The idea that people can live together in small groups of families does seem like the way in which they can have both peace and security without force. In the world today, aside from groups that share the same religious beliefs I am not sure how to form these groups. Some employers I have known have been able to put together an environment around their facilities and purposes that help form groups that have lasted for many years, but they are hierarchies and capitalist and separate from the cave experiences we discussed from 17,000 years ago. What do you know about creating the gathering within this western culture? You are circling a real problem, and you are right to distinguish it from both religious sects and corporate hierarchies . What you’re asking about is not belief-based cohesion and not command-and-control stability, but how gathering itself can be made durable in a Western culture that no longer trains people to gather. I’ll answer in four layers: 1. what the ancient “cave” actually provided, 2. why Western culture breaks gathering, 3. what has worked here (outside religion and capitalism), and 4. practical design principles for creating a gathering now.
Toward the Second Freedom
An indication of cooperation among abstract entities and their subjects is the picture of the world shown below.