The problem of overarching cultural dissonance was brought to my attention several years ago. The “can do” culture of American business and technology has given most people a very narrow perspective of the grand scale of cultural change, particularly for the subtleties of social evolution.

I have been asked in my workshops, that included a significant amount of time for the discussion of social sustainability, two questions that always seem to up, “How long will it take to see evidence of any efforts to bring our societies into social stability and social sustainability?” The usual image participants have in mind for social and culture change is of a democratic society of 30 to 300 million people. Most students could accept that changing the course of a large national culture would not be an easy task, but few thought of it in terms of minimally 15 years that could extend to well over 30 years.

Their second question is usually stated as, “Where do we begin the process of moving a democratic culture toward social stability and onward to social sustainability?” Almost all students want to start at the top of social, political, and economic hierarchies, which is typical of “revolutionary thinking” rather than evolutionary thinking. When we drill down through all of the various ideas students bring, with a bit of guidance they almost always end up looking at the most basic elements of where long term culture change and social evolution begins its development: Families that produce children. And this is where Chapter 7 begins, which will have a tremendous influence on the political-governmental and economic-financial discussions ahead. It is upon the sustainability of the family that the survival of democratic societies rests.