Good list of working hypotheses. I’m in accord. Nonetheless, most are about top-down and bottom-up dynamics. I’d like to see more about lateral dynamics. Your 4, 5, and 7 hypotheses are lateral to a degree, but it may be time to suggest larger visions as well. Here’s my suggestion:
We currently live in an advanced modern society that has a triform design — meaning it has three major realms: civil society, government, and a market economy, variously arranged and each relying on its own distinctive form of organization. This triform design emerged centuries ago, superseding earlier simpler designs. It still holds sway today.
Indeed, nearly all of today’s ideological isms — capitalism, liberalism, conservatism, progressivism, and populism, as well as trendier anarcho-capitalism, neo-libertarianism, neo-monarchism, accelerationism, national conservatism, techno-humanism, techno-colonialism, cosmo-localism, etc. — are triform in nature. They address how civil-society, government, and/or our market economy should be shaped, and how their actors are supposed to think and behave. All of today’s politicians are, at best, triformists, no matter whether they lean right, left or whatver.
But triform societies are now nearing their end. Because of growing social complexities and complications, our triform systems have nearly exhausted their capabilities to address and resolve all they need to.
We need a new design. My working hypothesis is that it will be quadriform — a distinct fourth realm will emerge and take shape in the decades ahead, alongside the existing three (civil society, government, market economy). Particular kinds of actors and activities — ones the current three realms no longer handle well — will pioneer and move into it as its organizational elements become evident.
My best guesstimate is that this next new realm will consist largely of health, education, welfare, and environmental actors and activities — matters that are about care, broadly defined, rather than about identity, power, or profit. None of these matters are being addressed effectively by either our public or private sectors, and they’re too huge to toss back to civil-society sectors. Time is coming when it may make sense for these care-centric actors and activities to move (and be moved) into this new realm, which will be as distinct and independent in design as the current three realms are from each other. My sense is that, unlike the earlier three, it will be a largely pro-commons realm built around collaborative network principles and designs that we’ve not yet developed enough — but I’m open to alternative hypotheses too.
If so, then the challenge that lies ahead is to inspire and shape an evolution from triform to quadriform designs in ways that may improve the capabilities and benefits of all four realms.
David than you for this thoughtful comment. I am intrigued by your TIMN framework and whether the "N" will a standalone dimension or if it could be incorporated within the existing three sectors. In civil society there has been some really interesting work done in thinking about "networked nonprofits" in which many separate tribes to use your framework sync and link up to achieve common purposes, and there is also an ongoing debate about whether / how online forms of organizing and collaboration can be developed that would rival and surpass their IRL variants. The team at New_Public is working on some of this thinking here https://artofassociation.substack.com/p/can-social-media-be-saved I don't know if this is in the realm of the N you are thinking about.
I latched onto the idea that the digital information revolution would benefit network forms of organization more than other forms back in the 1990s. I also figured that the major forms of social organization and evolution were the following four: first, kinship-based tribes (now the basis of civil society); next, hierarchy-based institutions (basis of government); then, exchange based markets (basis of economy); and now its networks turn to rise. The rise of network forms would, I figured, alter all the preceding forms and their respective realms, but strengthen civil-society actors (CSOs, NGOs, NPOs, etc.) more than government and business actors, and induce the creation of a new network-based realm of as-yet-unclear composition (tho I mentioned health and education as candidates back then).
That’s the logic I thought I was (and still am) unearthing. Trends have kinda gone that way. But “uncivil-society” (e.g., extremists of all sorts), government, and corporate-business actors have learned to use network forms as well as anybody. And those business firms have tightened their grip on health and education matters, as though the only choice is between letting the public or private sector run them. Ideas that health, education, etc. matters might be better off in a commons sector aren’t even on the table anywhere; and long-time pro-commons advocates of creating a vast commons sector, say à la Elinor Ostrom’s guidelines, have pretty much moved to focus on other matters, say à Sensorica.com.
So I’m in accord with what you say about strengthening civil society, and roles new media can play in that (friend points to Dallas Makerspace as another example). But I don’t see the latter as part of +N. Facilitative, yes to a degree — constitutive, no.
Evolutionary dynamics as I understand them still mean a transition from triform to quadriform societies lies ahead. And best I can deduce is that health, education, welfare, and environmental matters have become too huge, complex, and transnational as a care-centric set for civil society to attend to better than it has historically.
Sure, the more that can be done in favor of community hospitals and health centers, community schools, community welfare programs, etc., the better for reinvigorating civil society. But I don’t see that happening without a vast new pro-commons network-based realm growing with and around those actors and activities. Our society has long had Chambers of Commerce at all levels. Maybe we could use Chambers of Commons next.
Hey Dan Thanks for the post. I’ve been thinking about this issue for a while now from a more class based viewpoint. I guess my view is that wealth inequality is the driver of much of the community disfunction these days.
There are so many reasons a culture that encourages, or puts up with, large wealth disparities also is not good at community solidarity. From extreme individualism to consumerism people are hyper competitive and not trusting of their neighbors or those that they see as more entitled or better off.
I believe a class based movement to mitigate extreme wealth inequality must also include some very important community building principles or ethos in order to succeed. There must also be a democratic building component. This is by its nature bottom up. Similar to a union movement but on a more civic wide basis.
I came up with a fancy acronym of ABC&D Americans Building Community & Democracy as a start. Now to fill in the blanks. Ha ha. I have subscribed to you and your organization. I believe we have a lot of common interests. Let’s collaborate!
‘How do we get people to do a thing?’ to ‘How do we equip people to become the kind of people who do what needs to be done?’” This is the question that those of us working for civic renewal need to be asking ourselves in the years ahead.
The above excerpt is certainly the concept around which we framed 1050 Forward, and seeing it iterated in this way resonates with me --- especially after over a year of place-based work with local leaders. It's the 'people part' vs any reform that rings most true for me. I'm also very interested in 'civic joy' and will be googling that term right now! :)
I have been involved for a while now in a local chapter of a national climate organization where the small, national paid staff have a rather light hand in how things run, and the bottom-up leadership and work is inspiring. I have been getting more interested in how our democracy works (or doesn't) and joined seemingly promising organizations started by people I admire in some way, only to find those organizations are top-down fundraising outfits who want my money more than my engagement.
Also, really appreciate you sharing the line "How do we equip people to become the kind of people who do what needs to be done?" As a deep reader of the Tao Te Ching, this resonated with me.
Thanks Alex for reading and sharing your experience. Your feeling of (in the one group) being more someone who is being managed on a fundraising list instead of being a bona fide member joining forces with others has alas become an all too common occurrence in recent decades (one that Theda Skocpol traces in her book "Diminished Democracy" I am glad you found a better situation with the local chapter of the national climate organization.
And I work in the fundraising profession! I appreciate the hustle! But when it feels like your organization only fundraises... well, it begs the question of what is all the fundraising for. I donate a decent amount of money to the climate org I volunteer with because I see the training videos, use the policy one-pagers, interact with the great staff, etc. I know *exactly* what the fundraising is for (and they don't do too much of it).
I enjoyed this piece and appreciate much of the wisdom here. At the same time, the current political climate is leaving many Americans feeling unsafe or wary, as they fear the loss of their civil rights and acknowledgement of their humanity. Will those citizens (LGTBQ, for example) really feel comfortable engaging over dinner with neighbors who voted for anti-LGTBQ policies? Also, given that American neighborhoods are becoming economically, racially, and politically segregated, I worry that focusing on small-scale community bonds will only solidify our polarization and problems of confirmation bias.
Thank you, Dan. We may not live to see the results of the kinds of efforts you describe so well here, but we can work for a better world for the generations to come.
I live on an island along the coast of Maine. Until recently, I served as Board Chair of the Mount Desert Island Historical Society and continue to be involved. The term "cultural catalyst" is intriguing. We are affiliated with 13 additional regional organizations contained within Frenchman and Blue Hill Bays. Together, we are the cultural memory of the area. Your section 3 states that civic cultural renewal will bubble up from the communities in which we live.
We have a long tradition, here in Maine winters, of community Baked Bean Suppers. Our most recent took place on January 20 at the regional high school cafeteria with great attendance. We then had a community discussion of democracy and introduced the crowd to Robert Putnam's work and publications. Five days later, we had a free public showing to a packed local theater of Join or Die, followed by a vigorous discussion. I love "Cultural Catalyst" as a, well, catalyst for a small organization to move forward with renewed purpose.
That is a terrific update, Bill, thanks for reading and the affirmation. it is also fun that you and your neighbors watched “Join or Die” together — the filmmakers, Pete and Rebecca Davis, are friends of mine and they have done a real service in bringing Putnam’s political science to life in such an engaging way.
Thank you for writing this. The first two and last items really resonate with me, to emphasize cultural civic renewal rather than all structural and government policy reform, and to get to work now. I also appreciate the openness to hearing from others at the end of the piece and your personal responses to previous commenters.
For the rest, regardless of the right balance along a continuum of local to national efforts, I was surprised to not see anything about correcting misperceptions of each other across the political spectrum. I know you've done great work on behalf of an organization that has conducted a great deal of research on this point, More in Common. It strongly influences the organization I run, More Like US.
Some research from Jamie Druckman among others shows that people have overly negative expectations about political conversations, which discourages the civic and associational ties you highlight in the hypotheses. Narrowing or correcting other misperceptions, such as about policy extremity and perceived threat, should also have positive impacts, I assume to some extent at local levels, in addition to national levels.
I look forward to seeing you later this week in Atlanta.
Thanks James for reading and your input on the post. In my experience, if people are engaging more with each other in local settings where they are in ongoing relationship with each other, then the perception gaps that are so problematic at the aggregate / national level among politically activated Americans are less of an issue.
Thank you for the quick response. I look forward to seeing new ideas in Atlanta for local initiatives that can have this effect, especially those with potential to scale.
Good list of working hypotheses. I’m in accord. Nonetheless, most are about top-down and bottom-up dynamics. I’d like to see more about lateral dynamics. Your 4, 5, and 7 hypotheses are lateral to a degree, but it may be time to suggest larger visions as well. Here’s my suggestion:
We currently live in an advanced modern society that has a triform design — meaning it has three major realms: civil society, government, and a market economy, variously arranged and each relying on its own distinctive form of organization. This triform design emerged centuries ago, superseding earlier simpler designs. It still holds sway today.
Indeed, nearly all of today’s ideological isms — capitalism, liberalism, conservatism, progressivism, and populism, as well as trendier anarcho-capitalism, neo-libertarianism, neo-monarchism, accelerationism, national conservatism, techno-humanism, techno-colonialism, cosmo-localism, etc. — are triform in nature. They address how civil-society, government, and/or our market economy should be shaped, and how their actors are supposed to think and behave. All of today’s politicians are, at best, triformists, no matter whether they lean right, left or whatver.
But triform societies are now nearing their end. Because of growing social complexities and complications, our triform systems have nearly exhausted their capabilities to address and resolve all they need to.
We need a new design. My working hypothesis is that it will be quadriform — a distinct fourth realm will emerge and take shape in the decades ahead, alongside the existing three (civil society, government, market economy). Particular kinds of actors and activities — ones the current three realms no longer handle well — will pioneer and move into it as its organizational elements become evident.
My best guesstimate is that this next new realm will consist largely of health, education, welfare, and environmental actors and activities — matters that are about care, broadly defined, rather than about identity, power, or profit. None of these matters are being addressed effectively by either our public or private sectors, and they’re too huge to toss back to civil-society sectors. Time is coming when it may make sense for these care-centric actors and activities to move (and be moved) into this new realm, which will be as distinct and independent in design as the current three realms are from each other. My sense is that, unlike the earlier three, it will be a largely pro-commons realm built around collaborative network principles and designs that we’ve not yet developed enough — but I’m open to alternative hypotheses too.
If so, then the challenge that lies ahead is to inspire and shape an evolution from triform to quadriform designs in ways that may improve the capabilities and benefits of all four realms.
David than you for this thoughtful comment. I am intrigued by your TIMN framework and whether the "N" will a standalone dimension or if it could be incorporated within the existing three sectors. In civil society there has been some really interesting work done in thinking about "networked nonprofits" in which many separate tribes to use your framework sync and link up to achieve common purposes, and there is also an ongoing debate about whether / how online forms of organizing and collaboration can be developed that would rival and surpass their IRL variants. The team at New_Public is working on some of this thinking here https://artofassociation.substack.com/p/can-social-media-be-saved I don't know if this is in the realm of the N you are thinking about.
I've wondered whether +N might be part of a T 2.0 (civil society 2.0). I no longer think so. Will try explain in few days.
I latched onto the idea that the digital information revolution would benefit network forms of organization more than other forms back in the 1990s. I also figured that the major forms of social organization and evolution were the following four: first, kinship-based tribes (now the basis of civil society); next, hierarchy-based institutions (basis of government); then, exchange based markets (basis of economy); and now its networks turn to rise. The rise of network forms would, I figured, alter all the preceding forms and their respective realms, but strengthen civil-society actors (CSOs, NGOs, NPOs, etc.) more than government and business actors, and induce the creation of a new network-based realm of as-yet-unclear composition (tho I mentioned health and education as candidates back then).
That’s the logic I thought I was (and still am) unearthing. Trends have kinda gone that way. But “uncivil-society” (e.g., extremists of all sorts), government, and corporate-business actors have learned to use network forms as well as anybody. And those business firms have tightened their grip on health and education matters, as though the only choice is between letting the public or private sector run them. Ideas that health, education, etc. matters might be better off in a commons sector aren’t even on the table anywhere; and long-time pro-commons advocates of creating a vast commons sector, say à la Elinor Ostrom’s guidelines, have pretty much moved to focus on other matters, say à Sensorica.com.
So I’m in accord with what you say about strengthening civil society, and roles new media can play in that (friend points to Dallas Makerspace as another example). But I don’t see the latter as part of +N. Facilitative, yes to a degree — constitutive, no.
Evolutionary dynamics as I understand them still mean a transition from triform to quadriform societies lies ahead. And best I can deduce is that health, education, welfare, and environmental matters have become too huge, complex, and transnational as a care-centric set for civil society to attend to better than it has historically.
Sure, the more that can be done in favor of community hospitals and health centers, community schools, community welfare programs, etc., the better for reinvigorating civil society. But I don’t see that happening without a vast new pro-commons network-based realm growing with and around those actors and activities. Our society has long had Chambers of Commerce at all levels. Maybe we could use Chambers of Commons next.
Something like that. Onward.
Hey Dan Thanks for the post. I’ve been thinking about this issue for a while now from a more class based viewpoint. I guess my view is that wealth inequality is the driver of much of the community disfunction these days.
There are so many reasons a culture that encourages, or puts up with, large wealth disparities also is not good at community solidarity. From extreme individualism to consumerism people are hyper competitive and not trusting of their neighbors or those that they see as more entitled or better off.
I believe a class based movement to mitigate extreme wealth inequality must also include some very important community building principles or ethos in order to succeed. There must also be a democratic building component. This is by its nature bottom up. Similar to a union movement but on a more civic wide basis.
I came up with a fancy acronym of ABC&D Americans Building Community & Democracy as a start. Now to fill in the blanks. Ha ha. I have subscribed to you and your organization. I believe we have a lot of common interests. Let’s collaborate!
‘How do we get people to do a thing?’ to ‘How do we equip people to become the kind of people who do what needs to be done?’” This is the question that those of us working for civic renewal need to be asking ourselves in the years ahead.
The above excerpt is certainly the concept around which we framed 1050 Forward, and seeing it iterated in this way resonates with me --- especially after over a year of place-based work with local leaders. It's the 'people part' vs any reform that rings most true for me. I'm also very interested in 'civic joy' and will be googling that term right now! :)
Thanks Brigitte, given my respect for what you and Joy are working on with 1050 Forward I am very glad to learn that this passage resonated with you!
Many great things here, thank you for writing!
I have been involved for a while now in a local chapter of a national climate organization where the small, national paid staff have a rather light hand in how things run, and the bottom-up leadership and work is inspiring. I have been getting more interested in how our democracy works (or doesn't) and joined seemingly promising organizations started by people I admire in some way, only to find those organizations are top-down fundraising outfits who want my money more than my engagement.
Also, really appreciate you sharing the line "How do we equip people to become the kind of people who do what needs to be done?" As a deep reader of the Tao Te Ching, this resonated with me.
Thanks Alex for reading and sharing your experience. Your feeling of (in the one group) being more someone who is being managed on a fundraising list instead of being a bona fide member joining forces with others has alas become an all too common occurrence in recent decades (one that Theda Skocpol traces in her book "Diminished Democracy" I am glad you found a better situation with the local chapter of the national climate organization.
And I work in the fundraising profession! I appreciate the hustle! But when it feels like your organization only fundraises... well, it begs the question of what is all the fundraising for. I donate a decent amount of money to the climate org I volunteer with because I see the training videos, use the policy one-pagers, interact with the great staff, etc. I know *exactly* what the fundraising is for (and they don't do too much of it).
I enjoyed this piece and appreciate much of the wisdom here. At the same time, the current political climate is leaving many Americans feeling unsafe or wary, as they fear the loss of their civil rights and acknowledgement of their humanity. Will those citizens (LGTBQ, for example) really feel comfortable engaging over dinner with neighbors who voted for anti-LGTBQ policies? Also, given that American neighborhoods are becoming economically, racially, and politically segregated, I worry that focusing on small-scale community bonds will only solidify our polarization and problems of confirmation bias.
Thank you, Dan. We may not live to see the results of the kinds of efforts you describe so well here, but we can work for a better world for the generations to come.
I live on an island along the coast of Maine. Until recently, I served as Board Chair of the Mount Desert Island Historical Society and continue to be involved. The term "cultural catalyst" is intriguing. We are affiliated with 13 additional regional organizations contained within Frenchman and Blue Hill Bays. Together, we are the cultural memory of the area. Your section 3 states that civic cultural renewal will bubble up from the communities in which we live.
We have a long tradition, here in Maine winters, of community Baked Bean Suppers. Our most recent took place on January 20 at the regional high school cafeteria with great attendance. We then had a community discussion of democracy and introduced the crowd to Robert Putnam's work and publications. Five days later, we had a free public showing to a packed local theater of Join or Die, followed by a vigorous discussion. I love "Cultural Catalyst" as a, well, catalyst for a small organization to move forward with renewed purpose.
That is a terrific update, Bill, thanks for reading and the affirmation. it is also fun that you and your neighbors watched “Join or Die” together — the filmmakers, Pete and Rebecca Davis, are friends of mine and they have done a real service in bringing Putnam’s political science to life in such an engaging way.
Hi Daniel,
Thank you for writing this. The first two and last items really resonate with me, to emphasize cultural civic renewal rather than all structural and government policy reform, and to get to work now. I also appreciate the openness to hearing from others at the end of the piece and your personal responses to previous commenters.
For the rest, regardless of the right balance along a continuum of local to national efforts, I was surprised to not see anything about correcting misperceptions of each other across the political spectrum. I know you've done great work on behalf of an organization that has conducted a great deal of research on this point, More in Common. It strongly influences the organization I run, More Like US.
Some research from Jamie Druckman among others shows that people have overly negative expectations about political conversations, which discourages the civic and associational ties you highlight in the hypotheses. Narrowing or correcting other misperceptions, such as about policy extremity and perceived threat, should also have positive impacts, I assume to some extent at local levels, in addition to national levels.
I look forward to seeing you later this week in Atlanta.
Thanks James for reading and your input on the post. In my experience, if people are engaging more with each other in local settings where they are in ongoing relationship with each other, then the perception gaps that are so problematic at the aggregate / national level among politically activated Americans are less of an issue.
Thank you for the quick response. I look forward to seeing new ideas in Atlanta for local initiatives that can have this effect, especially those with potential to scale.