How does Asabiyyah act as the central mo va ng force behind the being and the ac ons of each hero?

What makes each of them into heroes? Isn’t it true that each of them is given their being and ac on by
something bigger than themselves? In every case the hero is a stand for more than just his own
personal interests and/or concerns. Consider the mo va on of Frodo, Neo, Moghli, Luke, Connor and
Furiosa – what do they all have in common? Strong Asabiyyah! I assert that the mo va on shared by
ALL OF THEM is Asabiyyah, or the “spirit of kinship.” And it’s also Asabiyyah that is at the heart of the
ma er in all human ac vi es, no ma er what the scale. This is a VERY IMPORTANT idea for our
mental model on whipping fear, because it ul mately trumps everything other kind of mo va on– sex
drive, survival ins nct, anger and even fear. It’s one of the four Founda onal Factors of Being a Leader,
along with Authen city, Integrity and Being Cause in the Ma er. Werner expresses Asabiyyah as
“Being given being and ac on by something bigger than you.” That is a very useful defini on for “spirit
of kinship,” and a much be er word than “love” to describe a hero’s ul mate mo va on.

Asabiyyah is important because it helps to explain the progressive WEAKENING of human beings that
results in their ul mately being whipped by fear. It helps to explain how so many human beings end up
being divided and conquered. It may be very interes ng to observe the mechanism of this progressive
WEAKENING. Could this WEAKENING be the result of turning away from the TRUTH?

It’s amazing that an “all or nothing man” like Bill Wilson could build a fellowship like Alcoholics
Anonymous, one of the world’s most enduring examples of non-coercive social cohesion. Bill started
out as a terribly miserable, isolated man who did everything he could to stay that way; and yet, through
the scourge of alcoholism, he found an extraordinarily effec ve way to bring people together that
rendered the use of force completely unnecessary. A man of force became a man of power, whose
greatest strength emerged from his greatest weakness.

There is more than one way to establish and maintain social cohesion, or asabiyyah. The method that
works best in a par cular situa on depends on the context. There’s the very popular “organiza onal
model” that is used mostly in schools and corpora ons. And there’s the “fellowship model, ” which is
used on twel h-step groups like Alcoholics Anonymous. The two models are NOT the same. The
former is mainly about produc on; the la er, about protec on. When it comes to bringing people
together, “Organiza on” dominates in the West.

Organiza on is based on establishing and enforcing rules. Fellowship is based on establishing

guidelines, and providing access to wisdom. Members of organiza ons are forced to follow rules;
members of fellowships are invited to follow sugges ons. All organiza ons use enforcers (some mes
known as “leaders”) who mete out punishments to non-complying members; all fellowships have
trustees who provide support to members who don’t have to qualify to receive it.

The organiza onal model is based on what I call the “Goat Standard” of human performance. The
underlying assump on with the Goat Standard is that people are goa sh by nature, and they need to
be whipped into submission. Within a fellowship however, the model is what I call the “Principled
Standard” of human performance. The underlying assump on is that people are, in fact, responsible
human beings - not goats.

Incidentally, the Type-5 personality appears to be much more inclined to get along inside of a
fellowship than inside of an organiza on.

What are the roots of the organiza onal model? For more informa on, you can inves gate the origins
of the modern school system, to see how it was designed to produce “compliant specialized workers”
for the Industrial Age machine. Buckminster Fuller explored the roots of specializa on in-depth, and
presented a summary of his findings in his book, Opera ng Manual for Spaceship Earth.

There aren’t any businesses that I know of that are run successfully as a fellowship. And this must be
for the best, because if the Fellowship Model worked well within a business context, then you’d think it
would have been widely adopted by now, and it would be working well for at least SOME businesses.
And vice versa, if the Organiza onal Model worked best for socie es like A.A., then it would have been
widely adopted in that context, which it isn’t.

[It’s probably a mistake to use the word “culture” instead of asabiyyah, or “social cohesion.” ]

A.A. is based on living by principles like humility and responsibility.

As a Social Architect, a man needs to understand how and when to apply both models, not just one or
the other. Your choice of which method to use should be determined by the purpose ge ng people
together in the first place. It’s cri cal to get this dis nc on. A lot of trouble can be caused by trying to
force-fit a social cohesion model into a situa on for which it isn’t well-suited.

Perhaps the most popular wrong applica on is trying to force the organiza onal model to work within
a marriage. Oops. Talk about trying to fit a square peg into a round hole!

Why doesn’t the organiza on model work within a marriage? Consider the main purpose of marriage.
Marriage is a fortress. It’s all about protec on. And that is why the Fellowship Model, not the
Organiza onal Model, works well here: the func on of the Fellowship Model is consistent with the
purpose of marriage.

When we get married, from what dangers or threats are we seeking protec on? We’re seeking
protec on from satanic influences, personal demons, and “the familiar.” If that sort of language doesn’t
work for you, we’re seeking protec on from our own Goa sh Disposi on.

There are also several words I’d like to coin pertaining to Ilya Prigogine’s work on dissipa ve structures,
including a word for "change of heart," or “pulling back the veil of bewilderment.” The state of being
un-bewildered, un-confused, of "se ng oneself to rights" with respect to fair-and-foul. I’m pre y sure
“pro-sapient” will do.
To describe a way of “coming out of the wilderness,” I want to use Prigogine’s ideas about the
evolu on of non-equilibrium structures. I want to coin a word that means “one who plants into deserts
conquered from Chaos and Nothing."

I’m talking about a man who alternates between figh ng and farming, like Cincinnatus from ancient
Rome, who “le everything to save the republic.” This idealized “figh ng farmer,” or Figh ng Steward,
is a champion who uses resources at his disposal to strive in the cause of God. There aren’t many
English words to describe this kind of person.

There’s “philosopher king,” and “knight templar,” but these aren’t quite right. He longs for the soil and
his true love is cul va on, but that doesn’t stop him from figh ng when he’s needed. I’m a er an
androgynous word with a predominantly male component.

The figh ng aspect is male; for that I can use words like knight, gladiator, weapon, a ack, ba le,
combat, paladin, etc. The farming aspect is more female, with words like nurse, shepherd, cul vate,
field, a endant, steward, pastor, villa, minister and vicar. By the way, the word “knight” originally
means “servant, bondman, vassal.” It might actually be a good word.

Once again, I’m trying to coin a name for one who lives in-between control and surrender, who
operates in the middle of two extremes. I’ve already got words like “bi-valiant” and “educede.”
Ducedent. Ducedant. Interducedent. Educedent. Interducedant. Educedant.

From a Guardian interview with John Cacioppo:

Guardian: We have talked a lot about being lonely without defining the opposite state.
What is the opposite of loneliness?

Cacioppo: It’s an interesting question. As I said, my original interest was about social
connection, not social isolation, and I went through a lot of words trying to capture it
and none of them quite did. Because each word seemed designed to capture a
particular kind of social connection, not the whole thing. Finally I just started to say
“normal”.

Cacioppo discovered an interven on that made a difference in reducing loneliness: he calls it “reducing
maladap ve social cogni on,” that is, social cogni ve behavioral therapy.

I tend to agree with him. There appears to be no direct English word for the opposite of loneliness.
Two possible excep ons are “integrity,” and “gra tude,” although the common defini ons of these
words are rarely associated with loneliness. I need to dis nguish both of them in a new way, so that
people can see the rela onship.

I suggest the best stand-alone word is asabiyyah, an Arabic word popularized by ibn Khaldun. This was
confirmed by a scholar named Asyiqin Ab Halim, who quoted the following in “Ibn Khaldūn’s Theory of
‘Aṣabiyyah and the Concept of Muslim Ummah:”
As stated by Arnason and Stauth, ‘This is one of his most untranslatable terms and
 Western interpreters have differed widely in their views on its meaning.’

I want to talk about the “rise and fall of asabiyyah.” I think of asabiyyah as a kind of “social entropy.” I
think of the rise and fall of orderliness within the social domain as a rising and falling of harmony
between human beings. Perhaps this would be a good place to re-introduce Prigogine’s concept of
dissipa ve structures. Here’s the “bifurca on drawing” of dissipa ve systems again:

I can use this drawing as an analogy for the Journey to Faith, or perhaps the Journey to a Posi ve
Mental A tude (PMA) - a journey that is spurred on by the pain of loneliness, grief, fear and loss (also
known as a Nega ve Mental A tude - NMA). In other words, a journey begun by a man who is fed up
with his life not working. This journey isn’t too different from Li lefoot’s quest for the Great Valley in
the movie The Land Before Time. The Great Valley is a symbol for faith, or perhaps for a Posi ve
Mental A tude.

Most Wounded Oysters in the world are s ll on the le side of this diagram, but some are embroiled in
the middle sec on. It’s a painful and challenging me indeed - a me that tries a man’s soul - labeled
euphemis cally here as the “Period of Disorganiza on and Uncertainty.” More poe cally, for me this
middle period is the me of living in the “desert that is my soul” (adapted from the Police song, “So
Lonely”), the sen ment of which was beau fully captured by Miller’s Furiosa character from Mad Max
Fury Road:

I see the progressive enerva ng of human beings with more and more luxuries. I see the human beings
becoming more and more enslaved. I see us faith being destroyed by an cipatory divide-and-conquer
tac cs like over-specializa on.

Loneliness occurs for me as an inevitable result when government has become a surrogate for self-
government, when people indulge in luxury instead of reflec ng on the Truth, and when economics
becomes a game of over-specializa on.

Words related to loneliness: shirk, default, derelict, lapse, omit, breach, contempt, apathe c, neglect,
oblivious. Shirkache. Shirk Flu. Loneliness = shirkflu. Shirkflu: “only defaulters bleed.”