B X Lee -- To ‘Survival University’ Participants
To ‘Survival University’ Participants
Progress Notes and Call for Questions
In May 2026, we launched meetings on the Survival University project as a grassroots effort to bring humanity toward a more life-affirming level of consciousness.
At our June 2026 meeting, we remarked that humanity now possesses the capacity to destroy itself through nuclear war, climate and ecological catastrophe, pandemics, and misuse of advancing technologies—and is rapidly heading toward self-annihilation. Yet, my assertion was that these dangers are ultimately symptoms of a deeper problem: a crisis of human consciousness. Scientific and technological development has vastly outpaced our psychological, moral, and spiritual development. Humanity has learned to master the external world without learning to master itself.
Institutional reforms are essential, but when built on the same psychological foundations that produced the crises—fear, competition, tribalism, distrust, and the illusion of separation—they will continually undermine attempts at building a cooperative society capable of sustaining itself.
One participant observed that contemporary humanity possesses unprecedented knowledge and tools for understanding human suffering, from neuroscience to trauma studies. Another emphasized the need to transcend Western dualistic thinking, and we described extreme individualism and fragmentation as humanity’s deepest dangers, where holism represents a more psychologically and spiritually mature state. The discussion also turned toward resilience, creativity, art, and political action.
The tension between immediate emergency and long-term transformation came up, and I discussed that we need both: in an emergency, we must be able to find our steady center in order to make sound decisions, and more generally we must be able to prevent so that we are not merely extinguishing fires all the time.
At our July 2026 meeting, we asked the more practical question: Why is Survival University needed, and what problem should it solve? Based on a previous discussion on the arts, a musician participant offered to begin with a meditation on Alexander Scriabin’s multimedia Mysterium and performed a brief piano prelude for us. Scriabin envisioned a form of global catharsis as a way of transforming human consciousness through the arts and nonverbal media. We discussed that this was a crucial consideration, as all other, rational modalities have failed. With thanks to the musician member who demonstrated possibilities, we may try similar methods again at future meetings.
I began discussion by explaining that the executive committee has started developing an infrastructure consisting of educational, research, practical, policy, and public-awareness branches. The goal is to create an institution—or perhaps something deliberately different—that can translate the ideas generated by the group into concrete action. Participants have proposed alternative concepts to an institution, such as “initiative”, “project”, or “coalition”.
We discussed how humanity needs a shared vision not simply of how not to die, but how to live.
Participants then explored the character of the society the initiative should seek to create. We discussed new names that could help move us from a fear-based toward a love-based society, contrasting hierarchical thinking. Others questioned whether the initiative should be physical, whether it should award degrees, and whether it should resemble a conventional university at all. We imagined it as being primarily virtual and global, with education pursued primarily for its intrinsic value—and it would go further than education, to form a seamless continuum with policy, practical application, research, and healing.
The committee met again this month and emphasized public education, simplification, and demystification. A “university” cannot be said to be exercising neutral academia when it serves an apparatus driving the destruction of humanity. A recurring theme was the dysfunction of society’s major institutions and how we can cause them to be more life-affirming. A goal of the new initiative might be, “to reawaken the humanity in us,” so that we can regain our collective mental health and agency.
Our August 2026 meeting yesterday began very heatedly and enthusiastically with active participation, but was interrupted in the middle by a storm. Here is what was discussed in the first half:
After I summarized the above, a participant raised the concern that the initiative may become overly utopian and argued for grounding in concrete interventions, such as universal healthcare. We discussed how concrete structural reforms may indeed have prevented our collective mental health from falling into the current disordered state, but now we are aiming to restore that basic public mental health and agency necessary to make structural changes possible in the first place—since many reforms that would benefit everyone are blocked through propaganda. Hence, we are speaking of a much deeper, more basic level.
Another suggestion was made for small, independent organizations that meet people’s needs outside government structures and are prepared to expand when opportunities arise. We discussed the Polish “social work” movement as an example, which created parallel institutions that so challenged the established system that the latter eventually collapsed and was replaced by the former.
Another participant brought up children, prevention through parenting, and investing in child development as a powerful strategy for preventing future psychological dysfunction and authoritarianism. We discussed postwar Europe, where societies responded to fascism by moving away from authoritarian parenting toward more nurturing and collaborative approaches. This transformation is associated with the greater democracy, social concern, and peace that we see with Europe today. It was able to transform one of the most violent regions of the world to one of the most peaceful.
Finally, a participant emphasized the importance of a “shift from fear to love.” He argued that people working for justice could be conceived as soldiers for peace and introduced the idea of a “tectonic paradigm shift.” This is where the discussion unfortunately was interrupted, while many hands were still up, and I did not have a chance to respond.
To answer the above question, I would say that, until now, I have been discussing the “Death Spiral” we are currently in. I would like to emphasize that the opposite is possible: we can begin to build a positive, “Life-Affirming Spiral.” This always begins with a small number of committed people with a vision and not with institutions—which are much later manifestations of this inner transformation. While contemporary crises can appear overwhelming—and indeed they have never been so overwhelming perhaps in human history—a detailed understanding of the crisis can allow for detailed strategizing that produces effective solutions. This is what the Survival University initiative tries to fulfill: its task is to cultivate the consciousness, the relationships, the imaginative parallel structures, and the collective agency capable of turning a seemingly impossible transformation into a realistic one.
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Discussion about this post
https://bandyxlee.substack.com/p/to-survival-university-participants
What a wonderful first read of the day. Coupled with Congressman Jared Huffman’s recent interviews it is the first I’ve felt true hope we may pull this off. I highly recommend Amy Winehouse Radio on Pandora.