Language is Destiny
October 21st, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
How a New Generation is Taking the Reins of American Leadership
In the twentieth century Richard Weaver famously taught that “ideas have consequences.”
He turned this thought into a book and eventually a philosophy, one which entered the general culture as the idea that “words mean things.”
Together these two concepts informed a society dominated and run by the Baby Boomers–those born between 1946 and 1964.
As we transition to a society run by the Latch-key or X Generation, born between 1964 and 1984, a new dominating viewpoint is gaining control.
As usual, most of media, academia and government have not yet fully caught on or understood the influence of the coming shift.
A powerful way to understand the rise of a new thought-generation is the OSA, or Over-Stated Acquiescent. This occurs where a person communicates agreement with what is being said by overstating the point.
Today’s OSAs include, “I know, right?” “Oh yeah, good point,” and “uber- ” [fill-in-the-blank].
These OSAs are sarcastic and manage to communicate irony and skepticism even as they convey assent.
This is a major shift from the past two generations, whose OSAs were nearly all positive, optimistic, guileless, and straightforward: “Groovy,” “Cool,” “Far Out,” “Rad,” “Awesome,” and so on.
Note that these older-generation OSA’s expressed a positive view of the future, a general sense that the world is good and getting better, and a naïve and infectious happiness of youth.
In contrast, the rising generation’s post-9/11 OSA’s are edgy–waiting for the other shoe to drop on our society, and just trying to get by until it does.
The older OSA’s come from a generation raised by parents, a cohesive high-school community and mostly homogenous values, while the new OSA’s express a society raised by television, factionalized and competing cliques, and conflicting diversity.
The old OSA’s were popularized by older youth (16-19) who wanted to hang on to carefree adolescence into their twenties and even thirties, where the new OSA’s reflect a younger group (10-13) who grew up too fast and were sophisticated before puberty and involved in adult issues and relationships by ages 14-16.
Destiny Lost
If you doubt how much OSA’s can teach us about generational psyches and therefore the future, consider their counterpart: the Under-Stated Denial (USDs).
The new USDs are once again ironic, skeptical, grown-up-too-fast, cosmopolitan, and sarcastic: “Not so much,” “A Little Bit,” “Shut Up!” and “-ish.”
Each is nuanced, meaning that none of these actually mean what they say. In the new language, words still mean things–but not exactly.
“Shut up,” here doesn’t mean to stop talking, but rather “totally!” Likewise, “A little bit” actually means, “Yes, a lot!” The older generation would have said, “duh!” instead of “A little bit.”
And “Not so much” would be translated by older generations as, “Of course not, stupid. How ridiculous! Isn’t this obvious? Come on, use your brain. For heaven’s sakes!”
The old generation of USDs was predictable, straightforward and obvious. “No way!” “No,” “Never,” “Negative,” “Not very much,” and other USD’s left little room for doubt as to their meaning.
In fact, they were more “stated” than “understated.” In contrast, the new USD’s are ripe with non-verbal meanings. The old way was to say what you mean, and even say it more strongly than you mean it.
The new way is to say what you don’t mean in a way that means what you mean–kind of.
If this is confusing, welcome to the future.
A: “So, do you like him?”
“He’s dreamy!”
B: “So, do you like him?”
“A little bit.”
These actually mean the same thing: the responder is smitten! But only “A” says so. In fact, “B” actually seems to say the opposite.
C: “Did you have fun on your date?”
“It was cool.”
D: “Did you have fun on your date?”
“ish.”
Again, C and D mean basically the same thing: “The date was okay, nothing great, but not terrible.”
But “cool” leans positive, just like the Boomer generation as a whole, while “ish” tends negative, glass-half-empty, like Generation X.
“Cool” means “I’m glad I went and I’d go out with him again,” while “ish” communicates the opposite.
Note that it is the expressions a generation uses in its adult years, not its youth, that carry the most weight, since language mirrors (and even, to some extent, defines) internal thoughts.
It is adult generations that wield real — as opposed to symbolic — power in businesses, governments and other major societal institutions.
So, while Gen X may have used older-style OSA’s and USD’s in its youth (“cool,” “awesome,” etc.), in adulthood it is now firmly planted in the new language used by its children (“I know, right?” “not so much,” “a little bit,” etc.). Its future will most likely follow the new model.
Interesting sidebar: it is not an anomaly that some of these phrases come from the growing Latino culture.
Business, Government, & Societal Applications
The ramifications for business, relationships, career and government are numerous.
For one, a society run by Boomers is willing to keep trying the old ways while Generation Xers won’t persist on a path they don’t trust or consider faulty.
Once Xers think something won’t work, they switch to something new. And where Boomers believe in the principles of the past and hesitate to try unproven policies, Xers are quick to try new things even when the risks are high.
The old model valued clarity, optimism and idealism, and supported progress toward the ideal–whether your ideal was Woodstock or Reagan.
In contrast, the new values are multi-layered, complex, nuanced.
They resonate with a cosmopolitan mix of pragmatic and symbolic, like American Idol or Obama. Things must be real and extremely symbolic at the same time.
In this new model, Republicans and Democrats are fake and lacking in symbolic sway, while Tea Parties and Obama are reality television and big-time icons combined.
Rush Limbaugh and Joe Biden are the old–straightforward, pushy, dogmatic, proletarian–while Glenn Beck and Rachel Maddow are the new: complex, many-layered, broadly-read, cosmo, iconic. It’s George Strait and The Rolling Stones versus Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga.
The old says what it means, the new sparks the imagination.
At first blush, it may appear that the old model is fundamentally conservative–preserving values, honoring the past–while the new is wildly liberal–risking new options, and open to untried possibilities.
But that’s the view from the “words mean things” side of the fence.
On a deeper level, where things (all things, not just words mean things, the new OSA’s and USD’s signal a breath of life into the stagnant and unproductive war of words between the two major political parties and, more importantly, the two warring economic classes in our society.
We are increasingly a class society, split between uber-haves and the rest of us.
While the new “say what you don’t mean” generation may not appear to accept any of the wisdom of past generations, the opposite is actually true.
The older generations emphasized saying what you mean, and in doing so split into two rigid camps roughly understood as conservative and liberal.
These two camps then set out to beat each other in every walk of life, from the pulpit to the campus and from the big screen to the White House.
One major casualty in this battle was many of the best principles and ideas from the past. Indeed, both sides promoted their own version of what the greatest thinkers of history said, so that by the 2000’s both Democrats and Republicans could claim to be promoting Jeffersonian principles of American freedom.
Ultra-conservatives and liberal extremists carry around quotes from Plato, Jefferson, the Federalist, Tocqueville, Lincoln, Churchill and others–many taken largely out of context, each supporting some current pet viewpoint.
Both sides de-emphasized the need to go read Plato, Jefferson, the Federalist or others in depth and in total.
As a result, the great freedom principles and ideals of the past were forgotten, touted by all, and followed by none. This is the actual legacy of much that calls itself conservatism or progressivism.
Do our modern traditions preserve the best principles of the past? Not so much. (Translation for Boomers: “Not at all. And that really stinks!”)
Do they simultaneously claim the authority of the great ideas and patently fail to understand them? A little bit. (Translation for Boomers: “Totally. How ridiculous!”)
Is conservatism even conservative any more, and is progressivism even progressive? -ish. (Translation for Boomers: “A little, but not really. What’s wrong with these people, anyway?”)
Destiny Reconsidered
That said, there is much to be learned from the new destiny of language caused by the rise of Gen X.
While the obvious change is an openness to the new, even if it is untried and risky, there is a simultaneous return to the wisdom of the past.
More and more people, whatever their political or religious views, are returning to the old classics. And they are reading them in full, in depth. They are talking about them, blogging about them, and thinking about them.
As a result, they are getting a dose of quality thinking in a modern setting.
Something very interesting is coming out of this return to the great books and ideas. Conservatives are learning real conservatism and progressives are understanding real liberalism.
The potential of this renaissance is staggering. It turns out the problem of the great ideological divide was less conservatism vs. liberalism and more a reliance on superficiality.
Conservative and also progressive societies can both be greatly free, but shallow-thinking and poorly-educated societies cannot. They always deteriorate into less-than-free countries.
Indeed, when one actually reads Washington or Adams or Jefferson or the Federalist, it becomes clear that the American founders and framers were truly uber-conservative and uber-progressive.
They didn’t pick either side, but rather pulled the best conservative and also the best progressive principles and applied them all.
For example, when I first attended major home school conventions in the early 1990s there was a generally accepted viewpoint–shared by liberal hippies and right-wing evangelicals and seemingly everyone in between–that the American founders were against government-funded public schools and for privatized, parent-run schools.
In my youth, I had been taught a different view: That the founders established government-run public schools as the bastion of American strength.
When I read the collected writings of Jefferson, all twenty volumes, for the first time, I was shocked to read what he actually said about schools.
The first time I read the collected works of Washington and Adams, my surprise deepened and my views changed.
It turns out that both modern perspectives were shallow.
What the founders actually wanted was a flourishing educational environment with numerous public and private options all offering the deepest quality of education.
The founders described mentoring, the vital role of the greatest books and other works of mankind, and numerous educational ideals.
Their grasp of principles was broad, and their suggested innovations numerous. They believed in promoting the best conservative successes of the past and initiating progressive innovations to continually improve learning.
I had a similar experience as I read the original writings of the greats on numerous topics, from the Constitution to international relations to economics, and so on.
Depth always trumps shallow, and indeed many current debates between shallow conservatism and shallow liberalism are simply a problem caused by shallow understanding–when depth is added, many of these debates disappear altogether, and the rest have some actual chance of productive discourse that leads to improvement and change.
Shallow isn’t Education
The job-training focus of schooling since 1941 has, despite its admitted positives, had the negative effect of promoting shallow leadership and citizenship education.
The internet age has continued this downward trend to the extent that people have turned from books to e-surfing as a replacement for deep, quality education.
This applies to both formal youth schooling and informal, on-going adult learning.
A nation of free citizens is always a nation of adults continually learning at a deep level and thinking about new ideas in a continual national debate about the truly important things.
When only a small percentage of the adult population is engaged in this debate, freedom quickly declines, as the views and desires of the dependent masses are at odds with the principles of freedom.
In our day, the spread of the internet has significantly increased the number and percentage of the population that is actively involved in the national dialogue.
What is less obvious, but even more profound, is that we are also witnessing a growth in the number of people reading, studying and thinking about the great classics–not just limited quotes in textbooks, but in the original and complete form.
While the internet age has caused the death of the newspaper and, currently, the looming demise of many book publishers, it has coincided with a resurrection in reading the great classics.
This is a huge victory for freedom, though the consequences won’t likely be fully understood for many decades.
E: “Did Generation X get trained for jobs?
“A little bit.”
(Translation for Boomers: “Absolutely! If anything, it got more than enough. And, at the same time, other types of quality education suffered greatly.”)
F: “Did Generation X get a truly quality education for life and leadership?”
“Not so much.”
(Translation for Boomers: “Not at all. What a tragedy!”)
G: “Is Generation X prepared for the mantle of leadership now falling on its shoulders?”
“-ish.”
(Translation for Boomers: “Not really. But it’s coming anyway, so we’ll do our best. But it sucks that we weren’t educated for leadership in the first place!”)
H: “Look, Gen X isn’t any better than the Boomers and will have just as many problems.”
“I know, right?”
(Translation for Boomers: “Of course it will. In the meantime, let’s smile and make the best of it. In fact, let’s be happy about it. We might as well. Life stinks sometimes, but there is a lot of good too. Stop taking everything so seriously or you’ll die of ulcers.”)
I: “If Gen X doesn’t grow up and get serious, things will get a lot worse.”
“Oh yeah, good point.”
(Translation for Boomers: “No they won’t! Relax. I mean, yes, technically you are right. Real problems require real solutions. But stop over-stating it. Of course we’ll have to get serious. Of course we have to grow up. But in all your serious, grown-up leadership, you still managed to mess up the world a lot. Yes, you did some good things too. Thank you for those. Really, thank you. But our biggest problem with you is that you did everything with a frown on your face. We’ll deal with the real world in serious and grown-up ways, but don’t expect us to scowl our way through life. We prefer to smile, to laugh, to enjoy the journey–however difficult it may be.”)
A Boomer/Gen X Dialogue
I recently had a talk with a Boomer-age mentor who helped me a lot in my youth.
He commented on my latest book, and while he agreed with the conclusions two things baffled him.
First, why did I say, “God, or the Universe, whichever is most comfortable for you…” instead of just “God”?
Second, why did I say, “Whatever your politics, conservative or liberal or moderate or whatever, if you support freedom then we are on the same side…”?
I found myself as baffled as he was. Why wouldn’t I be inclusive instead of divisive?
I asked if my words made it sound like I don’t believe in God.
“Not at all,” he said. “But, it’s…squishy.”
“Squishy?” I asked. “I believe in God. I made that clear in the book, right?”
“Yes.”
“So, do you want me to go a step further and say that everyone who doesn’t believe in God is wrong and shouldn’t work with me on promoting freedom? Do you actually believe that?”
“Well, no,” he said. “But you should just say it like it is.”
“Okay,” I said, “here is how it is. If those who believe in God and freedom keep fighting against those who believe in freedom but not God, then will freedom win or lose?”
He just looked at me
“Or if conservatives, liberals, libertarians, environmentalists, moderates and independents who believe in freedom keep fighting against each other, does freedom gain or lose?”
He was shaking his head, so I tried a different tact.
“Is freedom losing so much ground because we’ve failed to show the evils of the other side or because we’ve failed to get more people to stand up for freedom? Which is more important?”
“Getting more to stand for freedom. That’s the whole point,” he said.
“Does freedom need more allies or less?” I asked.
“More. A lot more.”
“Do your allies have to agree with you on everything, or just on supporting freedom?”
“Well, I guess just on supporting freedom.”
“So why do you want me to argue with them on everything else? I mean, if freedom wins, we can all argue for the rest of our lives about everything from religion to politics to the Lakers. But if freedom loses, none of us will be able to stand for what we believe. I am proud of my friends who stand up for their beliefs that are different than mine. I want my grandchildren to live in a nation where all religions and political views and ideas can still believe what they want and express it openly and argue with each other. Don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said, “But it is possible to be so open-minded that your brains fall out.”
“True. It is also possible to be so closed that you make enemies of real friends.”
He pondered that, and began nodding his head.
“I can see that,” he agreed.
“Let me ask you a question,” I paused. “Is the need to attack different views actually part of your religion? Or part of your political ideals?”
“Actually,” he said after a few seconds, “my religion teaches just the opposite. For that matter, so do my political principles.”
He thought for a minute and I remained quiet. “It’s just that politics has been this way for so long, so much argument, cutting down the other side, getting them before they get you.”
I responded, “I know, right? But I have so many friends, really close friends, people I love and deeply respect, who disagree with me on religion or politics. But I’ve yet to meet someone who doesn’t really care about freedom. I just want all those who stand for freedom to at least try to work together.”
I later had an almost identical conversation (though the labels were different) with a woman who, by her account, had been raised a socialist in Brooklyn in the 1950s.
She spoke fondly of socialist summer camps as a youth and of being called a “pinko” when she went to college.
In the end, as I listened to her for over an hour, she was no socialist at all. She believed in the principles of freedom, despised government over-reach, and saw Washington D.C.’s excesses, regulations, high taxes and interventions in the economy as the great evil.
Her name for all this big-government domination was “capitalism.”
While many may disagree about the labels, she believed in freedom and deeply yearned to see the end of big-government growth.
I’m so glad I really listened to her instead of jumping to conclusions when she first called herself a “socialist.”
Once I understood what really mattered to her, I really enjoyed sharing what I thought about the current battle for freedom.
After she listened to me for a long time, she agreed that her labels were faulty and that we had a lot more in common than in disagreement.
Destiny Reborn
In the end, part of the Boomer generation’s way of doing things was to divide, label and battle. This system picked a side, gave positive names to its own side and negative labels to the other side, and went to war.
In this model, few people ever crossed the aisle or admitted good in the other side (or bad from its own side).
It put people in one camp or the other. “If you aren’t with us, you’re against us” was the operating motto.
There were many positives in this system, and perhaps coming as it did after the Hitler era it was necessary.
But this generation still runs Washington and much of the media and academia.
A new model is rising, however, with a different language and a different destiny. As the Xers increase their influence, the debate will likely be more sarcastic, ironic and complex.
This may turn off those who want politics and societal debates to be loving and kindly.
Others may be frustrated by the impact of Reality TV-style politics, and its ironic blend of reality with symbolism.
Put simply, presidential politics will likely be more and more like high school elections–too often all about appearance and popularity.
But the dialogues of the future will inject more humor and a relaxed attitude. They won’t take the political parties or candidates so seriously.
Freedom will be the serious issue, and policy, but not so much the candidates and parties.
They’ll elect Presidents like High School Prom Queens, but they’ll watch everyday government policy like Madison or Franklin.
They’ll care less about who is in the office and a lot more about what the officeholders actually do.
In a significant way, that’s a step in the right direction. And more importantly, Gen X politics is increasingly more participative–meaning that more citizens are closely involved in elections and also in everyday governance.
This is a huge step forward. Above all, the citizenry itself is slowly and consistently increasing its depth.
More regular people are reading the old classics in detail, thinking about the greatest ideas of mankind and comparing them to our modern institutions and leaders.
The old model was run by fewer, straightforwardly-involved but shallowly-engaged citizens. The future model appears to be developing toward more citizens involved and also more who are deeply engaged in the classics and great ideas.
The biggest criticism of the Xers–their skepticism–turns to a positive when applied to citizenship. Because they are skeptical they keep a closer eye on politics, stay more involved, and are less swayed by the next politician promising a grand program.
They are still second-in-command to the “Big Program” Boomers, but their day is coming.
If you want a citizenry that simply votes and then leaves everything else to Washington, you will be disappointed. The generation of “Awesome!” is being slowly replaced by a generation of uber-citizens.
If the trend continues, future Americans will be more like the American founding generation than any citizenry in nearly two centuries.
If this continues, the future of freedom is significantly brighter.
Or, to put it succinctly: “America’s future?”
“I know, right?”
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Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Culture &Generations &Government &Liberty &Politics
Freedom Leadership: America’s Opportunity
October 15th, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
Futurist John Naisbitt wrote in Mindset that success in the 21st Century will go to the opportunity leaders, not the problem solvers.
America hasn’t yet figured this out. The focus of our leaders — political, corporate, media — seems mostly on problems.
As Fareed Zakaria argues, the current debate in the United States is totally out of touch with the global reality.
The news covers Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea, as have weekly talk shows. Americans are “obsessed with issues like terrorism, immigration, homeland security, and economic panics.”
But these all represent a preoccupation with the global losers of the past twenty years. Zakaria argues that the “real challenges that the country faces come from the winners, not the losers, of the new world.” (See his excellent book, The Post-American World.)
Rising — & Falling — Stars
How much are Americans thinking of the real challenges ahead, from China, Brazil, South Africa, Kenya, India and Russia?
These emerging powers are on the rise economically and politically, yet most Americans are alarmingly unaware. The economic growth of these nations is increasing their clout and “producing political confidence and national pride.”
The American people and the U.S. government are unprepared to deal with these new powers and their demands, choices and might. The central role of the United States in the world is about to drastically shrink, right when Washington sees America as the world’s last super power.
American political, economic and psychological letdown is inevitable.
Many of the rising powers have sectors with free economics, less regulation, lower taxes and more opportunity than the U.S. Entrepreneurs are increasingly courted and rewarded in these nations, while they are increasingly regulated and put down in the U.S. and Western Europe.
America’s Critical Choice
The United States has a great choice ahead: increase taxes to protect jobs and benefits or free up the economy in order to really compete in the decades ahead. The first is socialism, the second is free enterprise.
But here is the great challenge: the first is seen as “fixing the economy” and the second as scary, and probably depressionary.
A scarcity mentality is the cause of socialism; abundance is the foundation of free enterprise. Clearly, America today is caught in the grip of scarcity.
Welcome to our current irony. The story most Americans know is of a powerful but fearful great nation that leads the world against dark and sinister forces of jihadism and dictatorship.
What is left out of the story are the two dozen nations who are growing, prospering, and not affiliated with either side.
Washington will be forced to rethink its domestic and global strategy; forced not by its enemies but by its competitors. They are refusing to allow its meddling, and they are starting to attract those who are seeking free markets, opportunity and freedom.
On top of all this, at the same time that Americans are losing faith in their government, the new powers are experiencing a surge of nationalism; they want to be seen as strong and to spread their ways and power like the U.S. has for so long.
As the U.S. mires itself in the worst problems around the world, the new powers are attracting capital, technology and leadership by offering opportunity and freedom.
The Simple Solution
Of course, the U.S. can solve this all in one simple way — become the most inviting nation on earth. Get rid of massive regulation and simply re-establish freedom, free enterprise, free markets, true opportunity.
To do this, it will have to stop interfering in world conflicts and trying to be more socialist than Russia or Sweden.
If it fails in either change, if it doesn’t deregulate and stop policing the world, it will decline and collapse in power as did Rome, Spain, France and Britain — all of whom followed the same sick path to failure. China, Russia and India will be the new super powers.
But America’s biggest problem is that it has lost its purpose. It became the world’s leader by promoting freedom, and it lost its purpose when its major goal became power.
The freedom purpose had enlivened its domestic and international actions, and this made it great. Power as purpose — both at home and abroad — turned Washington into a place hated around the world and by its own citizens.
The United States is powerful in many ways but not in one critical way — legitimacy. Much of the world sees the U.S. as powerful, yes, but only powerful. Not good, or great, or standing for something.
What Do We Stand For?
For America to maintain a leadership role in the decades ahead, it must stand for something.
Thomas Friedman thinks it should stand for global Green. But I’m convinced that freedom is its only path to success. Without a renewed commitment to freedom, free government, deregulation, free enterprise, America doesn’t deserve to lead the world.
America must stop policing the world, and start standing for its greatest export: freedom. Unless this happens, it won’t solve its own problems or be able to help anyone else.
***********************************
Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Economics &Entrepreneurship &Featured &Foreign Affairs &Government &Leadership &Liberty &Politics
What if Elections Can’t Fix Washington?
October 7th, 2010 // 8:57 am @ Oliver DeMille
“Clearly there was only one escape for them—into stupidity. They could keep society in its existing shape only by being unable to grasp that any improvement was possible.” —George Orwell
Orwell was speaking of the national leaders during Britain’s decline, but his words certainly could apply to the United States today.
Independents rose as a powerful force in America along with the Internet, and today they are deeply frustrated with America’s direction.
They voted President Obama into office in huge numbers, only to see him continue to spend their nation into deeper debt.
National politics in America have long been divided between the blue states along the coasts and the red states in the middle, with battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida swinging the votes.
Today independents control the electorate in nearly all states, and they have swung away from Obama –- especially in the swing states.
For example, 65% of independents in the battleground state of Ohio now say President Obama is doing a bad job.
But politics are only the tip of the iceberg. In a national survey fifty-year-old men were asked which country they see as the biggest threat to America in the 21st Century, and the answers were revealing: only 2% said Russia (and this from men raised in the Cold War), 19% said North Korea, 20% said Iran, and 25% said China.
Among twenty-year-old men asked the same question, 6% said Russia, 17% North Korea, 16% Iran and 23% China. Interesting.
But both groups put “Ourselves” as the top answer. A whopping 31% of fifty-year-old males and 33% of twenty-year-olds consider the United States the biggest 21st Century threat to the U.S.!
What are a third of American men so afraid of? Why do we increasingly consider “Ourselves” the biggest threat to America?
In the same survey, asked what worries them the most, the top answers were: 1) unemployment, 2) the size of the federal debt, 3) the possibility of a terrorist attack. And note that survey takers came from across the political spectrum.
Be Very Afraid?
A lot of Americans are concerned that our own government is the problem, not because it isn’t doing enough but because it is doing way too much—especially overspending. However, it is doubtful how much an election can fix this.
Only 19-22 (depending on the specific issues) of the heated Congressional elections across the nation offer winnable candidates who are strongly anti-government-spending. Though these candidates are called “crazy” or “fringe” by much of the media, they have the overwhelming support of both independent voters and Tea Partiers.
Still, even if all 22 win and additional Republican candidates take the House and even the Senate, how much can they actually change things? Unless they take on entitlements, budgets will most likely overspend for many years to come.
When asked directly what they plan to do, few Democrat or Republican candidates are willing to say they’ll reduce social security, Medicare or other entitlements.
Indeed, the American voter seems to passionately want government to stop spending money on everyone else—but to keep helping his own family.
“I want my government program,” the voter says, “but those other people are costing us too much!”
“Yeah,” says another, “I’ll vote in candidates who promise to cut the debt and deficit and stop spending taxpayer money, and I’ll vote out anyone who threatens my favorite government programs.”
If that last sentence didn’t make you laugh or cry, you should read it again.
Some Americans who live or travel abroad a lot are amazed at how much Americans at home are addicted to government programs and want the government to solve every problem and protect them from every accident and danger. Yet many of these same Americans rail against government spending.
As for repealing the 2010 Health Care law, Republicans would have to take the House and the Senate, and then they would have to garner enough votes in Congress to override a Presidential veto. That’s not going to happen any time soon.
In response to this point, Republican leaders say they’ll only need enough House members to deny funding to implement the new Health Care system. The name for this in the media will be “Shutting Down the Government,” and even the Gingrich-led “Contract With America” House of Representatives wasn’t willing to do this.
Real repeal isn’t likely with just one turnaround election—Republicans would probably need to win in both 2010 and 2012 to make this happen.
Big Questions
Maybe this sounds too pessimistic, but my point is to wonder what will happen if independent and Tea Party voters put Republicans back in control of the House or even the entire Congress and nothing much changes in Washington.
Republicans will still blame Democrats, and vice versa, but what will independents do?
Consider: They rise up against the Obama agenda and send new leaders to Washington, but nothing really changes. Government spending even increases.
Barring major world crises, I think this is just what will happen. And then the debate will repeat itself in 2012.
This brings up a number of additional questions. For example:
- Will the independent dialogue about 2012 be that the Republicans are no better than the Democrats, or that the Republicans need more members in Congress and even the White House?
- As we move toward 2012, will Republican behavior cause independents to see President Obama as an embattled Clinton-style administrator who just needs more time to make his policies stick, or as a Carter-like politician who is in over his head and should be replaced?
- Can the economy handle two more years of high government spending and regulating?
- Is the Obama Administration nimble enough, in the tradition of Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton, to reinvent itself and swing to the middle? Will it make hard choices that reduce government spending and build the private sector? Is President Obama truly a statist who believes in big government or a left-leaning pragmatist who is willing to tighten the nation’s belt and restore a free enterprise economy? If he chooses the first, he may lose the independents for good.
- If, for whatever reason, a Republican candidate wins the presidency from Barack Obama in 2012, will the resulting Republican Administration drastically increase government spending, regulation, debts and deficits like Bush did when he took over after Clinton? How would the independents and Tea Parties who elected him react to yet another betrayal?
- Have we reached a point in American politics that all candidates from both parties promote smaller government during campaigns but drastically increase spending once in power (like Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama)? Is this just the reality of politics now? And if it is, what will independents, Tea Parties and fiscally responsible liberals and conservatives do?
- Is a major third party inevitable? Is it even realistic? Would it just give more power to the side it disagrees with most?
In short, are elections even capable of fixing our problems any more? And if the American people give up on elections as the real solution to major national problems, what will they do next?
The Future of Independents?
These are big questions. They go to the very heart of what it means to be Americans and what our future holds.
Americans are deeply and passionately concerned about government over-spending, too much regulation of small business, increasing debts and deficits, and high unemployment.
Washington claims the recession is over, but most Americans don’t feel positive changes in their pocketbooks and are still experiencing a significantly decreased economic reality.
They are tired of symbols instead of substance from their leaders. For example, even if the Obama Administration pushed through its tax raise on the top 2% of taxpayers, the resulting $34 billion next year would only cover 9 days of the deficit.
And this, along with more government spending, is the big White House push to help the economy? “Come on, man…”
As independents read the fine print in this and other proposals from the White House and Republican leaders, they are becoming less optimistic that either party is serious about real solutions.
And where symbolism does matter most, the Obama Administration is still portraying itself as hostile to American business (even major 2008 Obama donors are appalled) and many Republicans continue to denigrate minorities.
Government seems entirely out of touch with most Americans, even as it makes individual and family life ever more difficult.
A majority of Americans want things to change, especially in the economy, and many are depending on the voting booth to solve the deepening problem. But what if even this doesn’t work?
Maybe the best we can hope for, as a number of independents now believe, is for a perpetually split government—where neither party ever holds the White House and Congress at the same time.
In this model, if a Democrat wins the White House and the Supreme Court has a conservative majority, independents will vote Republicans into the House and Democrats to the Senate.
If, on the other hand, the President is Republican and the Court is mostly liberal, they will make the House Democratic and the Senate Republican. There are several variations, but the idea is to always pit Democrats against Republicans and give neither a mandate.
Unfortunately, both parties are big spenders. Maybe fighting over what to spend will at least reduce the rate of government’s growth, or so the argument goes.
A New Challenge
But we are about to experience something new and, perhaps, different.
There have been many votes in history that left the American electorate frustrated and disappointed with how its voting-booth “revolution” didn’t seem to change much of anything in Washington.
But the first such event in the Internet Age, and in an era with more independents than either Democrats or Republicans, was the 2006-2008 election cycle.
Independents and the online world turned against President Bush in 2006 and the frustration deepened into the election of 2008.
In a very real sense, the new politics (of independents and the Internet) rejected the old (Bush, Television Era) and brought in the new (Obama, Internet Generation).
But how will the new majority (of independents and the Internet) deal with rejecting itself? Since the beginning of the party system, every loss was followed by a refocus on winning back power for your party.
What happens when the independent majority rejects Republicans, replaces it with Democrats, then rejects Democrats too, only to bring back Republicans, and then decides that Republicans and Democrats are equally bad? What does the majority do then?
What do independents do in such a situation, without party ties to fall back on, when they realize that neither party is going to fix things. Democrats or Republicans would just blame the other party—they’ve done it for decades.
But independents? They actually, seriously, want a solution. They want the nation to work, and they are unlikely to settle for anything less than real change.
And what if unemployment increases during all this, or credit availability tightens again, the recession returns, inflation spikes, another housing bubble bursts, or debts and deficits soar?
One thing seems certain: We are in for a wild ride in the years ahead.
Probably a few independents will give up on politics. Others will go back to the parties.
But the large majority, I think, will do neither. They will likely flirt with the idea of a new third party, but I doubt they’ll make this stick. They just aren’t wired for it. They want common-sense leadership, not more party game-playing.
There will, inevitably, be a few on the fringes (left and right) who wrongly advocate violence—“pitchforks in the street!” But beyond being morally wrong this course would also accomplish nothing positive.
It would, if ever followed by anyone, only serve to decrease our freedoms. And fortunately very few independents would support this anyway.
What if Elections Don’t Work?
What is the majority to do if elections don’t change things and solve our national problems? Maybe we won’t have to find out.
Maybe Democrats in leadership will turn pragmatic and get control of over-spending and over-regulation, or maybe Republicans will gain more power and make these desperately-needed changes.
But I don’t think most independents are holding their breath in anticipation of either of these possibilities.
The Tea Parties have given many on the right hope for the potential of the 2010 election, but it seems to me that most independents are unconvinced.
They have turned their backs on the Obama agenda because it is so clearly against their economically responsible values, and because it’s too late to do much except vote.
But in reality they are simply buying time. A lot of independents right now are studying things out in their minds, hoping but not really believing that the November elections will help things turn around.
The problem is big: Neither party is going to stop spending and regulating, promising frugality and then just spending more anyway. This is American politics now, and it isn’t likely to change easily.
A lot of independents are just now accepting this. And as it sinks in, they are responding with neither anger nor frustration. Instead, they are taking a step back and asking serious questions.
It is unclear now what the answers will eventually be. But they are coming, and they are likely to bring drastic changes to American politics in the next decade.
If (when?) the independents and tea parties win big on election day and then watch the new leaders keep increasing spending and regulations, they will be faced with the challenge every powerful nation in decline confronts:
- Do they settle for Orwell’s “stupidity,” put their heads in the sand and just try to get by as best they can while the ruling class runs the nation into the ground?
- Do they quietly prepare for the major crisis which must come unless we change course, organizing their personal affairs to somehow survive, protect their family, and perhaps even profit when it comes?
- Or do they do something wise and effective that will restore America’s freedoms and prosperity?
- And if they choose the latter, what precisely should they do to accomplish this?
This is the challenge of independents and all who love freedom in our time. The election of November 2, 2010 will come and go. Americans will vote, the media will report, and winners and losers will celebrate and mourn. But these larger questions will remain.
If I’m wrong about this, I’ll be the first to cheer. But I’m convinced that it’s time (past time, in fact) for those who care about freedom to get to work on coming up with real solutions.
In taking this kind of action, any citizen will only make herself a better leader in our time. Whatever the future holds, more leader-citizens are needed.
And the time may be coming when such leaders are the only real hope of our nation.
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Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
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Category : Current Events &Economics &Government &Independents &Leadership &Liberty &Politics
The Deeper Importance of the 2010 Election
October 7th, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
Blame is easier than leadership.
It’s been long enough since the announcement of the “Great Recession” that a shelf of books are now out—each outlining the “real” causes of the recession and its unsettling impact on the American psyche and economy.
Unfortunately, most of these books are essays on blame.
The two major political parties predictably blame each other for America’s economic woes.
Democrats say that Republicans caused the recession, while Republicans say that Democratic policies (from the stimulus to health care and beyond) have made the recession worse, increased unemployment, and slowed a recovery.
Since most recovery numbers are based on government spending rather than private sector growth, many on the Right dispute that the publicized recovery is real.
To a large extent, the media has joined with one side or the other in this debate.
Weekly talk shows pit conservatives against liberals, volleying the two partisan views of past and present economic challenges. Magazines and national newspapers echo this argument.
A Dearth of Solution Thinking
Usually books take a deeper look at the issues than other media, understandably using the longer format to give readers more depth and analysis on whatever topics they address.
Likewise, the arc of economic-political-societal commentary in books usually includes a significant section outlining important, needed and under-utilized solutions.
But right now such solution-oriented commentaries are noticeably few—and strikingly similar. Many repeat partisan views in chapters so short they would make newspaper editors proud.
There are three main themes in this genre:
- Republicans Blew It and Big Banks/Corporations are Greedy and Evil,
- Democrats are Blowing It and turning into Scheming Socialists
- Big Institutions in Washington, Wall Street, Main Street, Hollywood, Silicon Valley and anywhere else where Big Institutions lurk are Ruining America
A fourth (though minor) theme is that the recession was a global reality tied to the increasingly interconnected world economy and that American citizens and leaders had little power in the whole thing.
In all four of these themes the focus is blame, and therefore the solution is to “throw the bums out.”
The Right wants to “take back” America in the 2010 congressional elections, while the Left wants to hold their own in the elections and keep offering regulatory solutions.
Activists are increasingly determined to push both sides further to the extremes.
In short: where blame is the main point, solutions are seemingly simple.
The Problem
Unfortunately, such “solutions” are unlikely to accomplish very much. One side will win, and the blame game will increase right along with the problems.
The worst-case scenario for the 2010 elections is lots of press, lots of emotions, and little change.
I’m not saying that the elections don’t matter; they do. Nor am I suggesting that this debate isn’t important. It is.
My point is simply that there is more to it than many politicians and journalists are admitting.
Unless we get past the blame game and engage a true national discussion about solutions, we are unlikely to see things really improve—no matter who is in office.
One book, The Great Reset by Richard Florida, develops the ideas that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste, and another, The Battle by Arthur Brooks, takes readers inside the Obama West Wing and the inner workings of the President’s choices in 2009-2010.
Both are worth reading closely—regardless of your political views. Another recent book, Capitalism 4.0 by Anatole Kaletsky, gets serious about suggesting some solutions.
None of these books are free from the blame game, and Kaletsky’s attack on the Bush Administration is one of the worst blame-focused rants in all the books now coming out on the topic.
But for readers who can look past his angry tirades, Kaletsky’s work is worth studying because at least part of his analysis gets past blame and helps us understand the recession in its broad historical and international context.
The History of Capitalism
In contrast with the four popularized themes listed above, Kaletsky suggests that the global recession grew out of the historical trends of our time.
He argues that capitalism will continue to grow because of its proven ability to adapt. Such adaptation follows a pattern:
- A crisis exposes the weaknesses in the latest adaptation of capitalism
- Society and government respond to the crisis and alter the details of how capitalism is applied
- The changes evolve until they succeed in re-establishing prosperity and growth
- The new adaptation allows economies to flourish
- Weaknesses in the new adaptation eventually cause another crises and the pattern repeats
Over time, according to Kaletsky, this has created at least four adaptations of capitalism.
Capitalism 1.0 grew out of the crises of the Napoleonic era and was characterized by the Laissez-Faire type of capitalism. This was defined by the separation of economics and governments, and its strengths allowed great growth of wealth and powerful economies.
Eventually the weaknesses of 1.0 led to the Great Depression in America and Western Europe.
The response was what Kaletsky calls Capitalism 2.0, an era of major government involvement in the economy—not full socialistic control of the economy, but much higher levels of regulation and government intervention.
This started in the New Deal and grew through the 1940s-1970s.
The eventual negative result was the inflation and stagnancy of the late 1970s, which was followed by a transformation to Reaganomics: a focus on big-government spending for international projects combined with lower taxes on the wealthy and big corporations.
The idea behind Capitalism 3.0 was that if those with money were incentivized to spend more, this would create more jobs and increase business and personal opportunity.
In each of these periods, the economy responded to the positive features of the given adaptation of capitalism. On the downside, the negatives of each adaptation led to the next inevitable crisis.
The Great Recession of 2008 and 2009 was caused not mainly by greedy bankers or weak housing loans, according to Kaletsky, but rather by two successes of Capitalism 3.0:
- the spread of capitalism and therefore market interconnections globally
- bank and government success in controlling inflation worldwide
These strengths led to weaknesses: when some places saw economic downturn, it quickly spread to the other areas around the world, and governments which allowed their big banks to fail pulled the brunt of world capital struggles down on top of themselves.
The Emergence of a New Economy
The result, just now emerging, is Kaletsky’s Capitalism 4.0. In this adaptation of capitalism, we will likely witness a new relationship between markets, economies, and governments.
Where 1.0 showed the pros and cons of nearly total government isolation from the economy, 2.0 exposed the strengths and weaknesses of major government intervention in the economy.
In 3.0 we started mixing market and government roles by having government intervene in what it considered “vital” sectors (like military and transportation), while mostly staying out of the rest of the economy.
According to Kaletsky, 4.0 will follow a different mixing guideline by increasing the government intervention in some areas and lessening its role in others.
The specifics will be determined, in this scenario, by which things respond better to free markets versus those which respond more positively to significant government involvement.
For example, Kalentsky thinks government must get deeper into financial regulations and management but leave education and health care more to the free market.
Clearly the Obama Administration is not following Kalentsky’s suggestions, no matter how much he agrees with them in blaming Republicans for our problems.
But any leader—in business or government—should consider Kalentsky’s analysis. I disagreed (and also agreed) with a number of things in his book, but his suggestions exceed the tired, old two-party talking points and deserve consideration.
So, The Election . . .
We clearly live in a time where both government and business involvement and changes are needed to re-establish a truly flourishing free-market approach to American prosperity.
Neither extreme—a total government pullout from the economy nor increasingly socialistic levels of regulation and micromanagement of nearly every sector of our economy—is desirable.
We need the government to take wise and effective action to boost the economy—at times increasing regulations that work and also consistently reducing and repealing the numerous regulations and government interventions that are slowing and hurting the economy.
The regulatory load on investors and entrepreneurs is especially bad for economic growth.
Government simply must find ways to do less, or the economy will continue to sputter and struggle.
Yet there are certain things that government can and should do best—like keep the free-market playing field even and open for all potential investors and entrepreneurs.
Perhaps the proper role of academics, journalists and authors is to analyze, to suggest—and even to blame. But as long Washington is caught in the blame game, far too little effort is given to leadership.
Our elected officials need to stop pointing fingers and give more attention to solving our economic challenges.
The first step is to free up small business entrepreneurs and investors who provide most of the jobs and growth in the economy.
A second step is to make investment in American businesses once again highly attractive to world investors.
Both of these are roles for those we elect, and if it is “the economy, stupid,” these are the real issues of the 2010 election.
Whoever wins at the voting booths this coming November, and whatever the experts say that night as the networks and cable channels cover the election like a major sports tournament, the real future of America depends on whether or not the people select leaders who will free up the economy.
A free economy, within the bounds of wise and effective laws, is a prosperous economy. An increasingly regulated economy is an economy headed for less prosperity and decreased opportunity.
Whatever your politics, less prosperity and decreased opportunity are simply not acceptable goals for the upcoming elections.
Yet unless we accomplish more than simply voting, these are the results we will probably see in the years after the election.
***********************************
Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Current Events &Economics &Featured &Government &Leadership &Politics
Basic Tribal Culture
October 5th, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
THERE ARE AT LEAST THREE MAJOR CULTURAL TRADITIONS of the world’s history, which can be described as Warriors, Farmers and Competitors.
Warriors
Warrior cultures believe in enemies, battles, winners and losers, us versus them, strength, courage, victory, personal skill, honor, resiliency, and a bias toward action—among other things.
They tend to see the world in terms of “our tribe” above all else. Many in history called themselves “the people,” or “the chosen.”
The tribes which became the nations of Norway (Norse), England (Anglos), France (Franks), etc. were from this tradition; other examples are found around the world.
Farmers
Farmer traditions valued security, hard work, frugality, sexual morality, responsibility, loyalty to community, savings and assets, land ownership, integrity, education, honesty, steadiness, family loyalty, neighborliness, and prosperity defined by abundance of food.
They built communities, simultaneously promoted individual freedom and conformity to community norms, and considered themselves successful when they produced bountiful harvests and saw their children married well (to spouses who embodied the values of the community).
Competitors
Competitor traditions saw the world as (usually) friendly competition between children at play, youth at courting and adults at work. Even the elderly competed to brag about the best lives, worst pain, most accomplished son, most neglectful daughter, most talented grandchildren, and whatever else came up.
For example: “I have two sons who are doctors and a daughter who is a lawyer,” versus “My grandson is a star quarterback who just won a state championship and his sister just got a scholarship from a national competition she won in Washington, D.C.”
People in such societies like competitive entertainment to escape from the pressures of their competitive schools and jobs.
A lot more could be said about these three major traditions, but the key point here is how they relate to tribes and freedom.
Warrior societies are tribal by nature, and they grow by conquering and colonizing other societies. They see life as a big battle, and raise their children and spend their days in battle mode.
They believe that life is about either conquering or being conquered. They see those with farmer and competitor traditions as victims.
Farmer societies are also tribal, but see the world as a big desert that needs to be turned into a garden. The more people who will adopt their values and join their quest to beautify and expand the garden, the better.
To them, the warriors and competitors are savages and wild outsiders who should be avoided and kept away from their society.
Pitfalls of National Culture
Competitor cultures are National (as opposed to tribal): interested in education for career, working moderate hours in order to enjoy daily entertainments, uninvolved with neighbors unless there is some other relationship to pull them together, and selfish with their free time.
They see the world as a big race, and individuals want to be the winners instead of the losers. In fact, they generally look down on “losers” and avoid them lest losing somehow “rub off” on them.
They see warrior and farmer cultures as quaint and backward, at best, and often with a more critical eye. Clearly, those cultures aren’t winning the race.
Competitor cultures divide their competitions into those that matter and those that don’t. They join tribes for the ones with little at stake, but stay individually focused on the ones that matter most.
Career and money are the competitions that matter more than any others in these cultures. Even family relationships have to take a back seat to most career considerations.
In other words, competitor cultures appear tribal by habit, but are nationalistic when they feel something is really important.
National cultures therefore desperately need the lessons taught by traditional tribal cultures.
But there are also pitfalls and negatives typical to tribal cultures, and we want to learn what they are and avoid them.
The American founders took on a deliberate process of statecraft, weighing the merits and failings of forms, models and ideals from societies throughout history.
I would assert that such a considered approach to our future as a nation and society is called for today. The goal is to adopt the best from national, tribal, warrior, farmer, competitive and other cultures, and at the same time reject their flaws and weaknesses.
With this in mind, let’s discuss what the tribal ideal really is.
With the assumption of local governance under the direction of concerned and involved citizens who were invested in one another’s success and security—basically a tribal council at the community level—the American founders established constitutional forms to create a cooperative and interactive union of states.
We have lost too much of the tribal foundation that was the animating spirit of American culture—the underlying weave of the fabric of freedom—and it is hard to overstate the case for recapturing it.
The Tribal Worldview
Just as there are religious worldviews, secular worldviews, materialistic worldviews, etc., there is an overarching tribal worldview.
Just like there are many views and differences within, say, the religious worldview, there are many different tribal perspectives.
And just as there is an overarching religious worldview (there is a higher power, and I should live in harmony with it/Him), there is also a profound and powerful tribal worldview.
One of the best ways to begin to understand any worldview is to ask, “What is the world, and what is the purpose of life and the universe?”
This is a complex question, of course, but it can be answered in simple terms and the early answers are often the most important. By understanding tribal culture at this basic level, we understand a great deal about ourselves.
The Universe
As I have studied tribal cultures from around the world and throughout history with these questions in mind (What is the world? What is the purpose of life and the universe?), I have categorized recurring themes, forces and societal roles; the labels used here are my own.
In generic tribal thought, the universe is made up of certain vital entities. For example, first come the Obeyers; these do their part in the universe unfailingly. They include suns, moons, planets, rocks, canyons, rivers, mountains, valleys, etc.
Many ancient religious temples and writings are full of these Obeyers. Obeyers set an example to all others, and they are the basic building blocks of everything. Many ancient stories center around references to and morals learned from valleys, rivers, mountains, etc.
Next are the Growers: the trees, grasses, plants, fruits, and so on. They build the universe by growing. Their growth feeds the others, bringing the power of the sun into assimilable form.
Many ancient religions and philosophies are built around the Growers and grower symbols.
The Movers include animals, fish and birds. They move around the world, spreading minerals and seeds from the Obeyers and Growers as they travel.
Many tribes consider some of the Movers, especially birds, to be messengers, teaching us as we interact with them in the world. They also provide food to others, and feed the Growers when they die.
The Movers are a key part of the universe, as are the Growers and Obeyers.
The Fishers are an interesting group. They change the environment by building dams to fish like beavers, or storing nuts like squirrels. Bees and others fit this category. They somehow raise and harvest food, not just wander and search for it.
In some traditions they are called farmers, and in others spiders (which weave webs to capture food). By their fishing, storing, farming, weaving, etc., they benefit the environment and all of life.
People are expected to learn from all of these parts of the universe, and to follow their good examples. Each type of entity is judged by how well it promotes and benefits life, which Obeyers, Growers, Movers and Fishers all do.
Next come the Lovers. Lovers benefit life to the extent that they love. When they don’t love, they hurt life and all the other entities.
The Lovers include all humans and also the spirits (or God, gods, and/or ancestors, depending on the tribe). Humans exist to love.
The Shadow Side
In addition to the good parts of the universe that benefit life, there are those that attack life. These include the Thieves, Murderers, Manipulators and Destroyers.
Thieves take one’s implements of life because they think it will benefit their life. They are mistaken, and cause pain for all by wrongly attacking life.
Murderers take life in order to promote their own life, and in so doing increase total pain. Murderers are seen as worse than Thieves.
Manipulators are an interesting category, often considered to be much worse than thieves and murderers. Manipulators set up systems that steal or kill, but in a way that the thieves and murderers aren’t directly blamed and in fact get away with it more often.
Such systems include anything that skews the natural way things should be, such as class and caste systems, manipulative and deceptive laws and governments, tricky lending and business deals, etc.
In this worldview, the only thing worse than Manipulators are Destroyers. Destroyers are those whose very nature has changed, who no longer are fallen Lovers, but are truly motivated only by hate and pride.
Note that while Movers, Fishers and Humans can be Thieves and Murderers, only humans can become Manipulators or Destroyers.
Since the very purpose of humans in the universe is to bring as much love as possible into the world, it is a colossal tragedy if a Lover becomes a Manipulator or a Destroyer.
By the way, in many traditions only Manipulators become Destroyers.
Now, with all this said, imagine how people in this culture feel about those who set up abusive, forced, corrupt and controlling governments, economies and laws: They are the worst of the worst.
Even those who support, condone or allow such manipulative governments, laws and economies are doing the work of the Destroyers and attacking life and all that is good.
This is one reason that tribal societies so adamantly mistrust most national cultures and people: It seems to many of them that the very basis of national culture is manipulations and exploitative systems.
It is also why it would be so valuable for them to learn the constitutional principles of freedom and how to apply them. But our purpose here is not to admonish the tribal cultures, but to learn from them.
Major Weaknesses of Tribalism
At this point, we should note that while traditional tribal culture does have much to teach us from its idyllic simplicity, it is far from perfect. Studying its pitfalls and common flaws is also instructive.
When tribes are run by small councils of all adult members, these weaknesses can be mitigated.
But when tribes don’t follow the leadership of councils of all adults, they turn against themselves; whatever other form of government they adopt, it becomes corrupt.
When this happens, various problems arise. The problems that follow are the normal for tribes that are not led by councils of all adults.
Economic Control
Tribal culture generally gives a great deal of economic power to tribal leaders.
Interestingly, most tribes distribute political power well between the executive (who gets power only in the face of external challenges and only for the duration of the challenge), the judicial (often a shaman and in many cultures left to families⎯both of which are usually independent of the executive and legislative), and run by the legislative (sometimes councils of elders, sometimes the combined adults of the tribe, sometimes both).
Of course, there are tribes that fail to follow these models, but the freest tribes use these basic systems.
Still, even with political freedoms, few historical tribes have economic freedoms.
The trust of the chief, the head elder (male or female) or the shaman is often absolute.
And, indeed, such leaders often adopt a sort of royal mentality where they believe that what is good for the leader’s finances is good for the whole tribe. In this form, nobody sees undue control of everyone’s finances and ownership as a negative.
But often, it creates the loss of political freedom—including parental choices, like who should marry whom—and a strict caste system with no economic or social mobility.
Many tribes face long-term poverty for most members of the tribe. Such poverty never persists in a truly free-enterprise model, which includes both freedom and opportunity.
Often tribal leaders see this as a threat to their power and, by extension, the tribe’s security and viability.
Emerging tribes with a charismatic leader who seeks control over individuals’ and families’ finances are cultish, and history is littered with the tragedies that such arrangements can lead to.
If a tribe wants to sell things, that’s great. But trying to pool resources or give up control of personal property should of course be met with serious suspicion.
This discussion also exposes a national-culture flaw: the idea that in learning from other cultures we should not judge their systems, traditions and behaviors.
Perhaps this is true when the goal is to maintain purity and academic objectivity in anthropological studies, but it certainly not true when our purpose is to learn and apply the best of tribal (and national) cultures to the tribally-nationalistic-globally-connected societies of the future.
If some calamity changes the world drastically, the same lessons will need to be applied in the new local societies that will be forged.
We need to measure the parts of each culture by how well they promote and support an environment of freedom, prosperity and happiness for all.
Interpersonal Politics
In a small group, political power is often swayed by personalities, likes and dislikes, trysts and history, baggage and personal weaknesses. Nothing can keep this from happening, and in a free system and voluntary tribes it doesn’t matter much.
In a local or official tribal system where the government has actual power over life, death, imprisonment, finances, etc., systems should always be established that keep this from happening.
By “systems” I mean written constitutions with separation of powers, checks and balances well-structured.
Class Power
Most tribes are aristocracies. This is a problem, because the class system is usually established by those in power and dominated by certain families.
In a local structure, or any model where the tribe or community is non-voluntary and/or actually has government power, the solution to this is to establish a legislature of all adults in the tribe.
As the tribe grows in size and geographical scope, local councils representing perhaps no more than 150 households continue to govern themselves, and may send representatives to a regional council to manage affairs of mutual interest to the coalition of local councils.
Conformity
Tribes often flounder economically and fail to grow because the people become too socially conformist. When tribes demand sameness on many levels and in nearly every aspect of life, they shut down creativity, leadership, wisdom and progress.
This is natural to any group, and in national cultures it is often called “groupthink.”
It is important for any group to continue learning, thinking, risking and trying.
Of course, certain violent and anti-social behaviors from rape to murder and so on cannot be tolerated. But stopping criminal behavior is far different from scripting people’s lives and socially enforced hyper-conformity.
This also translates to a socially-enforced closed-mindedness with respect to new ideas and a lack of tolerance for diversity, which lead to a stagnation of creativity and a tendency toward thought-policing.
Lack of Diversity
These conspire to cause narrowness of thinking, along with many of the other problems listed above. On the one hand, the whole point of tribe is joining together based on commonalities.
But the thing which makes tribes flourish is truly caring about each other, connecting, bonding. And connections based on both commonality (such as the shared value of freedom of choice) and diversity (such as the shared value of freedom of conscience) weave a much stronger fabric than one based on sameness.
Conclusion
The New Tribes of the 21st Century would do well, of course, to avoid these pitfalls. As stated, nearly all of these go away when a tribal society is governed by small councils of all adults in the tribe. If the tribe is too large for everyone to have a voice, smaller sub-councils are needed.
Historical tribes do have their weaknesses, but these also have much to teach us. Our generation of citizens needs to understand the good and the bad from the great tribes, nations and societies of history.
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Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
