"There are no hierarchies in nature other than those imposed by hierarchical modes of human thought, but rather differences merely in function between and within living things."

- Murray Bookchin

Sovereignty is the product of a hierarchal mode of thinking. In the social context, it establishes supreme authority of one individual or group over all others, and in the individual context it fosters an extreme isolationism, and disconnect from the social ecology within which we exist.

There is no meaningful distinction between the individual and their social ecological context. And the complex system that is a social ecology can only be modeled when we include as many component parts and their interactions as possible.

Within the Ethics of Social Ecology, we don't look at the sovereignty of the individual, because that would harm both the individual as a component of a complex system, and the complex system itself. Instead, we look at the concept of Complimentarity.

Complimentarity is the assertion that all entities within a social ecology are deeply interconnected. So deeply, that we can only address their distinction from each other through flawed and reductive modeling. And even this modeling highlights strong dependencies between components and the activities of components.

Within such a paradigm, we cannot approach society, or the individual, using the hierarchical mode of thinking that leads us to the domineering concept of sovereignty.

Instead, we must rely on concepts like interconnected autonomy. Where interconnected autonomy is the freedom of entities within a system to explore and strengthen their connection to all other entities within the complex social ecology. In such a framework, the individual is tasked with maintaining and improving the feedback loops between components of a complex social ecology. The individual is tasked with stewardship.

In contrast to sovereignty, this conception of stewardship place responsibilities before rights. Which is the natural progression. For how can you have rights to that which you have not taken the responsibility of stewarding? Can you have a right to clean water when you do not accept the responsibility of cleaning water? Can you have a right to bodily autonomy if you have not taken the responsibility of maintaining and protecting all bodily autonomy? Can you have a right to life, if you do not engender the responsible respect for life that assures its continued existence and perpetuation?

While sovereignty seeks to impose order, stewardship fosters the strength of the complex social ecological system, allowing rights to emerge from the interaction of the components of the system.

How do you all view sovereignty, and how do you foster stewardship?

#Sovereignty #Stewardship #socialecology #complexSystem #complimentarity