Introduction

I grew up in a middle-class family in the United States. Even though my life had always been pretty comfortable, by my mid-20s I had the sense that something in my culture was deeply wrong.

A few years ago, I picked up a book on the history of financial fraud, opened to a random page, and started reading about wealthy bankers who engaged in huge scams that made them richer while hurting many people. In response, people took to the streets in protest, many of whom had lost their jobs and livelihood due to the economic fallout of the bankers’ illegal behavior. They demanded the government prosecute the criminal bankers and support the people in getting back on their feet. Instead, the government sent the police to suppress the protestors and protect the bankers.

I thought to myself, ah hah, this must be the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests. I know that story well.

I was wrong! It turns out that part of the book was actually about something that happened way back in the 1800s… but it was the same story!

This hit me hard.

I had spent years studying the financial frauds leading up to the 2008 crash, the resulting protests, and the government repression, and I wanted to work towards changing my culture so those problems would never happen again. But if this fraud and repression were simply part of a repeating pattern, why would present-day activists be any more effective at ending it than activists of the 1800s?

Upset at this revelation, I opened to another part of the book and started reading about ancient Rome. Once again, the details were different, but the story was the same: rich people using their wealth to take advantage of huge numbers of impoverished people in their own society.

Now I felt really disturbed. I was starting to see that these same stories keep repeating throughout history. What was going on? Why has it been so rare for so many societies to finally put an end to this kind of exploitative behavior?

I wanted to help change my own culture, but I knew so many people have fought for change in the past, only to see terrible patterns of exploitation repeat, seemingly endlessly. If I wanted to see profound change, I knew I would have to uncover the fundamental dynamics enabling the exploitation and then work to dismantle them.

What was the core problem that has apparently been going on for thousands of years?

Pattern recognition requires searching for common conditions, not just focusing on individual details. I started to wonder: What do ancient Rome and the United States have in common?

Well, for starters, both cultures are characterized by relatively few people owning a huge percentage of the wealth while many people live in poverty. And, the wealthy people control the government that makes laws designed to support them in maintaining their vast wealth and social control.

In other words, a small number of people exploit a large number of people.

This fundamental pattern also describes China, Germany, Egypt, Australia, Russia, India, Ecuador, Peru, and every other unhealthy culture, past or present, that I could think of.

While all these cultures seem so different, under the surface they all are basically exploitative. Suddenly, cultures around the world with differing food, clothing, architecture, climate, and skin color started to look very similar to me. Some cultures may identify as socialist or as capitalist, and some may be mostly Christian or atheist, Muslim, or Confucian. The culture’s most influential people may be billionaires, kings, prime ministers, premiers, comrades, emperors, popes, pharaohs, presidents, or many other titles. But underneath all these differences, exploitative cultures around the world have been dominating and manipulating their people, in some cases for thousands of years.

Thousands of years! How in the world have these exploitative cultures lasted so long, up to the present day?

What are the most common ways that a few wealthy individuals trap huge numbers of other people in exploitative relationships over centuries, even millennia? And if I wanted to help heal these core exploitative patterns, what kind of change would I seek?

Was my desire for a healthy culture just some wishful pipe dream, or is it really possible for humans to live in a way where nobody dominates the rest? And if such healthy cultures really do or did exist, what could I learn from them to begin healing the deep troubles of my own unhealthy culture?

As soon as I began to ask these questions, I realized I did not even know what a healthy culture looked like. Thinking back on all the unsatisfying political conversations I had had, and all the political conversations I saw on TV, I realized nobody else I’d talked with or watched on TV had any idea what a healthy culture looked like either.

Eventually, it dawned on me how ridiculous this situation is. Imagine if doctors never encountered even one healthy person in their entire careers. What if, even after a decade of rigorous study of various diseases, doctors could only speculate on what a healthy person was like, and could only give diagnoses and cures based on their theoretical idea of “healthy?” Each doctor might have their own hunch about what makes a person healthy, but none of them would actually know, and so, not surprisingly, a lot of their “cures” might not be very helpful.

This is essentially what happens when most people try to diagnose what’s wrong with their unhealthy culture and suggest fixes. People who have never even heard of healthy cultures, much less experienced one, are trying to diagnose the social and political problems of their unhealthy culture and promote various cures.

People may argue for less taxes or more, less government or more, or more but only in certain ways. Like imaginary doctors who can only speculate about what makes a person healthy and then guess at possible “cures,” most people can only speculate about what a healthy culture is like and guess at how to heal the unhealthy culture they live in.

Is it any wonder so many political, social, and economic problems recur endlessly, year after year, century after century?

Figuring out what makes a culture healthy isn’t just an intellectual puzzle. This is more important than any election, because it gets to the heart of whether elections can address our deepest troubles. It’s more important than any trial, because it gets to the heart of whether a culture can have a trustworthy justice system.

If humans can only have unhealthy cultures with sexism, racism, pollution, dishonest leaders, rich and poor, child abuse, and so on, then there would be no point in trying to transform or end these cultures because deep healing would be impossible. On the other hand, if it is possible to have a culture without racism and all the rest, then effective social activism really could make a difference. But in order to seek that deepest cultural healing, activists would first need to know what a healthy culture looks like so that they know what to work towards.

So, which is it?

Are humans only capable of creating and maintaining cultures with discrimination, dishonesty, selfishness, and pollution? Or can we do better and potentially live in profoundly beautiful, generous, honest, egalitarian cultures? And if healthy cultures really do exist, what can I learn from them so I can help heal my own unhealthy culture?

After much study and exploration, this book is my answer to these questions.