Ch. 5: Unifying a Metasophist Society
5.1 Societal Identity: How and Why?
Travelling through Europe, one is often struck by the spires, fine houses, and grand public buildings that create the skyline of the medieval city. Equally striking is the fact that few landmarks of the same calibre are being constructed today, despite society being many times wealthier. This reveals a lack of interest in creating an attractive environment, and an indifference to the future. From where did this come?
In older times, the city environment was largely created by aristocrats, wealthy merchants, the clergy, and other religious orders. The aristocrat and merchant would have identified with their genealogical line, and were not as geographically mobile as their modern equivalents. Thus we saw the construction of great houses to increase both their prestige and that of their future descendants.
Religious organisations built to honour the glory of God: an even more durable concept than family lineage. Cathedrals, churches, and monasteries were thus built to last for centuries. Projects built with a similar lifespan in mind are rarely seen today: modern motivating ideals are weaker, and besides, money that would once have been used to build is now mostly used to maintain.
But these are not the only motivations that can lead to grand buildings. A different psychological mechanism called “civic euergetism” was in operation in Ancient Rome, whereby the wealthy made an extravagant gesture to their city by funding new buildings, renovating old ones, or paying for lavish games.[60] For the wealthy, this was a norm: not to give would have been dishonourable. In return the wealthy received priesthoods, titles such as “patron of the city”, and statues and inscriptions which persist to the present day.
These examples illustrate that a society’s way of creating meaning and identity has implications for the time horizons over which decisions are made, and this visibly manifests in the urban environment. If the quality of architecture has fallen, it is because our old ways of generating solidarity have weakened or are channeled elsewhere. The Roman idea of giving to the city was replaced with the Christian idea of giving to the poor, which culminated in the welfare state. With their flock on the way out, churches are selling, not building. And the importance of the family as a source of identity has weakened with the rise of individualism and the breakdown of heritable occupations.
But the autonomous existence is not for everyone. A case in point is fanatical devotion to football teams, an imitation of identity which satisfies a need for symbolism, socialisation, and social recognition.[61] Some have even gone as far to suggest that it is a substitute religion.[62] From a Metasophist perspective, immense emotional energy invested in sports is perhaps misdirected; the triumph of your favoured team will not heal any sick or clean any streets. An exception to this is actual participation in sports, which has social and health benefits.
This will towards community is not limited to sports fans. It has also seeped into the political and intellectual debate, as people will often take and thoughtlessly defend the position of their particular tribe.
Nationalism temporarily provided an effective group identity, before it self-radicalised and sent millions to their death. The result of this is that only 25pc of people in Western Europe say they would be willing to fight for their country; this compares to a global average of 60pc, and 73pc in Turkey.[63]
If such an attitude persists in a world of nationalistic powers such as China, Europe will find it difficult to maintain what independence it still has. In the event of a trade or even a military war, more nationalistic countries will be able to bear equal pain with greater equanimity. This gives a relative economic minnow such as Russia, which has a fraction of Europe’s wealth, a psychological advantage. Consider the fact that European and American sanctions against Russia only seemed to stir nationalist sentiment there further, with the result that Putin’s approval ratings actually rose.[64] At the same time, Europe continuously wobbled on maintaining the sanctions, partly due to persistent lobbying from German and Italian business interests.[65] In the meantime, the lack of solidarity hobbles any attempt to reinvigorate our societies.
5.2 Conjuring a Transnational Identity
The key question for Metasophism is how can one create a transnational identity which inspires a high degree of solidarity, without the exclusionary element propagated by tribalism? And how could this be applied to a diverse cultural community such as Europe?
The common rebuttal at this point is that people will always prioritise their national identity over any transnational or European identity. In this view, national identities, closely associated with language, are eternal and insuperable. Such a view ignores the fact that a European identity existed before the concept of nation had even been articulated. When Europe emerged from the Dark Ages and embarked upon the Crusades, none fought for the nation, but many did for Christendom. And for a long time in the Middle Ages, the idea of Christendom was interchangeable with that of Europe.[66] Pope Pius II, for example, exhorted Christians “to drive the Turk out of Europe.” When the idea of Christendom finally fell out of fashion, its sole conceptual successor was Europe.
As for the claim that a common language is the fundamental prerequisite to both identity and democracy, the strong identity of the multilingual but efficient Swiss society nullifies this argument. In fact, identity has proved to be quite malleable throughout the ages. For example, French identity was heavily modified and deepened by the Third Republic which began in 1871.
But how does one build an identity? In his book on Britain and Ireland, Norman Davies noted that there were several pillars to British identity – namely, the Empire (and the institutions needed to manage it such as the navy), the Monarchy and Aristocracy, the Westminster Parliament, and finally the English language.
Since 1945, the Empire has dissolved and the navy has been diminished. Fewer shared experiences of foreign lands and seas bind the different peoples of the UK. In addition, the aristocracy has weakened, the powers of Westminster have been partly devolved, and the Protestant religion has lost the rallying power it derived from British contempt of continental Catholicism. The decline of most of the above institutions has coincided with the increasing assertiveness of those proclaiming an exclusive English, Scottish or Welsh identity; the prime example of this is the recent referendum in Scotland to leave the UK.
British identity thus seems to be an elastic concept, the product of shared emotions and experiences. But where these do not exist, they can be created — and so our method for creating a transnational and panethnic identity gains some definition.
Some weak common experiences exist, such as education. It is weak in the sense that it is usually regionally focused, so students do not meet people from different parts of the nation. And for many, especially those not academically inclined, secondary school education is a negative experience. What kind of programme then can we create that allows participants to get to know people from different regions and social strata, while also benefiting both them and society as a whole?
5.3 A Programme for Cultural Renewal
Past surges in creativity have generally occurred when a large number of highly creative people have clustered in a given area. This has been true for philosophers, composers, and artists.[67] The Renaissance itself is epitomised by Florence, perhaps the best example of a creative cluster.
The same pattern prevails in the modern age. The Silicon Valley cluster enables entrepreneurs to easily find investors and talent, thereby raising the survival and growth prospects of the companies based there. Such is their usefulness that many countries are today are trying to kickstart their own clusters. But few have succeeded in doing so, the one exception being Israel, which is unusually successful at creating startups. In 2015, Israel attracted the highest level of venture capital per capita in the world.[68] How did they manage this?
The trick lies in the way their system of conscription brings together talented people to develop new technologies. In Israel, all non-Arab citizens above the age of 18 are conscripted into the army for at least two years. In Europe, conscription has negative connotations, not least because it can be a boring experience. In Israel, however, allocation is determined by the aptitude of the conscript. For example, those most skilled in computer science and technology are assigned to Unit 8200. These talented individuals are formed into teams and given missions, which can sometimes involve developing a technology to address a specific problem identified by the military. The training instills valuable skills. For example, determination, improvisation, and innovation are fostered by the mission-oriented culture which dictates that the objective must be reached, no matter the resources or difficulties.[69] Officers are also taught leadership and intensive teamwork skills. After completing their service, many go on to establish companies using the knowledge and networks they gained during their time in the military.
The benefits of this system go beyond military and culture. For example, one study found that mandatory military duty increases the life expectancy of Israeli men by 3.6 years. As a result Israeli men are in the top five of OECD countries in terms of life expectancy.[70] This arises from pushing a large number of young adults though an intensive programme of physical exercise at just the age where people tend to stop exercising. The incidence of diseases caused by a lack of exercise, such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease and certain types of cancers, has fallen. So even if service takes up a few years of an Israeli’s life, it compensates them at the end, with significant healthcare savings to the Israeli state in the meanwhile.
Were a similar system to be established in Europe and the US, minus the military dimension, the potential benefits could be immense. To address the specific challenges of the West it must elevate the potential of the individual; amplify the level of innovation of each country; and generate emotional ties across the different classes, regions, and ethnicities in society. We could call this programme the Metasophist Youth Fellowship.
The new education system outlined in the previous chapter would allow us to see where each person has the greatest potential. Then, the service should bring them together to undertake common or related tasks. How would such tasks be decided? For projects of a technological nature, tasks could be determined by whatever great projects of the day the society is attempting. For example, say society wants to develop robotics for space exploration and mining.
Such technology would require advances in a number of different areas and co-ordination across a number of teams. For example, setting up a fully automatised robotic supply chain would involve robots mining and refining material, and using 3D printing in order to build new components or robots. These new robots would then be used to increase the throughput of the supply chain or for some other manufacturing activity. Small discrete projects in this space, on Earth, could be used as a way to introduce the young to the relevant technology, and get them thinking about the needed breakthroughs.
This programme could also be applied to many other fields, such as culture. Just as cinema was enabled by the invention of the motion picture, could the emergence of new technologies such as the hologram and virtual reality means there are new art combinations to be made? If such a cluster were to be created, then it would require a mixture of technologists and artists. Depending on their nature, the projects to be worked on need not be decided by the state or from the top, but could be decided by the participants themselves. How the latter could be facilitated is discussed in the next chapter.
The above projects are quite cognitive; the interests of those more oriented towards the practical must also be facilitated. For example, those interested in healthcare could work in a hospital, perhaps in another country to make the experience more interesting.
We must also decide where such clusters should be put. It is possible that cities in decline could become the target. If new businesses arose from these clusters, they could regenerate downtrodden regions and cities — something achieved with difficulty in our liberal economic system.
Finally, in order to participate effectively members would need to be at least sixteen to eighteen years old; prior to this their knowledge may not be sufficient. For some projects, they will need to be even older. This raises the question of what should be done for those younger?
Youth Development
Many of the key markers of a declining society — lack of social integration, delinquent behaviour, and addiction — arise in youth. Oftentimes, such problems can seem intractable, and tired approaches such as informing people about the dangers seems to have no impact. But there is a way forward, as has been demonstrated in the example of Iceland where the ideas of American psychologist Harvey Milkman were applied.[71]
The essential idea of the Youth in Iceland programme was to give children and teenagers ways to get natural highs, so they would not need to resort to the artificial highs created by substances. They offered to teach children anything they wanted; music, dance, martial arts, or sport. In addition, they were taught other life skills. Parents were encouraged to spend a certain quantity of time with their children.
The effects were impressive. The number of fourteen and fifteen year-olds who reported often spending time with their parents doubled between 1997 and 2012, from 23 percent to 46 percent, while the percentage participating in organised sports at least four times a week increased from 24 percent to 42 percent. More importantly, for the same group, the percentage who had been drunk in the last month fell from 42 percent in 1998 to 5 percent in 2016. The number who had ever used cannabis went from 17 percent to 7 percent, and those smoking daily decreased from 23 percent to 3 percent.
Going further, the enhanced education system would allow us to offer an even greater variety of activities. For all of those who have indicated a certain interest in a certain area — whether it be creating miniature robots or composing pieces of music — over the summer months they could be brought together to work on projects of common interest. This could be used as a preliminary and screening stage for the more advanced clusters detailed earlier. This could even be done on a pan-European or pan-Western basis, allowing the participants to exchange cultural insights.
However, this system has potential in one other area. Given the wide range of activities to be undertaken, it can serve as a way select, test, and train the future leaders for society: the subject of the next chapter.
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Endnotes
[60] Peter Brown. Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD. Princeton University Press, 2012, p.62
[61] Pedro Dionasio, Carmo Leal, and Luiz Moutinho. “Fandom affiliation and tribal behaviour: a sports marketing application”. In: Qualitative Market Research: An In- ternational Journal 11.1 (2008), pp. 17–39. URL: https://doi.org/10.1108/13522750810845531
[62] François Fulconis and Gilles Pache. “Football passion as a religion: the four dimensions of a sacred experience”. In: Society and Business Review 9.2 (2014), pp. 166–185. DOI: 10.1108/SBR-09-2013-0064. URL: https://doi.org/10.1108/SBR-09-2013-0064
[63] Sophie Kirby. “Would you be willing to die for your country?” In: Deutsche Welle (May 2015). URL: https://www.dw.com/en/would-you-be-willing-to-die-for-your-country/a-18487089
[64] Andreas Beyer and Benno Zogg. “Time to Ease Sanctions on Russia”. In: CSS Policy Perspectives (2018). URL: http://www.css.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/cis/center-for-securities-studies/pdfs/PP6-4_2018.pdf
[65] https://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/63706
[66] Dennis Hay. Europe: The Emergence of an Idea. The Edinburgh University Press, 1957
[67] John O’Hagan and Alan Walsh. “Historical Migration and Geographic Clustering of Prominent Western Philosophers”. In: Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics 34.1 (Apr. 2017), pp. 11–32. URL: https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/homoec/v34y2017i1d10.1007_s41412-016-0033-0.html
[68] John McKenna. “Israel is a tech titan. These 5 charts explain its startup success.” https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/05/tiny-israel-is-a-tech-titan-these-5-charts-explain-its-startup-success/. Accessed: 2018-10-12. 2017
[69] Dan Senor and Saul Singer. “What Next for the Start-Up Nation?.” In: Wilson Quarterly 34.3 (2010), pp. 62–66. ISSN: 03633276. URL: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=52106658&site=ehost-live
[70] Alex Weinreb. “Why Is Israel’s Life Expectancy So High?” In: State of the Nation Report: Society, Economy and Policy in Israel. Ed. by Avi Weiss. Jerusalem: Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, 2016, pp. 437–461
[71] Emma Young. “Iceland knows how to stop teen substance abuse but the rest of the world isn’t listening”. In: Mosaic Science (Jan. 2017). URL: https://mosaicscience.com/story/iceland-prevent-teen-substance-abuse/