The search for values which will make a world of difference

^[1]When your life looks back –

As it will, at itself, at you –

what will it say?

(From, Come, Thief, poems by the American poet Jane Hirshfield)

“The truth is that the truth is often a paradox”

 
(From Chapter 78 of the ancient Chinese classic the Dao De Jing)

To find out more about the nature and background of ValuesQuest, please refer to the Club of Rome Discussion Paper: 

The ValuesQuest of the Club of Rome ^[1]

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Contributions to the Club of Rome ValuesQuest:

David Korten: Religion Science and Spirit ^[2]

Garry Jacobs and Winston Nagan: The Global Values Discourse ^[3]

Graeme Maxton: The End of Progress and the Age of Endarkenment ^[4]

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The ValuesQuest of the Club of Rome

Values guide our way through the possibilities and problems of life and they are the main drivers behind our societal instruments like economy, education and governance, which shape the world we live in. There is a growing sentiment that something is far from right in the way we live today, that the values guiding the course our society is taking are not the ones which can lead us into a better world, quite the opposite. Values evidently are fundamental for humans but, at the same time, it seems nearly impossible to address them, as value debates seem intangible and essentially personal or cultural.

 
The Club of Rome has a tradition to address the root causes of the challenges facing humankind. It does so with a systemic, holistic and long-term approach. Because of the centrality of values to the future of humanity and to an understanding of why we are where we are today, the Club of Rome has initiated a programme called ValuesQuest to explore these issues and on map out a path forward, addressing the need for values to inform and shape our ways of life in the expectation that these will enable a more humane and just society to develop, one more attuned to the needs of others and the needs of the planet. This discussion paper provides a background to the ValuesQuest programme.

ValuesQuest intends to explore and articulate the origins of values and to make us understand the importance of addressing values and of understanding the role of our narrative and of stories in transmitting and changing value systems. It aims to focus, sharpen and clarify an already existing debate by contributing a philosophical and historical underpinning to the discussion.

What we perceive as reality is often our own story or the story of the wider community we belong to. These underlying stories communicate our values which guide our thinking and shape our perceptions. In exploring stories the project will dig deep into the various dominant cultures of the world to discover the origins of those stories and their impact today. It will also investigate the ways in which stories, and therefore values, change and develop.

ValuesQuest will take a critical look at where we have gone wrong and how we can remedy the situation and arrive at the values needed for 8 or 9 billion to live peacefully on a finite planet. To change the world for the better we need to address values and the narratives they are embedded in. We need to unmask the underlying stories and adopt narratives which can lead us towards a more sustainable, peaceful and equitable  world. We need to stop drifting and start acting on values.

This document “ValuesQuest – The search for values which will make a world of diff erence ^[1]” is trying to provide a framing and to stimulate a more concrete, focused and broad debate about the issue of values.