Political Will and Inner Experience

The ultimate strength and deep power of a society must be measured in terms of its psychosocial capital—i.e. by the values and will of its people and the intrinsic justice and endurance of its institutions. Societal strength is not measured by physical coercive powers.

At the core of that capability is personal experience both as an individual and as part of the wider social group. In describing the emergence of imperatives in society, the following features were noted:

  • a spreading awareness of certain ideas or events or phenomena,
  • emotional responses that are contagious and are heightened in groups,
  • direct personal experiences that make certain societal events significant.

It therefore seems reasonable to regard political will-G6 as entangled with a variety of experiential phenomena. This deserves more study.

Notions like groupthink and social pressure are part of a well established body of knowledge that describes how people lose some of their autonomy, distinctiveness and capacity for self-assertion in small groups.

Large crowds are even more terrifying. Crowds can quickly become mobs. Mobs engage in anti-social behaviour that its individual members would abhor. They become predatory and goading, and will attack people and property only symbolically connected to their focus of resentment. It seems that the anonymity leads to a loss of personal identity and responsibility.

Experience is at the L4 heart of the Root Hierarchy, and central to all endeavour. It appears to link to Political Will as suggested below.

Experience-RL4 emanates the Primary Hierarchy of Experience (PH4) whose contents are too fundamental for consideration here. The Primary Structural Hierarchy (sPH4) appears to be built around organizing awareness, enabling thinking and its structures may be the basis for a self-concept and social roles.

The Principal Typology (PH'4) has been well-studied and validated. It defines the 7 approaches to mental stabilization. Within this, PH'4-L6 is social being. While not everyone takes social being as a preferred mode of existence, everyone must engage with it at times and certainly when part of a social group undergoing a major experience.

Social being is a type of identity growth that:

  • needs participation,
  • thrives on responsibility,
  • is satisfied by intentional activities, &
  • functions positively by involvement.

These provide the psychological infrastructure for the fundamentals of political life in general and in particular the phenomena of political will-G6.

Relation between Political Will and the Root Level of Experience.

See the Architecture Room for more on such suggested links.

Originally posted: August-2009; Last updated: 15-Nov-2010