Does Compulsion Still Work?
I am convinced that we are in an historic transition in our society and our entire world from patriarchy to partnership. From a model of organizing society’s institutions around hierarchy, top-down control and “power-over” towards a very different model where the “world is flat” and decisions are made collectively in a “power-with” arrangement. Like all profound transformations, besides the visible changes in how our institutions are organized, how we lead our lives and interact with each other, there are internal realignments in what we value and how we frame the world and our participation in it.I see that more subtle side of this transition when I see a dad get down on his knees to be at eye level with and listen to his five-year-old complain about being bored. Or when I see a female teenager laugh heartily and put her hand on her boyfriend’s shoulder. The dynamics of adult-child and male-female relationships are changing, from those based on a superior-inferior to more of an egalitarian model, in line with the historic transition of much of
