3. Equality
The third building block for sustainable progress through the column of values is equality. In our current human world equality is claimed in many democratic systems but does not at all exist. Our world is bureaucratised and full of hierarchies of power that do not allow sustainable progress to occur. Despite the democratic theory we are slaves to dictatorial rules of finance as determined by the few power positions around the world and seconded by politics and business communities.
True equality starts at home in the family. Everyone is equal. Imagine marrying and asking your spouse kindly who will be general manager of the venture for life? I guess you’ll get weird looks and probably a rapid divorse. Then why is inequality so common around us? Why does anyone else have authority over other people?
One of the key issues in our current system that produces inequality is the fact that we are in debt with eachother. We have created a social structure around debt. We owe money to a bank when we take a credit to buy a house. The bank expects us to work for a life time to pay back the loan. If we don’t we loose our house. This generates a permanent feeling of fear and the thrust to keep going to pay off the debt.
When we work we receive a salary and government claims that this is only possible thanks to the efforts of government to produce a climate of productivity for us. Hence we have to pay tax to the government to continue to produce optimal circumstances to find work.
We pay for everything that we use or intend to use in the future. We pay for our pension, our health security and insurance against calamities. We pay for our food, our water and our fun. The colatoral for all this is our energy to play a part in the system. If we do not do this we are not allowed to share in the benefits.
Now of course there are people who perform better than others. They have more chances to claim something back. But there also very good people who happen to live in surroundings that do not provide them with optimal chances. They do not have the same opportunities as others. Think of people who live in poor or corrupt countries or regions. They tend to try to move to other regions where their options improve. These migrations are not at all of interest of the previliged who tend to feel more wrthy to wealth than the others.
Think of people who receive herritage of their hard working or lucky ancestors? They have a head start compared to yet others who may have more wit, intelligence or purpose than them but cannot perform due to lack of opportunity and equality.
Equality is key to form the basis of a progressive and sustainable community. The inequality is unjustly caused by the perception of value of what people have, not by what people are. The one who has more is more powerful. The way our current society hence is organised is to accumulate as much as one can in order to be powerful through inequality.
We see this in the hierarchies of business structures, the organization of politics in Western countries and the behavior of neighbors in the street. What we forget along the line is that inequality is the basis for distrust, individualisation, jealousy and hatred. These human negative qualities are causing wars and vulnerability of our species.
The only way to break through this lack of equality is by accepting the giving nature of the being by attaching values to it, abolishing the having in favor of the giving. Instead of being an intelligent and dominant parasite on eachother and our surroundings we should transform in a wise and humble servant, individually, in business and politics. This sounds like a utopia but is indeed the only way to sustain a human species of the size we populate the globe today.
People claim that the competitive nature of the human species needs to be fed by power in order to create innovative progress. That is true and no one would want to change that. The only thing we would want to address is the question of what we truly consider valuable. What is wrong in the competition on sustainable progress instead of vulnerable destruction? What is wrong in punishing those who break up our future potential for selfish interests while honoring those who serve to create a better world?
The equality in the being translates in a distribution of responsibilities that can be commonly accepted and trusted as they are servant to all. This is the only and true basis in the column of values to be able to step up to the next level: trust.
2. No sustainable society without safety
The second key building block in the column of values is “safety”. Safety is a very broad subject that involves not just the physical but also spiritual aspects of security along the line of sustainable progress.
Very clear is the situation in Japan or Libya these days when the physical integrity of the population cannot be guaranteed due to the sum of natural disasters or the failure of human made systems. When one is in danger the very first thing that occurs is the attempt to save one self, the identity we spoke about before. Every one is on its own.
Only when the danger disappears one can think of working again along the line of creating a society and develop organizational complexities. Still, in times of physical danger we see people helping eachother. This is obvious in Lybia were people have suffered the man made dictatorship for many decades and manage to overcome their fear by joining forces along a vision of a new future. What is really happening is that the individuals break loose from the situation of total lack of individual identity with the regime of a dictator and stand up to show that they have universal rights. They first discover that they “are” and find relative safety in the brotherhood of those who think alike and are willing to fight for their identity.
In a modern society without the dictatorship or natural disasters the danger will not mainly be on a physical level, despite of course the problems of criminality and traffic accidents that occur in such countries. The problems reside much more in the spiritual safety. We refer her to the psychological, mental and behavioral integrity of the population. If one is safe to have an opinion, freedom of speech, to be self sufficient and creative, the society will be able to progress. On the other hand, if the population is deprived from individual identity due to accessive care and external securities it will become lazy, uninterested and eventually little productive.
For a physically safe society it is a challenge to see how far one needs to go with the creation of social welfare programs and what pressure remains on the population for self sufficiency. Creativity is highest when people feel safe and motivated or a need, either by dissatisfaction of sense of desired progress. It needs room for inspiration to florish. Progress is achieved by applying learning with purpose driven experimentation. Within this word “purpose” we find the secrete of a stable or unstable organization or society.
If the purpose is defined around money or what ever material system of having, the community will grow identity less and with the continuous fear of loosing out on chances. The individuals and government will experience the feeling of lack of security and safety as they develop a sense of greed out of fear of shortage. We see this in Western society all the time where fear is related to all the problems that society faces around child care, elderly care, infrastructure, housing, whatever. It is a fear driven society that cannot possibly live up to sustainable speculations as it is not capable to see the abundance it gathers but focusses on the chance of losing it all.
If purpose is defined on higher goals than a society develops a sense of security to be able to deal with everything that arises. The higher goals that are defined are seen as challenges that bind people around the common purpose. Purpose driven societies donot compare with others but look forward with the drive to improve continously. In such community money is never a goal, nor is external forms of security and glamour. They concentrate on sustainable happiness, togetherness, warmth, safety, health, vitality, love, etc. People in such societies only see opportunities, chances for progress and the desire to work for it.
So safety, in a physical and psychological/spiritual sense is the key, on top of authentic purpose driven identities, to progress in a sustainable way. Only then we can go to the next step in the column: equality.
1. Your authentic self – Column of Values
In many visionary and transformative business encounters the question arises why it is so difficult to get people to be cooperative and working together towards higher social or ecological/environmental goals? Despite many attempts visionary people get frustrated because they may get people around the table, open up interesting dialogues but never seem to get to the massive organization of the pursuit for a true higher purpose. At one stage invariably self interest seems to become dominant again in such process making the whole thing fall apart or take a turn away from its original purpose.
We invariable then end up talking again about the column of values that I describe in my book “secretes of true welfare” (in Dutch only, soon available in English) and that I now share with you in English.
Column of values: identity (I am), safety, equality, cooperation, trust, social responsibility, ecological responsibility, universal responsibility (we are).
Column of counter values: lack of identity, insecurity, unequality, self interest, disconfidence, greed, lack of responsibility.
The conflict between those columns is one that we struggle with ourselves, our personal integrity towards our life, but also all kinds of societies that we become active in during that life. I refer to the cultural society that we live in, the business society in which we work or the religious society that we may be part of. They all have to deal with the conflict between the two columns in their own structure and establishment.
It would be far too much to address the entire complexity of the column of values in one blog entry so I will address them one by one starting right at the beginning, the authentic individual.
Column of Values:
The column in essence is very easy to understand but in present day society extreemly difficult to develop. Why? Well when we look at the top of the column we encounter the global social and environmental responsibilities that we all carry. Everyone understands those higher values from an idealistic point of view. We however never seem to break through idealism into practical persuit and structural organisation around those values. The problem lies not in our awareness but in the stack of values underneath.
We see there three basic levels of individual values that we need to get firmly in place on a personal level and two sets of values that are need to bridge our individual identity with others to reach our for the highest forms of sustainable humanity.
The very first level of those individual values is the most significant as it creates the solid foundation for the rest. Without this first level firmly in place the rest of the stack will be impossible to develop. Here it is:
First level: Authentic, Unique, Personal Identity (I am)- Every human being is born as a unique creature of mind, spirit and matter. We each have our own purpose to fullfil in the complexity and the adventure of life. Each of us gets to a stage of asking ourselves the intimide question: “who, what, why am I?”. The question is proper to our intellectual being, a factor that distinguishes us from other life forms. We can ask ourselves what purpose we serve in life? That is a disturbing question as it suggests that we may have a more significant position in the universal creation as most other creatures never get troubled with such thoughts and just focus on survival. Why else are we blessed or cursed with self awareness and the ability of intelligent thought?
The question of “who am I” is often eliminated out of our lifes as we have hung our existance up in trees of hierarchies. There is always someone who decides for us: our boss, a politician, government, a judge, a policeman, a parent, our bank account. In many societies the individual has robotised its existance by assume simple truth of organised human life: I have to get up at 7, go to school or work, marry when I am around 25, stop work when I am 65, buy a house, have children, make sure I have a job, buy a car, go on holiday a couple of times per year, pay taxes, etc. And society has robotised as well by giving everyone one or more numbers and refering to people as citizens, consumers, tax payers, etc.
Who questions anything? Why would you question everything? If you are the same as everyone else what distinguishes you of any other person?
Many people develop then their identity around what they possess. They refer to what they are by telling about their job, the size of the car or the newest TV set.
Most people in modern capitalist society are what we call “me too” people, meaning that opinions and securities are formed around “what others say”. The identity is created by what one has, not what one is. A large car, a house, the clothing, the amount of money one can spend, etc. All external signs of identity that have nothing to do with inner wealth of a positive self image and rich spiritual life.
All one has one can loose. If you take away all possession from the person, what will remain? A lot of insecurity. Take away the job, a social welfare or pension, i.e. the security of an amount of money at the end of the month, how will the person react? Panic?
The things people tend to value are external. But external things need to be made and kept in place and just those are the elements that create the higher level problems s.a. environmental polution, social unrest, etc. Hence, if we want to address the high level issues of morality and global values we need to start with the moral values inside ourselves, each one of us. Now that is difficult.
You find that people who are deprived of their external securities feel emotionally naked and go through a person crisis, often a burn out or worse. They get in touch with their own inner emptiness and lack of self esteem. All those people want to get back as quickly as possible to a material wealthy position in order to feel happy again. The entire economy of a nation or a business is built around this.
People become a robot in a system. They are not their authentic selves but instrument to a surroundings that has conditioned them to act according to the rules of that society. One has become a number, not a human being anymore.
That has been the case for many decades now in the entire Western world and is also happening in China now. But it is changing. Crisis after crisis is touching now people individually. The very first reaction is one of fear as chaos upsets their lives. People try to get back to their comfort zone. Governments did by pumping loads of money into a corrupt system.
As crisis keep reappearing people start to think again for themselves. The get in tough with their authentic selves, not their greed and external wealth. Getting people to feel rich and happy without any material wealth in these times is tough. People just want more and more, not because they need it but out of fear of losing it. So when they loose it all the first reaction is of fear and insecurity but then awareness appears in the form of enlightenment.
Suddenly people notice the emptiness inside and discover the power of the spirituality that they have neglected for so long. Some people are overwhelmed by it, some negatively others positively. But what everyone who goes through this process discovers is his or her true self, whether they like what they encounter or not. It is this true and authentic self that gives you a drive and purpose in life and can only be discovered when digging deep into the emotions of being. Only then people realize they represent their own universe and become capable of building their column of true values to reach out to a universe full of enlightend people.
The authentic self is the unique identity that is the fundament of your life. It can be found deep inside you. It represents what you truly ARE, not what you have.
Next blog: second level of the column of values – safety
