"What all persons have in common is their uniqueness."
-- Sam Keen & Anne Valley Fox, Telling Your Story

Politics, Society and Self-Regulation

A sui-generis society or community is held together not by any governing body or leader, but by the integrity and maturity of its members. Any so-called governing body is merely administrative in its nature and function, serving the needs of its members in terms of being part of a community. A sui-generis community is a model community, demonstrating the possibility of the integration of individuality and community, based on self-discipline, creativity, and freedom. Its activities are created according to need and are not standardized or routine. They are based on the ever-present need to grow, and to learn to integrate one's need for individuality with a need for social contact. These activities mirror what is already there -- individuality, creativity, social interaction, paradox. Participants learn to curb an excessive eccentricity by developing social skills, and in turn moderate excessive social constraints with a healthy development of their uniqueness and creativity. It is a happy meeting ground that is achieved with some struggle and effort but the resulting freedom and sense of well-being is worth every bit of the attention and energy required.

Due to its structure of incorporating the complementary qualities of individuality and community, a sui-generis community or society is a self-regulating system. Any excess toward one side is readily checked by the existence and acknowledgement of its complement. There is never pressure, hype, excess, exaggeration beyond reasonable limitations. And if there is, as may happen from time to time, it is not curbed with force or oppression, but by the presence of its complement. The principles of Xenn Polarity maintain the delicate balance necessary for a healthy organism, group, organization, community, society, nation, or community of nations.

Sui Generis is based on learning to live with and out of paradox. A paradox sets the limitations for the oscillation between two parameters or complements. As long as there remains an openness towards the interaction of these two parameters or complements, it remains self-regulating. The self-regulating nature is the essence and foundation of Sui Generis. Those who live by it uphold the tension between the two complementary qualities of individuality and community. In other words, if an individual refuses to honor the social aspect of Sui Generis and insists on being a nonconformist to the point where he or she ignores any social obligations, this threatens the self-regulating nature of the society and that person needs to be asked to reconsider, or requested to leave.

A Free and Open Society

Sui Generis believes that a society is open and free only to the extent that it is self-regulating. Self-regulation is achieved by enabling the free play of complementarities, and the holding of all complementary forces, pressures, concerns, values, or virtues, (say A and B), in tension. The tendency of side A to move towards an excess will activate side B to limit and moderate side A. If a society can be or provide a vessel or container that will hold the tension of these two sides to the point where they can interact, cooperate, or even integrate, the health of each of the complements as well as the whole system is actualized.

The possibility of securing this vessel depends on the maturity of its members. Harboring or embracing two complements is like housing a whirlwind, for the tension between complements can sometimes be hard to contain. It requires among other things, integrity, self-discipline, dedication, steadfastness, tenacity, decisiveness. Any excesses and/or extremes weaken the vessel and undermines the function and presence of one of the complements. If the members of a community or society are willing and able to sacrifice inordinate personal wishes and whims, addictive compulsion, and to simplify their own needs, complementary forces are free to interact with each other to achieve self-regulation and in turn a free and open society.

Here we see an interesting paradox in itself. It is not what the members of a society do to maintain that society. A society needs to regulate itself. But this does not mean that its members have no role to play. Their role is to provide those conditions that ensure the presence and the interaction of complementarities within that society. Their role is to be true to themselves and to temper themselves, as well as be willing to be tempered by others. To temper does not mean being controlling or critical in a negative sense, for that in itself calls for moderation. Nor can this role be reduced to tolerance, which needs the presence of its own complement.

It may seem that the above asks for quite a bit of effort and sacrifice, especially since the rewards are not tangible and the theory rather abstract. It is a new approach that will need to be put into practice and be tested. Although it is not overly complicated in theory, it may be difficult to carry out in practice, for it may ask more than what we are sometimes willing to give. This in itself is where Polarity Dynamics can make a difference. Our previous mode of understanding, based on rationality or duality, generated an "either/or" mentality. It is normally countered with the inclusive approach of "both/and" which often makes bold and unsubstantiated claims for itself. But both these approaches themselves will go to excess without the other. Xenn Polarity is not synonymous with "inclusive thinking", which permits total freedom for both complements. An understanding of Xenn Polarity facilitates an ability to hold complements in tension, thereby cancelling out the oppressive nature of an excessive "either/or" approach and the overbearing nature of an excessive "both/and" approach. On a small scale we will already have participated in providing a vessel for the containment of complements. In the process we are freed from the potential tyranny of "either/or" and we become aware of the ineffectiveness of "both/and" when either works alone. Understanding Polarity Dynamics cannot be divorced from practicing it in terms of how we apply it in our daily lives. Experiencing this gives us the key to applying Xenn Polarity to a situation outside of ourselves and empowers us to take the necessary steps for providing a vessel to contain the complementary forces in that situation.

At the same time, the application of Xenn Polarity promises to relinquish us from any obligations to regulate society. In doing our part, we will observe the process do its own regulating in the same way that life regulates itself. No longer will we impose our own self-centered needs on ourselves and the world. We will be fulfilling our part in an interconnected system where all components and complementarities have a voice and in which those voices keep each other in balance and in health. Our society will be ecological and self-sustaining, in harmony with all the other systems and forms of life that inhabit our planet.

One of the functions of Sui Generis is to provide the foundation for a healthy society. It believes that only a society where both individuality and unity are honored is capable of being self-sustaining, self-regulating, and free. To the extent that it succeeds in doing this, will it succeed in its effort to help create such a society in the world.