Over-adaptation is the less energy consuming attitude of an individual, institution or culture in the environment. It is based on the existence of a comfort zone that is considered safe, on existing abundance or poverty. Comfort stagnates, scarcity fosters evolution.

Over-adapting implies following the explicit and implicit rules of an environment. The submission to the culture and its leaders is the final purpose to be achieved.

As this purpose is basically not ego-fulfilling it needs to be integrated with a dominant and oppositional behavior.

In Over-adaptive cultures dominated-dominant behaviors towards the authoritative or authoritarian roles and the dominant-dominated behaviors towards those who are dependant are considered adequate.

This generates an implicit conflict that becomes extremely dysfunctional and drives the situation towards chaos unless there is an equilibrant that mitigates it.

This homeostatic function, working as the energy conservation function, is given by an oppositional behavior that is developed towards those who are “different”.

Stagnated (over-adaptive) cultures cannot bear people who are different because they implicitly question the roles of over-adaptation.

The book “1984” by George Orwell is an artistic description of over-adaptive, stagnated, cultures.

Access a synthesis on the “Discovery of the Unicist Ontology of Institutional and Cultural Stagnation” that is available at the Scientific Dissemination Program. You will find there other syntheses that might be of your interest: https://www.unicist-school.org/theoryofevolution/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/ontology_stagnant_cultures.pdf

Peter Belohlavek

NOTE: The Unicist Research Institute was the pioneer in complexity science research and became a global decentralized world-class research organization in the field of human adaptive systems.
http://www.unicist.org