This month’s Office Hours is open to everyone. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber on my substack, I’d love to invite you to a free trial on my substack for the paid tier and join the conversation in the comments. This post is meant to be interactive and invite conversation and a free trial on my substack will allow you the time to participate
For March, I didn’t have questions from my paid subscribers for Anthropological office hours, so I thought I would ask all of you a question instead.
Since I was an undergraduate student in anthropology, I’ve been asking myself the question, how do we take the wisdom of the variety of the worlds traditions and cultures, and synthesize it into something that applies to a technological society with a large globalized population that isn’t extractive and oppressive.
I’ve been asking that question for almost twenty years. I’ve been reading history, on indigenous social organization, speculative fiction, political science, anthropology, economics, ecology, religion, and literature with all of this in mind.
What I didn’t realize was that I was writing a possible answer in my sci-fi series, the Chronicles of the Great Migration. The truth is, I’ve actually been kind of stuck on some of the political elements of the cultures in my series until recently because I wanted to experiment with something that was non-extractive and that maximized every person and creature’s potential.
Below is the framework for the model. I recognize I am probably not the first person to make such a synthesis, and that I have plenty of blind spots in my knowledge. But I also recognize that if we have more people writing about solutions to imagine a different future, even if the perspectives are only a little different, then we move the goalpost. Because in the end, what we imagine matters. We cannot create a better future, where every being thrives, if we don’t imagine it.
What do I want from you? I’m looking for constructive criticism, additional things I should read or engage with. You may also highlight problems with some of my framing. Please put all of these in the comments. In the end, I’m hoping to write an essay making some of these ideas accessible, and then later create some accessible videos about some of these approaches.
I’m calling this synthesis Mother Empire, and it’s a challenge to our current system, which I call Father Empire. This chart presents a binary. As an anthropologist, I also know that binaries are often reductive. However, models can be useful things. They are tools to challenge the way we think about things so that we can examine them and then reframe our approach.
With climate change, a fractious political sphere, and economic inequality at the highest levels in known history, we desperately need new frameworks.
There’s something else too that we don’t think about when we talk about political organization. All beings experience trauma and oppression. When bear those burdens alone, they lead to wounded people inflicting more wounds on others. As a person who has experienced significant trauma in my own life, I’ve come to realize that leaving these things unaddressed also means that we cannot address our wider social and political problems. Therefore, I argue, that dealing with trauma must be a part of any useful model.
Here is the outline of one possible alternative.
Mother Empire vs Father Empire
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Mother Empire vs. Father Empire
A Theoretical Framework — Michael Kilman — Draft March 2026 — loridianslaboratory.com
| Dimension |
Mother Empire (New Synthesis) |
Father Empire (Current Model) |
| Core Logic |
Incorporation (Actualizes Diverse Populations and Cultures) |
Extraction (Actualizes the powerful or those in close proximity to power) |
| Power Structure |
Dispersed – Power structures are nested alongside competing interests ensure no one group gains power for any significant amount of time. Utilizes checks and balances. |
Concentrated: Power becomes concentrated in the hands of the few, often in those who will seek power for power’s sake. Hierarchical and requires oppression to function. |
| Obligation |
Nested: reciprocal across layers of organization and governance. Communities indebted to one another and accountable to one another. |
Hierarchical: Flows upward, little accountability for those in positions of power. |
| Epistemology |
Relational: the individual is emergent from a system and participates in the shaping of it. |
Cartesian Dichotomy: I think, therefore I am. Nature versus Culture. The self is separate from world. |
| Species Framework |
Multispecies interconnectivity: Recognition that all ecology is important to the health of humanity and that human/animal relationships are vital to survival. |
Human supremacy / anthropocentric: Focused mostly on human interests. Ecology is there only for human benefit. |
| Economic Model |
Gift economic framework but nested in equal resource distribution. All work is democratic, all workers own their own labor. No one may accumulate wealth from another person’s labor. Ecosystems are people. |
Unlimited accumulation. Billionaires. Poverty as a method for increasing power. Austerity as a weapon of wealth concentration. Corporations (and systems of extraction) are people. |
| Relationship to Nature |
Participant in a large web of knowing across species. Levies the intelligence present across all natural systems. All beings are relatives. |
Owner of the world, control is paramount. Beings exist to serve humans. Only humans are intelligent or at least worthy of agency. |
| Relationship to Difference |
Incorporation: Difference strengthens the network by actualizing diverse talents and ideas. |
Elimination or subordination: Differences threaten hierarchy and the need for control. |
| Legitimacy Source |
Consent, consensus, reciprocity, and compromise. |
Force, propaganda, state violence, and coercive contracts. |
| Weaknesses |
Fragmentation if social obligations break down or the community becomes too large. |
Collapses when nothing is left to extract. |
| Relationship to Trauma |
Metabolizes and distributes pain across networks and community. Communal grieving, mutual support. |
Isolation in suffering. The burden is on the individual. Grief is private. |
| Real-World Examples |
Mughal Empire, Indigenous governance, mycorrhizal networks |
British Empire, late-stage capitalism, techno-feudalism |
| Relationship to Time |
Long-term thinking, seven generations model. |
Short-term thinking. Takes from future generations. |
| Ultimate Goal |
Maximum potential of all sentient beings |
Maximum control by a select few |
This framework is a work in progress. If you have thoughts, critiques, additional readings to suggest, or problems with my framing, join the conversation on substack.
Loridian's Laboratory 