out what really works to promote a happy lifestyle.

Should the source of the force that gets people back on the right track be:

• Social engineering? No—the twentieth century is a bloody testament to the problem with that source.
• Politics? No—in spite of bleeding-heart-liberal big government cure-all attempts (which seemed to help at first but—in the long run—made things worse) of the last half century, it has been shown that throwing money at things can help construction projects, clean-up projects, business projects and information age projects, but they aren’t the answer for sociological projects. And what is politics but a reallocation of funds based on special interests?
  
  
  Throwing money at things can help construction projects, clean-up projects, business projects and information age projects, but they aren’t the answer for sociological projects
  
  
• Reading books? No, mostly, although it could supplement the source of the force. The exception here is the ebook The Forest Through The Trees, which is an exquisite source for getting people back on the right track, and the MC Articles section of the Articles page.
• Watching TV or movies? No, mostly, (the exceptions are MC blitz movies and TV shows, of course) although it could supplement the source of the force.
• Religious transformation? No, not as a general, overall force, since the best religion has to answer is in the area of individual transformation—it’s very personal and individual. There’s little that one person can do to “get” another person to experience religious transformation. Note that the world is oozing with religions and religious people and yet the world is a mess and the people doing the most hating and killing are usually the most religious (at least, in their opinion—but not ours). And note that America is the most religious of all advanced nations, but it has the most general crime, murder, drug use, suicide, and other symptoms and is the biggest warmonger.
• Grassroots movement? Yes—this IS how a real cultural transformation would spread: from below, not from above (although a few famous people would need to be spokespersons, there would not be “leaders,” since this type of change isn’t pulled from above—it’s pushed from below at the level of family and individual).

But, since that’s merely the method of dispersal, the question arises: What exactly is being dispersed? What is the best source of the force for leaving behind cultural degeneration, phoniness, alienation, greed, anger, fear, hate, jealousy, dysfunctional relationships, dysfunctional marriages, dysfunctional neighborhoods, dysfunctional parenting, lack of community, and dysfunctional lifestyles in general?

Sorry, liberals, the conservatives have it right this time: CHARACTER. The best source of the forces of compassion, wisdom, and cultural improvement is character. The liberals think (or thought—many are wising up) that money handouts from big government are the answer. That’s why the conservatives have made so many gains lately, the “L”-word evolved as an insult, and few people anymore dare to call themselves “liberal.” Liberalism via big government is a failure. The majority of people in the U.S. were happy to see Clinton's “end welfare” bill pass. Finally! Bye-bye social engineering and good riddance! (But then along came an ass clown named Obama, determined to destroy Bill Clinton’s signature achievement of his presidency since Obama was mad his own ugly presidency was nothing but one humiliation after the next. Obama’s administration has opened a loophole in the 1996 welfare reform legislation big enough to make the law ineffective. Liberals that voted for him are hiding under their desks in embarrassment.)

Obama wrecked Clinton's 'end welfare' legislation and Liberals that voted for Obama are hiding under their desks in embarrassment

On the other hand, neither conservatives nor liberals are at all clear about how good character can be “instilled” in our young. The liberals like to leave the subject alone as it makes them squirm uncomfortably. The conservatives like to hold up Bill and Hillary as examples of the flawed character of spoiled, immoral baby boomers, and they push religious authoritarianism, parental authoritarianism, and law-and-order authoritarianism as the sources of good character, usually missing the fact that, like liberal permissiveness, authoritarianism is an unlikely producer of good character. Authoritarian methods produce more fear, hate, bigotry, resentment, and meanness than they produce good character, while permissive methods produce more greed, narcissism, confusion, resentment and alienation than they produce good character.

This authoritarian foolishly believes that abusing her child will improve his character and behavior, which couldn't be further from the truth!

So how does effective character formation actually occur? Even if the ludicrous merry-go-round of sequential rediscoveries of environmental GIGO truths can be stopped and people bravely cease making silly token discoveries, reporting token “news,” and having pseudo-insights, and instead actually FACE the truths about all this and finally decide to do something about it, what, exactly, will they do?

Realize—and act on this knowledge—that good character can be strongly and reliably urged to evolve best if and when our young are brought up not with authoritarian or permissive methods but with authoritative (e.g., Parent Effectiveness Training—or P.E.T.) methods instead. Realize—and act on this knowledge—that parents, neighbors, friends, elders and others must set very good examples of good character by what they do (not what they say), so that the young see the benefits of being this type of person and then decide to emulate such people. And realize—and act on this knowledge—that children’s needs must be well filled (but not permissively and not with bribes and giving them possessions in place of love) if they are to be happy and compassionate and likely to form good character.

So therefore dump steep-gradient nurturance and instead adopt flat-gradient nurturance (the former is when a parent tries to be his/her kids’ only need-filler and the latter is when parents make sure there are lots of good need-fillers available to his/her kids—but this does NOT mean day care is the answer: read on). Don’t put kids in ANY type of care (day care, babysitter, in-home care, relative care, mother care, father care, etc) where they are not actually and truly loved and well cared for.

On the other hand, don’t expect mom and/or dad to carry the whole load, because even though they may be willing, they are extremely unlikely to be able. They will not always feel loving and compassionate, nor will they always be that way. So let people set up neighborhoods full of best friends who really care about each other—and each other’s kids—and kiss the daycare problems goodbye as people schedule childcare only among those who really do care for these kids. And let the kids choose their caregivers whenever possible.

Divorce rate in the US from 1935 to 2010

And let spouses cease trying to have each other be the sole need-fillers in their lives (except for sexual and romantic needs). This putting all of one's eggs in one basket is the main cause of relationship dysfunction and divorce and is totally unnecessary if people set up their lives in neighborhoods of best friends. Putting all of their eggs in one basket is what we ask kids to do with steep-gradient nurturance, and it leads inevitably to parenting dysfunction—the statistics do not lie.

Putting all of one's eggs in one single basket is the main cause of relationship dysfunction

Do NOT get confused and have friends move into one house or into a commune or some other claustrophobic nonsense. There are no solutions in that direction—only problems. Instead, occupy normal houses, neighborhoods, apartments, condos, etc., in normal ways with normal marriages. But simply change the dysfunction-creating habit of moving into neighborhoods of strangers with whom you have nothing in common and who you let baby-sit your kids only with great trepidation since you know in your heart they’re in it for the baby-sitting money—they don’t actually love or even care about your kids.

You let neighbors babysit your kids only with great trepidation since you know in your heart they’re in it for the babysitting money—they don’t actually love or even care about your kids

Here is what MCs are like: MCs.

MC with Japanese garden

In summary, create resource-FULL lives, environments, lifestyles, relationships, parenting arrangements, neighborhoods and communities rather than resource-LESS ones, the current norm. Good character, the source of the force of cultural transformation, will soon follow, pleasing conservatives, liberals, and everyone in between (most of us). GIGO will evolve into: goodness in, goodness out. And the cycles of abuse, as well as the “rediscovery” farce, will soon be history. And the shrinks can go get REAL jobs, since their offices will grow emptier than election year promises. Their new jobs can be helping with the repair of our deteriorating infrastructure or helping the EPA clean up the environment.

Once MCs help U.S. citizens become happy people with good character, the shrinks and social workers can help the EPA clean up the environment