'WE" has a dark side?

The ‘WE’ that I’ll refer to in this article is a phenomenon that applies to any group of three or more people – “Three actually is a crowd!”  Among 3 people there are 6 relationships in play (count them); among 10 people there are 90 relationships in play; if a group grows to 101 active members then there are 100 times more relationships than there are people in the group. 

The ‘WE’ I refer to then, is the energetic average of all that relationship energy – and for better or for worse it’s a much stronger force than any of its participating members.

That energetic average quickly becomes the culture or the ‘status quo’ of the group.  We have all been immersed in our society’s status quo from birth as an invisible context for living.  ‘WE’ provides a supportive structure that nurtures, develops and shapes us into adults who can contribute to its continued existence.  Of course a ‘WE’ the size of society is not homogeneous – there are many flavours and textures within a society that allow each of us to find our own place of belonging within the greater whole. 

But every ‘WE’ also does all it can to limit its members to that unwritten ‘status quo’ charter.  In fact every ‘WE’ has a dark side, whose motto is “Death to nonbelievers!”  Now while that may only be literally true for some religious fanatics, for every ‘WE’ there is a dark side that leans in that direction and does whatever it takes to maintain the status quo.

It's easy to discover the dark side of any ‘WE’ you belong to – for example:

• get personally involved with someone from a different culture and test your family’s reactions
• come out as being gay, or green, or even organic
• question the rational basis of your religious upbringing
• question the ethics of your company’s profit motives
• step outside the public service C.A.R.E. policy (cover arse, retain employment)
• join a personal development movement

Here’s how the dark side works to maintain the status quo:

• at first it resists – “You’re crazy!”
• then it tolerates – “You’re the odd one out in our group”,
• then it isolates – “Go to your strange meetings but don’t try converting us”,
• then it marginalises – “You do know it’s a cult and that you’re being brainwashed don’t you – cults are dangerous”,
• then it outlaws – “The authorities are investigating their possibly illegal activities”,
• and finally it eliminates – “We’re moving to ban fringe activities like this for the protection of… the status quo!”

Self-preservation at a collective level I guess.  The sad point is that the dark side does not distinguish between what is aiming to enhance life and what is aiming to diminish life – it only notices distance from its gravitational centre!

It seems that the only way that ‘WE’ changes is generationally – every 22 years or so there is a very significant shift, not brought about by some wise higher authority but by natural evolution.  Each new generation sets out to change the status quo in an entirely predictable way.  They reject the obvious excesses that the previous generation (their parents) stood for, and move to correct that.  But at the same time they fail to appreciate the subconscious drive that was also established by the parents’ generation, which has been the status quo since the new generation’s birth.  Such a generational shift is happening right now.

Gen Y is leading the current generational shift and using ‘social media’ and ‘occupy’ and ‘Anonymous’ as ways to assert the power of the collective over the individualistic win/lose excesses of the previous generation.  The previous generation still has the hold on power even though its ways are becoming more and more obvious, and less and less acceptable.  Its days are numbered and many conflicts of value systems are certain.  This is evolutionary, unavoidable and subconsciously driven, but there’s a very interesting side effect...

When we reject an old status quo for a new one, we tend to ‘throw out the baby with the bathwater’.  The rejection of the old individualistic values also rejects the value of singular truth – that is, truth arrived at through scientific rigour (what we used to call ‘facts’) – in favour of a truth agreed by collective beliefs.  Published, formal scientific research becomes ‘just another opinion’, carrying no more weight than what the collective can talk itself into, aided of course by marketing spin, conspiracy theories, rumour, hope and huge amounts of projection!

No-one has a greater need to identify with and represent the rapidly shifting status quo than our politicians – their careers are built on it.  As collective belief becomes the dominant power it becomes easier to dismiss any ‘facts’ that might impede a desired reality – like man-made climate change, an unsustainable economic model, or anything else that portends an unpalatable future.

Mind you, the new status quo will centre on the primacy of the collective and bring many good things to that collective over the next 10-15 years, such as rebuilt public infrastructure that has been neglected for decades, an end to the excesses of corporate greed and the paucity of ineffective government.  But we have a long and rough road to traverse between here and there.

So meanwhile politicians try to identify with a powerbase of fickle collective belief influenced by the tweet of the day, rather than a personal vision for the country or an objective policy strategy.  When the status quo is in transition, the dark side will try to eliminate both the good and the bad aspects of the old order. 

Stay aware – and don’t be tempted by the cookies!