Political empowerment begins with the consciousness of being empowered. Without that consciousness, there is only weakness, indecision, and lack of willingness to engage the current political situation. For citizens of the United States, and for other developed democratic nations, who feel disempowered, options are available. In any established democracy, revolution is NOT a viable option. Either-or options are too divisive, too destructive, and result in political devolution.

If we take the perspective of centuries that unconscious social evolution is already in place, then the only initiative we need to take to launch democratic societies on a course of becoming self-sustaining, stable, and eventually socially sustainable is to consciously write an intention to move toward those desired states of existence. Succinctly, only citizens who see themselves as politically empowered can initiate the social evolution of their society beginning with the organizations within the functioning of those three pillars, (societal-social, political-governmental, and economic-financial).

Some citizens have already begun and call themselves “Progressives.” The word “Progressives” will be used in the text as a general reference for those who have begun working outside of the two dominant and polarized political parties.

Two Cautions Are in Order for Readers —

First caution: Social sustainability presents a cognitive problem for the reader because it “requires changing your brain, thinking in new ways you have never thought before, understanding what you have not previously understood, and talking and listening in new ways. … What makes the cognitive work so hard is that it requires a new, higher rationality.”¹⁸

To draw a parallel, weights and measurements BEFORE the adoption of the ounce, pound, inch, foot, yard, mile, and later the metric system of weights and measurements, were arbitrary and subject to regional differences. It was impossible for a person in England to order a shirt from a tailor in Italy before the standardization of measurements. Now we take that for granted. Concerning the universal values that are innate to the DNA of Homo sapiens, once we adopt the values as the standards of social conduct, we will look back at our reasoning beforehand as primitive, archaic, and obsolete. Adjusting to that change however will cause a “cognitive problem” for millions of people.

Second caution: What lies ahead will describe the surreal terrain of a democratic society that is learning how to adapt to social change by becoming a system of integrated systems of learning organizations. It is surreal because all societies of all civilizations throughout all history have had an ingrained cultural tolerance to accept failure as the assumed eventual outcome for all organizations, all forms of government, their administrations, and policies. The history of all societal existence proves the point. All have failed. Today, there are only remnants of prior robust societies, empires, dynasties, and cultures.

The reasons all societies have consistently failed is that none were founded on a conscious, overt, and declared intention to become self-sustaining into the centuries and millennia. All assumed, and did not question, that by surviving year after year they would exist indefinitely into the future; or they didn’t care if they lasted indefinitely or not. All failed because none learned to adapt to changing circumstances. None learned from their mistakes or their successes; and none kept functional libraries of wisdom to guide decision-makers. Unfortunately, this is the situation of all democratic nations, including the United States, the oldest existing democracy. And, it too will fail, eventually, unless it becomes a learning organization to adapt to changing conditions.

The catalyst that accelerated social sustainability into a political topic of personal interest was my recent reading of George Lakoff’s book, Don’t Think of an Elephant, Know Your Values and Frame Your Debate, (2014). I had not thought of social sustainability in political terms until his book awakened my realization that social sustainability and politics are intimately connected to the future of democracies through values. If citizens are going to create social, political, and economic stability and peace, then they will need to reframe their decision-making and political positions in terms of the values of social sustainability.

Such a reframing of American political values will create a shock wave through the culture of “politics as usual” for academics, policy analysts, strategic thinkers, politicians, and most citizens. The exceptions include the “Progressives” that Lakoff mentions profusely as the hope of democracies, and a large, receptive public — the very large segment of the public who have distanced themselves from the dysfunctions of their state and federal governments, and political parties.

What is provided here is not “way off base” when the reader has an awareness that what has been missing from governmental policy development and political discussions are the values that have successfully sustained our species for tens of thousands years. The most discomfiting situation for the far right and the far left is that reframing political debate in terms of these values will provide the very broad middle of the political spectrum with a politically moral understanding of “the common good,” “what is fair,” “social justice,” and “social equity,” which has never been possible until now.

Characteristics of this Section —

• The perspective is that problems are solvable. It takes a positive, optimistic, and hopeful approach to the future.

• As previously explained, the perspective is that people are innately good, and then explains the values that support that proposition. Yes, the world is a tough place to live in, but people are basically good, except for those who have chosen to behave selfishly.

• This work is for those who are interested in progressive social evolution that leads to more mature social existence leading to social stability and peace.

• Fear is not a tactic or strategy used in the text. The problems that will eventually arise are not seen through rose colored glasses or given a Pollyanna treatment. The difficult situations that will arrive in the future will surely cause fear in many people, and that is when they will need an empathic, humane, and rational system of values already embedded into local community decision-making systems to create solutions rather than fixing problems.

• This is fundamentally a self-help book that provides readers with a positive way of approaching life, personally and strategically for society and its social, political, and economic leaders at all levels. It offers itself to help solve local or national problems, depending on who is reading it. It takes the position that there are millions of intelligent and wise citizens in every democracy who want to create sustainable communities, societies, and nations for future generations.

• The text offers a very positive view of the possibilities for citizens to actually effect meaningful social, political, and economic change in their communities, states, and nations. It views citizens as potentially powerful when they discover their universal commonalities and begin to reframe their historically impotent political power into potent proposals to change the culture of their nations.

• The sustainability processes described do not offer a miracle to heal, solve, or fix the big problems of the world that are occurring now, or those that are surely on the horizon of our over-crowded planet. It does provide a strategic method of engaging the totality of human experience to bring nations, societies, communities, families, and individuals into a better and better world in the future. Just as it took many decades for democratic nations to become materialistic to the point where unethical competitive behavior has become acceptable, it will also take decades to change that culture, except when the public en masse chooses to reframe itself in sustainable democratic societies.

• What is provided here is applicable to all democracies, whether they are a mature, developing, or emerging democratic nations. Young democratic nations can prepare themselves for a much changed future by immersing themselves in these values, or learning vicariously from mature democratic nations how to engage a socially sustainable future. It is more likely that young democratic nations will provide the working models for mature democratic nations — how to peacefully evolve democratically, socially, and sustainably.

• This section could be called “The Progressive’s Handbook” that offers a strategic process that gives progressive citizens control of the future by making sustaining decisions today. The future then becomes less scary because they will have confidence in the decisions they made yesterday, last month, and in the last decade.

• When we discern that all human cultures have accepted failure as the cultural norm for organizations, governments, societies and whole civilizations, then the acceptance of perennial failure should sting our awareness to ask, “How is it that our species has sustained itself for 8,000 generations (about 200,000 years)?” And, “How would we apply those answers to our organizations so that they, too, become self-sustaining into the centuries and millennia?”
• What has been missing to answer those questions are the ultimate, timeless, irreducible, and universal values that underlie all human behavior — the source of sustainable decision-making and social sustainability. Using the seven values will provide a constant consistency within the political dialogue that has been missing.

• Finally, the values that have sustained our species for over 200,000 years can become the bridge for rational and effective dialogue between Progressives, conservatives, and liberals. It is our socially sustainable moral obligation to represent future generations as we dialogue about the design of socially sustainable policies and programs, today. Future generations must be represented in the discussions of the conditions and course of our future communities and nation.

What is provided here is an introduction to the socially sustaining empowerment of citizens, with pragmatic instructions how to form large blocs of public consensus.

QUOTATION OF THE DAY From New York Times Online, September 8, 2015

"In this country –
in Soviet times, in czarist times -
nobody thinks about the next generation."

VLADIMIR CHUPROV, an energy expert for Greenpeace Russia, on exploration for oil and gas in the Arctic, which he opposes.

¹⁸  Lakoff, George 2006. Whose Freedom? : The Battle Over America’s Most Important Idea. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p 257.