How can we create caring and compassionate societies?

Zsolt Hermann
2 min readJan 29, 2023

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Question from the Internet:

“How can we create more compassionate societies?”

By default, we are all “compassionate” only about ourselves. This is nobody’s fault or sin; we are all “created” with a 100% egocentric, subjective and individualistic consciousness and worldview.

As long as we develop and behave instinctively — as we all have been doing through millennia until today — all our calculations, decisions, and actions are only for ourselves, based on 100% self-serving and self-justifying “pleasure/pain” considerations.

We can’t even see from reality anything that is beyond our immediate self-interest. And when we connect to others, even when we seemingly connect through “love or compassion,” we do so only to gain something from the connection for ourselves. Our inherent internal software is such that if I do not gain at least something, feedback, or appreciation from my actions towards others, I simply cannot move even a finger.

So in order to build more compassionate, safer, peaceful, and sustainable human societies, we all need to learn how to exist, act and connect to each other above and against our inherent nature. And while this sounds like a “mission impossible,” it is actually possible through a unique, purposeful, and practical method.

And while it is truly impossible to practice this unprecedented “social experiment” and self-upgrade in the whole world with everybody at the same time, we can organize small, closed, mutually committed, and mutually complementing groups where more sensitive and willing people can start this process.

And then, as they gain strength and experience and new abilities to connect and truly serve and love each other, and the external society continues to inevitably decline, these small “healthy cells” will become the foundations for a new human society.

And then, we will build a truly compassionate society where everybody exists only for the sake of others, completely forgetting about themselves since all the others can fulfill the person’s needs and desires perfectly through the methodically built “mutual guarantee.”

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Zsolt Hermann

I am a Hungarian-born Orthopedic surgeon presently living in New Zealand, with a profound interest in how mutually integrated living systems work.