Healthy Culture

“Truth is the First casualty of War. It is also the first condition of Peace”

“Everybody has a piece of the Truth and every body has a piece of the Lie.”

“Violence doesn’t work. Non-violence doesn’t work either. Maybe Healthy Culture will work”

—Piankhy Thompson

We all live in, are infected by, and suffer from, a sick Culture of Apart-ness; of Alienation. This culture, like all culture is comprised of Cosmology, Identity, Ritual, and Infrastructure. In the case of the dominant culture this means; a Cosmology of Apart-ness, an Identity-Politics of Apart-ness, Rituals of (inner and outer) Apart-ness, and Infrastructures of Apart-ness. Education (formal and informal) is the transmission of culture, and in our case it is the transmission of this sick culture. The factional (us and them) "identity uniforms" or our time (whether based on race, gender, religion, nationality, political party, profession, class, or even species) are all symptoms of, rather than cures for, this condition of sick culture. As such, none of them have any potential at all for changing anything that matters in any sustainable way. We have no time for this.

Since sick culture is the problem, it follows that Healthy Culture is the solution. So what is Healthy Culture and how does it manifest inwardly and outwardly? Glad you asked. What I want to do in this tribe is to describe (and create a forum for discussing) an extremely small, but vital and replicable, Cultural Pilot Project that is currently being attempted in the cultural microclimate of Twin Oaks Intentional community in Virginia, involving the evolving practice of what I regard as Healthy Culture; its cosmology of Togetherness (Integral Science), its Identity-Politics of Togetherness (Individual-Personhood), its Rituals of Togetherness (Life-Dance rituals) and its Infrastructure of Togetherness. I am trying to find and attract people who might be interested in, and ultimately commit to, joining me in such an experiment either here at twin oaks or in an intentional community that we might found together.

There is a lot of information about healthy culture in my two blogs (integralscience.motime.com and lifedancelog.motime.com), for those interested in a more in-depth elaboration than what I imagine will emerge from the discussions here.

As this is the open tribe. The most general ideas about, inquiries into, and criticisms/objections to, these concepts and practices, are welcome here. I am very open to modifications in both theory and practice if I can see clearly why this is necessary. At some point, those people who want to go further towards more active and committed level of participation will be invited to a more "private" version of the Healthy Culture tribe where more practical logistics and individual-personal issues are likely inform more of the discussion (which will nevertheless always be open to any "big picture' considerations).

Starting and Moderating a Tribe is new to me and is itself sort of an experiment, so bear with me and feel free to offer advice about how to do this better.

thanks and welcome,


--Piankhy Thompson

http://tribes.tribe.net/healthyculture