Beyond the passive state
How diverse are we as a species? Can diversity ever be a source of social strength and humanity's survival, or must it always lead to division and weak societies? Derision of diversity is not just about the colour of our skin. Diversity can best be quantified as the disparity of perspectives among global humanity, where there are as many as 8000 ethno-cultural groups around the world, and of the 200 or so Government states more than 95% have multiple ethnicity groups. So, for a moment, consider that modern harmonious society requires every one of its citizens to be willing to listen to diverse views, some of which might be obnoxious and strange, while being willing to intelligibly and candidly express persuasive views, engaging in important public discourse to support civilized society without fear of retribution. This is what it means to be an engaged citizen of the world, and yet the evidence suggests that usually we are unable to adopt this engaged state, unable to move beyond the passive state. And yet many of our existential issues require such engagement. Global warming, arms escalation, territorial spats, and regional succession; they all need us to take a different approach that requires evolved citizen engagement.?
However, in the 21st Century, many Governments continue to ‘eliminate’ citizens with views that are at the polar end of the normal distribution through a spectrum of deliberate policies selected from genocide, population relocation, partition and succession and assimilation policies. More liberal Government regimes seek to ‘manage’ citizen differences through hegemonic control, allocating territorial autonomy through cantons and federalization, or power sharing, or through proactive multicultural integration policies. Even in the most liberal nations 'majority-vote-centric' democracies create Government authorities that support majority dominant views seeking to passivate and marginalize citizen engagement that falls outside of the normal.?
Inclusiveness provides Governments with a difficult paradox should they wish to avoid rebellion: they must represent the majority while not obviously marginalizing minority groups. We are not where we need to be. Citizenship needs to evolve for humans to overcome major existential threats. Such major challenges may require all citizens to accept leadership based on the benefits of a collective harmonious society, even if those citizens do not get everything that they want as individuals. The evidence is all around us that pre-19th and 20th Century Government constitutions are inadequate to create the engagement and support required for the survival of future generations. Many academics think that societies grew through advances in agriculture which allowed more organization and reduced the calamity associated with failed harvests and grew more complex societies to defend against aggressors more effectively, and yet, for millennia, military dominance has played a significant role in subjugation of citizens in most societies. History shows us that the seeds of all revolutions start from 1 disruption to hierarchy of needs, 2 environmental pressures, 3 social exclusion, and 4 leadership hegemony. Around the world all nations are showing signs of stress in these four areas, so look out.
Around the world authoritative reports show that Governments are not doing what they say they will in their manifestos. Constitutions allow this to occur, and citizens do not hold them to account for many reasons including apathy, passivity, and fear. But we should watch out, because when economic environments change, passive constituents become active, and discord hits the news.?
Our world is not becoming more civilized; wars, refugees, conflict, and intolerance, are increasingly a part of life for billions of people; billions!?
Change has accelerated over the last three decades due to improving communication and knowledge flow. Information dyssynergy can be reduced by phones, web, and social media, spreading news, and accelerating revolution. While we might hope that the availability and flow of information could bridge social exclusion and improve citizen tolerance and engagement, evidence so far indicates a polarizing role for social media.??
We have been working to codify the root causes and formulate a model for revolt. Uprisings are a consequence of marginalized citizens who as outliers in the distribution of citizens are not listened to or have views that are outside of the normal distribution. These constituents are normally silenced through futility, social pressures, coercion, or manipulation, until things are so bad that they skew the normal distribution of ‘passive’ and ‘passive aggressive’ citizens to become active, emboldening the marginalized to act. Under these circumstances passive actors become activated and caught up in revolution. Government authorities usually attempt to quell riots (sometimes in the interests of the majority; often to satisfy their own interests); it is usually too late to listen. We studied many examples like Sri Lanka, Solomon Isles, Fiji, Syria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria and many others that exemplify the normal course of uprisings to illustrate a code for inclusivity.??
Our studies found measures and signals that help us to gauge ‘passive aggression’ in the distribution, lead indicators for marginalization, qualities of positively engaged minorities, and attributes of dissenting minority voices, and we want to gauge levels of listening, tolerance, and engagement with these minority voices by Governments. But most of all, we want to help the dialogue about inclusivity, it may help Governments to decide on action plans, and it may inform the debate on how we should evolve citizen engagement before we are overtaken by the passive majority.
Analysis?
Our revolution dataset comes from interviews and storyboards with people in many countries including Sri Lanka, The Solomon Islands, Fiji, Hong Kong, Ukraine, Syria, United States and United Kingdom. Initial studies have suggested that revolutions are fueled in all cases by the following elements: -
1. Disruption
2. Inequity
3. Informalized Government Practices
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4. Dismissive Government signaling?
5. Opportunism
6. Fear
Just have another look through this list. How many of these things can you spot that are evident in our comparatively cozy society? Perhaps we live in a powder keg looking for a match. Now imagine living in a refugee camp where your 70,000 co-citizens come from 40+ nations, none of you have passports, 40,000 of you are under 16 years old, and no-one represents you.
However this subject is not all about discord. Citizen-engagement has a normal distribution in every society. One correspondent summed up the norm for me and it really resonated. “Although I have always been actively engaged at work, once I vote I expect politicians to do what they have said and I am passive because things are not that bad, but I now think I have to step up and hold them to account. They don’t want me to. Every time I try, they push me down. Right now, I am coiled up, listening to them rant about things that are not important to me.”?
Many people share their views but are too busy dealing with life or complacently pursuing personal lifegoals and do not become activists until pressures force them to act and an activation energy causes a skewing of the normal distribution. I don't think the current economic pressures and elitist political constitution are good for continued harmony. Colleagues and friends have been talking to me with increasing irritation, and I wonder if they are being pushed to the limit.
Charitable work and citizen science represent a growing democratization of activism and the cohort of people involved in such voluntary projects provides a possible evolutionary line for future engaged citizenship. This ‘citizen science’ amounts to joining other citizens to gather data to support change, and for us, these citizens (active all over the world; Cambodia, Brazil, Peru, Cameroon, Greece, Germany, United Kingdom, and USA) may suggest improving ways for evolving citizen engagement.
Why worry
Global warming, pandemic threats, and nuclear escalation are societal challenges that have been described as existential threats. Similarly, economic instability and war create additional pressures on national societies. Global expenditure on military forces exceeds $1 trillion [Russia ($66bn), US ($801bn), Other Nato ($363bn)]. Whole economies are in debt. At the time of writing (2022), more than 20 emerging market countries have debts with interest rates over 10 per cent reflecting the risk of default. Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Ghana, Egypt, and Tunisia are all in rescue talks with the IMF. These pressures, taken with inflation, fuel cost rises, and oppressive marginalization skew the normal distribution of passive support for Governments authorities by converting passive and compliant individuals into passive aggressive and then activists. As the world faces increasing challenges, we might expect increasing dissident activity, dealt with through force or, hopefully, engagement. In any case, engagement with evolving citizenship engagement appears to be a means to a real solution to large existential challenges and the world seems to need new methods of aggregating and adopting the best solutions.
What can I do
Perhaps you have a few other things I should do. If so, let me know; build on this. AND tell the world what you think.