4.1.2 Arrest disorder

The arrest disorder paradigm provides restrictions on the greedy self-interest involved to value return, yet in doing so, it also has its own unexpected negative effects. At this stage, one broadens the focus of their attention and awareness to encompass interactions within systems, enabling them to perceive how their actions are affecting other people. One starts to worry about maintaining equilibrium and the long-term viability of human undertakings. As a result, one works to address the systemic issues brought about when individuals or organizations prioritize their own, limited interests at the expense of others. Several international laws and rules, ranging from those governing the environment to those governing bank supervision, are established explicitly to reduce the unfavorable effects of applying the value return paradigm without restraint. Similar to how socialist economic theories developed in response to the destruction brought on by unrestrained capitalism.

With the advent of this paradigm, the emphasis has shifted from immediate transactional advantage to systemic benefit, constituting a significant conceptual enlargement built upon a similarly significant extension of perception. At this point, one’s concept of self expands or, to put it another way, the self is no longer the only thing to consider. After making this adjustment, returning to the value return paradigm is a step backward, a contraction to a more constrained and limited understanding of reality. Nothing that can be engaged on at the lower level cannot be done in a more balanced and inclusive manner at the higher level.

When one is only concerned with their personal benefit, they are unable to access a new level of consciousness necessary to see how their activities affect something bigger than themselves. This awareness is a crucial first step in the evolution of consciousness. Politically, it has sparked a number of historically important movements and changes, including as the abolition of slavery, the creation of unions, and the struggles for civil rights and environmental safeguards. It serves as the foundation for social safety nets that deal with problems like child poverty and access to healthcare. The value return paradigm, which the arrest disorder paradigm is intended to fix or restrain, is in contradiction with it by its very nature. Every political initiative to deal with the chaos in our communities ultimately puts pressure on those who want to have the most freedom to pursue their own interests. In this way, activists who have an arrest disorder viewpoint on the world always create resistance to the changes they want to see. Also, the problem-solving focus of this paradigm results in techniques that are programmatic in character, severely restricting the types of creativity that are made possible at higher levels of thinking.