At every moment, there are a million different things one can pay attention to. We choose what to focus on, and in doing so, we necessarily give up all other potentials.
We get to know and experience the one thing we pay attention to but very little else. For example, you're reading these words, so you know what is on this page, at the cost of missing out on most of everything else.
“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” Sarte
Why do we pay attention to some things and not others?
Our values guide our attention and what we focus on. In this way, what we really value is brought to life via our attention, and we live in a world produced by our values.
The world produced by our values is structured, has a coherent hierarchy, and helps construct our Worldview.
Our Worldview then acts as a subconscious map that automatically filters our environment based on our values and guides our behavior so we move towards that.
As we move towards our values and attain their fruits, we improve our lives. When enough of us do this on scale, we have a coherent value system and a corresponding worldview that works in the real world.
Working in the real world makes a value system viable, and the more feasible a value system is, the more people will adopt it. When a value system has mass adoption, it becomes part of our culture and collective Worldview and is expressed in our art, philosophy, mythologies, and ideologies.
Now, the world is not just one place. There are many different environments, and a Value System will perform better in some environments and worse in others. In other words, a Value System's worth is related and relative to its environment and other available Value Systems.
As societies grow and evolve, they go through different stages and Value Systems. During the Hunter Gatherer Era, egalitarianism, sharing, and personal autonomy were the highest values. Working well and sharing with others was essential for survival because one was unlikely to feed oneself daily alone.
For Hunter Gathers, food was their biggest challenge, and then, one day, they discovered horticulture. Horticulture led to the advent of agricultural societies, which required a different set of values to be successful. For the first time, people had to consider property rights, managing resources like water, rules, laws, security, and the need for a social hierarchy in managing larger groups of people.
Going from the Hunter Gather Era to the Agriculture Era took about 6000 years.
Why?
Most Hunter-Gatherers preferred their way of life. They did not want to be subjected to a local ruler and have to follow someone else’s laws.
However, this was not possible in the long run, and a conflict between both worldviews was inevitable. Over the centuries, Agricultural societies took all the best land with their militaries; they nearly pushed Hunter and Gathers out into extinction. They had a choice: adapt or die. Today, there are very few Hunter and Gather Societies left.
Next, let’s explore value systems, how they evolve, the current value systems operating in the world that are igniting our culture war through their internal paradoxes, and what is next.
What are Value Systems & How Do They Work?
Evolving Nature of Values
4 Primary Worldviews
Traditionalism
Modernism
Postmodernism
Integral
The Cultural War
Path Forward: Paradox & Integration
Personal & Social Transformation
Summary: Dancing with Destiny
What are Value Systems & How Do They Work?
Values are like a set of tools that help us attain our needs, such as our survival, procreation, and even self-actualization, both individually and collectively. As such, values exist on a hierarchy, where some values are more important than others. This value hierarchy is our value system.
We then consciously and subconsciously organize our lives around attaining our values according to our value system. This includes our career, relationships, education, and what we prioritize.
Our value systems often work automatically in our lives.
Values affect our perceptions apriori. When we enter an environment, we automatically scan it according to our values and move towards our values. In this way, values shape us. They become like an invisible structure that helps determine our perceptions, plans, goals, and behavior.
Since values are tied to a real-world context and embedded in culture, we learn what is worthwhile from infancy. We grow up in a cultural soup that infuses us with beliefs about the nature of our reality and what is essential and invaluable in life. So, our values are often shared with others, and we strive to achieve these values.
The Evolving Nature of Values
As a society successfully attains the fruits of its value system, when its values are fully realized, it begins to transform its own culture and environment according to those values.
The Agricultural Era transformed life on Earth and gave rise to civilization. Then, in the 1760s, the Industrial Revolution came along and remade the world. Today, we are in the epicenter of the Information Age and are experiencing massive changes.
We can see how each epoch produced its corresponding beliefs, philosophies, art, culture, and Worldview.
Value systems thus produce a coherent value structure, a framework that is then infused with the color, culture, and personality of a given society.
At its peak, the Value System will transform the environment, creating a whole new world and a twofold paradox:
First, as the values become fully realized, they, by definition, become abundant, and in their abundance, they become less valuable.
Second, as society creates and extracts value, it transforms its environment. A different set of values emerges as more beneficial in the new environment.
Let’s look at a few examples of each:
Cotton was once a highly prized luxury good that is abundant and cheap today.
The Dutch East India Company (VOC), which primarily traded spices and imported goods, became arguably the most valuable company in history, valued at a whopping $7.9 Trillion. Today, starting such a business would be laughable. The value of transporting goods has been captured.
Now, here is the key. Since no solution is perfect, when a society transforms its environment, it also creates negative externalities. These negative externalities are part of the new environment and develop a set of challenges that require a new way of thinking to solve.
In due time, the old value systems become less effective and produce more negative externalities, which leads to a huge incentive to explore. Once a set of viable solutions is discovered and adapted on scale, this leads to the generation of a new Value System and Worldview.
Here are a few examples:
The Hunter-Gatherer Era was limited by daily survival and food scarcity.
Externalities: nomadic lifestyle limited group sizes, knowledge accumulation and ability to grow
The Agricultural Era solved the problem of food security but was limited by human/animal labor.
Externalities: Progress was limited by rigid hierarchical social structures, Limited social mobility, Resistance to change and innovation
The Industrial Age solved the problem of physical labor limits through machines but was limited by information flow.
Externalities: Pollution, Alienation, Environmental Degradation, Materialistic reductionism, Exploitation
Information Age solved the problem of information flow but is limited by meaning-making
Externalities: Fragmentation of shared meaning, Relativism, Difficulty in coordinating collective action, Narcissistic individualism
In the same way that water flows downhill, societies move towards value, which transforms them and necessitates a new set of values and Worldview.
This cycle repeats itself, pushing us to evolve.
Let’s look at the three primary Value Systems Today.
The 4 Primary Worldviews
Today, three central value systems are working in the world, and a fourth is emerging.
The three main Worldviews that are expressed in our epoch, philosophical systems, and Worldviews are:
Traditionalism: Agricultural Era & Pre-Modern Classical Philosophy. Focus on order, stability, and adherence to established norms.
Modernism: Industrial Era & Modernism. Emphasis on reason, progress, and individual freedoms.
Postmodernism: Information Age & postmodernism. Concentration on equality, inclusivity, and cultural relativism.
Integral Age: Age of AI & metamodernism. Focused on integrating values based on what is needed, next, and effective. [emerging]
These Worldviews exist on a meta-archetypal level, meaning that even though the names, events, and characters change from culture to culture, their stories have similar plots, characters, and morals.
We can see how the chief problem that each Value System solved was embedded in their Worldview and produced externalities, which were then addressed in the next Worldview.
Traditionalism
Side note: I am including videos on each of these so you can go deeper.
Traditionalism offered a set of values that made organizing agricultural activities on scale possible. Having a Worldview where there is a ‘God’, a set of ‘Truths’ that must be obeyed, ensures that everyone in society plays by the same set of rules. Even Kings were not above the law of God.
This shift in Worldview decreased the odds of getting plundered and increased overall security for everyone. It also became possible to build a strong foundation, the rule of law, and to implement legal frameworks that worked within hierarchies. This foundation made it possible to protect property rights, which ensured that inventors could benefit from their inventions and led to the Industrial Revolution.
World View & Values:
Values: Traditional values, duty, morality, discipline, character, duty, honor, justice, and moral fiber; righteous living; controlling impulsivity through guilt;
Core Belief: There is a higher order and meaning to the Universe and Life itself, and that highest order is God/Gods.
Motives: Security- Order, Right & Wrong
Chief Problem: Achieving everlasting peace of mind (heaven, paradise, etc) in a chaotic world.
Characteristics: absolutistic, obedient, purposeful, authoritarian
Nature of Existence: Dualistic and Saintly
Meaning: Life has meaning, direction, and purpose with predetermined outcomes
Purpose: There is a transcendent Purpose, a recognition of the importance of order and meaning, a universe controlled by a single higher power.
Means: Sacrificing Self for a transcendent Cause, (secular or religious) Truth, Mission, future reward
Truth: Traditionalists see "Truth" as fundamental, all-encompassing, and worthy of any sacrifice or personal surrender, even of one's life.
Examples: Puritan America, Confucian China, Dickensian England, Religious fundamentalism, etc.
Modernism
Modernism began by addressing the negative externalities of Traditionalism by changing the way people saw the world and what was possible.
One of Traditionalism's downsides is that it confines people to a rigid hierarchical social structure that limits social mobility. It also has a very fixed mindset that is resistant to change and innovation.
Modernism sought to break through this mindset by offering an empowering view that promised progress, independence, individual success, and living the good life here and now instead of ‘heaven.’ Modernists struggle for autonomy, material abundance, and progress by finding the best solutions.
Modernism is characterized by a belief in progress and the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment. It is often accompanied by disillusionment about modernity's promised potential.
World View & Values:
Values: Progress, prosperity, optimism, and self-reliance; strategy, risk-taking, and competitiveness; goals, leverage, professional development, and mastery; rationality, objectivism, demonstrated results, technology, and the power of science
Core Belief: Progress will save us
Characteristics: materialistic, strategic, ambitions, individualistic
Chief Problem: Conquering the physical world
Motives: Independence- Autonomy & Achievement
Nature of Existence: Materialistic
Meaning: loss of meaning; quest for personal meaning
Purpose: personal purpose focuses on winning and materialism
Means: Scientism
Truth: Can be discovered via the scientific methods now or later
Examples: The Enlightenment, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, Wall Street
Post Modernism
Modernism offered a path to progress and promised ‘the good’ life, but what does that mean?
Postmodernism began to question Modernism's foundational assumptions, including its notions of objective truth, universal narratives, and the idea that progress and reason alone could lead to a better world.
They had a point.
After all, Modernism did nothing to prevent Two World Wars. In fact, science and industrialization created such powerful killing machines. Modernism continues to fail at addressing its externalities, such as pollution, environmental degradation, and the commodification of everything, even the individual.
Postmodernism is a movement that considers these externalities, how we are treating each other, and the environment. It takes the perspective of others and attempts to create harmony.
World View & Values:
Values: Sensitivity to others, harmony, equality, reconciliation, consensus, dialogue, participation, relationships, and networking; human development, bonding, diversity, and multiculturalism
Core Belief: Everything is relative
Characteristics: relativistic, sensitive, pluralistic, personalistic
Chief Problem: Living with the human element (materialism, dogma, divisiveness) and accepting the unacceptable.
Motives: Affiliation- Approval, Equality, Community, Love
Nature of Existence: Personalistic
Meaning: believe in a multiplicity of meanings,
Purpose: the creation of a personal purpose,
Means: Sociocentricity, progress via collective group
Truth: No fundamental truth; everything is relative
Examples: John Lennon’s Imagine; Netherlands’ idealism; sensitivity training; human rights and diversity issues, etc…
Each of these Worldviews provides value to our world, but there is also a hidden cost.
The cost is that they can lead us into limiting beliefs and feelings of Guilt, Existential Angst, and Nihilism.
The Cultural War
Transformation is not uniform. Some parts of the world and environments are more conducive to change, while others make it fundamentally harder. This gives some individuals and societies an advantage while leaving others behind.
What makes this challenging to address is that from the point of view of each, they have the right system because, after all, it works in their environment. If you live on a farm, taking risks can lead to failed crops, so caution, practicality, and deep community bonds ensure survival, while in the city, you’re rewarded for taking risks, having abstract intellectual skills and broad networks of connections. Today, we see a city vs rural divide in culture, beliefs, values, and voting.
This is a conflict between Value Systems.
Today, we have a conflict between Traditionalism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. Each sees the others as a threat to its way of life. The elite members of each group fight tooth and nail to preserve their way of life as the Hunters and Gathers did.
These conflicts and the current cultural war are bringing out the worst in each Worldview and eroding their values from within. In an effort to win, no one is reflecting and noticing their internal weaknesses, and anyone who points them out is excommunicated. As such, these Worldviews are failing to address their weaknesses, being unhealthy versions of themselves and decaying from within. In total, they are failing us in addressing the needs of the day.
The Path Forward: Paradox & Integration
Value Systems can have both healthy and unhealthy expressions. Healthy expressions acknowledge inner contradictions, are aware of their values' limitations, and are open to other perspectives. People at a healthy level can get real value out of their value systems while supporting the broader community.
Unhealthy expressions typically come from a place of fear that your values and way of life are under attack. In an effort to support one’s values, there is a refusal to accept limitations, weaknesses, and contradictions. When challenged, there is a doubling down on the value system and a willingness to sacrifice lower-level values within the hierarchy. This typically manifests as protecting the system at all costs, even when there is rot within the system itself and change is needed.
There are many examples of this.
Traditional: How religious institutions have abused power for centuries. Recently, the Catholic Church protected pedophile priests.
Modernism: There have been numerous massacres of striking workers in the US, like the Ludlow Massacre, the Columbine Mine massacre, the Morewood Massacre, the Herrin Massacre, the Lattimer Massacre, the Homestead Massacre, and so on. Here, the ‘Corporation’ murders the ‘individuals’ who refuse to be cogs in the machine.
Postmodernism: In an effort to understand and be sensitive to even the worst among us, postmodernists justify and rationalize bad behavior, letting criminals off the hook while excluding those who wish to hold them accountable from the conversation.
But why does this happen?
Why is it so easy for Value Systems to manifest the opposite of their stated values?
Hegelian Paradox of Value Systems
Values have an internal paradox in that they bring both the stated value and its opposite into existence.
For example, the modern value of ‘wealth’ suggests an entire continuum between ‘Being Poor to Becoming Wealthy.’
Striving to become wealthy is an admission that you lack wealth. Whenever we try to attain a value by pursuing it, we manifest the condition of lacking that value, so in pursuing wealth, we might feel insufficient. The paradox is that by chasing wealth, we make ourselves ‘poorer’ in comparison.
So, pursuing values produces a shadow where the opposite of the value is reality.
Let’s look at a few examples:
Traditionalism: Focused on truth and moral behavior.
Stated Value: Divine order, moral certainty, righteous behavior
Shadow: Striving for moral purity and following divine law creates rigid systems that lead to moral corruption and hypocrisy.
Examples: Religious institutions becoming sources of abuse and power corruption, Religious leaders amassing wealth while preaching against materialism, Moral crusaders engaging in the behaviors they condemn
Paradox: Moral certainty can lead to committing moral wrongs
Modernism: Focused on individual freedom and material abundance
Stated Value: Individualism
Shadow: Reducing the individual to a meatball, treating him like a machine, and commodifying him, thus stripping all individuality out of the individual.
Examples: Sweathshops, Hustle Culture promoting individuality through conformist productivity, Gig Economy promising freedom while creating dependency, Dating apps meat market, Social media "personal branding" turning people into products, Selling every part of Self for economic gain (work, ideas, time, body, sex, etc.).
Paradox: It is hyper-focused on individualism and freedom to pursue success. However, at its core, it undermines and destroys the individual by reducing him to being nothing more than a machine and commodifying him in every way.
Postmodernism:
Stated Value: Inclusivity
Shadow: Exclude people who are not inclusive and thus become exclusive.
Example: Cancel culture in the name of inclusivity, Diversity initiatives that create new forms of discrimination, Universities limiting speech to protect free expression,
Paradox: In their attempt to be sensitive and inclusive, they run into the paradox of what to do with those who are not accepting. Do they accept the unacceptable? Their answer is no, which turns their inclusivity into exclusivity and dogma.
The key insight is that each value system contains its own contradiction and needs to address this paradox.
When it fails to recognize and integrate it, this shadow can become dominant, leading to the value system's imbalance and breakdown.
We can use the Hegelian dialectic to restore balance and health within a Value System. The Hegelian Dialect aims to synthesize the thesis/concept (value) and the antithesis/alternative (shadow) into a greater understanding.
Here is an example of how to integrate and turn weaknesses into strengths:
Traditional:
Thesis (Stated Value): Moral certainty/divine order
Antithesis (Shadow): Human fallibility and corruption
Synthesis: Humble devotion, compassionate application
Result: morals without rigid moralism
Modernism:
Thesis: Individual achievement and success
Antithesis: Alienation and meaninglessness
Synthesis: Achievement that serves the collective good
Result: Success with purpose
Postmodern:
Thesis: Radical inclusion and equality
Antithesis: Exclusion of excluders
Synthesis: Developmental approach to inclusion
Result: Inclusive while honoring development
Health comes not from perfecting the system but from consciously working with its inherent tensions.
However, I do not see a serious effort or improvement in this direction. Instead, our current Worldviews and Value Systems are failing us. They are failing to address their own weaknesses and thus becoming toxic and unhealthy versions of themselves.
Quite evidently, they lack the tools and ability to get along, which makes them incapable of meeting the needs and demands of the moment.
All of this necessitates a new paradigm and way forward that can unlock greater value.
Today, we are starting to see a new paradigm emerge, a paradigm that solves the old issues and can move us forward.
Integrative Era
Societies evolve when solutions no longer work, and a new paradigm offers a better value proposition.
The emerging new paradigm is the Integrative Era. The Integrative perspective moves from "either/or" to "both/and" thinking, which recognizes that opposing viewpoints often contain complementary truths that need to be integrated at a higher level.
Rather than seeking to prove others wrong, the integral approach looks for the partial truth in each perspective and its usefulness while acknowledging its limitations and considering the context. As a result, it is able to use what is useful when and where it is useful, thereby integrating all of the values available to it.
The Integrative Era can transcend today's culture wars by embracing validity and hierarchy within a given context. It acknowledges that traditional values (stability, community, meaning), modern accomplishments (science, individual rights, progress), and postmodern insights (cultural context, inclusion, environmental awareness) all contain partial truths that need to be integrated rather than fought over.
Furthermore, it integrates the current system of values by applying and weaving them as needed and demanded by the situation and environment. In this way, it has the full gamut of values to play with and can mix and match to solve the problems it faces within a given context.
Personal & Social Transformation
One way to think about personal growth is as a journey where we strive to attain our values based on our beliefs. Our beliefs act as our foundation, fundamentally defining what the world is about, the chief problem of life, and how we ought to be in the world.
Each Value System has a pre-packaged solution that helps meet our Hierarchy of Needs. We then set out to attain our values, believing that this would change our lives. This approach is very beneficial in the beginning. Using this method, we can build a strong foundation that meets our physical, safety, and social needs.
Through this growth, we increase the total amount of value in our lives and gain the self-confidence and esteem to affect our lives. Extrinsic goals are effective in building a foundation that addresses our deficiency needs.
So, one aspect of GROWTH is meeting our needs and increasing the Values in our lives.
However, the goal-oriented, extrinsic approach is ultimately destined to fail in meeting our growth needs, and this is where many people get stuck.
They get stuck and confused because the approach that worked so well in meeting their basic needs is now failing them. They might achieve wealth and fame, yet feel utterly empty, lonely, and find life meaningless.
Doubling down by doing more, achieving more, and having more eventually fail again, and they are lost.
The way out requires a great deal of introspection and a certain degree of radical honesty. It means having the courage to reflect on one’s values and beliefs and explore one’s epistemology.
Becoming genuinely interested in this opens the door to understanding because growth needs require intrinsic motivation.
To meet our growth needs, we must become more intrinsically motivated and do things for their own sake.
We do things because we love them.
This is a significant shift from ‘having’ and ‘striving’ to ‘being.’ In the same way that being a great musician has nothing to do with buying an expensive guitar, being fulfilled has nothing to do with ‘having’ enough of ‘x,y, or z.’
Being grateful is then the greatest prosperity. Loving what you do naturally leads to mastery, and living a life in this way is fulfilling.
So, the maturation process is a process in which we refine and increase our values and the amount of care we have. We grow in care, going from caring about ourselves (physical & safety needs) to caring for others and finally caring for our world (self-transcendence) and, in the process, healing our relationships.
We grow by transcending and including all of the different value systems.
Social Transformation
Societies are forced to evolve when the old solutions no longer work, and chaos is at the door.
Society is a collection of individuals, so this work starts at the individual level. It is a process that people actively go through where they personally transform their lives, then improve their family’s life, then their community, and so on.
It’s an organic process in which we grow, expand our circle of care, share our insights with our community, and help them succeed.
In other words, our social evolution is essentially an evolutionary survival function, gravitating to real-world value rather than any ‘social movement’ or ‘fighting for or against a cause.’
Lasting change is the product of moving to a better system. Systems aren’t eradicated just because they are failing; they are replaced when there is a better alternative.
Ultimately, the better alternative, the alternative that will stand the test of time, is the one that increases our ability to survive.
Survival, however, is not done alone. None of us can make it alone, and we are all in this together. Furthermore, we don’t live independently of our environment. We live in and are intertwined with our environment, which provides all of our needs.
So, caring for each other, the animals, and the planet ensures our own survival. With this framework, we can see that Growth and Transformation, both personally and collectively, are an increase in the number of values available to us and an increase in care.
The more we care, the more we can respond, the more responsible we can be, and the longer we can survive.
Summary: Dancing with Destiny
Throughout history, we see a recurring pattern: societies develop value systems to solve their pressing challenges, transform their environment through these values, and then face new challenges that demand fresh solutions. This isn't just a linear progression but a spiral of development, where each stage transcends and includes what came before.
The Hunter-Gatherer valued sharing and autonomy, the Agricultural Age brought order and moral frameworks, the Industrial Age championed individual achievement and progress, and the Information Age elevated inclusion and interconnection. Each solves critical problems while creating new ones, each contains its own shadow that needs integration.
Today, we stand at another threshold. Our cultural wars between Traditional, Modern, and Postmodern worldviews reflect a deeper reality: that none of our value systems is sufficient for our complex world. The emerging Integral consciousness offers a way forward not by rejecting these perspectives but by integrating their wisdom while acknowledging their limitations.
This evolution isn't just societal - it's deeply personal. As individuals, we grow not by accumulating more but by expanding our circle of care and consciousness. We move from surviving to thriving, from having to being, from opposing to integrating. Our transformation becomes the foundation for social transformation.
The path forward isn't about choosing between tradition or progress, individual or collective, universal or relative truths. It's about developing the capacity to hold multiple perspectives, dance between different value systems as needed, and meet each moment with the appropriate response. This is the promise of integral consciousness—not a final destination but a more encompassing way of engaging with life's eternal dance of evolution.
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