False Sovereignty
The real problem with humanity
Download PDF: humansphere.org/falsesovereignty
As long as we are caught in the dominance hierarchy, and to some extent all of us are, we are not completely sovereign.
The dominance paradigm is not only a concept; it is an emotional state which gets triggered. This emotional triggering is, at least to some extent, hormonal, and is experienced either as the exhilaration that arises when people think that they are on top of a situation, as the subservient “looking to the other” that arises when people submit to dominance, or as a competitive striving for ascendency. Of course, most people are someplace in the middle, dominant to some, submissive to others, but always secretly, even unconsciously competitive. But whatever our position, as long as we are in it, in the dominance paradigm, we are not completely sovereign.
There are some varieties of false sovereignty to look out for. One, perhaps the most seductive, is the false feeling of independence that comes to people when they are on top of the pecking order. However when these people are toppled from their position, or in situations when they are not on top, they are no longer sovereign and don’t even feel that way. There are two other varieties of false sovereignty that people who do not customarily live in competitive situations are prone to confuse with the real article. One variety arises when there is no one to assert dominance over, the other arises when there is no one to assert dominance over them. However, when someone who feels they are “not in the dominance paradigm” is challenged, either by the appearance of someone truly dominant, or someone to dominate, their true colors emerge, and it becomes apparent that they are also caught up in it.
True peer-to-peer relationships, true dialogue, can only take place between sovereign individuals. As long as the dominance paradigm prevails, the top dogs, by force or one of its derivatives like money or political power, will sooner or later overrule those they disagree with, and take for their own any underdog ideas which they agree with. In the best case scenario, which from my point of view is also the worst-case scenario, those individuals that have the best ideas rise in the hierarchy to be top dogs themselves, and then, unless they are absolutely awake, succumb to the same “abuses of power” as the other top dogs.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely
We need to exit completely from the dominance paradigm and go to a new evolutionary principle that I call the consciousness paradigm. In the dominance paradigm, force or one of its derivatives is the principle that propels people to the top and thus orders the hierarchy. But in the consciousness paradigm, consciousness itself becomes the ordering principle. Of course, there is an inevitable, transitory stage in which the people that have the best ideas are propelled to the top, but in the best of all possible worlds, in the pure consciousness paradigm, not the most conscious person but the most conscious idea becomes the ordering principle. When this happens the power will move from the individual to the idea. The better idea, and, of course, whoever has it at the moment, will lead the way. But since ideas tend to build on one another they are always changing, always evolving. In a true dialogue, as the ideas build upon one another, first one idea and the person who has it leads the way, then another. This then is the true consciousness paradigm,. It and it alone can change the direction of human evolution.
This is the real Conscious Evolution, and it can only take place in a society of truly sovereign individuals.
Jeff Eisen, Ph.D. 