7 generation decision making
In a book being read, I ran across a reference to what I’ve come to label – “7 Generation Decision Making” or “7 Generation Principle”. Our world today needs this very, very badly. Even if we would extend our decision horizon to beyond ‘me’ / ‘I’, the world would be better. A glimpse of a future based on 7 generation decision making is motivating, inspiring. Our ancestors knew better …
While the principle is commonly attributed to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the principle seems more of a cultural value than a codified element of their constitution. Per Wikipedia’s article, this is the closest codification.
In law 28 of the Constitution of the Iroquois Nation,
We now do crown you with the sacred emblem of the deer’s antlers, the emblem of your Lordship. You shall now become a mentor of the people of the Five Nations. The thickness of your skin shall be seven spans — which is to say that you shall be proof against anger, offensive actions, and criticism. […] Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground — the unborn of the future Nation.
Wikipedia
Just because the 7 Generation Principle was not codified, does not mean that the principle isn’t deeply rooted as a cultural core value. As one leader articulated,
Oren Lyons, Chief of the Onondaga Nation, writes: “We are looking ahead, as is one of the first mandates given us as chiefs, to make sure and to make every decision that we make relate to the welfare and well-being of the seventh generation to come. … What about the seventh generation? Where are you taking them? What will they have?”[2]
Wikipedia
From the Confederacy’s website, they summarize the principle like this
https://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/values/
- Among the nations of the Haudenosaunee is a core value called the Seventh Generation. While the Haudenosaunee encompass traditional values like sharing labour and maintaining a duty to their family, clan and nation and being thankful to nature and the Creator for their sustenance, the Seventh Generation value takes into consideration those who are not yet born but who will inherit the world.
- In their decision making Chiefs consider how present day decisions will impact their descendants. Nations are taught to respect the world in which they live as they are borrowing it from future generations. The Seventh Generation value is especially important in terms of culture. Keeping cultural practices, languages, and ceremonies alive is essential if those to come are to continue to practice Haudenosaunee culure.
In contemporary culture we see the breakdown of this principle almost everywhere we look – the clothes we buy, the fuels we use to power mechanization, the foods we eat, the debt we take on, the policies we promote, etc … all in the name of convenience without regard to consequence – even within our own lifetime.
Wise humans from our history saw and practiced a different decision making method … always considering the future community as importantly as the current. What a different world we’d create.
Another Native American leader not associated with the Confederacy, had this to say when asked about the 7 Generation Principle,
I wish the Shoshone Nation could take credit for that kind of thinking, even though I am sure we have that thinking [Editor’s note: the “Seventh Generation” principle is based on an ancient Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) philosophy that the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future]. The Iroquois People and Iroquois leadership do not make any decision without considering its effects … seven generations ahead. I tell that story because I think one of our leaders took that to heart. If all the legislation they proposed considered the effects on seven generations down the road, would we make the same decisions?
I don’t have any oral history or storytelling about that. All I know from a Shoshone perspective is that we have always considered what effect it would have upon the land, our animal kinfolk, and things going forward. So the “seven generations story” really resonates with me, and I think it resonates with a lot of people about how our stewardship is. When you see populism and nativism and things like that, it is about the here and now. To me, the story is never about the past [either]. We can honor the past and look at it as a way to educate ourselves and to use a measuring stick to see where we are going. But the story is always about the future: “What can we do today to make our future better not only for my kids and me but for our grandkids and great-grandkids?” That should be the message.
https://www.populismstudies.org/shoshone-nation-leader-darren-parry-all-decisions-should-be-based-on-the-seventh-generation-principle/
With great gratitude and respect to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. https://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com
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