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Towards a Universal Set of
Values Bridging East and West:
Abstract: The development of shared global values and virtues in organizations is necessary to build a more humane world of peace, love, cooperation and dialog in the 21st century. Humanity and world civilizations today experience problems not only in economic, political or material domains; but also in ethical, moral, social, or spiritual realms. The call for values and spirituality is currently echoing in organizations throughout every land, as we are increasingly concerned about social problems, wars, religious intolerance, racism, violence, poverty, pollution, crime, corruption, and global terror. We need holistic, overarching, and multidisciplinary paradigms and models about values to address complex problems of our world. By deriving a common set of values and principles across world religions; this reflection paper aims to build an integrative, multidimensional, and holistic framework for universal values bridging the East and West. This paper emphasizes a set of common universal values and spirituality for organizations which can potentially contribute to world peace and global dialogue. The emergent framework illustrates and celebrates unity, wholeness and balance of values across various cultures and religions of the globe. "In 2020, I would see a third of a CEO's time being spent on issues bigger than the company -- world education, world health, world peace, the environment." Professor Nancy Adler Complex Problems of the 21st Century and the Global Need for Shared Values "Out on the edge of darkness there lies the peace train. Peace train; take this country; come take me home again." This unforgettable song was written by Cat Stevens 32 years ago. As Dennis Kucinich, the recipient of the Ghandi Peace Award in 2003 eloquently pointed out; it is striking how we can almost hear the rhythms of this song come back in our times: "On the edge of darkness". Unfortunately; there are indeed lots of signs of darkness around the world in our era: Half of the people, nearly 3 billion people live on less than 2$ a day. Nearly 1 billion people entered the 21st century illiterate; unable to read a book or sign their names. 1.3 billion have no access to clean water. 3 billion have no access to sanitation. Every 30 seconds; an African child dies of malaria. More than 800 million people go to bed hungry every day. 300 million are children. Every 3.6 seconds, a person dies of starvation. Almost 100.000 people die worldwide every day from preventable diseases and because they lack the most essential needs such as water, food, shelter, sanitation and education. Globally, 1 in 5 people live on less than $1 a day and as many as 2.8 billion on less than $2 a day. 1,1 billion people do not have access to clean water. 2.4 billion lack adequate sanitation facilities. In developed counties, life expectancy for persons born in 1999 was 75 years compared to 49 for people born in least developed counties. One billion adults are estimated to be overweight, but 170 million children in poor nations are underweight and over 3 million die each year from under-nutrition. Every ecological system on the planet is thought to be in decline. The world’s richest people use 25% more energy than the world’s poorest people. At current population growth rates, world population is expected to reach 10 billion within 30 years, making the available productive land per capita 1 hectare. Recently; there have been bloody conflicts and wars continuing in 56 different places in the world. Afghanistan, Bosnia, India, Indonesia, Kashmir, Kosovo, Macedonia, Middle East, Nigeria, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Uganda.. Floods of tears and blood still flowing in many parts of the world. Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins with the recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal rights of all members of the human family, as the guarantor of freedom, justice and peace. This promises a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of expression and be protected against fear and poverty. Unfortunately, however, reports by the United Nations Development Programme spell out the rise of a disaster which distances mankind from the idealistic world of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 2002, almost 1.2 billion human beings lived in absolute poverty, earning less than one dollar a day. Over 50 countries were caught up in war or natural disasters. In the 21st century, our world is facing complex global scale problems: War, religious intolerance, conflict, violence, hunger, poverty, illiteracy, pollution, crime, theft, fraud, murder, corruption, immortality, child abuse, human rights violation, oppression, inequality, injustice, nuclear weapons, and global terror among others. As we move into the 21st century, the search for universal values and spirituality is global; echoing throughout every land, as world citizens are increasingly concerned about and affected by violence, war, conflict, global terror, growing social problems, and the lack of social cohesion. Humanity has great challenges to face: promoting sustainable development, achieving global peace, guaranteeing human rights, ensuring human development and social cohesion. As we venture into the new millennium, we stand at a significant crossroads. Will the next century bring an incessant stream of devastating armed conflicts or are there alternatives to the endless repetition of such catastrophes? At the Global Compact Leaders Summit on 24th of June, 2004, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said:
The development of shared values and virtues in organizations is necessary to build a better and more humane world of peace, love, cooperation and dialog in the 21st century. Humanity and world civilizations today experience problems not only in economic, political or material domains; but also in ethical, moral, social, or spiritual realms. As human beings, we have managed to conquer and reach far in the external world and universe around us; however, we have somehow failed to conquer and reach deeper into our internal universe: Our hearts, spirituality, conscience, values and virtues that make us truly human, that lead to real happiness, wellbeing and inner peace. The world today needs peace more than at any time in history, and most of its problems arise from excessive worldliness, scientific materialism and the ruthless exploitation of nature. In the modern world we all belong to the same global human society, in spite of our social, religious, racial, cultural or national differences. In a shrinking world, issues such as environmental deterioration, infectious diseases, human rights abuses, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction are of concern to all. As nations and cultures become more intertwined, it becomes ever more imperative that we develop a universal set of human values to counter the resurgence of poverty, discrimination, racism, violence, biases, and xenophobia which has erupted in the last decades. These problems require the articulation of universal values and new programs for multilateral action through international dialogue and global cooperation. We need holistic, overarching and multidisciplinary paradigms to address and solve complex global problems. A Global Agenda for Positive Universal Values for the 21st Century The need for universal common values such as peace, dialog, cooperation, compassion is recurring themes in not only in educational and non-profit organizations but also for corporations and businesses. Today’s organizations are faced with more complexities, competition, and change than at any other time in history. To effectively cope, leaders in today’s organizations need to focus on ethics, social responsibility, collaboration, chaos, innovation, creativity, adaptation, flexibility, system thinking, and high quality relationships. In the contemporary world; unfortunately a large number of corporations and organizations are typified by greed, selfishness, manipulation, injustice, corruption and a single-minded focus on winning. Wealth creation and profit are the key indicators of success. Despite material success; however, a large number of businesses and institutions experience considerable internal turmoil. Employees of such organizations are more and more characterized by alienation, fear, stress, burnout, cynicism, indifference and feelings of abuse. Conflict, law suits, contract breaking, suspicion, distrust and disrespect characterize many interactions and social relationships. Scholarly researchers thus do research and theorize extensively on organizational problems such as turnover, injustice, harassment, managing uncertainty, stress, overcoming resistance, conflict resolution, and competing successfully against others. Let us imagine and dream about a utopian world in which almost all organizations are typified by positive values such as altruism, sincerity, kindness, harmony, hope, affection, and service to humanity. Imagine that members of such organizations are characterized by trustworthiness, enthusiasm, wisdom, modesty, integrity, and creativity. Social relationships and interactions are characterized by compassion, loyalty, honesty, respect, empathy, synergy, and forgiveness. In the 21st century, organizations need to adopt a set of ultimate whole-system humanistic and spiritual values which enable the human spirit to grow and flourish. These time-honored, life-affirming, and unifying values include truth and wisdom (which liberate the mind), duty and justice (which contribute to organizational and societal well-being), inspiration and creativity (innovation), collective harmony and intelligence (wholeness, synergy), compassion and charity (enhancing love among people) deeper meaning, and higher purpose. These core values – including truthfulness, trust, humility, forgiveness, compassion, thankfulness, service, and peace – constitute "the perennial philosophy". The basic spiritual teachings of the world’s great religions are remarkably similar. In religion this is manifested through the Golden Rule, also called the Rule of Reciprocity "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" which is common to all major religions. Each of the major world religious traditions, having endured the test of time, contains the same common set of values which are relevant, indeed necessary, for organizations in the twenty-first century. Collectively these value systems provide an inner governance system which allows individuals and their organizations to stay virtuous and right in turbulent times. Although these values as well as others are recognized in the literature on values and spirituality, it seems that these values are listed without any systematic effort to be comprehensive. On each piece written, some aspects and values are taken and emphasized while some others are being neglected. The current status of the spirituality and values literature reminds the story of blind men who try to describe the parts of an elephant. There is a great need for a unifying scheme and theory that will illustrate the holistic and multidimensional nature of spirituality and values in human systems at the cross-cultural and global scale. Business owners, managers, policymakers, and academic researchers all need to remember that tens of millions of world citizens are hungering for transmaterial, mind-expanding, soul-enriching, and heart-centered values. One example of how nonmaterial values are starting to change how societies perceive their progress is the new Gross National Happiness indicators developed in Bhutan, which reflect the goals of this nation and exemplify the importance of clarifying the goals and values of a society and creating indicators to measure what we value: health, happiness, education, human rights, family, harmony, and sustainability. An Emerging Paradigm of Global Positive Consciousness Towards the 21st century, humanity is moving in the direction of global consciousness based on shared values. There is an emerging global paradigm based on universal values and global positive spirituality. This emerging paradigm is crucial in forming a world of peace, democracy, human rights, ethics, multiculturalism and dialog. Below is a list of common global values that affirm the unity of all being; affirm the interconnectedness of all, and affirm a new bottom line of love, caring, and compassion. This list indicates an emerging global consciousness based on a set of shared values that includes: Economic and social justice Golden rule: Treating others as we wish them to treat us Respect for life, freedom and human rights Nature-friendly ways of life and ecological consciousness Honesty and integrity Peace and non-violence Multiculturalism, democracy and civic education Tolerance, dialog and respect for diversity Cross-cultural understanding and interfaith dialog Cooperation, compassion and charity Global citizenship and planetary stewardship Self-discipline and spiritual strength Treating people equally without bias Sincerity, friendship, love and sharing Self-sacrifice, devotion and idealism Serving humanity at large Universal ethics, and global concern Arts, conscious communication, reflection and conscious education, The power of the human spirit Spiritual practices, inner work, transcendence Community service and social responsibility, Inner happiness & place of the individual in the world Global Academic Consciousness in Parallel with the Emergent Paradigm The organizational literature or scholarship has also been keeping up with this emerging trend. A preliminary and tentative analysis of the organizational literature reveal the emergence of a set of new approaches, models, theories, schools, and movements pointing toward an emerging global paradigm. This emergent paradigm of "global academic consciousness" is represented by the following value based approaches and models: Corporate Social Responsibility Organizational Citizenship Behavior Business Ethics research Research on values in management Conscious Business Movement Stakeholder Movement Social Innovation research Spiritual leadership Management by virtues Principle centered leadership Management by values Service leadership Human relations movement The art of leadership Reflective leadership Humanistic psychology Positive Organizational Scholarship Positive Psychology Appreciative Inquiry Integral theory perspective Although there are many terms used; it is possible to draw on the commonalities and to point out to an emerging paradigm in organizational scholarship. One thing is becoming clearer: The most critical research frontiers for the twenty-first century revolve around values, ethics, morality, social responsibility, global sustainability, and spirituality. These organizational theories and concepts emphasize a set of universal values and positive spirituality centered on sincerity, integrity, morality, respect, compassion, authenticity, intuition, and service to community. Towards an Emergent Framework of Universal Values and Spirituality The emergent framework is meant to be a bridging theory between the East and the West, capturing the diversity of universal ethical and spiritual values across the globe. The table illustrates a unifying scheme and framework that illustrates the holistic and multidimensional nature of spirituality and values in human systems at the cross-cultural and global scale.
Conclusion Humanity has been experiencing complex global scale problems, crises and threats in the 21st century: Global terror, September 11, cartoon events, provocations, conflict scenarios, violence events, clash of civilizations, crisis of confidence, religious intolerance, hunger, poverty, illiteracy, pollution, crime, theft, fraud, murder, corruption, immortality, child abuse, human rights violation, oppression, inequality, injustice, nuclear weapons, war in Iraq, conflict in the Middle East.. This paper emphasized the urgent need for the development of shared global values and virtues in organizations as the necessary solution to build a more humane world of peace, love, cooperation and dialog in the 21st century. My objective in this reflection paper has been to come up with, identify and articulate a common set of desirable human values; which are commonly shared regardless of faith, culture, region and race. The emergent framework is meant to be a bridging theory between the East and the West, capturing the diversity of universal ethical and spiritual values in human systems. By acknowledging that there is a meaningful array of forms of experience, this model celebrates and welcomes multiplicity of human values. This paper has implications for practitioners, managers, educators and teachers. Universal values such as peace, love, respect, tolerance, cooperation and freedom, can be cherished and aspired in children and youth through holistic peace education programs. The development of values, virtues, character, and peaceful skills in our young people is necessary to build a better and more humane world of peace, love, and dialog in the 21st century. Our generation could not see a world of universal peace, love and dialogue. We hope the next generation can see this happening. We should give priority to foster and develop love, compassion, dialog, and respect for others’ rights, human rights, and tolerance for diversity, equal treatment and opportunities for diverse people, positive action and non-coercive, non-violent methods and means. But this requires ultimate commitment at the individual level, tremendous efforts for building awareness and willingness for interfaith and intercultural dialog at the group/organizational levels, as well as macro institutional, economic, political and governmental involvement, support, and action. A number of positive NGOs, businesses and peaceful institutions, together with a network of volunteers, social innovators and peaceful leaders can form "islands of positive human values" throughout the globe. This depends on deep and large-scale systems change, involving work with idealist people from all faiths, multi-national corporations, government agencies, and civil society organizations all over the world. With so much violence in the world fuelled by racial, religious and ethnic intolerance; we should give utmost importance to interfaith dialog, cross cultural awareness, respect for diversity and human rights, multiculturalism, and global common values. Having become neighbors who share the same global world, it is of the utmost significance today that we should do our best to go beyond the distances that result from religious, political, cultural, and ideological differences. We conclude with three questions and a final quote for individual reflection:
Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) About the Author Fahri
Karakas can be contacted at: |
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