by Hugh M. Lewis

Human meta-culture is what I refer to as the instantiation of a global human trans-cultural system, or global civilization, that can be defined as well as a human meta-system that is fully integrated and fully distributed on earth. Such a system should by definition transcend pragmatic and functional boundaries of nation, and in time ethnocultural boundaries that serve to divide and organize people into chauvinistic groupings in competition with one another.

The definition of human meta-culture is not unlike the definition of human meta-systems. It is multifaceted and serves to generally integrate a number of different areas of possible application of the concept, whether this is in terms of meta-cultural applications of food production, wildlife management, production of material meta-cultural, or the cultivation of behavioral and non-material assets of meta-cultural value orientation and worldview.

The concept embraces, more than anything else, central aesthetic and ethical components on the level of implicit behavioral standards the people should maintain in relation especially to their human and natural environments. These are mostly standards of peace, respect, non-violence, empathy, and active involvement in the life that continuously whirls around us like a whirly-gig in the breeze. They are standards of a sublime beauty that can be found in the smallest organism, and in the fundamental complexities of the organization of reality.

General Systems Essays, Vol. I