We need to be better and our societies need to be better
if we want to reach equilibrium together.
We Need to Be Better
The better the citizens, the better the societies.
Indeed, since societies are only the results of our individual, group and collective actions, the more competent we are the better the societies in which we live will be.
Unfortunately, presently I estimate that our overall average competency level to be between 15% and 25%. This means that at best, we are “Advance Beginners.”
This is very low. ☹️ 
To have a better understanding
If we use hockey as an analogy to better understand how low our overall competence level is, then we barely know:
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- How to skate,
- How to shoot,
- The rules of the game.
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Sometimes we even shoot on our own goaltender. 😟 ☹️
To be competent hockey players, they need to have developed their skating skills.
They also have to develop their shooting skills in order to make good passes and score goals. They need to know when it is time to be on the offensive or when it is time to concentrate on defense. Finally, they also need to know the various rules that govern the sports.
This level of competency is usually achieved at the Pee Wee level.
A Malignant Societal Tumor
This general ignorance level is one of the many cancers that plague our societies.
Some of the symptoms associated with this cancer is the:
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- Present rise of conspiracy theories,
- Lack of trust in our institutions,
- Withdrawal from the overall electoral process.
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The latter further reduces our level of knowledge as we do not try to identify and understand the problems that affect our societies.
We need to be better. We thus need to increase our Citizen Quotient from 20% to 60%. Thus to become competent as per Dreyfus and Dreyfus’s model of skill acquisition.
Our societies need to better
The better our societies, the better the citizens.
Indeed, if our individual, group and our collective actions are such that they facilitate:
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- the development of our fellow citizens as well as
- their social integration
- their societal integration,
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then most of our individual and collective needs are met which create a certain social order. Our societies are thus better and the citizens that live within their boundaries are more competent.
Unfortunately, of the 195 countries in the world, only a handful have reached a certain social order, thus equilibrium.
The countries that have achieved a certain equilibrium, have done so despite our general ignorance level.
In these countries, citizens, including politicians, civic leaders and public servants, have intuitively chosen a path that is compatible with a form of social order. However even these countries are at risk.
Indeed, our general ignorance level negatively affects our capacity to prevent, solve or manage our various social and societal conflicts.
As we try to change these tools to help us better meet our individual and collective needs, we often underestimate or overestimate their impacts. These changes create conflicts as citizens are unable to meet some or many of their needs be they individual, collective or both.
This disequilibrium varies from society to society, but overtime the evolution / devolution of societal order and disorder will happen many times. This is called the pendulum effect.
In the animated gif above, time is accelerated to give us an idea of how change in economic, political or moral orientations can affect our societies by increasing or decreasing the level of conflict.
Of course, all societies evolve differently and the speed at which a change can happen can be very long, like a few centuries, or very short, a few years.
The January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is a reminder that social order, and democracy which is needed to create a sustainable social order is fragile.
In this case, a few things, namely the pandemic, QAnon, and a charismatic leader whose intuition was lacking, influenced the process.
What Can We Do to Stop This Pendulum Effect?
Fortunately, we now have access to a new management science, called SOCIETALogy, which can help us to drastically reduce this pendulum effect.
The new science studies societies as organizations and citizenship as a profession. Studying both the role of citizens, thus citizenship, and the way they organize, thus societies, makes it possible, as we can see in the image below, to align both the governance of our societies and our citizen ethics through best practices.
SOCIETALogy also provides us with much needed scientific models which we can finally use to better manage our societies and to become more competent citizens.
SOCIETALogically speaking:
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- a good society is a balanced society, one where most of our individual, group and collective actions help us meet the vast majority of our individual and collective needs and where the knowledge and beliefs we use to create the laws, rules and regulations as well as customs and habits, help us attain and maintain a sustainable social order. When this is achieved, we thus live in a balanced society.
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- a good citizen is a competent citizen, one who has acquired the necessary personal, social and societal knowledge as well as develop the associated skills. The more competent citizens are, the more they make decisions that are positive for:
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- Their physical, psychological, mental, social and financial health.
- Their interrelations and interactions
- The functioning and development of their governments and their societies.
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As we get closer to these ideal models:
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- the more sustainable will be our social order and
- the less will we suffer from the pendulum effect.
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To Initiate the Process
To help us become better citizens and make our societies better, I am soft launching the first ever Community of Practice (CoP) for Citizen. (CoPc).
A CoP is a knowledge management tool that professionals use to help them:
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- share new knowledge,
- identify best practices,
- solve problems and
- find innovative solutions.
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This allows them to become better professionals, which has a positive impact on society’s perception of their profession. This helps ensure the succession, as this reputation attracts more young people.
Finally, the more competent professionals are the more efficient the organizations that hire them become, which improves their own reputation.
Hence the goal of the CoPc is to help citizens become more competent, increase the overall perception that citizens have of themselves and to transform their societies into balanced societies.
The CoPc will be launched in two steps: the soft launch and the official launch.
Soft Launch
During this initial period, we will look at the various cancers that affect our societies. They will be presented in the following order and concern our:
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- Low level of knowledge: what causes this and what can we do?
- Electoral processes: what is wrong with them and what can we do?
- Freedom of speech: Do we have too much freedom?
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The first discussions concern our most devastating cancer: our general ignorance level which is at the heart of our low Citizen Quotient. We will look at what causes this ignorance and identify potential solutions.
The second subject as to do with a damaging and devastating cancer: our electoral processes. There are many problems that affect our electoral processes. We thus need to have a discussion on this subject.
Finally, our third dialogue concerns our sacrosanct freedom of expression. Yes, we should be able to talk about any subject, but should we have laws that govern how we use it?
After these first three discussions are well on their way, I will gradually make the following topics public.
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- War and peace:
- Hatred against governments
- Discrimination
- Over Accumulation
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These cancers also affect our societies and we need to address them.
Once all these subjects have been made public, then we will have an official launch.
Official Launch
The goal of the Citizens & Societies‘s CoPc is to assist us to identify and implement the various societal best practices that will help us create and maintain a sustainable social order. These changes will drastically reduce the pendulum effect and will allow us to better meet both our individual and collective needs.
To help us transform our societies into balanced societies, I will follow these steps:
I will first explain how the knowledge and beliefs that we decide to transform into laws, rules and regulations as well as customs and habits,
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- positively or negatively affect our social order,
- facilitate or impedes our liberty,
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both of which affect our freedom index.
Second, I will explain the role of our legislative assemblies and how our electoral processes should be designed to optimize the functioning and development of both our board of directors, thus our legislative assemblies and our governments.
Finally, I will look at the various departments we create and propose changes so that all these departments are compatible with the development of a balanced society.
Want to participate in this innovative new initiative?
Join here and be the first to share your thoughts. 😉
I hope to see you there. 😎
