The Generative Domain
Pathos, Order, and Intelligence in the 21st Century
by Orrin S. Schwab

The Generative Domain is an interdisciplinary synthesis of theory to describe the nature of modern history. I posit three elements that describe all of history. Pathos is a destructive force that is tied to human emotions. The opposite of pathos is order, which we find in both the natural world as well as in human communities. Finally, intelligence is yet another element which we can find in all life forms but has evolved in humans as a dominant force. There are both individual and collective forms of intelligence.

Along with these three elements of human behavior, we also have several more constructs which I first introduced in Redeemer Nation. Scripts are multileveled agents that control human experience. Life scripts are particular to individuals. Metascripts are all narratives that exist within societies and cultures as collective phenomena. Individuals internalize not only a life script but an entire network of higher order collective scripts that shape their actions and experiences. Metascripts begin with familial and group scripts and continue in depth and complexity to those operating within communities, institutions and ultimately the highest levels of political and social organization. Nation-states and ultimately the international system as a whole are governed by interactive metascripts.

The Generative Domain is my concept of the global metascript for contemporary world society. It is expressed in what the World Economic Forum has described as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” and in what futurists have termed the “singularity” or the process of accelerated change or “accelerated futures.” The domain has both great potential for human development as well as significant dangers endemic to all human societies related to the pathologies or pathos that is hard wired into our species.

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