the historical model the 99 percent revised
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8/3/2019 The Historical Model the 99 Percent Revised
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The Historical Model: The 99 Percent
Recent technological and economic swings have triggered a paradigm shift creating a new wave of global
interaction, and are the driving forces for diminishing profitability worldwide. As a result of
marginalization, creative contribution is arguably at its lowest point of social impact and imagination thanit has been in the last 60 years. This has spawned a broader need to level the playing field so that all
voices are invited to participate in our global conversation. In light of this description, I offer this short
literary journey into “The Historical Model” as a starting point toward gaining greater understanding and
inspiration to further the global debate.
HISTORICAL MODEL:
Sociologists like Thomas Jefferson have argued for years, that the root of man’s social behavior and
response to his own existence is fear. They have found that man’s fears govern the way he navigates
through the difficulties of life. Once man managed to mitigate his fear of death, he next wrestled with the
problem of solving his fear of loss and diminishment in his social world. Man found that he could
mitigate this new fear by increasing his own value. For the most part, his value was intrinsically and
inextricably connected to his relationship with his immediate community, which in ancient times meanthis tribe or village. He had discovered that real value was in his community, not his individuality. Thus,
he sought to enhance himself by enhancing his community. He determined that the best way to achieve
this goal was through social relationships that facilitated the buying and selling of products and services,
which indeed brought increased value to his community. He perhaps furthermore imagined that this
activity of buying and selling would enhance his quality of life by distancing him from his social fears. As
a result, those in his community would dutifully validate his worth by continuing to include him as one of their members while he dutifully provided them with products or services that they valued and utilized.
This was the old model. The individual was important to the community and the community was
important to the individual. Through the passing of time, this model began to change along with a
paradigm shift that facilitated and justified this change. Buying and selling was still important in this new
model, however, instead of an emphasis on community the emphasis began to gradually highlight the
individual.
One of the basic truths affecting all of us in the modern world community is that we are the scions of a
conflation of cultures, ancient and modern, that have evolved to produce a world in which scholars havecharacterized as having two distinct groups, privileged and marginalized. This dichotomy and disparity of
existence has grown evermore complex since man has emerged as a civilization builder. In addition, this
new model has survived all attempts to expose and depose it as the principle influence on human behavior
and fortune. You might not like it, but we all live within the confines of this structural influence, and yet,
though it has an enormous impact on us all, we as individuals have little if any influence in shaping thismonumental force on our lives. This model elevates a small number of privileged elites to its plateau
and jettisons the rest of the human race into a marginalized existence of unimportance . These macro
structures have been formed by privileged elites for preserving their quality of life via the preservation of
their social-economic and political ideals and values. In other words, the model elevates those that givetheir allegiance to it (the privileged). Moreover, through the development and use of institutions, the
model is able to foreground the collective values of the privileged in order to strengthen and perpetuate its
authority and existence. As a result, all of us are subject to the particular proclivities of this model. Our
very orientation into the world, from youth on, is a product of this model. Its impact and influence is
worldwide, affecting our values and behavior cross culturally. This orientation is the thread that connects
us all to a world community. Such a structure has sometimes been called a pyramid because from the
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bottom to the top it gradually diminishes in size while paradoxically growing in power and authority. At
its base lie the vast faceless and voiceless pillows of society, excluded however from much of the fruit
they engender. At the pyramid pinnacle lays a tenuous and trepid few in constant fear of having theirsurreptitious practice of exploitation exposed, and responds to this threat by theoretically triggering the
creation of institutions designed to protect it as it makes use of the first rule of survival, self-preservation.
This is arguably how our world operates. The appearance of institutions provide hidden support for those
values that protect and perpetuate this ever evolving systemic condition; emphasizing exclusion overinclusion, individual over community, hierarchy over egalitarianism and privileged over marginalized.Today, in the West, our orientation tells us that we make it by virtue of pulling our individual selves up
by our boot straps, never-mind the fact that the heel of your boot is lodged in, and on, the heads of others
as you springboard your way to the top. Forget about the poor, the blind, or the handicapped in society
because in this model, they don't matter! Within the scope of this model, the so-called "have-nots" have
little if any value and therefore, warrant exclusion. Such apathy is often captured in the popular
expression "that's just the way things are”. Yes, perhaps that is the way things are, however, the premise
of this argument proclaims that’s not the way things have to be, or have to remain.
INCLUSIVITY:
Through the ideas and ideals of inclusivity over exclusivity, and ownership as appose to proletariat, intheory, may inspire a different revolutionary concept and philosophy. The idea is to combine the values of
inclusivity with ownership in order to produce both a community that values its members and sees them
as essential to the value of their community, and individuals who value their community and see the valueof their community as fundamental to their own individual value. By emphasizing the importance of
inclusivity, ownership, and community, it is this author’s belief that the human race can positioned itself
for the task of preserving civilization for centuries to come.
If someone, somewhere, in a world dominated by fear and individual self-interest, could begin to see that
the word WE, has a much greater potential and power than our drifting emphasis on me, perhaps maybe
the seeds of change could find fertile soil at last. After all, look at the bright side. Isn’t change inevitable?
Arguably, for all the good and bad that Thomas Jefferson has said and done, one quote in particular seems
to have captured our present divide; “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” It is my hope that the blood of patriots and tyrants can be avoided; but what
cannot be avoided is change. After all, our liberty is at stake.
“the reckless thinker”