This is the fourth in this week’s series of essays on conflict: 1) Conflict: The Norm of Current Civilization 2) Programmed for Conflict and When Lose/Win becomes Lose/Lose.
Remember CONFLICT is the struggle to avoid loss—the struggle to avoid being hurt.
Barry Carter
In addition to having been conditioned for a lose/win environment we have also evolved from it. Lose/win is our reality. As we look at the animal world and all of nature we see lose/win. One animal must die in order for another to live. Eat or be eaten is the rule. Within groups of animals there is a control hierarchy and pecking order, just like society and companies. Lion prides continuously battle for territory with other lion prides and hyena packs. This battling occurs with what appears to be the same fierce hatred as that which we’ve witnessed between racial, religious and ethnic groups. This is the reality from whence we evolved. Though advanced society is separate from this activity, our paradigm and social institutions still reflect this reality. Lose/win then is our evolved reality from millions of years of evolution. With lose/win being our reality, how is it possible to change this reality?
Break Points and Paradoxes
Evolution puts forth the concept of adapt or die. It clearly shows that species must adapt to new and changing environments or cease to exist. Win-win cannot be done half way. It’s “win-win or no deal.” This then is our challenge. We must adapt for a new win-win environment or face extinction, or at best a giant leap backwards and maybe another chance in another thousand years. As radical as it sounds, it appears as though humanity must have some type of evolutionary leap forward. Humanity must have a break with the lose/win reality of the past, in order to continue moving ahead.
The latest theories about evolution put forth the concept that evolution works in leaps and bounds, not in slow, steady change. It is not such a radical thought that as the universe evolves into consciousness and intelligence, at different points in this evolution there must be radical breaks with the past–breakpoints where the old rules are simply not applicable anymore. When a being cannot make a break with the past as the environment dictates, it ceases to exist. We appear to be at one of these breakpoints in our evolution. It appears that we either are on the verge of a mass spiritual awakening, driven by needs at the top of the hierarchy, or we are on the verge of mass annihilation as shown in Infinite Wealth.
Point of Decision and Our Dilemma
Today, as we are poised on the verge of an Information Age, the environment we face is one driven by freedom of the individual customer. What is a customer driven movement which works based upon partnering, trust and win-win, other than the golden rule, “Do unto other as you would like to have them do unto you.” Since wealth creation, business and work is all about meeting human needs, it ties directly into the golden rule. As everyone becomes a customer, supplier and partner and we shift to win-win and abundance, the golden rule must be the new rule.
Our paradox, however, is as follows:
The individual and individual customer is being empowered by the knowledge power through information technology, of an Information Age.
In order to exceed continually rising individual customer’s expectations, there must be the tremendous individual freedom and intelligence of free humans to trade their work, ideas, creations and knowledge freely with no restrictions.
In order to handle the level of individual freedom required, humanity needs higher levels of emotional and spiritual intelligence.
In order to attain the higher levels of emotional and spiritual intelligence we must see the win-win, abundant, infinite wealth reality before us. People are not likely to give up lose/win behavior and reality if they think it will cause them to lose; doing so is not practical.
It, however, seems impossible to see the win-win in front of us, when lose/win is reflected virtually everywhere throughout the world, regardless of where we look.
The Solution
In order to see the win-win before us we must take a leap forward out of the lose/win reality from where we evolved. We must “see things differently.” We must have a miracle “a shift in our perceptions; a metanoia ” a shift of mind. It is possible because our expectations create reality. This can happen in many ways. Mass privatization can help us see the win-win reality because of the directness and practical reality of the win-win structure.
Copyright 2000 by Barry Carter
About Barry Carter.
Infinite Wealth is available at the author’s website, and can be purchased in bookstores everywhere including Amazon and Barnes & Nobel. There is also an abbreviated free online version, which has been reposed at Future Positive:
See: 1) The Rise of a Win Win Civilization 2) A Personal Journey of Discovery 3) Why Corporations Don’t Work 4) The Emancipation of Capitalism 5) Mass Privatization: Organizing in the Information Age 6) Decentralized Wealth Creation 7) The Infinite Wealth Potential of Liberated Humans 8) The Mandate for Win-Win Wealth Creation 9) Breakpoint: Why You Must Act Now 10) SYNOCRACY: True Democracy Through Synergy 11) THE SHIFT: Awaking to a Win-Win World 12) The Synthesis of a Win-Win World and 13)Vision for a Synergic Transition.