A dictionary definition I want to see in my lifetime
And an appeal for The Whole Social
“Societal holism” is a term I think we all need to know, because it points to a far healthier approach to social change. Unfortunately you won’t find it in any dictionary today, but I want to change that. My hope is that by the end of my lifetime, not only will we all know what it is, but we’ll all be actively working to shape society out of its insights. What is societal holism? Here’s one way I could imagine it being defined in the future (and excuse its dryness — it is a dictionary definition after all :)
Ok. So basically societal holism is just another term for social threefolding. I’m not trying to replace that term, but I think we need other terms too, terms that are descriptive in other ways. “Societal holism” points to the fact that we don’t think of society as an organic whole. Instead we generally think of social issues in isolation, in silos, without understanding their larger context and without an explicit theory of societal health.
The truth is, we mostly think of society mechanistically. We don’t think of it as a living organism with its own inherent nature, its own lawfulness that permeates every aspect of its being. Really, we don’t even think of plants and animals holistically. For instance, the Goethean scientist Craig Holdrege points out that a giraffe expresses “giraffeness” in every single one of its parts — down to its very toes — but instead of trying to understand the essential nature of such an animal, its inner gesture, scientists think of it only as a bundle of traits that have been selected by its outer environment.
So we desperately need to evolve our ideas. We need to evolve our ways of seeing the social world around us. Because if our seeing isn’t true, then we won’t come to a true diagnosis of the ills we face. And we won’t be able to heal those ills.
I’m writing this because I think it’s going to take a movement to change our ways of seeing, and I want to invite you into that movement. How can you help? Here are some ways:
You can attend workshops. In the last 6 months I’ve done a handful of public zoom events, as well as worked in Switzerland, California, Wisconsin, and Toronto (I’ll try to always notify you about these events, but I’m also happy to bring this work to your area if you want to organize something).
You can strive to work holistically within your own organization.
You can help to create “affinity groups” (groups of people with a shared interest in transforming some vocational field through social threefolding).
But most importantly (at this moment anyways) is that The Whole Social needs your support. As I write, we have over 700 subscribers, with plenty of other folks visiting the site regularly. There’s no paywall for anything on The Whole Social — it’s accessible to everyone — but of course, as the publisher and main author, I’ve got bills. And it takes days, and often weeks, to write a single article.
So far, 37 of you have stepped up over the last year and a half to support The Whole Social with monthly donations, and others have generously stepped up with one-time donations. I’d love to grow those numbers, especially the monthly donations. Is it possible that 50 of you could be supporting The Whole Social with monthly donations by April, and 100 of you by 2025?
I’m asking because it’s a real need for The Whole Social and for me, and also because it’s a way for people to engage with this work. Giving to something is a concrete action. It aligns your will with that thing. If you want to see societal holism become a reality, then this is one way to help.