HISTORY

Homo sapiens made an appearance on Earth perhaps 150,000 years ago. But the earliest efforts at culture appear about 20,000 years ago with cave paintings, enhanced tools (bow and arrow) and use of rituals. This Mesolithic world of hunters and gatherers can be described as World 1.x.

With the rise of agriculture, people were able to coalesce into more compact organizational units, and clans and towns began to form. This Neolithic lifestyle peaked between 10,000 and 3,000 BC, with obvious fluxuations based on locale. We call this period World 2.x.

Around 2,000 BC, cities began taking shape in Mesopotamia and India , signifying another transition. From these denser living environments came leaders and kings who sought more control and more dominion, beginning the Age of Empire. From early Greek and Roman Empires to Norse invaders, The Crusades and the great Mongolian Kahn empires, domination of others became a harsh punctuation of this era. From this time until the Industrial Revolution (circa 1700), we consider World 3.x

With the rise of industry, empire building did not slacken, and yet the tools and paradigm shifted tremendously. Now "modern" empires such as the British held in the 1800s began to be intertwined with corporate empires. A former culture of serfs and commoners became a culture of laborers and mechanics. And nobility and gentry were joined by merchants and landowners as "the elite." From 1700 to the present is World 4.x.

TODAY

Today our problems are manifold and desperate. Taken separately, climate change, social upheaval, starvation, disease, corruption, genetically modified organisms, pollution, crime, community disintegration, and on and on. Any one of these issues is potentially devastating. Together, they present a picture of grave imbalances which threaten our very survival.

Carl Sagan was fascinated with the idea that we're in our technological adolescence - a critical period where corporatism and our misguided thinking will kill us or we will learn to live in balance with our host planet. There are hundreds of stories where cultures have led to their own demise, whether it be Rome-like corruption or Easter Island exhaustion of resources. What we need to appreciate and understand is.

•  What are the earmarks of healthy cultures throughout history?

•  What are the telltale signs of cultural disintegration?

•  What circumstances are unique to our current situation?

•  How can we address the most serious issues of our time?

•  What is our cultural destination? Where are we trying to go?

By addressing these topics, we can discover a context for change that is both intelligent and sustainable. Presumably, we can not only abet some of our greatest problems, but can enhance the quality of life for some larger percentage of human and other populations on this planet.

In particular, World 5.0 is the answer to question 5 posed above. We may not know what the new o/s looks like yet, but we make great strides by providing a framing, a name for where we, as a species, want to be on the other side of these transitional times.

Before delving into World 5.0 more fully, let's take a cursory look at the questions mentioned above.

What are the earmarks of healthy cultures throughout history?
While subject to interpretation along with cultural and locale differences, there are some general principles. Healthy cultures maintain themselves without destroying their resource base. Healthy cultures have a strong spiritual component. Healthy cultures appreciate diversity and ecology - interdependence with the environment and other members of the community.

If we look at communities and ecologies in that natural world, we find that Nature, over the last hundreds of millions of years, has done a phenomenal job of finding balance. Darwin in his youth saw only competition but later in life he appreciated the incredible cooperation within Nature. And yet balance, this key concept to resolving differences, is far too often absent from our considerations.

Curiously, the dominant culture of our time, that of western Europe and the U.S., has always prevailed over healthier, more sustainable, less competitive cultures. Wade Noble (1974) points out ...the African ethos as being "the survival of the tribe" and oneness with nature". The cultural values associated with this world view are cooperation, interdependence, and collective responsibility. In contrast the Euro-American ethos emphasizes the "survival of the fittest" and "control over nature". The cultural values associated with this world view are "competition", individualism" and "independence."

 It is clear now, whether seen from economic or environmental positions, that this western cultural model has great failings for the majority living within it, to say nothing of the victims of that paradigm.

What are the telltale signs of cultural disintegration?
Again, such signs are likely connected to place, but there are likely still some common threads. Imagine what it might have felt like to cut down the last tree on Easter Island . You need the tree for wood for a boat, a warming fire or whatever. But you must also know your doom is upon you. And your children will be fated to a poorer existence than you knew, if they can even survive.

The signs around us are so glaring, so palpable and so desperate that they hardly need repeating - and yet they are ignored by those in power. While there are politicians, CEOs and economists that suggest unending growth is possible, you'll find no scientists in their ranks unless they're being handsomely paid.

What circumstances are unique to our current situation?
What makes this situation unique, more so than any other aspect, is that of scale. In the past cultural or community crisis were local or regional in nature. Now they are very much global. We cannot have a healthy culture in Europe and rampant disease in Africa . Today's world is a small place.

Exacerbating our situation is the over 6 billion human inhabitants. Each of us has to eat, drink and defecate, just for starters. If the entire world consumed like Americans, we'd need several planets to meet our needs. That pattern must end.

Technology has played a great hand in creating the situation we're in today, and will likely play a major role in our transition and into some sort of stable world. And yet claiming that technology can save us is a grave error. It is our direction that will make present and future technologies helpful or harmful.

One technology in particular, the Internet, can be especially powerful. The Internet is "wiring" us together in ways never before possible. New groups, new communities and new ideas are emerging like never before, and it seems a nice metaphor as well, since we need to connect ourselves as one human culture to survive these times.

How can we address the most serious issues of out time?
Like any addict, we have a trying road to cultural health. The first step is to recognize that we have a problem. The next is to recognize the context required for healing. Next we use the perspective of this context as our "guiding light" in designing the new paradigm. Finally, we migrate our institutions and cultural structures to conform to the new model.

The key concept here is "the context required for healing." In our current culture, we take a very symptomatic approach to fixing things. If we have crime in our city, we add more police. That may or may not aid the symptom of crime, but it surely fails to consider a truer context. Why do have this crime? How was this behavior learned? How can it be unlearned? What environments foster criminals and which foster good citizens? We need to start asking better questions.

This "systems" approach to culture is almost non-existence in today's society. We spend weeks of media attention on Chaney's Shooting or some Hollywood scandal, but no one asks the real questions. No one provides the context for healing. Instead we get an administration with little respect for people and little regard for truth. And a media that won't bust them on it.

We need to start with a change of priorities, and this change begins with a change of heart. New laws provide little support if the creators or enforcers are corrupt. And corruption is always found in the company of disintegrating culture.

The opposite of corruption is integrity. Integrity provides a wonderful, consistent and powerful way to create positive change within our culture. Integrity provides the framework for dealing with each other and our many communities and ecologies. Integrity by itself does not provide solutions, but provides the civil basis for discussion and compromise, both of which will be greatly needed as we strive to find balance.

Integrity also provides a sharp contrast to one of today's most popular endeavors, "spinning." Integrity demands that we do our best to understand and promote truth, a staple of a healthy culture. It suggests honesty, transparency, fairness and many other characteristics that are currently in short supply.

There's another key aspect to using integrity as a keystone for change. Integrity, at its core, is an individual matter. It cannot be forced on someone, nor transferred from one to another. Each of us must make that transition for him or herself. And yet, as more and more of us make the decision to act from a stance of integrity, we create cracks in the old cultural model. As enough of us learn to operate from that stance, the old culture will be crushed under the weight of its own corruption.

What is our cultural destination? Where are we trying to go?
The world needs a new operating system. We can't survive on industrial age assumptions that pretend the Earth has infinite resources or that technology will fix all our woes.

World 5.0 is a framing concept, a context for creating a paradigm of ecology and community instead of the current frame. By defining "mother culture" as a construct that we can understand and change, we set the stage for a heightened level of awareness and broader context for addressing problems and healing our world. World 5.0 is "field independent," meaning it can be applied to any content area. Whether the topic is community, politics, science, economics or any other, a World 5.0 perspective can be developed. It's also utterly scalable, offering a context for determining appropriate responses whether it's a domestic squabble or global warming.

There is a movement afoot, in this county and around the globe, to transition our planet into a garden, to transition our relationships to trust and to transition our lifestyles into fulfilling and meaningful experiences. These world citizens are heralds of the New Age, World 5.0.

So, what are the primary characteristics of a World 5.0 person?
As suggested above, integrity is at the center of every true World Fiver. We are compassionate, fair-minded, spirited, honest, progressive, prudent, integrative, wise and peaceful. A World Fiver will likely also be reverent, courageous, appreciative, thoughtful, warm and happy. Think Ardhbishop Tutu. Think Jon Stewart. Think progressive thought leaders like Noam Chomsky, Lester Brown, George Lakoff, Wendell Berry, Gore Vidal, David Orr and a host of others. Think of community leaders - the ones you admire - and they likely fit the idea.

The World 5.0 person views the world around them as connected, alive, present and real. We accept that some percentage of what occurs in our lives is random and likely unpleasant (shit happens) while some percentage is a reflection of what we "put out there" through our thoughts and emotions (life is what you make it).

With this understanding, World Fivers are philosophical about the former (shit happens) and passionate about the later (life is what you make it). This balance of opposing ideas within the individual is another characteristic of a World Fiver. We appreciate the value of opposites. We know some situations call for control and others for letting go. Some call for tenderness, some for sternness. We might be liberal or conservative, depending on the topic. But we will always act with integrity, honesty and fairness. With this stance, we can discuss situations, create choices and make decisions that are fair and wholesome.

World Fivers appreciate that life is loose-knot combination of experiences and decisions, and that each affects the other. In light of that, we try to create experiences that will give us better options for our decisions, and we make decisions that will enhance our experiences. We are aware that both experiences and decisions in our past have been colored by our conditions and conditioning. This makes us very conscious our internal processes and processing, and hence World Fivers strive to let loose their personal baggage and approach each moment and each person with clear heart and purposeful intention.

Please join us.