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How to Save the World: Developing a Social Movement toward Personal Evolution


Author: Bernard Phillips* and Thomas J. Savage
Dept. of Sociology, Boston University.
Published Date: 2025-06-26
Keywords: personal evolution, mindfulness, kaizen, evolutionary perception, interaction, social movement, consciousness.
Abstract:
The basic idea guiding this paper was stated in the book we published with several contributors in 2024, Creating Life Before Death: Before Disaster Strikes the Ship of State: “It is the further development of the individual that is the basis for the continued evolution of society. Attention must be paid to the individual’s awesome possibilities for continuing to grow intellectually, emotionally, and in problem-solving abilities throughout life (page 3).” We begin with an Introduction to a Sociology Course, just published by the American Sociological Association, which summarizes our basic ideas. Those ideas discuss the very long-term evolution of consciousness that began with the origin of life itself. We are confident that this is indeed possible for three reasons, to be presented in the 3 Sections to follow that course introduction: Quotations from individuals throughout history pointing in this direction; Our Own Personal Experiences in undergoing evolutionary transformations; and Our Academic Backgrounds & Relevant Publications. The next Section, Mindfulness and Kaizen, is the first of two actual procedures for carrying ever further one’s evolution of consciousness, with a focus on internal phenomena. It is one of two procedures the two of us have been using to move in a developmental direction. We see these patterns of personal behavior as ways in which anyone and everyone can learn to move in an evolutionary direction. The following Section, Evolutionary Perception and Interaction, is the second procedure we are employing in our everyday lives. Our emphasis here is on our evolution of consciousness which centers on external phenomena, including nonliving and living things as well as other people. It is the continuing reinforcement the individual can achieve throughout everyday life that makes kaizen possible. For it is that reinforcement which enables people to gain ever greater self confidence about their ability to fulfill their incredible potentials. In our final Section, How to Save the World, we present our vision of developing an effective social movement toward personal evolution. It is based on the widespread development of the evolution of consciousness to solve personal and world problems. For it is this development which can enable ever more of us to understand both the awesome potentials of every single human being as well as the procedures which can fulfill those potentials. And it is this development which can be achieved by a social movement toward personal evolution that is based on what has been learned from an analysis of the effective social movements of the past.