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Hierarchies, Structures and World Federations

In my opinion, one of the conceptual obstacles toward designing a new world governance system, is the reliance on old categories of scale. Too much attention is given on the green avoidance of "hierarchy" itself, and not enough attention is paid to the epistemic analysis of "hierarchies", and its limitations with respect to complex systems such as ecologies, economies, socio-spatial identities, and technologies. Over reliance on simplisitc versions of scalar relations, such as constructivist, inclusivist hierarchies (atom-molecule-cell-tissue-organ-mammal; local -city-state-nation-supranational-global) entails trying to fit a emerging future (turquoise) world governance into orange-level categories and orange-level epsitemic structural framework. Our ideas of a turquoise governance system must be more radical than what is being currently described by the integral community. We need to shift our idea of hierarchy beyond green, NOT by resorting to former conscriptions (a house, a senate, a judicial ... branch) but to radically transformative ideas of scalar relations. Fromthis radically new epistemic framework, orange would be able to "see" hierarchical relationships that warrantee values that make sense to orange, and green would at the same time be able to "see" processes that warrantee rights and equalities that make sense to green. There ARE scalar frameworks that are being conceptualized today, mostly in the area of ecological-social systems theories, that allow for complex scalar relations that scale hierarchically along certain variables, and demonstrate emergent cross-temporal and cross-spatial scalar relations (that don't look like inclusivist - nested- hierachies) at a higher level of analysis. Insistence on the categories of inclusivist hierarchies will be the linch pin for the integral community in going forward with successfully conceptualizing a new world governance system. At the heart of this linchpin is the foracity with which integral theorists will fight to maintain their AQAL theoretical notions of holarchies based on inclusivist (nested) hierarchies, versus the ability for integral theorists to develop new conceptual frameworks that emerge from higher cognitive capacities.

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Growth to Goodness?

If we are going to really be serious about designing a world governance, another important concern is the notion of "Growth to Goodness" that Zach Stein, among others, has addressed especially with respect to the developmental researchers in the integral community. Cognitive complexity is one line; moral goodness is another line. One of the questions I have concerns moral proximity. One might be able to think and test at moral stage 3, but if you look at the actual lives people lead, the actual decisions they come to make, they might not actually be functioning at the stage they test to. Blue knows when its sinning, but sins none-the-less. Our leaders compromise the most fundamental moral situations over and over again. There has been work done by Zach Stein that demonstrates that having facilitators can greatly improve the functional-skill level at which people perform cognitively. Without facilitators, people function at significantly lower levels than they can test to. If this is also true of moral performance (as to moral understanding)... what might we design as "moral facilitators" to leaders in a governance system?