Natural Democracy

          When you drive into the town of Lexington, Massachusetts, a statue of a Lexington minuteman greets you.  He is holding one of the muskets that started the American Revolution in 1775.  Lexington was still a revolutionary place 200 years later, when the test of natural democracy reported in this chapter continued the revolution.  Two hundred years after the battle of Lexington, the people of the town had a vision of doing more than celebrating an historic event but, rather, of making our vision of that event live in the Lexington of 1975.  We developed a project that was funded by the National Science Foundation.

          At the beginning of the project we townspeople invited Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas to come to Lexington to talk about obstacles that were getting in the way of the original Lexington vision and what could be done to rekindle it.  We said to him: the bicentennial of the Lexington battle that started the American Revolution is coming up; what do you suggest as a theme for the celebration.  His answer was "Community".  He reminded us of our Declaration of Independence and the creed that it  contains.  He pointed out that several states have preserved in their constitution the right of revolution.  He said the witch-hunt that followed World War II had made the word "revolution" almost subversive.  He challenged us to become a more caring community, one that strengthens bonds between us.  He proposed that we fight the obstacles that were getting in the way of that caring.  We could set an example because the eyes of the world would be on us at that historic moment.

          Here was an opportunity to apply the understanding of humanity's problem and the solution: to move to self-piloting and take control of how our genes are controlling us.

          Given that challenge, our Town Meeting dedicated itself to "continue to discover and apply increasingly effective ways for all of us to participate in the decision-making which affects our lives, and to extend this participation beyond the borders of our town, our state, and our Country -- to preserve and expand the practical realities of our self-government bequeathed to us by those who fought and died for it 200 years ago."

THE  OPPORTUNITY

          At a meeting to plan the bicentennial celebration, I said to the key leaders , "Where do we want to go in our quest for community, in our participation in governing ourselves?"  I prodded them with these questions: "What is personal fulfillment?  What is the ultimate freedom?"  With these questions in mind, we formed a committee of the Town Meeting Association to help guide the town meeting's participation in the bicentennial events.

          Living in that historic place, I recognized the obstacles getting in the way of people in Lexington and the United States that are still getting in the way of the vision that had been on Lexingtonians minds back in 1775.  That vision was governance by self-piloting: self-governance, natural democracy.

          We were sensitized to one obstacle to achieving that vision in today's world: It now is requiring more and more expertise to make sense of current, intricate problems.  It is difficult for the ordinary citizen to get enough pertinent information to participate meaningfully in the political process.  There has been a wholesale turning over of responsibility to government.  The town meeting process of revolutionary times in the American colonies is now relatively rare across the United States.  Can the governance process be redesigned for today's world to take back that responsibility?
 
          I reminded the committee that Thomas Jefferson had called the New England Town Meeting "the wisest invention ever devised for the perfect exercise of self-government, giving to every citizen, personally, a part in the administration of public affairs."

          The committee read through the town clerk's records to learn what was on people's minds at that revolutionary time.  We discovered that town meetings took up issues far beyond the borders of the town.  Between 1765 and the start of the Revolution, the meeting voted not to use tea until the British duty was repealed.  This was the tax on tea that later precipitated the "Boston Tea Party".  The meeting also voted to adhere to the resolves of the Continental Congress "to resist the unparalleled usurpation of unconstitutional power" by the British Parliament.  They voted to support Boston's boycott of stamped goods.  They chose a "Committee of Correspondence" to address regional issues.  Our townspeople took charge of their own lives and challenged "the divine right of kings".  They discovered a dignity among themselves that King George III did not understand.  They were learning to trust themselves and their own judgments about where they wanted to go and what they wanted to happen.

 
MEETINGS  FROM  1775  TO  1975

         The committee compared modern town meetings to those first meetings two centuries earlier.  We noted the positive changes, including the expansion of liberties which included the right of women to participate and vote, the abolition of slavery, and the granting of civil rights.  Our report went on to describe other changes, however, which have been negative:

          Atrophication has occurred in the following rights and liberties:

1. In 1775, each citizen went to Town Meeting, and spoke if he wanted, and voted.Now, about 200 elected Town Meeting members each represent about 165 people. That means that nearly 30,000 citizens do not get to speak at Town meeting.  Communication between each Town Meeting member and their constituents is sporadic. Although unintentional, this results in  some degree of "disenfranchisement". 
2. Two hundred years ago, it was common practice to "instruct our representatives" to vote a certain way on specific issues.  Town Meeting appointed representatives to multi-town regional meetings.  The people of the community debated on the floor of Town Meeting how these representatives should be "instructed and directed to vote".

          This type of instruction has since died out.  The atrophication has been two-fold: first, in the deliberative dialogue that occurred on each issue.  The citizens at the meeting needed to talk each issue through to understand how it affected them and decide what they wanted their representatives to do about it.  Today, we are missing much of this deliberative dialogue on the issues of concern to most people.

          The second piece of atrophication shows up in the reluctance of present Town Meetings to debate issues of regional, state, or national importance.  The 1765-1780 Town records show many regional, state and "national" issues being acted on. Today this is a rare event.  (The following note will be transferred to a section at the end of this book titled NOTES: As a footnote:  Ref. TOWN MEETING, Its Impact on April 19, 1775 and Beyond, Participatory Government in Action; Its Present and Its Future.  Researched and Compiled by the Commemorate Town Meeting Committee of the Lexington Town Meeting Members Association)

          As a central part of the be-centennial celebration, Town Meeting Moderator Robert Kent gave a keynote presentation on "The Institution of Town Meeting in Lexington".  He challenged the meeting to "share the passion and action of its time."  He suggested that this town meeting "not try to avoid the terrible problems facing Boston, the country , the world.  These are our problems, as they were recognized to be 200 years ago.  Our relationship to these problems should be discussed in this place."  This last thought was reinforced as part of a rededication of Lexington Common (Battle Green):  "We pledge ourselves to recognize the worldwide interdependence of all nations and to progress toward a united world."

          We in the project leadership recognized that we needed to create goals that were greater than the boundaries of the issues traditionally taken up at Town Meeting. We distributed questionnaires to the townspeople of Lexington, to determine what they cared about most deeply.  They answered that they wanted to have personal control of their destiny, to have highly effective ways by which we can share whatever is on our minds, and to have the opportunity to develop into all we are capable of being.

          We had in mind several great goals.  The memories of W.W.II were ringing in my ears as we wrote them.  We labeled our list "Draft of Excessively Presumptuous Statements of One Version of Great Goals of the Human Race".

• Assure that the human race survives. 
• Arrange for universal participation in decision-making worldwide about goals and priorities of the human race. 
• Design institutions which permit everyone to work cooperatively and synergistically toward their great goals.
• Raise the ability to learn and understand.
• Catalyze the development of conditions to provide everyone with the means to substantially raise his/her own intelligence
• Provide the human race with opportunities to take intelligent actions; deal successfully with new and trying situations, to become highly educated, and to experience the restful satisfaction from altruistic acts. 
• Make all information available instantly, on demand as desired, to every human being on earth; provide ubiquitous, worldwide communication.
• Bring health to the world; provide the choice of living vigorously physically and mentally. 
• Promote sustainable development.
• Preserve our biological and ecological wealth.

          These are the goals we decided on.  You can decide what great goals you think are most important, including some that are not listed here. Setting these goals prepares the stage for the next step in how to take control of how our genes are controlling us. Now the question for this test of natural democracy was, "Will it allow us to make important contributions to society and feel good about that?"
 
QUESTIONS  WE  SET  OUT  TO  ANSWER  IN  TESTING  SELF  GOVERNANCE

•  Can the New England town meeting process take on regional, state, national and global issues and problems?  Can it influence them at higher levels? 
• Is that system capable of involving a whole community -- every segment, every age group every individual? 
• Does the use of natural governance principles in an expanded  town meeting process provide an opportunity for women to take more influential roles in democracy? 
• Can these town meetings be guided by an understanding of human nature and our genes? Can an understanding of human nature and our genes provide unique insights which make more effective solutions possible? Will these insights be truly revealing and life changing? 
• Can the town meeting process be enhanced to provide the conditions that induce sufficient reciprocity to accomplish the above listed tasks? 
• Will the process allow us to make significant progress in solving humanity's basic problem: unconscious control by our genes?
  

IMPLICATIONS  FROM  THE  INITIAL  PART  OF  THIS  TEST

          When I started this series of tests of natural democracy, I predicted that each test would add confidence in our ability to define humanity's central problem and its solution, as suggested in Chapters 1 and 2.  Back in 1775, Lexington was struggling toward self-piloting.  The evidence we had examined showed that the town meeting process of that time produced conditions that induced reciprocity.  That reciprocity united Lexingtonians in their drive toward liberty, the great goal of freedom.

          Lexington town meetings of that 1765-1780 period took on a most crucial problem: restriction of liberty.  They influenced the solution of that problem in a most resounding way: with revolution.  This test of Town Meeting in 1975 had addressed and answered key questions: Is the town meeting process strong enough to take on regional, state, national, and global issues and problems?  Can it effectively take on the important issues at these levels and influence them?  

THE  NEXT  STAGE:  IMPLEMENTING  NATURAL  DEMOCRACY

          During its bicentennial celebration, Lexington challenged itself to address and help solve problems facing our community, the Boston area, the United States, and the world.  We answered that challenge by catalyzing a series of special town meetings to face up to these problems.  Could a "more perfect" form of natural governance evolving from such a series help the town to do its share to solve them?

          In human nature terms, one of our tasks in this series was to create a process that would identify breaches in reciprocity, initiate action to heal the breaches, and maximize positive reciprocity as the breaches were being healed.

          Prior to this stage of the test, the Town Meeting Members Association had developed a set of procedures we now put to use.  One was to create sub-committees to gather information on subjects to be voted on.  Another was a series of preparatory sessions attended by all town meeting members to study and discuss the information.

          The Association asked that this next part of the test focus attention on a longer range time span not readily used during regular town meetings.  This provided the authority to experiment with procedures that would address the basic causes of breaches in reciprocity and fundamental changes that would help to eliminate the causes.

          We started this process by setting up an Advisory Board with representation from the Lexington Board of Selectmen, the local Chapter of the American Association of Retired People, the John F. Kennedy Library, the League of Women Voters, the Board of Health, the Senior Citizens' club, the Middlesex Community College, the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, the Intercommunity Retirement Board, The Polaroid Medical Department, the Human Services Council, the Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical School, the Housing Authority, the Council on Aging and the Town Manager's Office.  This created the first condition necessary for inducing reciprocity in the Special Town Meetings: close proximity of people representing the spectrum of community concerns.

          With guidance from the Advisory Board, we established sub-committees on Retirement, Health Legislation, Health Finance, Ethical Issues, and Human Services.  Their purpose was to develop articles to be voted on at the special town meetings.  All five subcommittees participated in the development of an article on funding for research on aging.

          The Retirement subcommittee developed information on flexible retirement policies, congregate housing, senior part-time work programs and drug reaction in elderly.

          The Health Legislation subcommittee developed information on programs on health and nutrition, a Lexington community health committee, mental health workshops and programs on coping with aging.

          The Health Finance subcommittee developed information on reform of Medicare, financial aid for catastrophic illness and long-term nursing.

          The Ethics subcommittee focused on the ethical issues involved in several key warrant articles including extending the healthy years of life, a high school course on aging and increased training for health professionals on the subject of aging.

          The Human Services subcommittee focused on Medicare reform, elimination of the tobacco subsidy, gerontologic medicine, public participation in medical research priorities, and intra-town public transportation.

          Information about these Articles was then distributed to prospective participants well in advance of the meetings. We had confidence they would read the information because, through discussion with the Advisory Board people in their respective organizations, they had already invested substantial time and meaning in the goal of extending the healthy middle years of life.  There was enough emotional commitment to activate the time-consuming task of reading the distributed material.

          To demonstrate how these important issues can be addressed at the local level, I will focus on the Article for research on aging to extend the healthy years of life, for the remainder of the report.  It is important that concern for all of the above issues develop locally in this multiissue process in order to get broad national political support.  By the nature of the comprehensiveness of this expanded town meeting process, advocates for each issue find themselves supporting other issues as a way of getting more backing for their own.

          Most of the other issues that surface in a town meeting series are closely tied to the larger issues, and can be addressed more productively if those issues provide a vision and rationale for action on the usual town meeting issues.  All issues need to be addressed concurrently so that the necessary political support will develop from the synergism among the issues that was made obvious by the meeting's comprehensive agenda

          Each subcommittee developed a set of questions for discussion in the debate: What would be the social and scientific consequences of discoveries effectively increasing the length of life?  How can citizens have input into the priorities of national budgets, such as the NIH?  Should we also support research on psychological processes to combat depression?  Are there enough trained research workers to use additional funds properly?

INPUT  ON  AGING  FROM  RESOURCE  PEOPLE

          Each of the special Town Meeting sessions had experts present as resource people in the debates.  At the Meeting on aging these included:
              the Chief of Section on Bio-medical Gerontology, Department of Biochemistry, Boston University School of Medicine,
              the Director, Gerontology Research Center and Science Director, National Institute of Aging,
              the Director of Social Gerontological Research, Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for Aged,
              Professors from Harvard Divinity School, Harvard School of Public Heath, and Harvard Medical School,
              a Coordinator on Gerontology, Middlesex Community College; a Senior Editor, the Hastings Center,
              a Science Editor and author of the book "PROLONGEVITY", a report on the scientific discoveries being made about aging and their promise of extending the human life span.

          The Town Meeting sessions also had input from the then Director of the National Institute on Aging, Dr. Robert N. Butler, who reminded us of  "our ignorance of what aging is -- an ignorance made the more profound by our societal resistance to acknowledge the fact of aging and preparing adequately for it."  

               Here is a sampling of the insights that these experts provided:

From Dr. Richard C. Greulich, Director, Gerontology Research Center and Science Director, National Institute of Aging:
      "The greatest share of our current effort in the National Institute of Aging relates to gaining
      a better understanding of the human aging process.  From this effort must inevitably
      come some major advances leading to increased average life expectancy or
      significant extension of the human life span."

From Dr. Robert M. Veach, Senior Editor, The Hastings Center:
      "Prevention of pain, suffering, and long periods of debilitation, and the delaying of death are
       legitimate public policy objectives. Medical conditions that produce the greatest suffering
       should be given priority."

From Albert Rosenfeld, author of Prolongevity, a report on the scientific discoveries now being made about extending the human life span:
      "Perhaps now the probability of being able to provide the choice of extending the
       healthy middle years of life is high enough that we should plan on it. Why not take up,
       with some anticipatory exhilaration, the challenge of pursuing whatever path may
       bring us to our full humanhood? -- to go on learning new skills, new sports, new
       relationships -- to read everything you want to read -- to listen to all the music -- to savor
       and resavor experience and arrive not at boredom, but at new levels of appreciation.
       To be around long enough to use your talents to make important contributions to the world."

          This part of the test was directed at overcoming the epigenetic tendency not to make integrated assessments, even on serious life issues.  We made sure that objective, well founded, broadly-based information was available to the voters.  

INFORMATION  DEVELOPED  BY  SUBCOMMITTEES

          Each of the subcommittees provided charts showing the present situation on the human aging process and related goals which more research could help to meet.

The charts contrasted the negatives in the present situation:

       At the early and middle stages of life: tax burden for medical services to older
           people and concern for an aging parent.
       At the later stages of life: forced retirement, low income, boredom, depression,
           disability; decreased mobility, increase in frustration, large loss of human
           potential, widowhood, loss of wisdom and experience that older people
           could bring to young people.
 
The charts also showed the positives of reaching the goal of extending life for each
segment of the community

         For the young: more help in growing into all they are capable of being, expanding
             opportunities for careers and service.
         For the middle aged: reduced anxiety about aging parents, encouragement
             to consider other occupations.
         For older people: good heath in those years, ability to work longer if desired, more
             adequate income, feelings of usefulness, continuing engagement in meaningful
             activity, companionship of spouse, continued learning, the opportunity to make
             major contributions to the world, new levels of appreciation, fewer constraints on
             freedom of choice.

          The following article on aging was proposed by the sub-committees:

          "WE REQUEST OUR FEDERAL LEGISLATORS TO PROVIDE
          SUBSTANTIAL INCREASES IN FUNDING FOR BASIC BIO-MEDICAL
          AND CLINICAL RESEARCH THROUGHOUT THE NATIONAL
          INSTITUTES ON HEALTH, WITH THE EMPHASIS ON EXTENDING
          THE HEALTHY YEARS OF LIFE AND RESEARCH ON THE AGING
          PROCESS."  

OTHER  INFORMATION  PROVIDED  BEFORE  VOTING

          The Health Finance subcommittee added its rationale for funding research on aging:  Our best hope for our financial future lies in understanding the disease processes and preventing them.  Even if the cost of this research adds to our taxes now, it will hold down costs in the future. It seems obvious that the best attack on the problem of escalating costs is to invest more now in the attack on aging.  With an expanding elderly   population, medical expenditures increase disproportionately.  The only recourse is more effective prevention and treatment of illnesses associated with aging.  It made sense to increase the total Institutes' budget because work is going on throughout the NIH which will impact on extending the healthy years of life.
 
          The Ethics Sub-committee developed guidelines for choosing among life-extending technologies, pertinent to extending the healthy middle years of life:

• The younger the individual, the greater should be the priority for life-extending technologies. 
• Disease conditions that produce the greatest suffering should be given priority. 
• A medical condition that is seen as involuntary, with causes outside the control of the individual, have priority over conditions which have resulted from voluntary risky behaviors and life-style. The meetings took this principle into account in the resolution on public health costs caused by people choosing to continue smoking, with its strong potential for becoming a breach in reciprocity.  Without these guidelines, the arguments against smoking would probably have been less persuasive.

The Ethics Sub-committee raised these concerns:

          Considering the problems of pollution, over-population, and diminishing resources, is it morally right to extend life and thus aggravate our problems?

          Young people, even those who love and respect their elders, look to the day when these elders will step down from their positions, retire from active competition, die.  They wait their turn for jobs, status, inheritance.  Is it morally right to deny this through prolongevity?

 
THE  FINAL  ARTICLE

          The article on funding for research on aging was brought up in all the sessions of the series to give opportunities for modification.  After all sessions had their say, the article took this final form:

              That this meeting recommends substantial increases in funding for
              bio-medical, clinical, behavioral and interdisciplinary research throughout
              the National Institutes of Health

              That the aim of this research should be the extension of the healthy years
              of life, and that additional support be provided for research on special and
              chronic diseases of the aged population.

              That this meeting requests our United States senators and our
              representatives in congress to initiate legislation which will provide for a
              15 percent increase in National Institutes of Health budget each year for
              the next four years.
 

          A related article contained a clause requesting our senators and representative to encourage the National Institute of Aging to set up a liaison with communities so they could pass along evidence of public support for research on aging and rationale for it.

          There was plenty of give and take on the article.  At the session held in the High School Auditorium, with many students in attendance, several students objected to this increase.  Their argument was that the money ought to be going instead to help with current, pressing problems.  Poverty!  Low quality education in the inner cities!  It was obvious that some weren't ready to think about the middle and later years of their own lives.
 
        Articles on the following issues for action on the Federal level passed unanimously:

• Comprehensive reform of Medicare.
• Financial alleviation of problems of catastrophic illness and long-term nursing care.
• Funding increase for research on pharmacology and training of medical professionals on the effects of drug interactions.
• Disapproval of subsidy for growing tobacco, the use of which results in higher health care costs.
  

         Other action affecting the local community level passed unanimously, including resolutions requesting action on retirement policy and age discrimination, community nutrition education, intra-town public transportation, mental health education, senior job bank and public school education on health and nutrition for adults.

          Each voter completed a questionnaire at the end of each session. On the average, 89% agreed that "More Money Should Be Spent on Research to Extend the Healthy Middle Years of Life".  Over 98% agreed that "Young People Should Be Given the Opportunity to Benefit More From the Wisdom and Experience of People Over 65".

          There was strong agreement that "The social consequences of effectively increasing the length of life would be mostly beneficial."  Another agreement was that: "There should be ways to make it more evident to young people that what they do today will affect their lives later and that good health from childhood on is more beneficial than doctoring in later years because of poor care in youth."

THE SUMMARY REPORT

          The Summary Report to the National Science Foundation stated: "This experiment proved that the Town Meeting format can be successfully applied to the task of supplying information for decisions about life and death matters.  Experts can make substantial contributions to an entire community which then votes to instruct its local officials and congressional representative to take action on allocation of resources for the long-range benefit of the entire community.  Since the public policy issues are basic ones, and since the whole community can be involved in the deliberative process, these public decisions made in the sessions are likely to be typical of those that would be made in most communities in the United States."

          The report went on:  "The Lexington formula could be modified for use throughout the United States--according to regional governmental traditions.  This could be an important step in the direction of allowing citizens input into the priority setting process of our democracy, where special interests, in many instances, now dominate."

          Senator Edward M. Kennedy's reaction was typical of the commitment of all the senators and representatives who were provided with information on our special town meetings and the decisions made.  He said he was ready and willing to cooperate on resolutions developed in such a comprehensive manner with participation by the whole community.  This gave me hope that the U.S.Congress is prepared by both design and inclination to take part in natural democracy. Subsequent chapters will address how this inclination can come to fruition.

TAKING  HUMAN  NATURE  INTO  ACCOUNT

          In the preceding sections, several examples have been given showing how some of us made use of the information about human nature in Chapters 1 and 2. Only a few of the participants had read Wilson's SOCIOBIOLOGY and ON HUMAN NATURE.  GENES, MIND, AND CULTURE was yet to be written by Lumsden and Wilson.  But the seed ideas had been planted in several of us. .

          What did this experiment show about how to take human nature into account?  How can we say that these meetings were natural democracy in action?  What were the characteristics of this town meeting process that induced reciprocity?  How did the evolution-based understanding of human nature and our genes help us to do what we did?  What does all this show about what to do next to overcome some of the remaining limitations of our democracy?  How did living through this experience move the participants along from automatic control by the epigenetic rules toward conscious control of these rules of human nature?

          Yes, we had proved what we set out to prove.  The town meeting process had been competent enough to take on regional, state, and national issues and problems (because it is based on expanding reciprocity and healing breaches in reciprocity).  The process is capable of involving a whole community, every segment and every age group.  The process allows the community to address complex problems in integrated ways which include scientific information essential to their solutions.  The process enlists help from state and national organizations as it develops these solutions.

          Yes, town meetings can be guided by an understanding of human nature.  The leadership of our special town meetings had provided the conditions that had induced more reciprocity.  We had opened up several underutilized opportunities for taking advantage of this characteristic of human nature.  For example, by learning about aging, the young people discovered opportunities for dialogue with older people who have the wisdom to mentor them toward exciting careers beyond their dreams. As another example, the breach in reciprocity by so-called second-hand smoking became more visible. Smokers are not doing a favor for those around them.

          E.O. Wilson has since proposed that every student should be able to answer the following question: what is the relation between science and the humanities, and how is it important to human welfare?  What we had done in these meetings was to make the connection in the students' minds between the science of biology (the science of human aging) and the humanities (the social effects of aging) and the importance of that connection in every resolution that was passed --- the exchange of knowledge between the two branches of learning in a political process that provides the conditions that encourage that exchange.

NATURAL DEMOCRACY IN ACTION

          How can we say that these meetings were natural democracy in action?

1. The subjects were naturally on the minds of at least some of the participants.  Given the structure of the more adequate political process, the subjects sprang up naturally out of people's present needs and future hopes.  The construction of the comprehensive agenda by several subcommittees in advance of the meetings provided the opportunity to have these subjects considered.
2. The conditions of the exchanges were those that naturally induce reciprocity.  There was face to face close proximity. There were multiple and frequent opportunities for participants to do favors for each other.  The benefits to the recipients of the favors outweighing the cost to the doers of the favors.  The town meeting process prevented cheating by using techniques that detected any attempts to propose measures that would lead to breaches in reciprocity.
3. The articulation of goals struck responsive chords, because the goals had a solid foundation of realistically achievable reciprocity.
4. Because the process had been agreed on face to face, there was sincere, honest exchange of what was on people's minds, with the patience to listen.
5. Because there was some benefit for everyone in some aspect of each article, the subjects turned out to be of interest to everyone ---- each person knew that her or his favorite issue would have its turn, an arrangement carefully crafted well in advance.
6. The articles were addressed to people who had been elected by the people making the requests.  These representatives were articulate in their dedication to serving their constituents.  This willingness came naturally because these representatives, with their carefully honed political minds, could see the balanced reciprocity in the requests.
7. The people who were informed on each particular subject were sharing their knowledge out of goodwill and the willingness to help, and the reciprocity was obvious.  In giving their knowledge, these resource people had the satisfaction of being appreciated while knowing that the actions they were encouraging would aid them in accomplishing a central part of their life's work.

          These seven statements, in effect, describe principles of natural democracy.
In this test, we felt we had demonstrated how to overcome one of humanity's problems pointed out by Wilson: "Cooperation beyond the family and tribal levels comes hard."

STILL A WAYS TO GO

          Only a few of the leaders of these meetings were consciously aware of the evolution-based understanding of human nature and the control by the double helix, DNA.  These few were able to help devise the right conditions so that the participants were being controlled mainly by the reciprocity epigenetic rule.  By being conscious of how our genes control us, we leaders had learned how to decide how we wanted our genes to be controlling us in natural democracy, and we had implemented that decision.  In order for the momentum that had been built up in these meetings to be fully sustained, I felt that it would be necessary to educate the whole town in an understanding of human nature. Education is always a necessary step toward the goal of more natural democracy, but it was obvious that there had to be intermediate steps first, as Chapters 6 and 7 will show.