Communal Evolution: A Collective Push Towards a Higher State

Communal evolution can be thought of as community evolving into a force that pushes us to a higher level. That is, for a ground-swelling effect to occur and for new behaviors to become permanent, the community must collectively become the driving might.

A Collective push towards a Higher state

In the case of developing into better stewards of our planet, the force will use its buying power to continually make small changes that will effectively result in noticeable differences over time. The community will continue to demand transparency so that important information that may have a negative impact on us or our environment is not suppressed, and it will make educated decisions regarding today’s actions that could have severe consequences for future generations.

The concept is nothing new. Two general examples of this concept are the cohesive push made by the international community to pool together human knowledge to create the web; and the community pushing aside the barriers of traditional commerce to create Ebay, the highly efficient marketplace for the exchange of goods with prices set by its own creators. There of course are many examples of community pushing society to a higher plateau.

Communal evolution is desirable because individuals can bring their own personal perspectives while also negotiating for the collective good. Two needs have then been met. The first is individuals are determining ways to work with the information that matches their personal needs, interests, and capabilities. The second is that because individual knowledge is allowed and a shared understanding is built, a consensus is formed.

The opposite of this idea is individuals and small groups effecting slight changes in a non-systematic way while the community sits somewhat passive. The result being that the desired higher state is not reached and society does not benefit to the degree that it could.

Jellie Stanton is the creator of Humanwear, Inc. “We are about creating the perfect green tshirt.”