Thriving

What are the essential features of any thriving human community?  What would we expect to see in any prospering communities of the future, say 100 or 200 years hence? What attitudes and behaviors are not only expressive of the health of communities but conducive of that social well-being?  

It seems to me there are three areas we want any communities of the future to be active in: the exercise of free-will, the introduction of novelty and the maintenance of peace, the first has to do the present, the second with the future and the last with the past, and each practiced commonly at the grassroots level by individuals, as well as by institutions and also by the larger community considered culturally and politically.  I don't presuppose any particular beliefs or traditions, but the idea that free-will, innovation and justice are both positive and possible represent a certain philosophical orientation. 

Each of these three areas of activity can in turn be thought of in three aspects, and here I rely much on the work of philosopher Stephen Cave regarding free-will, and economist Edmund Phelps regarding innvovation.

The first aspect has to do with ideas; thriving societies conceive of alternatives to the status quo, to standard courses of action, to the common assumption. The second aspect has to do with decision-making; prospering societies initiate enterprises, make choices between options and resolve conflicts between claims. The third aspect has to do with carry-though; healthy societies invest in change, persist in projects and consistently carry on the work of reconciliation.  

Looked at another way, innovation involves first imagining new things and new ways of doing things,  then realizing these these ideas in objects and processes, and finally supporting these things as they transform society with money or committment to adoption.

Free-will involves, in different situations, coming up with different options, then making rational choices between them, and finally exerting will-power to actually carry through decisions despite distractions and difficulties.

Peace-making involves researching and recognizing the way things actually are, then resolving disputes, and finally continuously engaging in the work of bridging differences. 

How any of these activities might be carried out may be different from group to group and time to time but that they happen is, I think, essential for any human community to thrive. Every community, of course,  allows freedom, innovation and resolution sometimes to some of its members, but a society that prospers encourages and enables them bottom to top and always. 

 Each of these activities and its activities can be observed, even measured. For instance, with regard peace-making, journalistic energy as well as citizen interest in keeping informed even about unwelcome news suggest health in a community.  Likewise, law courts with settlements, legislatures with laws, and neighbors with agreements regularly settling disputes are promoting prosperity. Finally, when building codes, for instance, are respected marking the line between safety and convenience (or profit) or when strangers sit down share meals, reconciliation is happening.  It would be well for individuals and communities to monitor the signs of energy of each of these activities. 

Can any of these be taught? Why not? For instance, encouraging people to imagine multiple courses of action in different situations, to reason their way to decisions, and to not give up without good cause a course of action once decided on, will result in the empowerment and extension of their practical freedom.  

Elsewhere I've written about what I consider the key practices of hospitality, friendship and exploration, especially as they relate to encounters. Thriving individuals and communities engage in them continually. 

In fact, this prospering, this thriving, this health as exhibited on different scales may be thought of as 'livingness,' a  word I've used to speak about the openness of things to what may be or what can happen.  

If I were to fall asleep to wake up in the days of my great, great...children and discover that they, their institutions and communities were engaged in innovation, exercising real freedom, and actively promoting concord between the various conflicting interests a free and innovative and diverse community must have, then I'd say, however strange everything might seem to me, that all was well.