A CHANGE IN VALUES

Excerpt from The Joyful Economy | A Next System Possibility

“In describing these transitions, I have stressed the centrality of new values and the evolution to a new consciousness. I would never say that no progress can be made until America’s dominant culture has been transformed. But I do believe that we won’t get far in addressing our major challenges unless there is a parallel, ongoing transformation in values and culture.

To elaborate, our dominant culture should shift, from today to tomorrow, in the following ways:

• Instead of viewing humanity as something apart from nature, and nature as something to be transcended and dominated, we will see ourselves as part of nature, as offspring of its evolutionary process, as close kin to wild things, and as wholly dependent on its vitality and the services it provides.

• Rather than seeing nature as humanity’s resource to exploit as it sees fit for economic and other purposes, we will see the natural world as holding intrinsic value independent of people and having rights that create the duty of ecological stewardship.

• We will no longer discount the future by focusing so intently on the short term, but instead take the long view and recognize our duties to human and natural communities well into the future.

• Instead of today’s hyperindividualism and social isolation, we will reward those who foster a powerful sense of community, conviviality, and social solidarity, in all venues from local to cosmopolitan.

• Violence will no longer be glorified nor wars easily accepted. The spreading of hate and invidious divisions will be frowned on and will no longer be a launching pad for careers in broadcasting and politics. Women’s and LBGTQ rights and racial and ethnic justice will be realized in everyday life.

• Materialism, consumerism, and the primacy of ever-more possessions will give way to a culture that grants priority to family and personal relationships, learning, experiencing nature, service, spirituality, and living within Earth’s limits.

• Rather than tolerate gross economic, social, gender, racial, and political inequality, we will demand and achieve a high measure of equality in all of these spheres.

  Here’s an often-overlooked fact: We don’t need to wait on these changes but can bring them about.

  “The central conservative truth is that culture, not politics, determines the success of a society,” Daniel Patrick Moynihan remarked. “The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.” We actually know important things about how values and culture can change.

• One sure path to cultural change is, unfortunately, the cataclysmic event—the crisis—that profoundly challenges prevailing values and can delegitimize the status quo. The Great Depression is the classic example. I think we can be confident that we haven’t seen the end of major crises, but they will drive events in the right directions only if we are prepared.

  Two other key factors in cultural change are leadership and social narrative.

  Howard Gardner has written: “Whether they are heads of a nation or senior officials of the United Nations, leaders . . . have enormous potential to change minds . . . and in the process they can change the course of history . . . . I have suggested one way to capture the attention of a disparate population: by creating a compelling story, embodying that story in one’s own life, and presenting the story in many different formats so that it can eventually topple the counterstories in one’s culture.

• The story must be simple, easy to identify with, emotionally resonant, and evocative of positive experiences.”

  Bill Moyers, a powerful force for good in our country, has written, “America needs a different story. The leaders and thinkers and activists who honestly tell that story and speak passionately of the moral and religious values it puts in play will be the first political generation since the New Deal to win power back for the people.”

  There is some evidence that Americans are ready for another story. Large majorities of Americans, when polled, express disenchantment with today’s lifestyles and offer support for values similar to those urged here. (Of course, respondents do not always act on the high-minded sentiments expressed to pollsters.)

  Another key source of value change is social movements.

• Social movements are all about consciousness raising, and if successful, they can help usher in a new consciousness.

• In sum, cultural transformation won’t be easy, but it’s not impossible either.”