User:Donberg/Inclusivity

Inclusivity, as defined by Dr. Sharif Abdullah in his book Creating A World That Works For All, is the necessary social attitude that is prerequisite to achieving the goal implied by the title of his book.

“Inclusivity [is] the notion that our lives are inextricably linked to each other. Inclusivity is the basis for a world that works for all.”

“[W]e cannot wage war against anything or anyone without waging war against ourselves.”

Inclusivity is the opposite of exclusivity, which he contends is the dominant social attitude in the world today.

Dr. Abdullah also presents three criteria for discerning whether a particular situation in the world: Enoughness- Everyone has enough even though everyone does not share resources equally. Exchangability- Trading places would be okay (even if undesirable), and Common Benefit- The system is designed and intended to benefit all.

Dr. Abdullah also claims that the moral codes that underlie the world's major religions are fundamentally promoting inclusivity. Evidence for this claim is the universality of the Golden Rule.

Dr. Abdullah uses this concept of inclusivity as the basis of for a far-reaching critique of our global society in which he divides humanity into three basic groups, Keepers of the Sacred Hoop, Breakers of the Sacred Hoop and Menders of the Sacred Hoop. The Keepers are the aboriginal peoples who live without destroying their life support systems by living in a manner that values the cycles of life as sacred. Breakers are people (aboriginal or not) who destroy their own life support systems by living in a manner that ignores or devalues the cycles of life by making non-living abstractions (like money) more valuable than the health of living systems.

Dr. Abdullah's model of Keepers, Breakers and Menders is a critical extension of Daniel Quinn's social critique presented in his Ishmael series of books. Quinn's idea is that there are only two basic human groups; the Leavers who leave their fates in the hands of the Gods (roughly equivalent to Dr. Abdullah's Keepers) and the Takers who have taken their fate into their own hands (roughly equivalent to Dr. Abdullah's Breakers) with globally disastrous results.