The massive challenge of the 21st century is sustaining prosperity and security without killing the planet and each other. Absent leadership the current global system could easily devolve back to the types of self-destructive tendencies that have destroyed the many past versions of regionalism, globalization, and human achievement. There are hundreds of interconnected and hopelessly entangled parts to that overarching challenge, some of which are known and plenty of which are unknown. They will all clamor for our attention to different degrees and at different moments over the next decades of our lives and the lives of our children. Yet no individual, group, or nation can handle them alone.

These problems are owned by the people and governments of every nation. But since the world of international affairs lacks legal or other mechanisms for reaching and enforcing agreements globally, its ultimately politics that influences the course of human events from start to finish. And in politics, ideology and ideas about the world we live in are crucial currency.

It is not possible nor preferable for all of humanity to agree on any one thing. Even the tightest, most love-filled families can not agree on certain things — often those are small issues but they extend up to life-defining viewpoints. In all of our groups we constantly discuss everything in a sort of ideological bazaar where every individual has a personal, changing ideology as unique as their thumbprint. There is constant and ferocious competition in that Marketplace of Ideas between lovers, families, tribes, organizations, and nations. That is, we are supremely social and political animals.

When you drill down to our nature as humans, we’re usually selfish. That is, we’re most interested in ourselves most of the time. That is part of the reason we find is so difficult to agree on what to have for dinner let alone how our economies and rulers should be organized. Yet we’re also very groupish. For thousands of years our ancestors fine-tuned mental mechanisms and cultural rituals for binding themselves into communities that were better able to work together, suppress free-riders, and achieve common ends. Though it doesn’t determine all of our decisions, we long for meaning and feelings that transcend ourselves.

Though we’ll never agree on the exact best way to create an orderly world and what a just society would look like, there are some common values that individuals and tribes share simply because we share the human condition. By discussing those in every way imaginable we can inch closer to a global groupish-ness that will help individuals, families, tribes, organizations, and nations make better decisions regarding the many problems we will face over the next century that we’re all responsible for solving.

The goal of this blog is to help shape a global ideology that inspires other with  purpose, and not just power. One way to do that is to crowd-design a global “Declaration of Interdependence” that not only declares that we are interdependent even as we are simultaneously self-interested, but that we share significant common values that can help lead us into a better future.

Designed by: Jarod Holtz

Giants: {Thomas PM Barnett}{Steven Weber}{Bruce W. Jentleson}{Jonathan Haidt}