Imagining a Compassionate Society
A motivating vision to be realized in each present moment
May you find inspiration in the following excerpts from my book A Compassionate Civilization: The Urgency of Sustainable Development and Mindful Activism. As we face current social, ecological, and individual challenges, it is important to nurture our heart-mind with dreams of a hoped-for future that can be embodied in the here and now. The book also identifies obstacles, strategies, actions, allies, leadership approaches, and practices of care for self and others as a mindful activist.
Yes, we need to be clear on the crises, problems, and challenges, but we also need to dream of a new world that is so attractive that it beckons us and motivates us to create and embody it.
What are your greatest hopes for the future? What is indeed possible? What is necessary? What would a new civilization of compassion look like? Remember, compassion is not only feeling the pain of others but also vowing to relieve others’ suffering.
Compassion in the first instance is not religious or even spiritual. It is a natural response of living beings who have empathy for each other and want to help each other. Parents are one of the best examples of compassion. They will do anything to help relieve the suffering of their children and to help them be happy. A compassionate civilization is the universalization of this quality of compassion directed toward all beings everywhere. Or it can be called love, or care, or being neighborly, or helpful.
What might a new civilization of compassion look like? It will be based on six principles: sustainability, equality, justice, participation, tolerance, and nonviolence.
Environmental Sustainability
The new civilization of compassion will embody environmental sustainability at its very core. As Naomi Klein writes, “Climate change isn’t just a crisis. It’s a chance to build a better world.” We will protect the natural environment. People will realize that there can be no human life without healthy ecosystems of air, water, soil, fungi, plants, and animals. We will keep the remaining fossil fuels—death energy—in the ground. All energy will be from renewable sources, such as the sun, wind, water, geothermal sources, and algae—or “life energy.” The new economy will be 100 percent environmentally friendly. The green revolution will sustain life on Earth for millions of years.
Gender Equality
A compassionate civilization will embody gender equality in every facet of human society. Women will be leaders at every level of society. They will be paid the same as men for the same work. The voices, views, and wisdom of women will be honored and celebrated. Men will respect and protect the sovereignty of women’s bodies and minds. Gender and sexual orientation will be understood and accepted as taking a multiplicity of forms. Women, who “hold up half the sky,” will be free to be whom and what they are.
Socioeconomic Justice
A compassionate civilization will embody socioeconomic justice. Everyone will have meaningful engagement, adequate income, and access to high-quality education and health services as a human right. We will reinvent money as a means of caring for all life on Earth and stop the endless drive for profit, extraction, consumption, production, and wealth accumulation. We will learn “sacred economics” and the gift economy from Charles Eisenstein, with capital not being based on debt and interest. Bartering will increase. Local currencies will be developed. We will create local, national, and global economies that are pro-people and pro-planet. We will make the shift from an economy based on greed to an economy of generosity.
Participatory Governance
A compassionate civilization will embody participatory governance to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The needs, voices, views, and wisdom of all people will set the policy agendas for society through new processes and institutions of direct democracy. This will include face-to-face and online policy dialogue. Accountability, transparency, and responsiveness will be present at all levels of governance. E-governance will bring policy-making closer to the people.
Cultural Tolerance
A compassionate civilization will embody cultural tolerance. It will be understood and accepted that all people of every race, ethnic background, religion, economic class, lifestyle orientation, and nationality will be respected and free to exercise their rights as human beings. People will enjoy learning from others who have different backgrounds and orientations to life. Empathic consciousness will be the new common sense. An evolutionary universe and Earth story will be understood by all.
Peace and Nonviolence
A compassionate civilization will embody peace and nonviolence. There will be no nuclear weapons. War itself will be seen as illegitimate. A culture of peace will prevail as everyone comes to understand empathy and compassion as the underlying foundations of being human.
At this point, you may again be saying to yourself, “But all this sounds utopian. Is it really possible to achieve?” I would say again to you that if we do not head for utopia, we will be left in endless dystopia of environmental degradation and social misery. Let’s go for it!
Four Faces of the Future
Using the framework of Ken Wilber’s integral quadrants (interior/exterior and individual/collective), what will be the new mindsets, behaviors, cultures, and systems of the emerging civilization of compassion?
To get us started, I will share a few vision elements, and then it is your turn.
Individual Mindsets
Most individuals will exhibit a common sense of mutuality and interdependence. An awareness of our planet’s fragile ecosystem will be widespread. People will understand whole systems and think in integral patterns and processes. Intuition will be as important as rationality. Individuals will value integrity and kindness above all else. Education will have expanded people’s understanding to include vast stretches of time and space. Individuals will grasp that they are each unique and unrepeatable and have special capacities to be developed and shared with others. People will think of themselves as citizens of the universe, the Milky Way galaxy, our solar system, and planet Earth.
Individual Behaviors
People will tend to act responsibly toward each other and the natural world. Leadership will have become servant leadership - facilitative, interactive, dialogical, participatory, profound, inspirational and authentic. Teamwork and collaboration will be common practice. Individuals will be genuinely interested in other people of different mindsets, life styles, cultures and religions and desire to learn from them. People will gather in beautiful, green public spaces for social and political discourse and to share their insights, creativity, knowledge and questions. Almost everyone will be engaged in spiritual practices such as meditation, contemplation, yoga, visualization, journal writing, or community celebrations.
Collective Cultures
Cultures will have evolved to assume sexual and gender equality and human rights as the natural order of things. Equality and justice will be held as universal values. Care for natural systems of water, air, soil, plants and animals will be deeply ingrained in the collective psyche. New stories and myths will have been fashioned from empirical observation and analysis of the evolution of the universe and life on Earth. There will be many powerful symbols of unity, compassion, and understanding. The historical religions will have evolved to honor each other’s profound insights of reality, human nature, love, and truth. Many heroines and heroes who helped humanity realize a civilization of compassion will be celebrated widely. Happiness and wellbeing will be understood as the birthright of every living creature. Great celebrations of life on Earth will take place frequently.
Collective Systems
Renewable energy will be the law of the land and climate change will have been mitigated. Governance institutions, policies, and systems will be highly responsive, accountable, and transparent to citizen participation and opinion by virtue of respectful face-to-face dialogue and consensus building and through the Internet and social media. Education, health care, water, and food will be universal rights, as will other basic necessities of life. Economies will be designed to provide needed goods and services for the wellbeing of all people and nature. Money will have been reinvented as an instrument for universal wellbeing rather than for individual power and control. The family will have evolved to embrace different possibilities for localized commitment, care, and nurture. The justice system would have shifted its orientation from judgment and punishment to accountability, reconciliation, and rehabilitation.
Yes, may it be so!
What stands out for you in the above? How does it make you feel? Based on these elements, what story would you tell about a compassionate civilization? When you consider what you have read, what are any implications for your life and work?
What are some of your own vision elements of a civilization of compassion? Please write them down and share with your friends, colleagues, or family members.
One of my questions is, how can I embody a future vision in my present life and work?
From Akekho Umumtu:
"Thoughts on Imagining a Compassionate Society
"My greatest hopes for the future are unlimited but some are that our history will begin to face the reality that shaped our nation and thereby planted seeds of violence and greed. Now that we see that “ strange fruit “ come forth, I hope that by truth telling we can repair and restore, to come to see that our greatest strength is the richness of the variety of cultures that make up our society. I hope for a future where my granddaughter is seen as a beautiful Ojibwe woman who knows her culture and keeps Ojibwemowin alive and vibrant. I hope for a future where my son can use his energy to help heal minds that have suffered and fallen ill. I hope for a future where black and brown bodies are not seen as threatening and are no longer killed by police in the thousands. I dream a future where people can manifest compassion, loving kindness, sympathetic joy and equanimity for all. Where we learn that we can even cultivate these qualities for those who we see as “ enemies “ and therefore can find humanity in them and ourselves. Truth and reconciliation are for me the way. At times we may lose faith and believe that these dreams are only that, dreams. But our possibility is unlimited. Or perhaps only limited by conditioning. But that is not fixed. Therefore, unlimited. But it is necessary to walk the eightfold path. To carry ourselves with virtue , concentrated on our goal, girded with discernment. This is open to all faiths and cultures. We think, speak and act without violence and harm. The same with open hands and hearts untainted with greed and possessiveness. We respect each other and choose not to reduce each other to our conceptions of gender and sexuality. We learn to be kind and respectful with our words. We utilize our speech to encourage ourselves and others to love and support the beloved community. We learn to let go of clinging, of facing fears and hurts by healing rather than turning to mind numbing. I imagine a society where happiness is the ultimate wealth and we work together to create happiness for each other. This is my dream."
From Carl Slater: "We seem to be quite a ways from anything like that."