Social-Strength Training to Fight Dystopia
For a Better Life and a Better World
The world is a mess and billions are harmed. The key question: What can we do?
Introduction
This project collects training practices built on the interaction rituals and events of everyday life. So they are available to anyone - and can be invisible if necessary.
Better cooperation and relationships will help individuals, families, and communities take back control of our own lives - from sometimes-bullying governments, corporations, algorithms, online mobs, manufactured poverty, and more. A social movement of relationship training could help build a kinder, more prosperous, less wasteful, and more peaceful world.
Advantages
- You don’t need any money at all - or any permission, travel, equipment, meetings, waiting for others to be ready, formal education, or social status. Anyone can use this training at any time.
- You can practice in complete secrecy if necessary - or develop practices for groups.
- The training can become habitual, building expertise without sacrificing what else you need or want to do.
- Human relationships strongly influence even the most important world issues (including by preventing nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962). Better cooperation could improve our personal lives and also change the world.
Why We Need Training Practices
People usually focus on what they do well and ignore what they do badly. As a result, uneven abilities can start from early experiences or accidents, and be amplified and persist throughout life - often resulting in lost opportunities and other serious consequences.
Social-strength training often tries to lead people through practicing what's difficult for them. We think that's sometimes necessary, but second best because: you need a therapist or other helper; it's an artificial situation; and the unpleasant exercise seldom becomes habitual. A better way is to find practices that build basic social strength (including skills that one may not have known existed). Practices are somewhat like meditation - but actively tuned in to social reality, not shutting out the world in order to improve one's own mind internally. (We're not against solitary meditation or prayer, which can certainly help, but here we focus on observing, listening, and relationship practices that involve other people.)
How This System Developed
When I was 19 I heard a talk titled "Human Potentialities" by Aldous Huxley, given at MIT in 1961. Huxley (author of almost 50 books, including Brave New World and Doors of Perception) wanted to reduce the violence and cruelty in the world, partly by teaching appreciation of the present moment, the here and now. He noted that while Western societies often give good advice (like "know thyself"), they are weak on methods and practices for doing so. He suggested collecting successful training practices from around the world. You can hear Huxley’s 1961 talk on a Psychedelic Salon podcast; Huxley starts at about 4 minutes and 40 seconds into the recording.
I picked up the idea of training methods or practices from his talk, and that's been a background interest all my adult life. Now I'm 81, and want to turn this personal project into a movement that can survive without me.
I added another goal that was only implicit in Huxley's talk: success. That's because today's world is worse in some ways than in 1961, and people and communities will need success in order to survive. Success is here and now, while nonviolence is someday maybe. So it's no surprise that success motivates more people.
(We distinguish competitive from non-competitive success. Competitive success is like winning a gold medal, or getting a million visitors to your website; only a few can win, as public attention is limited. Non-competitive is like having a good marriage; your success does not make others' less likely. Social strength can help for both. But remember that competitive success requires luck as well as effort, as there is not enough fame, money, etc. for everyone. A good marriage might also depend on luck, but there is no pre-set limit on how many good marriages can exist.)
Training Practices: Examples
(1) Messages (for Awareness of People)
When you are with many people, be open to whatever “messages” you may receive from them. For example, are they stressed or relaxed? Happy or miserable? Note their facial expression, posture, movement, grooming, dress. And if they are part of a group, is one person doing almost all the talking, or maybe two or three, while the rest remain silent? A good place to observe is a somewhat crowded coffeehouse or restaurant, perhaps near a window with a sidewalk outside. Or in a park.
Movies might be a good setting for this training, as well. Here one might try “close watching” – by which we mean attempting to understand every detail, and why the writers, directors, and actors presented it as they did. Of course this is very difficult, so don’t be hard on yourself. As in meditation, you will fail many times, but then calmly bring the mind back to the task.
The goal of this exercise is to develop habits of observing and listening to people, instead of ignoring them because we are thinking about something else and wrapped up in our own thoughts. There’s a time and place for that - but times to pay attention to others as well.
One unexpected benefit showed up in my conversation in small groups. Sometimes I want to speak but don’t want to interrupt, and there is no clear way to get the floor. The training allowed me to sense the point someone was making as a unit – with a natural beginning, middle, and end. It became easier for me to enter the conversation without clashing with those already there.
Note
I learned the Messages practice from the late Joanna Leary (Joanna Harcourt-Smith), who enthusiastically suggested it at a small outdoor gathering of friends of Timothy Leary, who was in prison at the time. Joanna was one of the strongest personalities I have known, as indicated by her ability to get her way in almost any social interaction. She even got Leary out of prison. I don’t know if she published the Messages practice; it might be on her site, FuturePrimitive.org. If you find it published anywhere, let me know.
Note that the practices below are quick drafts, and will be revised.
(2) Positive Filter
When observing or working with others, look for what’s admirable about them. What are they likely proud of? What may be well regarded by the public? If something appeals particularly to you, note that too. If a group is talking, note how many of them contribute (vs. one doing all the talking, for instance).
This practice helps correct the unfortunate default of looking for negatives to make oneself look better in comparison. Negatives may relieve inferiority feelings but are seldom a basis for productive relationships. You can’t relate to everyone, but why close off possibilities unthinkingly?
(3) Negative Filter
This is the opposite - look for what other people do badly. And then ask yourself, could others be seeing that in you? Often it’s easier to notice a problem in someone else than in oneself.
(4) Negotiation Training
Negotiation has been well developed because it is essential in business. An easy start is Getting to Yes, by Roger Fisher and others of the Harvard Negotiation Project.
One of the best negotiation books is Getting More, by Stuart Diamond, based on his popular negotiation class at the prestigious Wharton Business School in Philadelphia. To decide whether to spend the time and money ($17 for the paperback), read the testimonials, preface, and at least pages 1-12 of chapter 1 (you can read most of chapter 1 free on Amazon even if you don’t have any Amazon account - and the preface also, if you have a Prime account).
Some of the book’s examples may look silly - why put so much effort into small issues like a mediocre restaurant meal? But remember that the author is teaching students, and he encourages them to practice and learn when the stakes are small - instead of making the mistakes later at work, when they might cost an important job or business deal.
[Needed now: a separate document on negotiating or otherwise dealing with robots. E.g. recently I ordered food on Amazon and received the wrong food product, and the robot only said it was unreturnable. In several tries I could not reach a person or get any other redress.]
(5) Couples, Marriage and Friendship: Bid and Response
Drs. John and Julie Gottman founded the Gottman Institute, based on 40 years of research including over 3,000 couples. They invited 130 newlyweds to spend a day in the Institute’s bed-and-breakfast-style laboratory. The Gottmans claim 94% accuracy in predicting who will be happily married six years later (only about three couples in 10), vs. who will be either divorced or chronically unhappy in their marriage.
Particularly important was the response to a “bid” for interest or connection from one’s partner. Those couples who would be divorced in six years responded positively to the bid only 33% of the time - vs. 87% for those who stayed together. For more information see “Masters of Love” in The Atlantic; you can probably read it free at www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/happily-ever-after/372573/ (or use a shortcut we created, bit.ly/jca-love, in case you need to type the address).
Limitations: these were heterosexual married couples only. And we don’t know if the lack of response to the bids caused the marriage failure or divorce - or were only an indicator of a pre-existing mismatch (in which case, deliberately increasing your positive responses probably wouldn't help). Our guess is that both contribute. Bid and response are worth our attention, in many human relationships: friends, lovers, and colleagues as well as marriage. Do you really want a long-term or closer relationship with this person or group? If so, be ready to go out of your way to learn and share their interests.
(6) Listening
“Those that fight don't listen, those that listen don't fight.” Gestalt psychologist Fritz Perls, 1960s.
We’re looking for practices to teach listening. One, more common in the late 1960s than now, was an exercise during an ongoing argument, in which each side argued the other’s position temporarily. Difficult but possible. An easier version: develop the best case you can for an opponent’s position. You’ll probably find unexpected points of agreement. Due to today's over-the-top outrage industry, you might decide to keep the result to yourself. Why be a martyr to nonsense?
(7) Asking for Assistance
This is hard for many people. But consider:
(a) Practice when the stakes are small. That avoids excess emotion, and especially in the beginning, is usually the right way to learn.
(b) Good observing and awareness of people (see the "Messages" and "Listening" practices above) will help you sense if now is a favorable occasion to ask - or if it isn’t. Without listening, you are flying blind because you don't know where the others are at, right then.
(c) The request must make conventional sense, and be framed with appropriate expectations. For example, asking for job leads usually gets a positive response (if the person you ask has any relevant leads to suggest); asking for funding for a startup much less so, except in special contexts.
(8) Note Bonding Opportunities
Until recently I totally missed the importance of bonding with others through situations that are emotionally intense for the group, outside of routine reality. That made my work less effective than it could have been.
I published AIDS Treatment News for 20 years, and there were many memorial services. I attended reluctantly, because our message at the newsletter was about saving lives, which had been ignored for too long by the early AIDS community focused on death and grief instead. Once I was invited to a private gathering after a service, by an insider group at another AIDS organization. I turned it down, due to not wanting to focus on death. That was a mistake, as emotional bonding across that organizational divide could have helped both of us be more effective.
In a much earlier example, I left a college group trying to deal with the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 (would we be alive the next day?) in order to get to my job cleaning dorms, which I could have postponed at little cost.
Shared intense experience matters, because it can open doors to exploring meaningful possibilities. Advance preparation can help - even if we don't know what the experience will be. For example, practices might teach how to deal with an awkward silence if it occurs. It’s important to learn first in casual, less important situations, where you have freedom to try ideas and recover from mistakes.
Caution: the need for bonding can go wrong, by encouraging unnecessary conflicts or wars, in order to provide a common enemy to help cover up polarization within societies.
Questions and Answers
Social Class and Practices?
We got the "Messages" practice (above) from the late Joanna Leary (Joanna Harcourt-Smith). Very rich families such as Joanna's often have traditions of practices that help them be successful and maintain their dominant position, sometimes for generations. So to make a better world we can study these, and design practices that teach appropriate skills regardless of social class.
For a 43-minute 2018 video interview with Joanna, see www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg60-YzvCWE. For more information see her site, futureprimitive.org - or read her autobiography, Tripping the Bardo with Timothy Leary.
Why Invisible Practices?
We want this work to be available to anyone, even those in difficult situations like homelessness, prison, a military, or an abusive job or school.
We also wanted to make the movement difficult to oppress - so there’s no membership list, no office, no required text, no us-symbols, no formal meetings, no financial aspect. It's a movement not an organization. And it has no official list of practices; people can propose new ones at any time. (An organization may have an official list, but it speaks only for itself, not for the movement.)
Government oppression of a cooperation-training movement is unlikely - a small problem in a world full of big ones. This movement doesn’t threaten or demonize anyone, and if it works it will strengthen the country or other society where it is located. So it doesn't need to be secret.
However, we found that oppression-resistant design also reduced external dependencies. No need to wait to get started until something else is ready, which might never happen.
But also, micro-oppression does exist and secrecy can help. Sometimes certain people get picked for loser roles - consistently bullied, ridiculed, rejected, even pushed into illness or madness. In such cases stronger personalities may be determined that the loser not succeed at anything. But invisible training can be pursued with little interference, because the perpetrators don’t see it. Ultimately the new skills can help one get out of the situation, such as by improving options for leaving the group.
Is This Simplistic?
It is simple. And human life is complex, with thousands of different situations and dilemmas, sometimes presenting at random, and interacting with existing habits of perception and action. Also, people in modern society are very different from each other (despite current backlashes trying to reduce the variation by enforcing conformity).
The training we propose does not replace therapy, which is individualized and helps people deal with problems and improve harmful habits. But we believe that a few healthy training practices could help many, often in unexpected ways. And almost anyone can start, almost any time. No need to wait years or decades for political will, policy change, funding, and scale-up.
About This Site
Author
John S. James founded AIDS Treatment News in 1986 and published it for 20 years; see New York Times archive search for AIDS Treatment News.
Comments and Discussion
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Disclaimer
This site was created by a writer, not a healthcare professional, and does not provide healthcare advice. It is for information only, and is not a substitute for professional advice and treatment.
