The Nurture Consilience was developed based on a multi-disciplinary identification of conditions that human beings need to thrive, essentially creating a framework for evolving societies that ensure the wellbeing of a much larger portion of the population. These conditions create more nurturing environments, which help individuals to develop values and skills that favor nurturing the wellbeing of those around them. Essentially, working to improve the wellbeing of others, benefits all of us.
The idea of consilience is much more widely accepted within the human sciences than most other sectors of society. Many sectors are more influenced by the theory of Free Markets Capitalism.
Free Market Economics
Free market advocacy uses the idea that if individuals pursue their own economic well-being, it will benefit everyone. In many sectors of society, this practice has shown to benefit a small percentage of the population, while harming the majority.
Business
Free-market economics has encouraged maximizing profits as the singular goal, which has minimized regulation, contributing to the harm of large portions of the general population.
Healthcare
Free market advocacy in healthcare has led to the maximization of profits and executive salaries, as well as policies that benefit the few at the expense of the health and wellbeing of the general population.
Higher Education
Free-Market theories have been ingrained into the higher education system to produce a workforce dedicated to the advancement of technologies and business leaders focusing on profits and deregulation. Higher education has failed to use scientific understanding of the nurturing environments that are needed for people to thrive. As a result, we have not implemented the programs and policies that could steadily increase the proportion of people who are living productive lives in caring relationships with others. Higher education has particularly failed to reduce the disparities that undermine the health and wellbeing of millions.
Criminal Justice
While not directly caused by free-market advocacy, it has encouraged ineffective punitive and criminal justice systems, resulting in more crime instead of less. This system remains in place despite more nurturing practices proving more effective at crime reduction.
Politics
The selection of political leaders has heavily been influenced by wealthy individuals and corporations, which has resulted in the dominance of political leaders who prioritize the benefits of their patrons over the interests and wellbeing of the whole, all while undermining the democratic system overall.
In order to create societies with the goal of supporting everyone’s wellbeing, we need to bring about fundamental changes in the values and practices of every sector of society.
Evolving More Nurturing Societies
Promote of prosocial values
Using advocates within different sectors that are skilled in explaining the benefits of values, goals, norms, and practices that advocate the general wellbeing.
Monitor the impact of each sector on wellbeing
Systems for measuring the degree to which any given practice is or is not harming people exist, but they are not being used. Every sector of society must examine how its practices are affecting the overall wellbeing of the population and replace harmful practices with those that enhance wellbeing.
Create contingencies for beneficial practices
With accurate and timely data on population wellbeing, it will become possible for each sector to select better policies and practices, while eliminating harmful ones by creating consequences that make harmful practices less appealing.
Evolving Societies that work for everyone
Pursuing the wellbeing of every person needs to become the foundational value for every sector of society. Currently many sectors of society run on the belief that maximizing profits and income is their most important priority. We need to widely promote the norms and values that support the evolution of more nurturing environments. And on the basis of those values, we need to promote programs, policies, and practices that minimize harm and maximize wellbeing.