Apocalypse or Awakening? How Today’s Crises can Forge a Better World

In an age of wildfire seasons that never end, heatwaves that shatter records, political polarization, economic fragility, and growing despair, it can feel like the world is spiraling into collapse. Climate anxiety is widespread, trust in institutions is eroding, and young people in particular are asking: Is there any hope left?

Surprisingly, the answer may be yes—but not in the form we might expect.

I just finished reading award-winning science journalist Lizzie Wade's fresh lens on catastrophe in her groundbreaking book Apocalypse: How Catastrophe Transformed Our World and Can Forge New Futures. Far from being a grim prophecy, the book traces how historical crises—from the fall of ancient cities to pandemics and climate shifts—have often led to transformation rather than total destruction.

As a member of the Bahá’í Faith, I was struck by how deeply Wade’s research aligns with the Bahá’í vision of crisis as a crucible for progress. Where some see only doom, both science and religion point to the same powerful truth: collapse can be the beginning of something new.

The Apocalypse that Unveils

Wade reframes “apocalypse” not as the end of the world, but as a dramatic unveiling—a moment when systems break down and hidden potential comes to light. She examines how societies facing disaster were forced to rethink everything from how they farmed, ruled, traded, and worshipped, to how they treated one another.

In many cases, the outcomes were not annihilation but rebirth. The Black Death decimated Europe’s population but also ended feudalism and empowered the working class. The collapse of the Classic Maya civilization saw not extinction, but cultural and political transformation. Ancient Peruvians adapted to centuries of El Niño disasters by moving inland and re-engineering their societies for resilience.

These lessons challenge the idea that today's global crises must end in ruin. Instead, they invite us to see our moment in history as one of reconstruction and rebirth.

A Bahá’í Vision of Transformation

Bahá’í teachings echo this message with profound clarity. Bahá’u’lláh, the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, describes our age as one of unparalleled turbulence—but also of spiritual maturation. The present chaos of the world, He states, is not meaningless, but part of the birth pangs of a new world order:

“The world is in travail, and its agitation waxeth day by day.” “Soon will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh)

This is not naïve optimism. It is constructive resilience—the belief that humanity, having reached a new stage in its collective evolution, must build new institutions and relationships grounded in justice, cooperation, and unity.

Five Shared Lessons from Science and the Bahá’í Writings

By comparing Wade’s historical analysis with Bahá’í teachings, we can identify several profound lessons for today’s moment of upheaval:

1. Crises are a Catalyst, Not a Curse

Wade shows that crises force societies to evolve—often breaking down old hierarchies and opening paths to innovation. The Bahá’í Writings affirm this, viewing global suffering not as divine punishment, but as an awakening:

“The whole earth is now in a state of pregnancy. The day is approaching when it will have yielded its noblest fruits...” (World Order of Bahá’u’lláh)

2. Justice Is the Bedrock of Resilience

Wade documents how inequality magnified disaster. In societies where elites hoarded wealth and denied others power, collapse was more severe. The Bahá’í Writings offer a blueprint for a more equitable, progressive and just society at all levels, from the local to the global, insisting:

“The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice.” (Bahá’u’lláh, The Hidden Words, Arabic no. 2)

Bahá’ís advocate the elimination of extremes of wealth and poverty, and insist that any sustainable response to climate or economic crises must be rooted in equity—not just efficiency.

3. Cooperation, Not Competition, Ensures Survival

In Apocalypse, Wade illustrates that the societies which survived best were those that fostered mutual aid and shared sacrifice—not isolationism. The Bahá’í Faith likewise sees the oneness of humanity as not merely a moral idea but a practical necessity in a globalized, interdependent world.

“So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth.” (Bahá’u’lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf)

4. Decentralized, Local Action Builds True Resilience

Wade shows that many communities recovered from crisis by empowering local solutions—decentralizing decision-making and drawing on Indigenous knowledge. This resonates with the Bahá’í model of governance, which empowers communities through Local Assemblies and neighborhood-based consultation.

Change, the Bahá’í Writings suggest, must arise from both grassroots action and global cooperation—not top-down authoritarianism.

5. Hope and Imagination are Strategic Tools

One of the most striking arguments in Apocalypse is that we must learn from history not just to survive—but to imagine new futures. Catastrophe frees us from old mental models and allows us to rethink what is possible.

This is at the heart of the Bahá’í vision: that through hope, prayer, consultation, and action, humanity can build a just, peaceful, and unified world civilization—what Bahá’u’lláh calls the “Most Great Peace.”

From Collapse to Coherence

Both science and religion urge us to abandon the illusion that we can return to “normal.” What was “normal” for so many—poverty, racism, ecological destruction, and isolation—was unsustainable.

We are not facing the end of the world. We are facing the end of one world—a way of organizing human life that has outlived its usefulness—and the beginning of a new one.

Wade’s archaeological evidence and the Bahá’í spiritual vision converge on this simple truth: crises reveal what no longer works—and invite us to create something better.

Walking Forward With Courage

As daunting as climate change, inequality, and social fragmentation may seem, this moment is also filled with extraordinary opportunity. Wade reminds us that humanity has always found ways to adapt, survive, and grow after collapse. The Bahá’í teachings invite us to go further: to rebuild with spiritual purpose, guided by justice, and fueled by love.

In the words of Bahá’u’lláh:

“Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah)

Now is not the time to close ourselves into a protective coccoon, hoping that isolation will guard us from our fears. Now is the time to deliberate together—and to act in cooperation.

If this reflection resonates with you, consider learning more about the Bahá’í vision of social transformation, or explore the insights of Lizzie Wade’s Apocalypse to better understand how history can inform our future. The path forward will not be easy—but it will be shared. And it begins with imagination, unity, and hope.

Social Change and the Powers that Be

From my experience, many people raise the argument that the 'powers that be' will not agree to implement the many changes that are needed to achieve a global culture of peace and unity, and will try to oppose efforts in that direction.

On the one hand, I have found that these arguments are most often used by people who are looking for excuses not to do everything that IS in their power to achieve the necessary changes. It is very easy to place the responsibility for the world's problems on others and wash our hands by saying it is impossible to achieve.

On the other hand, the history of humanity has shown repeatedly that this type of argument is not true. When it was time to unite various clans into tribes, people thought that the clan chiefs would never agree to losing their unquestioned authority, yet the new political and economic arrangements needed were achieve, in part by proactive choice, and in part because they were unable to solve the many problems that lack of unity was creating.

When it was time for the tribes to unite into city states, people thought that the tribe leaders would never agree to that, either, and yet it was achieved. Then they thought the kings of the city states would never agree to sacrificing their power in favor of the democratic institutions required to administer a nation-state. There were even weighty philosophical and scientific treatises written to support the need for monarchy as part of the natural laws of the universe. And yet, the nation-state is now the norm.

Now it is time for the nation-states to unite in a world-state, and there are many who claim that the national governments will not allow that to happen. And yet, we can clearly see a global trend in that direction, from the League of Nations to the United Nations, the formation of continental blocks and the innumerable international organizations that are working day and night to achieve the international integration of every aspect of human life, from trade to communications, from health to the environment.

So next time someone says they agree change is needed but others will not let it happen, we can say that those "others" are doing their part, but that we must concentrate on our part--not on the few things we can NOT do (yet), but rather on the many things we CAN do, here and now, to make a difference in the world.

Are we Naturally Selfish and Greedy?

The myth that human beings are inherently selfish and greedy by nature is a very common one today, as it has been carefully cultivated over many decades to legitimize unbridled capitalism, the party-based political system, and other social structures. It has also been used to justify everything from war and conquest to economic dominion and corruption.

It is important that we be able to demonstrate with rational, scientific arguments, why this is not necessarily true and why vested interest groups benefit from our thinking it is true. You will read a short summary of some of these arguments in my article titled "Are we Naturally Selfish?". 

One important piece of research, which is not mentioned in that section, is available as a 4-part BBS video documentary called "The Century of the Self." I hope you can find and download it, as it documents in great detail, decade by decade, how the mass media have been used ever since WWI to create a culture of selfishness, individualism, greed, materialism and consumerism.

This carefully orchestrated, global campaign of public propaganda has been supported by an entire branch of science that has made use of advances in psychology, sociology, graphic arts, etc. to convince people to want things they don't need, in order to turn the masses of the world into a market of passive consumers and workers that feed the industrial machinery.

One important aspect that is not addressed in "The Century of the Self," but should and could have been, is that of manipulating the entire discourse on God, religion, spirituality, the afterlife, etc. The purpose has been to convince the masses that these notions are traditional and antiquated, irrational naive, non-modern and anti-scientific.

Doing so destroys the sense of purpose, meaning and identity that true religion offers, and opens the doors to replace it with new sources of purpose, meaning and identity through the consumption of goods and services that are sold as not only symbolizing but actually producing happiness and satisfaction, health and beauty, love and belonging, acceptance and popularity, etc.

There are many other elements of this purposeful manipulation of the people's mental models, but these few examples should suffice to demonstrate that there are very powerful economic interests behind the popularity of the myth that human beings are inherently selfish and greedy by nature.

Moral Maturation and Development

There is much discussion today on our moral obligation to take care of the environment for the future generations. The moral maturation and development of individuals and societies consists in expanding our concern both in space and in time. Its spacial development means expanding our concern from self to family to community to city to region to state to continent to planet, while temporal maturation of morality means extending our concern from days and weeks to years and decades, and even centuries, or from my life to my children's life to my grandchildren's life, etc.

Native peoples of the Americas honored and prayed for the seven generations that came before and the seven generations to come after, so their temporal moral concern encompassed a total of fifteen generations, including their own. Unfortunately, however, the present trend seems to be centered on immediate gain or short-term pleasure, with little or no concern for long-term effects of our behavior on both ourselves and others.

Interestingly, the science of epigenetics (see) has determined that negative epigenetic changes take seven generations to correct. For example, mice raised without contact with their mothers are more nervous and aggressive, and have more nervous and aggressive offspring, because their nervous systems are epigenetically programmed to survive in a dangerous world. Children born of starving mothers suffer more obesity and diabetes, as do their offspring, because their bodies are epigenetically programmed to conserve more calories.

The effects of positive epigenetic changes also benefit seven future generations. Therefore, our epigenetic makeup has been influenced by what the past seven generations did in during their lives; and what we do during our lives will affect seven generations to come. One of the best ways to favor positive epigenetic change is through good child-rearing practices, especially educating the girl child appropriately.

This discovery introduces a new argument in favor of maturing, developing and expanding our temporal sense of morality in all regards, including concern for our impact on the environment that future generations will inherit.

Bahá'í Strategies for Social Change

One of the things that have kept many sincere, enthusiastic people from achieving greater, more lasting changes faster is a tendency to jump right from the perceived problems to the imagined answers, without first stopping to try and really understand the problem first. This can result in treating mere symptoms as if they were root causes, and applying simple palliative remedies as if they could cure the origins of the diseases. If you develop an itchy rash all over your body, which would be the better doctor, the one who prescribed a soothing ointment to put on each red spot, or the one who looked deeper and diagnosed that a liver disorder was causing it (which the medicated ointment would have aggravated) and cured you of that?

Of course, there is always the danger of analyzing or studying issues ad nauseum, without doing anything concrete about them. However, but as the liver example illustrates, there is an even greater danger in not stopping to think before acting. Let’s suppose that Martin Luther King and his supporters had limited themselves to identifying and responding to individual acts of injustice. They would have expended enormous amounts of time, energy and resources, and would have ended up merely fanning the flames of racial animosity, thereby worsening the problem instead of improving it. By looking deeper to the common source of those individual problems, they were able to achieve fundamental changes in the legal and political structures of American society that were causing them. Perhaps the very root of that disease lies even deeper, as it has still not been solved entirely, but the case of the Civil Rights Movement is still a good example of the value of stopping to think more deeply first.

1. Getting to the Roots
It is important to respond to the immediate needs of those around us. However, once again, we should not let such palliative actions distract us from the socio-structural causes of those needs, or lead us to believe that by performing them we have done all that we can or should do. Otherwise, to the extent that we limit our actions to individuals’ immediate problems, we might be unwittingly helping to legitimize the very status quo that causes those problems in the first place. Authors like Noam Chomsky (see “Manufacturing Consent”) suggest that the great economic and political powers that benefit the most from the status quo are actively encouraging people to concentrate on individuals’ immediate problems in order to distract them from studying and attacking those structural root causes.

Let us take another analogy to illustrate this. Imagine that the world’s current political and economic order is an huge machine that provides enormous privileges, wealth and power to its handful of owners, and affords an empty “living” to those serving the machine, but dashes the hopes and destroys the lives of the great masses of humanity. Most people are taught from childhood that the machine is a permanent, unchangeable aspect of the world, and that the most they can ever hope to achieve is to pick up the broken pieces of the lives it destroys. So they busy themselves with that overwhelming “work at hand”, and ignore the why and how those lives are being destroyed in the first place. If anyone pauses to study the machine and think about how to stop it or change its functioning into something more benevolent, they are accused of idle philosophizing, utopian thought, and not worrying about the real needs of those around them. As said before, some authors actually maintain that these ideas are being fed to the public on purpose in order to perpetuate the hegemony of the status quo.

The result of all this is with what Alfie Kohn calls “the entrenched reluctance of Americans to consider structural explanations for problems”. He says, “We prefer to hold individuals responsible for whatever happens or, at the most, to find a convenient proximate cause. Rarely are events understood in their historical or economic or social context” (see his book “No Contest – The Case against Competition”). There seems to be a deep-rooted belief that if we could just solve each individual’s problems, we would have the kind of world we hope for. However, it doesn’t work that way, because there are “systemic” problems that transcend the individual ones. Most of the individuals serving the status quo machine are kind, loving, generous human beings who have little or no idea what the machine they serve is doing to others, and bitterly deplore the suffering they see around them. To use another analogy, if a tree is starting to lean towards your roof and is threatening to fall on top of it, it would make no sense to try and cure each individual cell in that tree, thinking that this will solve the problem. You need to think of the overall structure of the tree and how to stop it from leaning.

2. Example: Social and Economic Development
A case in point. Originally, most “international development agencies” started out working under an “aid” or “welfare” mentality, which consists of simply giving impoverished individuals (usually children) material things (food, clothing, books, etc.) under the simplistic assumption that the cause of poverty is merely the lack of those things. Gradually they have learned that you can best help an individual child by giving things to its family (employment, housing, lighting, improved stoves, etc.), then that families were best helped by giving things to their communities (roads, water and sanitation, schools and hospitals, etc.), and now that community problems are best solved by correcting structural inequalities at a national and even international level (social, economic and political arrangements, etc.).

These agencies are also learning that by providing individuals, families and communities with “assistentialism” or direct “welfare” type assistance, the hidden message being received is that this aid is given by their “rich neighbors” because they are unable to help themselves. This type of “paternalism” (doing for others what they can do for themselves) confirms and deepens their feelings of impotence, which only worsens the problem. For more on this, please see two other posts in this same blog, on “Wealth and Poverty” (the history of “development”) and “Overcoming Paternalism” (reflections on our learning process).

One excellent program that offers one alternative to this type of “development” is the so-called “Rural University” run by a Bahá'í-inspired Colombian foundation called FUNDAEC. It provides rural youth with higher education using a method called the Tutorial Learning System (SAT from the Spanish “Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial”). Instead of having to attend expensive city colleges that train them for city jobs, it provides them with knowledge and skills that will be useful in their home communities. The curriculum is built around their own research of their communities’ needs and aspirations. Through cooperative learning and periodic visits from their tutors, they study subjects that they then apply directly to solving the needs and achieving the visions of their communities. It is tremendously empowering and has achieved magnificent results throughout Colombia and other countries where it has been implemented.

3. Bahá'í Strategies for Social Change

The over-riding purpose of the Bahá’í community is to contribute to the building of a new world civilization, which some religions would call “building the kingdom of God on earth”. Towards that end, three of its main ‘lines of action’, so to speak, are community building, social action, and participating in the discourses of society. Each of these line of action builds upon the previous one, and culminate in what some Christian groups call “witnessing” or “being a living witness” to the fact that a different way of life is indeed possible.

• Community Building
The first line of action is called “community building”, which entails finding people who accept and commit to the Bahá’í Faith, empowering them (spiritually and otherwise) for service through the Ruhi Institute and other means, and developing the administrative arrangements needed to organize and orient that service. In this way, over its 166-year history, the worldwide Bahá’í community has grown to some 6 million members from about 2,100 indigenous tribes, races and ethnic groups, organized in approximately 100,000 local communities in virtually every country and territory of the world, with its literature translated into more than 800 languages. The Bahá'í concept of “community” is not as geographically-centered as for other groups. In fact, the Bahá'í Faith has been listed by the Encyclopedia Britannica Yearbook as the second most widespread religion in the world (in terms of geographic reach) after Christianity as a whole.

• Social Action
A second line of action is called “social action”, which is basically putting those communities and their “human resources” at the service of the needs of the world. This can include anything from very simple, short-term activities like tree-planting by children, to more complex, on-going socioeconomic development projects such as radios, schools, hospitals, etc., using trained professionals. The Bahá’í community currently has several thousand fixed-term activities and some 600 ongoing projects. The earthquakes in Haiti and Chile offer examples of how this can work. The Bahá’í communities in those countries go out and identify the needs of their neighbors, taking advantage on their local knowledge of the area. They then notify the Bahá’í World Center of the resources needed to meet those needs (which actually come from the entire Bahá’í world), and then administer those resources in such a way as to ensure that they have the greatest possible impact. This locally-based approach avoids the problems that many international agencies have had in making sure their resources reach those who really need them the most. However, where there is no Bahá'í community or it is not strong enough to undertake such a project, funds may be channeled through such agencies.

• Participating in Discourse
A third line of action is called “participating in the prevalent discourses of society”, which is basically sharing with the greater public the lessons learned from the “community building” and “social action” efforts, in an attempt to influence the way rest of the world thinks, talks and acts about the world’s pressing problems. This sharing includes what Bahá'ís perceive as being the root causes of those problems, what their general approach to them is, what they have tried to do about them in daily practice, what results they have obtained using different approaches (both successes and failures), and what lessons they have learned from all of this that might be of value to others. This of course requires that Bahá'ís view their own efforts both humbly and objectively, and with a learning attitude. They also invite others to study their efforts from the outside, somewhat like a real-life laboratory.

There are several elements in this third line of action. Some are carried out through the United Nations offices in New York, Geneva and Brussels under the name of “Bahá'í International Community” (BIC), with consultative status before the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNESCO), and regular participation in conferences, congresses and seminars concerned with the socio-economic life of our planet. You can find many BIC statements and reports in the Internet here. There are also several Bahá’í Studies Associations around the world that seek to apply the Bahá'í teachings to the concerns of the world, and the “Institute for Studies in Global Prosperity” (ISGP), which trains college students to orient their careers towards service to humanity. Another element is the quarterly newsletter “One Country”, sent out regularly to leaders of thought and action all over the world.

Of course, these are not the only lines of action that the Bahá'í community uses in its work around the world, but they suffice to convey an idea of the overall approach that is used towards the building of a new world civilization.

The surprising truth about what motivates us

The Empathic Civilisation

Rethinking Social Science

When Bahá'ís in Latin America tell contemporary social scientists about Bahá’u’lláh’s basic, overriding principle of the “Oneness of Humanity”, the response is usually that it is impossible. Why? In a nutshell, because present–day social science is based on theories of social conflict, not of social cooperation. They admit of division in diversity and unity in uniformity, but not of unity in diversity.

Contemporary social sciences in Latin America are based on a complex theoretical structure whose roots can be found in the 17th century and beyond, many of whose basic assumptions are taken for granted by most without daring or knowing how to question them. When someone states one of its platitudes, everyone seems to agree, but I think that deep down inside, they wish they could believe otherwise.

For example, I have spoken publicly a few times on "Capitalism, Socialism, and then what? Contributions to the search for new social and economic alternatives". This is potentially a very polemical presentation, as it questions some of the most deeply–seated assumptions in economics, political science, sociology, anthropology, etc. Nevertheless, several people have come up to me afterwards and thanked me for having put into words for them things that they had always felt intuitively, but had either been unable or lacked the courage to articulate to others.

So as a Bahá'í studying social sciences, what I think needs to be done is the following. On the one hand, we need to 'deconstruct' the old theoretical apparatus by showing its methodological and conceptual flaws. What I have come up with so far is that many of the 'proofs' that are used to support these assumptions are actually nothing more than analogies based on theories from other disciplines (mostly physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology) and applied to human society. Thus you get such pseudo-scientific aberrations as 'social Darwinism', 'social dialectics', etc.). This in itself is considered by many to be an epistemologically unsound practice.

One of the sources of this problem seems to be the fact that it is difficult to find a referent or datum that is common to all societies, on which to base solid social theory. So social scientists will borrow a referent or 'datum' from another discipline as a starting point for mostly philosophical speculations about how it might apply to the workings of society. This occurred while those ‘other’ sciences were still working under philosophical assumptions that were a spin-off from Newtonian physics: determinism, reductionism, mechanicism, materialism, etc.

Later on, when many or all of these original theories were falsified by the 'new physics', 'new biology', 'systems theory', 'systemic psychology', etc., the social spin-offs based on the former were not modified accordingly. The result is a set of false analogies based on erroneous theories from other fields that have already evolved beyond the point they were when those analogies were taken, leaving in their wake a set of deterministic, reductionistic, mechanistic, materialistic social theories in a time that no longer holds these types worldviews (cosmologies) to be tenable.

So a new breed of social scientists needs to be able to show where these other disciplines have evolved to in comparison to where they were when the analogies were taken, and suggest new analogies based on those new theories, which open up a whole new worldview that is neither deterministic, reductionistic, mechanistic, nor materialistic, but precisely the contrary. This would not produce social scientific 'proofs' per se, but rather be a way to strengthen the deconstruction of old theories and open up peoples minds to new possibilities.

Next we need new social theories to replace the old ones. This is not as easy as it might seem, because theories are established through induction, not deduction, for which there are not hard and fast rules. In fact, throughout the history of science, most theories have been thought up initially through intuitive processes (the “Eureka!” principle) and only later were worked out methodically. What theories are actually come up with has much to do with the filters and prejudices that either blind or enlighten the theoretician. This means that in order to renew the social sciences, we must be able to see society through new filters, very different from the ones we learn to see through when we study social science. How to break out of this vicious circle?

One way would be to take Bahá’í social principles (such as unity in diversity or socio–political evolution), and express them in the form of hypotheses that can then be worked on both empirically and philosophically, to gradually develop a new 'social construct' that is capable of taking the place of the old one that was 'deconstructed'. This would then make it possible to base novel policy proposals on these new theoretical structures, leading hopefully to solid interventions that would move the world purposefully towards what Baha'u'llah has prescribed for society.

If this theoretical groundwork is not solidly established first, I am afraid that few social scientists and policy makers will take Bahá'í social principles seriously. This can be done initially by taking referents from many different human groups, both historically and geographically, including taking the Bahá’í world community itself as a datum, which is what the Universal House of Justice invited the world to do in its statement “The Promise of World Peace”.

One area of endeavor that is of interest to me as a student of social sciences and as a Bahá'í, is the following. In the course of my studies, I have discovered that there are 3 fundamental issues that Latin American social scientists do not seem to be dealing with, but which are highlighted as essential in several messages of the Universal House of Justice to the United Nations or the world. These are:

(1) Human nature, which Latin American social sciences in general define very much according to what the Universal House of Justice answers to in the Promise of World Peace (homo economicus, rational animal, social Darwinism, etc.).
(2) The nature of society, which is defined in terms of the dynamics of conflict, as discussed in various Bahá’í documents, which I understand to be the very antithesis of the principle of the oneness of humanity.
(3) The issue of power. Conflict is based on an old-world concept of power, as dealt with in part VI of Global Prosperity, which is the sine-qua-non of modernist and possibly even postmodernist political studies.

I feel that if we could deal with these issues head-on, publicly and academically, it would make a real difference in the long run, as everything else in anthropology, sociology, economics, political science, etc. seems to be hinged on these 3 basic issues. One way of going about it would be as follows. First, compile Bahá’í references dealing specifically with each of these topics. Second, find out who is working on these subjects, and compile what they have written. This should include finding out what is being said by those who defend the old ways of thinking. Finally, once this groundwork has been done, establish and test out new hypotheses as described above.

Overcoming Paternalism

In community development efforts, the phenomenon commonly referred to as the “free–rider” problem can lead to what one thinker called “wheelbarrow” members:

“As long as you carry them along, they move, but once you put them down, all signs of life diminish. Many do not come to the local center unless they are picked up by others, despite the fact that walking is and has been the primary means of transportation for people in the area. The institutions adapt their workings in such a way that compliments rather than challenges the local community members in their attitudes”.

When we started attacking this problem head on, we found it was only possible when we actually gave it a name (“PATERNALISM”) and a comprehensive definition (“doing for others what they could do for themselves”). It is based on the belief that the receiving party is incapable, unskilled, unmotivated, etc., and that the giving party has all these things in abundance and must therefore share them with others.

Whereas traditionally paternalism referred solely to what the giving party did, we learned to hold both the giving and receiving parties responsible, as it is a mutual relationship or “homeostasis” that both parties must work together to change.

From the viewpoint of the receiver, we all tend to doubt our own ability to do something new, until having tried it several times and found ourselves successful. So if apparently successful people come along and show through their paternalistic actions that they also doubt our ability, this confirms our belief.

And if they furthermore offer to do it for us, then we develop a distinct sense of our own inferiority and their superiority, resulting in a relationship of DEPENDENCE, which has become a social disease that atrophies the potential of a great number of people.

From the point of view of the giver, there is no dark, ulterior motive involved, but rather a sincere (albeit somewhat mislead) desire to “help”, often combined with a certain “missionary zeal” that wreaks havoc with one’s patience and long-term vision. If I may generalize just for clarity’s sake, we have identified two distinct patterns.

One is the typically “western” eagerness to “get the job done” right and now! If I have to do it myself in order to make sure it gets done right, I will, and if I have to do it alone, the important thing is to avoid delays.

This leads us to impose a momentum (as well as our own ideas regarding HOW things should be done) on the community’s development, which few if any are willing or able to keep up with. The result is much heel dragging and “wheelbarrowing”. As Covey puts it, in order to be truly EFFECTIVE with people, you have to stop trying to be EFFICIENT with them.

The other pattern is a typically “eastern” eagerness to give one’s life in love and “service” to others, to the oft-seen extreme of actually competing with others and with oneself to “serve” more, wearing oneself to a frazzle like a true living martyr, and not wanting those “others” to do anything for themselves, much less for us.

The underlying assumption seems to be that this will set an example that others will follow automatically, but in fact, more often than not, the result is that the “others” relax into a comfortable receiving mode and learn that this is the way things should be, period.

Empowerment

I put the word “service” in quotation marks, because we have learned that true service is not paternalistically doing things for others that they can do for themselves, but rather finding ways to EMPOWER them (develop their ability to decide and act for themselves).

To empower means to free and develop the ability to make decisions and act; to make appropriate decisions and take appropriate action based on those decisions. What is it that enables people to decide and act for themselves? The answer is three–fold: knowledge, love and governance.

Knowledge provides the guidance necessary to ensure that decisions will be appropriate to each situation, and the skills needed to ensure that action will be effective. Ignorance, superstition and prejudice are enemies of knowledge and lead to undesirable decisions and ineffective or damaging actions.

Love provides the degree of self–sacrifice necessary to ensure that decisions will not center on short–sighted, self–centered actions, but rather on what will serve the interests of the whole on a long–term basis. With love, actions become acts of service to the general weal.

Governance provides a structured forum for consultation as collective decision–making, and the authority necessary to achieve collective action. It enables a community to reach unity of thought, purpose and action, which are essential to its progress. Lack of local governance has led to the inability of the people to make their own decisions and initiate their own actions.

Mind, Heart and Hand

Here in Ecuador there was an assumption that not arising on one’s own initiative was a sign of not wanting to serve, which in turn was due to a lack of love, conviction or commitment. So we would pound away even harder at “deepening”, to little or no avail.

Meanwhile, we had had some positive experiences where “inactive” friends were carefully trained to carry out acts of service, followed by guided practice, who arose with great joy to use those new skills. We learned from this that the will was already there, but what was really lacking was the skills, along with the confidence in our own ability to use them.

At about the same time, the Moral Leadership program fell into our laps, enabling some 60 individuals from all over the country to acquire the knowledge, attitudes AND skills necessary to start initiatives effectively in service to their communities. The results after that year-and-a-half were unbelievable!

Self-centered lives turned around 180 degrees, projects were begun and completed, schools were started, degree programs were entered and new careers forged, institutions were transformed, families were strengthened, and on and on. Even a great number of the people that the Moral Leadership students trained as part of their coursework practices were transformed and uplifted!

This confirmed our suspicion that training was the key to overcoming paternalism, both in givers and receivers. Shortly after that, the Universal House of Justice, which doubtless had its fingers on the pulse of this and countless other similar experiences worldwide, began to promote the formation of “Training Institutes” throughout the planet.

Now some people, recalling our old “Teaching Institutes”, which were more knowledge–oriented than anything else, saw nothing new in this. However, the change was more than name deep, as the idea of systematically training people in the skills needed to serve their communities had not been institutionalized on a global level before.

Prior to this change, in many communities practically no individual deepening was taking place and often when deepening meetings were held, the majority was really not interested. This hampered their personal growth and showed a distinct lack of personal motivation, although it was unclear which was the cause and which the symptom.

In studying this phenomenon, we found that people are attracted to participate by one or more of three routes: knowledge, love or action. Each culture seems to have a preference, but rarely did it occur to us that other cultures had different approaches from ours, so we treated them all the same way and then wondered why the response was so lame.

Let’s use East, West and South as figurative names to identify three distinct culture types. The East runs eagerly, on the passionate path of love, intuitively recognizes the Source of Knowledge and is moved to give up its life in acts of service. The West enters coolly on the reasonable road of knowledge, is set ablaze like a torch with love, and arises to act, systematically, planning each step carefully.

But the South is enticed by a clarion call to join others in joyous action, hastens to acquire the knowledge needed to keep pace with one’s companions, and soon finds oneself wrapped in the warm, tender embrace of love.

I think that a majority of people in South America and Africa belong to the latter type. Book learning is a drag, and they would rather employ their time to better ends, like socializing (a preferred source of information). Love is reserved for what makes a real difference in their lives: their family, their closest friends, their home, and their prized possessions (materialism of the poor?).

But once they commit themselves with others to a joint project, they will eagerly seek out the knowledge needed to act. Sooner or later, what they do, who they do it with, why they do it, etc. become so much a significant part of their lives, that they never want to give it up.

This is achieved by offering people, from the wealth of issues the community can make a positive contribution to, whatever they have already felt as a need, something they are already acting on it, instead of trying to interest them straight out in something foreign to their day-to-day lives.

Achieving Unity

The whole purpose is to enlist “troops” of human resources who are willing to work towards the transformation of society, not just “masses” of sponges who soak up other people’s time and energy. Otherwise, what you have is a community in name only: isolated individuals calling themselves a community because they live in close proximity, but not working together in unity.

In the past, whenever this lack of unity would come up in community meetings, the invariable response was to hold a party, a picnic, or some such idea of unity as “getting together”. Unfortunately, these events often ended with individuals getting angry at each other over some silly misunderstanding.

Things went on like this until we finally decided to study what exactly “unity” meant in a community development context. What we came up with was three types of unity, none of which meant “getting together” as an end in itself. These were unity of PURPOSE, unity of THOUGHT, and unity of ACTION.

We interpreted this as meaning: (1) having the same central MOTIVATION and coming to an agreement on what that required us to DO; (2) using the process of frank but courteous CONSULTATION to decide collectively HOW to achieve our purpose; and then (3) arising of one accord to WORK TOGETHER in groups to execute it and LEARN together from our action.

This action-oriented approach to unity sounded easy, but when we attempted it by the traditional route of “deepening” and “con¬sultation”, it didn’t produce much change. However, when we attempted it by TRAINING, for example in new (to us) methods of planning and execution, the results were amazing!

(Tuesday, December 8, 1998)