Relational Dynamics

= "a different approach for studying human society and human evolution, it focuses on what kinds of relations does a particular society support: top down hierarchies of domination or the more equitable hierarchies of actualization and linking". ; research direction proposed by Riane Eisler.

Discussion

(from an interview conducted by Eric Reynolds)

Riane Eisler:

"The study of relational dynamics, as I write in Nurturing Our Humanity, is a different approach for studying human society and human evolution. For one thing, it focuses on what kinds of relations does a particular society support: top down hierarchies of domination or the more equitable hierarchies of actualization and linking. I had to coin new language, terms such as domination system and partnership system, as well as others.

I’m going to take a little sidebar here, because we often think of hierarchy as being the problem. But we all need parents and teachers and managers and leaders. So, I had to make a distinction between a hierarchy of domination, which we all are familiar with: You better obey or else, whether it’s in the family, on the job, in a rigid domination regime. But there is another kind of hierarchy: a hierarchy of actualization, where, as in the title of my first book, The Chalice and the Blade, power is conceptualized not as power over, but as power to and power with, where there is accountability and respect. That we increasingly find references to this kind of power is a partnership trend.

There have in fact been many trends towards partnership over the last few centuries, but of course, there also have been terrible regressions. I was born into one and we are living through a period of regression right now, worldwide.

A regression to the domination side of the partnership/domination social scale can take many forms. It can be religious, like so-called religious fundamentalism, which is really domination fundamentalism. Religion is part of it, but that’s not what it’s about. Or, it can be secular, whether it’s a Hitler on the right, or a Kim Jong Un on the left, or a Stalin on the left, or whether it’s ISIS or the Taliban or the direction the United States has been going in the last years, this cannot be understood in terms of the old thinking. But it becomes very understandable from a perspective which is a holistic and, if you will, an integral and integrated perspective, as in Nurturing our Humanity." (http://integralleadershipreview.com/17022-12-21-nurturing-our-humanity-with-riane-eisler/?)