by It’s good news that values are on the agenda of the World Economic Forum, with the formation of a Global Agenda Council on Values. And it was good news to read on their site that they are aware of and drawing on the World Values Survey.
On their redesign framework, they ask: “How can the political constituency for international cooperation be expanded by cultivating a shift in values.” A lofty and noble goal, which brings to mind a recent discussion we had in our Alternative Perspectives class at the Houston Futures program. We talked about how one approach is to deal with values “where they stand,” that is design strategies that acknowledge people have different values that require different strategies and approaches. The other is how to “cultivate a shift?” We agreed it would be helpful to expand the reach of second-tier Integral (and beyond) values, drawing on the great work of Don Beck and colleagues with Spiral Dynamics. And awareness-raising is critical here, perhaps all we have in terms of cultivating a shift. But we should probably recognize that it’s a long-term deal – we’re not going to shift people overnight, thus we circle back to the importance of the first strategy in dealing with people where they are.
A second point, and perhaps more of a cautionary note is in order here, regards the “challenge of identifying a unifying value or set of values that could underpin the global redesign effort.” Given the differences in where people are, I suspect that an attempt to identify universal values will not be successful. What is more likely is settling on a list of “virtues” that we’d all agree are good things, but not likely to be of much help. In ConsumerShift, I tried to distinguish values and virtues, by suggesting that virtues touch on questions of right and wrong. Our collection of virtues comprise our character. Virtues are the positive traits in relation to what is considered good or proper within a cultural context, and are manifested as character. Important, yes, but there is less disagreement on virtues and such a list will make us all feel better, but we’ll still be left with differences in values. A quick sum of the major differences in values is in the figure below
I submit that values in differences in values are significant and must be addressed, and urge the Council to not detour into virtues and dodge this tough issue. Andy Hines
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