The 7 Deadly Flaws of Modernism & the 7 Transformational Acupuncture Points- The Global Transition Model

There is much wisdom that is badly out of date and no longer useful in our first human-induced planetary crisis. There is also much intelligence that is not very wise in our current life conditions. The key is to be discerning enough to know the difference.

Painting depicting the collapse of the Roman Empire by Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire, Destruction, 1836, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

How can we reperceive our world, our lives, and our work in the shadow of climate, racial, gender, economic, and political trauma so we can fully experience the coherence and meaning that we have the potential to create?

And what can we do to become more effective in making our world a better place for ourselves while helping heal the wounds on our planet?

We are living in a very chaotic time. In fact, Dee Hock, founder of Visa, called it “Chaordic.” He was referring to the fact that out of the chaos emerge pockets of order in the chaos. And that’s what we’re seeing today.

So one of the key insights critical to becoming a truly effective change agent and leader is understanding the system we are in. We must understand in some detail how Game A works because if you don’t understand Game A, (the degenerative, exclusive, hierarchical, only money matters game), you really are going to struggle to create Game B, (the regenerative, inclusive, collaborative, and developmental game).

The final scene from Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece — “2001- A Space Odyssey”

Here’s the obvious yet astonishing thing. The world we’re living in today was designed a few centuries ago by the richest, most powerful people in society, and they created a game that favors them. Surprise, surprise!

The degenerative, exclusive, hierarchical, only money matters game has been with us for a very long time. Dominance hierarchies are the standard operating model for primate troops. As an evolutionary descendant of primates, we, the naked ape called homo sapiens, have tended to live in dominance hierarchies since human societies emerged a hundred thousand years ago. Whether patriarchal, matriarchal, or gender-neutral, dominance hierarchies have tended to prevail in the main, with some remarkable exceptions.