How can we resurrect and co-elevate the virtuous spirit of Martin Luther King to cultivate equity meta-governance and launch Equity Moonshot?

Work-in-progress; candor and feedback are appreciated. Updated 2/1/2024.

Take time for slow reading, self-reflection and deep contemplation about how to cultivate equity meta-governance. Explore what these complex questions mean to you, before engaging in generative-strategic dialogues and civil discourse about how to launch Equity Moonshot.

How might we begin to facilitate collaborative learning about mindset and systems transformations needed to launch Equity Moonshot?

Equity is the humanitarian virtue of fairness, kindness and civility.

Equity Moonshot is a humanitarian and technological metaphor: co-design and build an equitable, regenerative, and sustainable future on a healthy planet for the benefit of all.

• How might we learn how to create synergies between the ethical development of virtues and advancing the AI-enabled digital learning platforms to launch Equity Moonshot?

This question calls for ethically transforming our mindsets to morally re-design our systems for this ultimate quest.

The heroism and successes of individualism do not have capabilities and capacities to solve our complex web of self-inflicted wicked problems in the 21st century. Wicked problems are complex in that they have no simple, simple, or ultimate solution, with no either-or, right-wrong, good-evil answers. Wicked problems are not per se solvable, such as redressing ego-centric shadows and the dark sides of human nature. There are no ends to wicked problems.

The yardstick of virtuous men and women collaborating together on this noble cause is the ethics of equity, and not about individual successes and achievements. The humanitarian soul of collaborative integrity is our moral guide for addressing heart-centered questions related to caring, nurturing, growing, thriving and flourishing.

How might we, as equity leaders, mentors, mavens, muses, and learning design architects, mass mobilize we, the people, to:

• Open, inspire and align our mindsets to zoom out and work on the Equity Moonshot quest?
• Care deeply for the welfare of our ourselves and our planet?
• Zoom in to enable our families to thrive and flourish seven generations ahead?
• Create shared meanings about equity and equality to manage our meta-crises that drives our poly-crisis?
• Overcome our addictions to reductionist thinking that disable us from solving our wicked problems?
• Move beyond identity politics driven by the divisiveness of conflicting value systems to collaborative ethical identities guided by on a harmonious constellation of virtues?

These questions call for understanding the distinctions and complex relationships between values and virtues. Values are about setting priorities of what is important. Virtues are about how to do good.

Our neoliberal corrupt political systems are designed to escalate inequities and meritocracies. The political mantra for this pathological megalomania is: greed is great.

The self-righteous fundamentalism of absolute libertarianism, the free market, and the hegemony of technocratic neoliberalism enable the imperialism of reductionism and individual values to dominate over the humanitarianism of transformational virtues. This priority sets us systemic prejudices against equity and equality.

These inequitable systems create major impediments that prevent humanity from making any progress on the Equity Moonshot quest.

As much as we cherish the individual values of liberty and freedom, they are not without their flaws. Our conflicting hierarchical systems of values compete against each other, leading to detrimental impacts on our ethical development.

To truly understand the importance of virtues guiding our values, we must move beyond the language constraints of values. To overcome our ethical illiteracy in discussing virtues, we must learn how to articulate why virtues are more important than values.

MLK's dream has become a nightmare. Let's resurrect his virtuous spirit to co-create a shared meaning of equity.

• How might we empower and co-elevate our virtuous cycles to launch Equity Moonshot story movements of lifelong intergenerational learning needed to cultivate equity meta-governance?

Equity meta-governance is the transformational and collaborative learning processes of using a constellation of virtues to co-create fair rules, fair plays, fair games, fair opportunities, and fair rewards for the benefit of all, on a healthy planet.

#LiberateEquity #FreedomForAll

What are your favorite MKL quotes to promote equity?

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."

"Injustice anywhere [systemic isms and inequities] is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."

How might we take on Ultimate Meta-Purpose (UMP)?

Equity meta-governance is our UMP. The meme for this meta-governance is: "to Love, equity, and the pursuit of truth-seeking."

Fairness is an intra-personal, inter-personal, community, organizational and cultural attribute.

How might we, as equity leaders, mentors, mavens, muses, and learning design architects, empower we, the people:

• Co-create and negotiate what the fairness of equity means (and what it does not mean) across the different contexts?
• Cultivate the ethics, equanimity, and egalitarianism of equity meta-governance to launch Equity Moonshot?
• Implement the Rhodium rule of equity meta-governance? "Be fair and kind to all people, the planet, the environment, nature, biodiversity, animals, the soil, and plants."

How might we reconcile what the right and left misunderstand about what equity is NOT?

Many people struggle to describe what they understand as the differences between values and virtues and between equality and equity.

• How might we prevent absolute libertarianism and the neoliberalism of free-market from perpetuating dysfunctional polarizations that arise from toxic divisiveness between the individual values of liberty and freedom and the humanitarian virtues of equity and equality?

Right and left-wingers use different lenses for interpreting the meaning of equity. Without understanding their negative biases, they implicitly fight over the meaning of equity, based on different understandings of this word. These futile conflicts reinforce systemic prejudices against the virtue of fairness.

Our prejudices against equity arise from our conflicting value systems between conservatives and liberals. These toxic conflicts set up the Divisive States of America by amplifying dysfunctional polarizations between the haves and the have-nots; between the coastal states and middle America, between city-urban and rural America, between whites and BIPOC people, and between MAGA and non-MAGA forms of patriotism.

Alt-right self-righteous fundamentalists of either-or thinking ( I'm right-good, and you're wrong-evil) exacerbate dysfunctional polarizations, divisive toxicities, the plagues of distrust and disinformation, the fabrications of manipulative conspiracies, and the cult trances of mass psychosis, such as the BIG LIE. These plagues destroy any hopes of working toward more a just and fair society.

Right-wingers associate equity with the red reflex of communism, socialism, Marxism, and the totalitarian imposition of the "have nots" undeservedly taking from "the haves" and the elites: playing the virtuous victim card.

Equity is NOT about equal outcomes, NOT about equal opportunities, and NOT about treating people equally: such as one vote per person and equal justice under the law.

Equity is NOT about the collectivism of socialism, communism and Marxism. It is NOT about woke social justice warriors robbing people of their individual rights.

Equity is NOT about the emotional regression to fear, paranoia, hate, rage, and the manipulative abuses of virtuous victimhood to perpetrate and perpetuate #BIPID: Biases, Isms, Prejudices, Inequities, and Discriminations.

• Our individual values of liberty and freedom from dividing us about the humanitarian virtues of equity and equality?

Left-wingers associate BIPID issues with white supremacy, racism, patriarchy, colonialism, neoliberalism, the amoral-immoral marketing enablers of unconscious capitalism, the imperalism of neoliberalism, and the neo-terrorism of propaganda machines. They advocate for redressing these injustices of BIPID issues.

At the alt-left extreme, woke social justice warriors of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) movement over-compensate from their emotional wounds and sense of injustices by blaming all whites for racism, and all men of malevolent patriarchy and perpetrators of colonialism.

Equity is NOT about racism rebounding from anti-racism. Anti-racists become racists by making indiscriminate accusations of racism and sexism. This rebound phenomena burn the bridges of allyship between the races and between the sexes.

How might we explore equity and equality through a family-of-origin lens?

Our families are the crucible for shaping how we develop a sense of meaning about what is fair and unfair. As caring parents, we face the equality-equity paradox: the balancing act of child-rearing dilemmas. We endeavor to treat our children equally, but each according to their needs (equity), knowing that there is no perfect answer, that involves trade-offs.

• What were your experiences as a child like, in terms of your parents and grandparents sense of fairness (equality and equity) as you were growing up?
• What were your sibling's experiences and perspectives about fairness of within your family?
• Were boys favored over girls, or vice versa?
• Was the baby child favored over the middle and eldest children, or vice versa?
• Was the disadvantaged child favored over the other children, or was the advantaged child favored over the other children?

Treating children equally can disadvantage the gifted and the limited child to advantage the average child. Too much equity can advantage the gifted and limited child to disadvantage the average child.

• To what extent did you, as parents, talk about the norms of fairness to maximize sibling harmony and minimize sibling rivalry, tensions, and traumas?

How might we co-create a shared meaning about equity?

Liberty and freedom are values. They include the good, the bad, and the ugly.

We are locked into the conflicting languages of values to compete against each other in zero-sum win/lose games. These competitive games take precedence over the harmony of virtues to collaborate in the win/win/win games of doing good for all.

We allow hierarchical values to take supremacy over our constellations of virtues. The reductionist linear view of values has profound detrimental impacts on the ethical development of our civilizations.

Our literacy in the talking about values disables us from developing virtues as our first language. This priority creates a cultural prejudice against the virtues of equity and equality.

In effect, we have a learning language disability in understanding why our virtues should provide ethical guardrails on our values. We are unable to articulate why virtues are more important the values.

Values divide us. Virtues align us.

Liberty and freedom enable the unfair oppressions of poverty, power abuses, and the traumas of BIPID. These factors imprison people's freedom. They stack unfair disadvantages and limited choices for the oppressed.

In contrast, virtues are about doing good for the commons, our humanity, the common good, the healthy well-being of all life, and the health of the planet.

Liberty without the fairness of equity is not freedom. True liberty is about freedom from unfairness and the freedom from people and systems who inflict the unfairness of inequities. Equity is freedom. Freedom is fairness for all.

Equity is the humanitarian virtue of fairness, kindness, and civility: the antidote to the political abuses of power enabled by the shadows and dark sides of liberty and freedom.

Safety and trust are the substrates for families, communities, and cultures to negotiate shared, dynamic, and adaptive meanings of fairness, depending on the ethical context of family, community, organization, religion, and political and cultural identities.

Equity is about redressing uneven fields of escalating unfair opportunities for wealth, education, healthcare, housing, and the ethical growth of virtues for personal, professional, family, community, and cultural development.

Equity involves providing specific resources that enable people with disadvantages and/or particular needs (like learning disabilities) to achieve their fullest potential. Equity is based on an abundance mindset, and not a scarcity one.

Equity is about ensuring that we all have fair opportunities to strive and thrive to our highest level of healthy well-being, each according to our individual needs.

Equity is about co-creating a diverse and overwhelming abundance of human resources, talents, and human capital to solve our wicked problems.

How might we ignite the dream of equity meta-governance to end the political nightmares of BIPID issues and the abuses of power?

Take the time for slow thinking to muse over the implications and meaning of complex questions about #EquityMoonshot: co-design and build an equitable, regenerative, and sustainable future for the benefit of all.

How might we, as equity leaders, mentors, mavens, muses, and learning design architects, align in posing complex questions to co-elevate human consciousness to:

• Evoke new ways of thinking about how to redress the systemic determinants of #BIPID?
• Inspire self-reflection and contemplation to set the stages to co-create generative-strategic dialogues and civil discourse about how to solve our wicked problems?
• Deepen our learning capabilities and capacities about how to cultivate equity meta-governance needed to launch Equity Moonshot.
• Wake up the anti-woke unwoke about how their reductionist thinking and self-righteous fundamentalism are incapable of solving our wicked problems?
• Stop history from repeating itself with cycles of progressive democracy and regressive populism that prevent the ethical and psychological evolution of our civilization?

Across all systems, positive and negative influences compete to prevent, minimize or exacerbate the abuse of power and the moral use of empowerment.

Complex questions call for additional ethical questions about how to redress our moral failures in developing the equity meta-governance needed to co-create a fair, free, and flourishing future to benefit all.

Learn more about the political impediments to equity meta-governance

The designers of plutocracy and technocratic neoliberalism have created systems that escalate inequities and meritocracy that provide unfair advantages for the elites and unfair disadvantages to working people.

How might we build #EquityMoonshot story movements of lifelong intergenerational transformational learning to:

• Redress the plagues of BIPID issues needed to solve our complex webs of self-inflicted wicked problems?
• Design AI-enabled collaborative online platforms that create exponential opportunities of accelerated learning to cultivate equity meta-governance, reduce the digital divides, and co-create a fair-free-flourishing future to benefit all on a healthy planet, in the spirit of MLK?

This calls for addressing the political impediments in addressing these ethical aspirations.

Learn more about equity meta-governance