As our world is changing at lightning speed, and the post-war liberal world order implodes before our eyes, many of us are re-thinking what we should be doing with our lives. A call for moral leadership is in the air.
Though we’re living through crisis – with an unprecedented level of (self-inflicted) threat against the free world and democracy backsliding across the globe – this also appears to be a moment of extraordinary possibility.
Many of us have fought for a better world for a long time. Over the past years, that dream has only been slipping away further. As commonly observed though, sometimes things first have to get worse before they get better.
In that respect, we have two major tasks right now. First, we need to tend to what’s happening in the moment and how to respond to that. Simultaneously, we need to be thinking hard about our long-term vision and direction.
I was struck by this video asking “is this what Democrats are doing?”
If we accept its main idea – that “doubling down on everything that has never worked before” is not good strategy – the question of course is: What should we be doing? What is the right message?
What is the inspiring vision that can help us utilize this crisis? Utilze it so it becomes the turning point that finally empowers us to create the “better world that our hearts know is possible” (as Charles Eisenstein has put it). (Perhaps Trump will turn out to be an effective uniter – uniting the world and Americans against him?!)
And yes to the important point the video makes – we want to be welcoming and generous to anyone potentially interested in joining our alliance and cause. Just as urgently, we need to rethink our (political) vision and positions, such that we leave extremist positions behind and meet those ‘on the other side’ half-way, however without giving in on our dearest values and cherished achievements.
That is, we need to take serious that voters have spoken, and that there are valid reasons why – in elections last year with countries with more than half of the world’s population (!) going to the polls – the left was decimated. (As Fareed Zakaria put it, “almost everywhere you look, the left is in ruins.”)
Instead of doubling down on our righteousness, and calling the other side stupid and racists, we need to find the ‘grain of truth’ in their values and concerns. I believe this to be crucial for helping us move beyond the toxic polarization of our time, with the culture wars (or worldview wars) destroying our planet as they sabotage us to address humanity’s urgent issues.
Yet we have to do that while standing up to autocracy, thus requiring a rather refined balancing act from us. (It won’t be easy, for sure.)
These are some of the questions and puzzles I’ve been thinking about lately, which I explore in my forthcoming long-read essay. There I explicate how adopting a worldview-lens can help us recognize the worldview-shifts and backlashes taking place, while also inviting us to more critically explore our own worldviews, so we’ll be better able to start crafting a new path forward.
I look forward to share it with you, hear your thoughts on it, and start engaging in deeper dialogue! You can follow me on Substack here.
For now I want to invite you to our Worldview Cafe later today – to connect, converse, and creatively explore these potent questions with one another.
