The Urgency

A number of interplaying flows are making the creation of an accessible and contemporary global faith or shared value system a matter of urgency.

We need to develop and maintain our capacity to counter the numerous external threats^[1] to our survival.  But more importantly, we need to become a lot better at protecting us from ourselves^[2].

When a vessel or system is put under pressure its weaknesses are revealed.  Cracks appear.  The vessel may shatter, the system may collapse, or the pressure may prompt a transformation.  Heat ice and it transforms to water.  Heat it further and it becomes steam.

The era of relatively cheap energy from fossil fuels was never sustainable.  Yet our current global way of life is built upon it.

Our global economic model is founded on ever-growing consumption by a growing human population.  This was never sustainable on a finite planet, yet we continue to act as if it is.

The Earth and our human economic and political systems only appear to be endlessly resilient from the short-term vantage point of the individual producer, consumer or politician.  But the Earth and our systems are not endlessly resilient. 

The end of cheap energy, the depletion of renewable and non-renewable resources, and mounting environmental contamination all in the context of growing consumerist expectations by the world's growing human population will strain our present economic and political systems to breaking point.  Will the glass shatter and lie in useless pieces on the ground, or will we be able to transform ourselves^[3]?

Individuals and groups who come to realise that the consumerist dream is beyond them will look for other paths^[4].  They will embrace destructive extremism if there is no viable alternative.

The world is already spinning out into extremism though this may not be apparent to the comfortable.  The end result may not spell the Armageddon predicted by the great faiths, but it could certainly spell a major and perhaps irrecoverable reverse to the progress of humanity^[5].

The factors that drive people to embrace extremism are increasing in number and intensity.  At the same time the constraints on extremism are diminishing.  Extreme actions prompt extreme reactions.  People confronted with extreme views and acts are provoked and polarised and may take contrary extreme positions, or disengage into apathy and denial.

Reason and moderation are giving way to extremism or to self-obsessed consumerism and vacuous celebrity worship.

There is a moral and ideological vacuum where the traditional faiths and belief systems once stood firm.

All over the world people have been moving in large numbers from small rigid communities to large cities where they become anonymous and are freed from the constraints^[6] of constant scrutiny by family, neighbours, and community leaders.  City dwellers are  able to escape the constant moral enjoinments of traditional faiths and belief systems that depended heavily on community complicity to exercise their influence.

Work places as de facto communities are also becoming increasingly transient.  In increasingly “free” economies^[7] even skilled and well-connected workers are not assured of continuity of employment.

Families are increasingly less cohesive and supportive.

Social networks are becoming much more transient and increasingly virtual or electronic.

More and more we are left to our own devices in the urban jungle without a sense of community or values.

In the face of consumerist propaganda that defines self worth in terms of your appearance and your consumption, the emancipated city dweller able to pursue pleasure and fashion has little reason to lead a moral life, or to act in any collective interest.

If the urban citizen were interested in issues of truth and morality they would be faced with an overwhelming choice^[8] of conflicting and competing truths presented by global information channels^[9] including the millions of points of view on the internet.

People have been cut adrift from the behavioural signposts and constraints previously provided by religion and geographic community.  Many have welcomed this freedom and have dedicated themselves to the pursuit of strictly selfish ends.  Questions of right and wrong, and of responsibility for society and for others are yielding to the questions of “What can I get away with?” and “What is in it for me?”

With a growing vacuum at the centre there has been a polarisation of Occidental populations.  Besides those whose lives are dedicated to consumerism and hedonism there are others who have embraced fundamentalist variants of faith.   Still others have turned to one-dimensional causes such as anti-vivisection.  Many have centred themselves on ethnic identity, gender identity, and sexual orientation, subscribing along the way to the catch-all incoherence of anti-globalisation and the insidious thought control of “political correctness” to give their lives structure and meaning. Some aggressively "other" and ostracise or "cancel" those that do not subscribe to their own causes or world views.

The majority of the Earth’s human inhabitants who find themselves unable to live the consumerist dream, and who endure a daily struggle for subsistence in the free market or in economically unviable rural communities look on with increasing frustration, despair and anger.

It is not just the poor of the less developed regions that are marginalised.  With the increasing obsolescence of work^[10], unfair but "free" international competition^[11], and the glorification of youth, many in the affluent occident are finding themselves on the outside looking in.  Any person over 40 or even 35 begins to feel the cold draft of ageism and the looming presence of the axe of arbitrary redundancy^[12].  Uneducated or unconnected youth are unlikely to ever have meaningful careers of any kind at all. 

Significant numbers of people worldwide are marginalised without a sense of place and value, and without hope.  People are marginalised not just economically, but also ideologically, spiritually, politically, and socially.

In such an environment increasing numbers are turning to the relative simplicity and comfort of fundamentalist religious sects, facile political causes, or ethnically defined “indigenous” groups seeking self-determination and reparation for inter-generational injustices.  More and more people will retreat into prejudice and fanaticism.  They will become increasingly intolerant of diversity, and will become more and more effective at homogenising their societies and social groups by any means.

Reason and science are in retreat.  Over 40% of people in the USA are creationists taking a literal interpretation of Genesis and demanding equal time with evolution in the education system.  Radical Islam is on the rise globally and there is not a martyr who does not believe they will be rewarded for their murderous suicide in a paradise underneath which rivers flow.  Fanatics of any kind spread their poisonous disinformation among growing adherents via the Internet.  All these irrationalists are more than happy to use the fruits of science and reason to further their agendas.   

At a more aggregated level there is a seething and deepening resentment towards the Occident, its values, its institutions, its languages, and the ethnic minority that dominates it.  When they can the majority of the world’s population that feels excluded and humiliated by Western civilisation will move to obliterate the Occident and all its vestiges. 

The current World Order based on the U.S. ideology of freedom and the sovereignty of the free market is not a stable order.  It is not addressing and will not address the global issues of poverty, environmental degradation, and the continuing abuse of human rights.  It does not provide the majority with hope^[13].

The current World Order will not endure.  Any civilisation or regime inevitably has a lifecycle^[14] and Western civilisation is unlikely to be an exception.  Among the emerging challengers are those that are ethnically defined – intensely so.  These civilisations have belief systems and traditions that do not even pretend to be founded on inclusion, equality and equity.

Let there be no doubt at all that if any of these powers were able to deliver a terminal blow to the Occident that they would, even at the cost of a high proportion of its own population and resources as “collateral damage”.  That they have not yet done so is not because of any moral constraints – it is because they have not yet had the power.

The global free market will in time deliver them that power, because in the free market everything is for sale at a price, and because the control of the dissemination of information^[15] and knowledge is becoming all but impossible.

The enemies of Western civilisation are biding their time and marshalling their resources, growing stronger while the Occident weakens from within^[16].  Apathetic and self-obsessed consumers will only be dimly aware of the gathering storm clouds^[17], if at all.  Incidents like “9/11” will have shaken many of them without inducing any change in values or behaviour, while others will have taken up extreme defensive postures without examining causes or possible holistic solutions.

In the Occident the ability to respond effectively to the splintering and radicalisation of society^[18] is hampered by the insidious impact of “political correctness” or "neo-progressiveness" as a de-facto value system.  Ironically under this system victim-hood is glorified and the stupid^[19], precious, and self-serving are empowered at the expense of truth, personal accountability^[20], and the greater common good.  In seeking to over-protect individuals and minority groups from offence and harm, including their own stupidity, the Occident is emasculating the ability of citizens to speak plainly, to take personal responsibility, and to take effective political action on any front. 

At the aggregate level the political and legal institutions of the Nation State^[21] that act as checks and balances on extremism and the abuse of power are in decline in the face of unaccountable trans-national interest groups that drive international commerce, crime, and terrorism.  In the global village the Nation State is increasingly anachronistic and ineffective.

All these flows together represent a significant threat to the civil freedoms that have been gained for many during the last few centuries.  It also constitutes a threat to global stability and the ability to act effectively and globally in the face of global challenges. 

Only global action^[22] to a global agenda based on a truly inclusive morality and belief system can avert the Dark Age that is likely to follow the overthrow of Western civilisation, not by defending and maintaining Western civilisation, for much of it is morally indefensible, but by enlightening it.

Nobody will benefit from a post Western Dark Age including the majority that are now excluded from the fruits of Western civilisation.

What is needed is an accessible vision of an inclusive future for humanity, sustained by a viable and pragmatic faith that nurtures diversity - a humane big picture to rally around; a broad ideological framework that can form the basis for civilised global co-existence^[23] into the indefinite future^[24].