July - The Greater Perspective
Why are we acting individually when it ultimately hurts us?
The July conversation saw Suzanne Waldron and Anthony conversing for an extended 75 minute format in this discussion that traversed: ancient wisdom, the microbiome, western and eastern connection to culture and nature, agriculture and regenerative salt lakes, and the world as a self organising system. Phew! And wow did it leaving us thinking about some big things.
Conversation starters are aplenty.
What’s the difference between collective thinking and group think? We know the dangers of the latter, how do we not let the former become the latter?
We can’t make/buy a culture but we can foster and nurture, educate and demonstrate the attitudes and behaviour we want to see. The A (attitudes) and the B (behaviours) creates the C (culture).
Classic social challenge - an individual might be able to a achieve a 'better' outcome by focusing on their own priorities, but that only works if the collective holds as a base level of service for that to build on. If too many people pursue individual priorities the system collapses and everyone is worse off. Education, healthcare, justice and security - comes up in a lot of areas.
There is a lot of talk about the prevalence of the individual over community or the collective, with the underlying insinuation that it's a bad thing. Assuming that it's true (and I'm not saying that it's not), shouldn't we ask why it's happening? ie. why do people/society prefer being individuals vs community? Then, perhaps we can look at what (if anything) to do about it?