There are many people in the world. The population of humans on planet earth keeps growing. There are different kinds of people: young people, old people, tall people, short people, Black people, White people, rich people, poor people - diverse peoples. All of these people associate together. They try to survive. Different people live in the world, and they all try to survive. But how? How do the different peoples living in the world all get round to surviving? How do they live without simply destroying one another or even the earth itself? Co-existing with diverse groups of people can be challenging and confusing, because there are avenues for dispute and discomfort embedded in such situations. Individual differences surface and tempt with dissatisfaction and distress. We need understanding to triumph in spite of them. We need a whole new perspective on life. We need what I call participatory frameworks, which are the very things that help us to survive and thrive in a multicultural world.
A participatory framework is a unit of living human energy that is charged with the responsibility of co-existing with other humans in a given realm. There are levels and stages to the growth and development of the participatory frameworks that are formed in the socializing situations of their fostering. In other words, a person's participatory framework is formed in the socializing scenario of the environment in which the person grew and was nurtured. If a person grew up say, in Africa and had poor parents and suffered a ton of violence and inter-ethnic conflicts and the like and had to move from place to place to try to catch a break, the person would have a different participatory framework than someone who grew up in Los Angeles to very wealthy parents; had a smooth and event-free upbringing; went to the best of schools, and had pretty much everything in life handed to him or her. The former person may feel bitter toward life situations, while the latter person may feel entitled. Their outlooks on life would necessarily be different. Any of you that have watched the movie, Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure, recall the scene where she said concerning luxury: "I just expect it." She expected it because she was used to it and grew up in it - it became her participatory framework, the pattern of living she was socialized into.
There are three levels of participatory frameworks: the level of the body, or simply the terrestrial level. This is the level of participatory framework that we need to participate in families. Be they nuclear or extended families, we need terrestrial participatory frameworks to be able to participate with the other members of our family. Ordinarily, it may seem that we do not quite need defined terrestrial participatory frameworks for after all one might think that all the members of a particular family are pretty much the same. This is not so. Mariama Ba, African novelist, said: Being siblings with someone is like waking up with them in the same room; that same morning, each finds their own way. Even the people that have been socialized in almost the exact same way because they shared the same parentage and family experiences still have different participatory frameworks. This is because participatory frameworks include both nature and nurture. The talents, gifts, personalities and inclinations of an individual necessarily differ from those of even a twin brother or sister. In one and the same family, a member may self define as gay, and another as straight; this diverse self definitions automatically places them into two different culture camps.
The second level of participatory frameworks is the cosmic level. This is the level of the soul. It is the level of country or society. We embody the socialization gained from our entire community: family, clan and town. A person from New York has a different participatory framework than a person from LA; a person from Wilmington is different from a person from Dallas. Within the same country, there are different participatory frameworks. This is because there are different socialization experiences in the different parts of a single nation. There are many aspects to both the terrestrial and the cosmic frameworks; each individual's participatory framework, like the family or the nation itself, is made of very many elements. For example, one person may be straight, and rich, and White, and sporty, and this and that; such a person's participatory framework is made up by compounding all of these characteristics together. This combination of attributes differs from another person that is Black, and poor and gay and so forth. Participatory frameworks are complicated at the terrestrial and cosmic levels, but even more so at the celestial level.
The third and last level of participatory frameworks is the the celestial or global level. This is the level of the spirit, that is ideally conscious of the entirety of the human species. It takes place at the level of the entire globe. It is formed for interaction at the international level. Participatory frameworks formed in the context of individual nations are needed for participation in the world at large. Participatory frameworks formed in say, Shanghai are different from those formed in Berlin or Lagos. A person from Addis-Ababa has a different participatory framework than one from Johannesburg or Dayton. We need cosmic frameworks to participate in international situations. Global participatory frameworks are the most complex of the three. They are also prone to the most conflict, because the people that have them are the most different from one another, the more the elements in the pools that make them up differ. Someone living in Africa would be expected to have a different worldview that someone living in Europe, and so forth. It is here as well that issues of race and religion, two of the most tricky aspects of humanity, surface the most. Many of the people living in the same family or the same nation tend to be of the same race and religion: for example, Saudi Arabia and Italy; it is when these individuals step out of their natural communities that they most encounter people from other persuasions and nations. This is why global or celestial participation is the most complex.
The task of homophily in a global village like ours is ever more challenging, and people must work hard to embrace opportunities for peace. The stages of development of participatory frameworks coincide with the rungs on Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The hierarchy of needs points to what motivates and individual to act in a certain way at a certain time. The first is the physiological need. This refers to food and clothing and sex and shelter. The second is security. This refers to safety needs. Both these rungs may be combined to one stage of the development of participatory frameworks, called material stage or bodily stage. The material stage corresponds to the terrestrial framework. When the individual is born, the individual needs only physiological provisions and security - it gets all of this from its participation in the family. It is unaware of any more complicated relationship dynamic. When a baby is hungry, all it does is cry for its mother. When it feels threatened, all it does is run into the arms of its mother. The body of such a baby is its primary concern, and keeping safe and taken care of physically are primary.
The second stage is the soulful stage; that of belongingness, according to Maslow. This is the framework that is needed to participate in nations. When the child grows up, it seeks out an identity. Boys want to be sure they can relate on equal footing with other boys. They want to know that they can join the football team; play soccer and other sports, and date girls in the cheerleading squad and so forth. Girls in turn want to know whether they can try out for cheerleading or do some needlework, or take home economics and so forth. They begin to learn this from school. They join clubs, where they meet with peers and study, play and work together. They begin to take in the culture outside the family. But they need to be grounded first in their families to be able to effectively participate in the national drama. When a child's home life is problematic, there would be difficulty participating on the national stage. Such a child would have issues with trust and genuine teamwork. Such a child would have issues claiming their own identity and getting along with others. Even in the workplace, when the child is all grown up, the child would not be able to fit in with other colleagues and workmates. This is very likely why in elementary schools for example, teachers always inquire if there is a problem at home when a child is misbehaving at school. These teachers understand that it is when the child is not grounded in home life that the participatory framework of the soul is underdeveloped. In other words, a poorly developed terrestrial participatory framework leads to a poorly developed cosmic participatory framework, and vice versa.
The third and last stage of the development of participatory frameworks is the celestial stage. This is the participatory framework required to act in international situations, like at the Peace Corps after college; at an international seminar in another country; at a multinational summit, and so on. This stage coincides with Abraham Maslow's artistic rung. It is a delicate stage that requires sensibility and sensitivity in dealing with different individuals. People who are not grounded in their own sense of identity find it hard to deal with others who are very different from them, and so cannot manage potential conflict situations properly. But individuals who have no problems with their identity find it easy to relate on international levels. A well formed cosmic framework leads to a well formed celestial framework, and a badly formed cosmic framework leads to a badly formed celestial framework. The level of participation required for all three frameworks have relationship with one another.
Participatory frameworks are used for acting in social situations. Terrestrial participatory frameworks are used to participate in families. They are material in nature. Cosmic participatory frameworks are used to participate in national situations. They are soulful in nature, and celestial participatory frameworks are used to act in international situations. They are the most complex of the three and are used to interact on the spiritual level, a level that embraces all of humanity. The stages of development of participatory frameworks refer to the periodic processes of development of the capacity within oneself to act in different degrees of challenging social situations. We all need fully developed participatory frameworks to perform optimally in different social situations. We also need to understand other people's participatory frameworks.
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