Introduction
Writings is a journal of sorts, a very fluid journal that is undergoing constant editing and revision. It doesn’t offer a formal argument or historical account. What’s offered here are questions and some common themes.
The most important theme being Cultural Transcendence. Cultural Transcendence can best be seen as a mode of problem-solving.
In fact, in a sense, it is arguably the highest level of problem-solving, and as such, one that offers the greatest challenge and the greatest reward for the individual problem-solver. Not only is it richly rewarding as a subject of study, activity and experience, but it is also timely, relevant, and useful to anyone willing to meet its challenges and experience its dizzying heights, as well as the joy that not infrequently accompanies both.
I would add that Cultural Transcendence is the solution to the many problems created by the political Right and Left, both of which are intellectually, socially, and morally bankrupt. Respectively, they stand for little more than stagnation and destruction, and lots of polarized and obnoxious virtue signalling (in an unsuccessful and dishonest attempt to cover their tracks). Also, there is the matter of Charisma.
We have seen any number of charismatic leaders, from the far Left to the far Right, appear on, and disappear from, the world stage, especially over the last one hundred years. And how has that worked out for us?
That's a rheotircal question, of course. It has worked out badly and should have worked out badly, and will continue to work out badly. Why?
Because charisma is co-dependency, that's why. It's one thing to be inspired by someone to be the best one can be. It's another thing entirely to make someone else the source of your sense of value and identity. Let's put it this way: Healthy Countries Survive Bad Presidents - Unhealthy ones don't!
Why? Because unhealthy countries put the personality of a President before the principles of governing. And what applies to countries applies to cultures in general, and institutional culture in particular.
Healthy Cultures Survive Bad Leaders - Unhealthy cultures don't!
The question now becomes, What is the difference between bad leaders of unhealthy cultures and good leaders of healthy ones?
Put bluntly, Bad Leaders Scapegoat! Good Leaders Don't!
This is true for all leaders, whether of families, cultures, countries, companies, or civilizations. No social institution or culture, large or small, can survive bad leaders whose power is scapegoat-dependent. Why?
Well certainly not because I said so. The reason is because scapegoat-dependent leadership is the exact opposite of effective social management (for more see High Culture? WTF?).
Such unhealthy behavior is not merely symptomatic of a decline that leads to ruin. It is ruin. That is to say, squalor and non-stop violence for the people, power and plunder for the elite. That kind of ruin.
Cultural Diremption
Speaking of symptomatic, in a deeper sense, this political split and polarization between the Right and Left is itself symptomatic of a much bigger problem, the cultural diremption between You/Me, Us/Them, Either/Or, etc. This cultural diremption, which goes all the way back to the opening pages of The Book of Genesis, itself based on a charismatic relationship (between God and Man), ie; something codependent and therefore unhealthy and unhappy*, is the real cancer of the human race (thereby making the accusation hurled at Whites by the likes of a Susan Sontag a matter of psychological projection and moral reversal, two things that go together and are also found in The Book of Genesis).
And since both groups, Us and Them, are made up of people from all over the world, people from all over the world share in that sickness (it's not too strong a word). A sickness that leads to a Culture Crisis, like the Global one we're living through now. In fact, the sickness and crisis are synonymous.
*That is not to say that an individual's relationship with a Higher Power that they call God is an unhealthy one. Just that the one in The Book of Genesis is, and it is. Read it lately?
Happily, they can also share in its cure - Cultural Transcendence.
Because that cure, like the sickness, is open to everyone from all over, provided they are willing to meet its challenges and experience its reward.
That reward is a rejuvinated self, a self that one can then share with others, a sharing that rejuvinates the Group. This way the revitalized strength and increased happiness of Individual and Group can play into each others hands, so that the double pleasure can increase the capacity for both.
The Individual and Group are not mutually exclusive, and never were.
They were only seen as such. And though, from an historical perspective, it is understandable that the Individual and Group were once seen as seperate and antagonisitic, it is no longer necessary for us to continue to make that mistake. So, no, the Individual and Group are not mutually exclusive, they are independent categories that can work together to the benefit of both, and it is high time they do. The best way I am aware of for making this happen is Cultural Transcendence. In this entry I will offer an explanation of what is meant by Cultural Transendence, and why I think it is the best possible solution to the many problems we face today.
Cultural Transcendence
The idea is to step outside of one's culture and question its presuppositions in an attempt to solve its many problems. Easier said than done. But essential to human adaptability. By the way, and before continuing, it's important to keep in mind that when it comes to Cultural Transcendence the word Culture applies to both the general and particular, from civilizational culture, The West, for example, to institutional culture, such as one's company culture, or family culture, etc. (see below).
Along with questions and common themes I’ll also offer some conclusions and some explanations and leave the reader to respond as they see fit, attempting in the process to make my conclusions as relevant and useful as possible. Even more important than any particular conclusion is the general mode of problem-solving. The pattern of cultural transcendence itself.
Biased? Of course!
It’s often said that everyone has a bias. To the extent that this is true, the bias here at PRC is behavioral. And by Behavior is simply meant, People Doing Things. Secondly, and related to the first, the vocabulary central to PRC consists of the most general, least demanding words we can use, such as Behavior, Explanation, and of course, Culture and Social-Institutions.
The idea is to create a common language made up of simple words that go into easy to understand sentences that can be tested in the real world.
Spreaking of which, though there are many ways to define the word Culture, the use of the word here refers to belief-systems and patterns of behavior, or directions for performance, and the relationship between the two found in a culture's social institutions, ie, business, education, government, the family, etc, or performance of directions. By Social Institutions is meant, social-institutions as adaptational mechanisms that emerge at particular times in a culture's history, and the need of a social institution to manage the relationship between stability and innovation, individual and group so as to better ensure that institution's survival.
Hence the value and importance of Cultural Transcendence.
Since culture is directions for performance, and social institutions are performance in reponse to directions, we can not begin to understand Cultural Transcendence without also knowing something about the social institutions of any culture. But exactly what are we directing ourselves to observe when we use the phrase social institution? Though this is not the place for a detailed answer, enough of an answer will be given for now.
What we are directing ourselves to observe when we use the phrase social institution is the behavior within a social institution, specifically the verbal and nonverbal behavior, but especially the explanatory behavior within a social institution. Why? Because a social institution doesn't simply use explanation, a social institution is an explanation. There are five kinds of social institutions and these exhaust the varities of institutions.
Teaching-Learning, Value, Economic, Governmental, Idea.
Teaching-Learning Institutions
The primary task of a teaching-learning institution is to initiate and maintain the behavior within that institution, whether it's the family (the most fundamental institution), a school, or a business.
Value Institutions
The function of a value institution is not only to ascribe value, but to judge competency. The importance of this institution is obvious, or at least it should be. Because it both logically and in terms of life experience precedes the individual's entry into every other institution. This is why there is little that can do more damage to a culture than an irresponsible parent who does not know how to value their children. Because little does more to damage a child's competency in responding to the world around them than a parent who is incompetent at value-ascription.
Institutions are explanations. The modification of institutional behavior is best understood on the model of the most complete experimental-explanatory system available - modern science.
Such modification can be achieved in two ways:
negative feedback and explanatory incoherence. Both of which can be examined by considering an institution other than that of the family (which is more commonly seen in terms of both teaching-learning and value institutions), economic institutions.
Economic Institutions
The task of an economic institution is to sustain and, when necessary, to modify the redundancies which support the production and distribution of goods and services.
Government Institutions
One clue to the character of governmental institutions is their gradual divestment from other institutions of the power to wield the ultimate sanctions of economic deprivation, imprisonment, torture, and death. These sanctions are found in all cultures, primitive, barbaric or civilized, and in all times in history.
Idea Institutions
The simplest task of idea institutions (or ideological institutions) is to maintain the verbal and nonverbal redundancies of all institutional behavior. The three most important ways the task of idea institutions are carried out are, reiteration, exemplification, and criticism, of which there are two kinds: evaluuative criticsm and critique. The most conspicuous example of idea institutions are found in the Arts & Sciences (obviously, from this perspective PRC International is itself an Idea Institution).
Of course, as presented here these five kinds of institutions are to a considerable degree abstractions, fairly high-level categories. Nevertheless, taken together they become extraordinarily useful as an analytical instrument for understanding the behavior within any social institution.
After all, though these institutions have as their primary importance these fives kinds of social management, that does not prevent every institution from having as its secondary performance or performances those of any or all of the other institutional categories. In short, all five social institutions are interdependent, and can be found in any culture, anywhere in the world today. PRC refers to this relationship that obtains between any culture and its social institutions as The Directions-Performance Complex.
Since social interaction often produces human conflict, instructions and feedback are often distorted, one on the way down, the other on the way up.
The point of view looking up is primarily one of resentment, the one looking down is primarily one of contempt. The first regards the higher levels as aggressive and unjust, the second regards the lower levels as incompetent and, well, rebellious. This interaction of the various levels of the institutions of any culture increases randomness of response and can, paradoxically, either destroy or improve both the social institutions and culture.
This last point once again directs attention to the value and importance of Cultural Transcendence, particularly as a mode of problem-solving in the realm of human adaptation and survival. Because the solution offered here to a Culture Crisis resulting from social conflict is Cultural Transcendence.
Cultural Transcendence: A Challenge for Problem-Solvers
Terms like cultural commitment, cultural conformity, cultural dysfunction, cultural disintegration, cultural crisis, and societal collapse are terms we’re all more or less familiar with. But the term Cultural Transcendence is not all that familiar. What is Cultural Transcendence? What is its relevance?
What is its value? Does it have any? If so, how do we know?
I will try to answer these questions in this and other entries. For now we'll say that the effort to achieve Cultural Transcendence is the result of a culture crisis. And an awareness of that cultural crisis is itself the result of trauma. From this perspective Cultural Transcendence is the individual's response to both the trauma and culture crisis, and their effort to move beyond them into a larger freedom and healthier state of mind.
Healthier because that state of mind is used to satisfy the human drive toward reality, as opposed to the far more powerful and dangerous human drive toward beliefs as truths, beliefs that are used to shield us from reality.
It’s obvious we’re living in a culturally critical period today. So, any help we can get in trying to deal with it is bound to be of some use.
Cultural Incoherence
The values of any culture are necessarily incoherent. The logic that holds the values of any individual or culture together are derived from convention, whether personal or cultural, or, as is generally the case, a bit of both.
Whatever seems to hold together on its own falls apart under the pressure of a crisis. That is why the most dangerous culture in the world is the one that not only demands to be placed above criticism, but that has the power to effectuate that insane demand, and it is insane. Why? Well, again, certainly not because I say so, or think so. In fact, and before continuing, the older I get the less interested I am in anyone's opinion, including my own.
What I'm interested in is what directs attention to what any of us can find in the real world. And you don't have to look long to discover human imperfection. In short, demanding to be placed above criticism is insane because we are imperfect, not perfect, and life is dynamic, not static.
And, since the only reasonable response to this obvious, and easy to observe, fact of the human condition is continuous learning, change, and growth (in as much as that is possible for us), the demand to be placed above criticism is not just insane, it's also maladaptive - biologically maladaptive.
How so? Well, because the demand to be placed above criticism, to have the rest of the world recognize another group's perfection, and worship them, requires blind obedience to their authority, which means the elimination of all feedback and correction, which together constitute the source of human adaptability. And now we're back once again to the value and importance of Cultural Transcendence. Because Cultural Transcendence is entirely dependent on continuous feedback and correction for its success, a success which the culturally transcending individiual freely and openly admits is and can only be - temporary. Why temporary? Because any solution is to a problem that emerged at a particular time and place. So, by the time the solution arrives the nature of the problem has changed. Hence the value and importance of continuous learning, change, and growth.
Cultural Transcendence is the adaptational answer to the maladaptation of any culture of blind obedeience to authority, which must eliminate feedback and correction to function, which it can never do very well, or for very long.
The explanation for this is found in the fact that, since cultures of blind obedience never question their own assumptions, they are blind to the fact that their mode of adaptation is necessarily a maladaptation.
Obviously, this brief detour in our examination of Cultural Transendence was made because cultures of blind obedience to authority are making an aggressive comeback, and for that reason ironically help to direct attention to the value of Cultural Transcendence. The fact is, no individual or group has any business placing itself above criticism, especially if it has any power, or even worse, a lot of power. To the extent they can do this, and to the extent we participate, we move that much closer toward insanity, evil, destruction, maladaptation, and extinction. It very well may be. Unless...
Our Only Adequacy Is In Facing Our Inadequacy
Anyway, as with any individual, a culture is always in a mild state of crisis. Why? Because its values are never coherent or adequate enough to meet all of the demands made on it from within and without (that state of crisis is made worse whenever individuals or groups succumb to the belief that they own the truth, are always right, and must be obeyed no matter what).
Nevertheless, when a culture is in what’s considered to be a non-critical, or reasonably stable condition, the incoherencies and inadequacies are not noticed, at all (by the marjority). There’s no irony. There's no juxtaposition of obviously inconsistent values. In this condition everything is Either/Or. Ready-made cliches are used for any and all decisions regarding any and all problems. For example, in a world of Either/Or when someone wants to postpone a decision, they say, Look before you leap. When they’re in a hurry they say, Whoever hesitates is lost. But, in times of crisis this over-simplified approach simply does not work and one’s Either/Or World falls apart.
The result is an irony that makes any decision difficult and dangerous (especially for those who live in an irony-free world).
There are different stages in moving from an Either/Or World to a Both/And Choice, in other words, in moving from Cultural Conformity, to Cultural Transcendence. The next part of this entry will explore those stages.
Stage One: Conformity
The stage when anyone moves effortlessly from one situation to the next so as to gain the maximum effeciency of immediate self-gratification, whatever those satisfactions might be, and whatever the cost, we’ll call Conformity to emphasize its drive away from reality with a capital R and toward belief as truth, ie; the absurd. In a world of Conformity everything is Either/Or. Conformity itself isn’t necessarily bad: con meaning with and form being what any group or individual needs for taking effective action.
A group must be a group in form. If not, it will be easily crushed internally or externally, like a house with no doors, a family with no boundaries, or a country with no borders, like the USA, and not just the USA. So, we want to be able to Walk The Talk (and sooner lr later have to if we want to survive).
One way to clarify the word Conformity, as we are using it here, is in relation to thoughts and customs, to the intellectual and social. Or, to the ideas we use to manage the institutions we live in and struggle to manage. From this perspective it's clear that: Habits of thought and action are kind and useful guides, but cruel and destructive dictators.
So, the problem with Stage One: Conformity where everything is Either/Or is that there’s no hesitation because there’s no healthy doubt.
The phrase Pride before the fall comes irresistably to mind.
It’s a world of automatic belief and impulsive action where conflicting interests aren’t perceived, or, are deliberately ignored. It is the stage, in short, occupied by unreflective thinkers and compulsive doers. A state of mind that is often, rightfully, referred to as fast-brain thinking.
Note: The classic example of this is found in self-focused, low-character, scapegoat-dependent leaders of families, companies and countries, who treat others badly because it's all about them.
At this stage we’re no longer human beings, we’re human doings.
As a result, the urgent drives out the important. Over-conformity leads to over-simplification and over-simplification leads to repetition compulsion.
It’s walking the talk while going blind.
What does it matter what you say if you don't know where you're going?
At this point some terms might be helpful.
When the members of a company, a family, a religion, or political ideology etc. all think the same it produces a consensus mentality.
Consensus Mentality = We’re right because we all think the same.
And because thinking the same is valued in this case it becomes consensus morality. Consensus Morality = We’re good because we all think the same.
Consensus Mentality + Consensus Morality = Effective Congruence.
Effective Congruence* = We are right and good because we all think and act the same. Such congruence is effective for us.
*Not to be confused with affective congruence or the congruence effect. I coined the term to direct attention to the social consequence of intellectual and moral conformity.
So, what’s the problem with this? Why is this such a bad thing?
To answer these questions will require considerable fetching about. And we’ll do just that. But not in a single entry. For now let’s just say that All the birds could be flying in the wrong direction! It happens, in every social context imaginable, families, companies, countries and cultures. And when it does no one in the group perceives any conflict of interest, or deliberately ignores whatever conflicts they do percieve. Everything’s perfect, until the whole thing collapses (lots of that going on these days).
But, when interests conflict to the point where they can not be ignored, those at Stage One find themselves at a fork in the road. And when they do they find that they have two choices. They can stay stuck in Stage One and continue down the road of automatic belief, or, they can choose the road less traveled, the road of reflective thought. If so, the unreflective thinker becomes a reflective thinker. At this point the Individual emerges out of the undifferentiated ego mass and moves on to Stage Two. And in so doing, they come to see that, just as individualist theories can not interpret collectivist facts, so too are collectivist theories incapable of interpreting facts regarding the individual. This is something worth keeping in mind, especially today, when the individual moves from Conformity to Conflict.
Stage Two: Conflict
When conflicts are so great and so many one’s only recourse is to either double down on conformity and sink with the ship, or step away from the culture. This is the healthy conflict of confronting and solving problems, as opposed to the unhealthy conflict that comes from not simply avoiding one's problems, but worse, much worse, from ignoring their consquences.
When one does finally step away from their culture it doesn’t take long for them to see that the entire culture itself is chock-o-block full of ironies, incoherencies, inconsistencies, ambiguities, and even absurdities, depending on how carefully one is willing to look. What follows next is a desperate attempt to find a solid ground for it all. A ground that will enable one to move freely within their culture. A ground that makes perfect sense, feels right, and is considered good. But just as Conformity leads to Conflict, so Conflict leads to the next stage, Breakdown, or, The Wasteland.
Stage Three: Breakdown
One discovers that there is no value ground. Since for eons human beings have insisted on their being a ground to value, or a final answer, or moral absolute, this situation can often be very disturbing. But, for more courageous spirits it represents an opportunity not to be missed. Just as one doesn’t want to miss out on their own lives. Which they most certainly will whenever they choose the road to conformity for conformity’s sake. In other words, whenever they choose to stay stuck in Stage One.
But, for those willing to take a chance, for those who have learned to Embrace the Fucked-upness, and would prefer to stumble on the right road, as opposed to walking tall on the wrong road, the only thing left to do after the fall that comes with Breakdown is to clinb to the next stage, Breakthrough. Life rewards us for hanging in there (even more so for the way we hang in there). And if we do hang in there, one follows the other. Breakdown – Breakthrough. After all, it’s been said often enough that it takes high courage to permit oneself to have a really thoroughgoing nervous breakdown, one pregnant with the possibilities of genuine development.
In fact, one of the great ironies of contemporary life is that the reason socieity is falling apart is because its individuals won't let themselevs breakdown. Why? Fear of the unknown. Of course.
If fear is the result of not knowing what comes next, our confidence lies in a cheerful exploration of the unknown. But we'll never know that happy state unless we embrace the fucked-upness long enough to give ourselves permission to breakdown and breakthrough to a new freedom and happiness.
Stage Four: Breakthrough
Only this stage can offer us what we so desperately need, a principle of justification (as opposed to some convenient quick fix, crude maxim, or easy answer). That is, a deep and abiding conviction of the meaningfulness of the sense of value – of life itself. One way to describe the sense of value is to say that, Life is worth the trouble it often takes to live it.
An important point to keep in mind, perhaps the most important, is that in moving from one stage to the next and arriving at a breakthrough, one exhausts the resources of their culture. Meaning, the definitions and explanations of what that culture considers to be their most important and enduring values. This is the beating heart of Cultural Transcendence.
This is where and when one finds out who they really are, as opposed to what others have told them to be. This is what is meant by self-discovery and self-awareness, which, of course, is the real beginning of true empathy.
At this point it should be obvious to the reader that Cultural Transcendence is also Self-Transcendence.
The explanations that one’s culture demands everyone believe in and live by, the explanations presented as ultimate truths that the culture imposes on others and shames them for not accepting, are no longer available to those who have rejected them. This is exactly what the culturally transcendng individual has now done. Rejecting any cure for the culture by religious or political revolution (same thing), in short, rejecting any action taken on the basis of the culture’s existent values, the individual turns away from their culture and dedicates themselves to creating a new one from their own unaided resources. A culturally transcending individual is an innovator in the most profound sense of the word. To put this in a more timely context we could say that, Cultural Transcendence innovates Beyond Technology.
The culturally transcending individual becomes their own source of value and no longer seeks the validation or approval of the culture they have left behind (particularly its elite and the elite’s useful idiots and paid proxies).
Note: To the unintiated, fearful and ignorant, the hard-earned and new found confidence of the culturally transcending individual is confused with arrogance, when in fact it's humility. The truly arrogant is the unitiated, fearful and ignorant conformist who never question themselves.
By doing so they achieve a true cultural transcendence. One that rises above and resolves the incoherences of the culture so filled with self-defeating ironies, such as the self-defeating deadends of the political Left and Right. This does not mean that the culturally transcending individual has rejected their culture’s history or traditions. Cultural Transcendence is not mindless cultural destruction, or the equally mindless cultural obstruction, which clings to beliefs that have long since outlived their usefulness.
Both cultural destruction (the Left) and cultural obstruction (the Right) all too often hide behind the mask of moral superiority while severely restricting moral choice, instead of increasing the sense of moral responsibility through continuous learning, change, and growth. More than anything this explains why they are both are maladaptive.
The political Right and Left is a rivalry of ideas and opinions that are meaningless to an understanding of human behavior.
Which, in the end, is all there is - People doing things.
Ideologies and Salvation Systems (same thing) form one big wheel that spins round and round and out of control, while its leaders and followers demand that everyone become a part of the wheel or be crushed by it. Hence their inability to direct society in ways that are meaningful and productive. One must never forget that All Salvation Systems Are Slavery Systems.
The reason the Right and Left can never come to rest in themselves, let alone with each other, long enough to get anything done, is that both abstract particulars while treating those particulars as the totality of life itself. The wheel, with its cynicism and sentimentality, keeps them moving, but doesn't get them anywhere. This explains why, in theory and in practice, neither one is capable of creating anything comprehensive and constructive. Their highly polarizing responses are symptomatic of a culture crisis and in no way an answer to it. Just look around. Each has no problem making its case against the other. But the result is always the same, deadlock, and ultimately, destruction. To allow human development to be arrested at this point is absurd and a form of disrespect to any society's most precious resource - its children. And it's all about the children, or it ought to be. If it isn't, then that's the source of any culture's problem. Obviously!
Then again, when was the last time anyone heard, or was a part of, a serious conversation about our children, the families they come from, and the impact of both on society? That's a trick question. Today, almost no one talks seriously to each other, about anything, let alone anything as important as the family. In fact, if you want to have any really serious intellectual conversation today, about anything at all, with anyone then you have to form a group and keep it a secret from the rest of the world.
Note: That is not to say that there aren't many content-providers online doing excellent work with artciles and videos directing attention to family systems, family roles, scapegoating, gaslighting and trauma. The point is, there's still no real conversation going on about the family and its impact on the culture and its social institutions. Family is the most basic bio-social unit since the Paleolithic Age. If we couldn't get that right how well are we going to do with subjects as abstract and complex as race, gender or sexual orientation? How seriously should we take those who refuse to answer that question?
Since the intellect, along with the emotional, psychological, and social aspects of experience, is such a vital part of our humanity, exactly when did it become such a source of shame? And why? How can one live with such fear? And what are they so afraid of? The intellect is important. We all have one, for a reason. We need it! It's a choice-making instrument. As with anything, if you don't use it you lose it - you lose the power to choose.
After that, everything becomes dependent on routine or caprice, or both. And, by the way, intellectuals don't have a monopoly on the intellect. That's just a different use of the word. In any event, the desperate and obstinate clinging to any belief-system is an indirect confession that the believers do not understand our dilemma, and are incapable of innovative solutions to a many-sided complex cultural problem effecting us all. Not so the culturally transcending individual. Having arrived at this point through their comprehension of The Irreducibles and their willingness to Embrace The Fucked-upness, they have moved on to the final stage - Breakaway.
Stage Five: Breakaway
Conformity – Conflict – Breakdown – Breakthrough – Breakaway
At this stage one comes to accept the fact that the irresolvable tension between idea and action, theory and data, mind and world, explanation and behavior, individual and group is the dynamism of life. This is not an end to be feared, but a beginning to be valued. The source of that value comes from one's ability to respond to the problems of living with all of the courage, honesty, intelligence and creativity that they can muster.
The meaning of life is your response to it.
One accepts the fact that, when it comes to human problems, there is no single causal force and no final answer. Salvation Systems are abandoned as one embraces irony, creativity, and continuous renewal.
Riding the whirlwind indeed. It’s important to keep in mind that at any stage one could relapse, or regress. But a fresh start is always possible, should we choose to start again. The idea being, of course, that we’re free to choose in the first place.* The point is that cultural transcendence is the alternative to cultural stagnation, cultural crisis, societal collapse and one's personal problems, since, again, cultural transcendence is self-transcendence.
*For a discussion of some current obstacles to our freedom of choice see What Matters Now?
It is a truly innovative approach to individuality, and our social institutions, exactly because it knowingly and willingly abandons a dependency on quick fixes, easy answers, and final solutions to problems involving both the individual and the institution. Cultural Transcendence is an exciting and challenging response to a world more complex and unpredictable than ever before. Its dynamism comes from recognizing and accepting the need for both stability and innovation, individual and group. For this reason it has an extraordinary potential, not only as a possible solution to life's problems in general, but also to today's culture crisis in particular.
Concluding Remarks
One purpose of this Journal is to direct attention to what matters and encourage readers, not to believe, but to question, test, and use, the ideas they encounter along the way. I make no attempt to be exhaustive.
What´s offered here will not be complete, detailed, with every corner filled and every nail driven home. But that does not worry me. It´s just a way of saying that I´ll be as solid and consistent as possible, knowing all along, and wanting you to know, that like all structures of knowledge, nothing offered here is perfect and final, or can be.
At PRC International I believe in the inherent instability of all theories, ideas, explanations and constructs and endeavor to practice it in work and life. In short, I believe in cultural transcendence.
What justification can be offered for this belief?
The stages of Cultural Transcendence when put into action can give us a wider frame of reference. It helps us to develop a healthy perspective, one both contemporary and historical.
It gives us the opportunity not just to satisfy a desire to learn, but just as importantly, to acquire a technique of learning that can be applied to any field and any situation we find in life.
Such an appraoach also helps us acquire and develop a deeper sense of self, or self-awareness, which can lead to what is and must be the leading moral ideal of our time - empathy, the one thing that can rescue us from the dangers of overconformity and narcissism, both of which account for the explosion of self-focused, low-character individuals, and leaders, that are flooding our social institutions from top to bottom today like a legion of the lost. They are a totally destructive force that is fast rendering those institutions, and our species, maladaptive.
This approach is also justified by the fact that the perspective, learning, and self-awarenes give us more flexibility and growth. And the justification for that growth is human imperfection. If there's one thing that unites us all it's our imperfection. In fact, self-awareness and growth play into each others hands, thereby increasing the capacity for both. Who wouldn't want that? Well, the above-mentioned self-focused, low-character individuals (and groups). That's who.
Cultural Transcendence can help us develop an emotional comprehension of ourselves and others, as well as a sensitive social sense of the diversity of human emotional experience.
And finally, we are able to bring to life our desire to discover the true and the good and dedicate ourselves to putting these values into practice on a consistent basis.
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