When we realize that all human social existence throughout history has ended in failures regardless of military and economic strength it seems obvious that the decision-making of all of the administrations, empires, dynasties, and states was consistently in error. Because values always underlie decision-making, we can logically accept that the values those empires, dynasties, and their administrations were using were the wrong values to support their regimes into a sustainable future.
The Values that Sustain Families, Societies, and Civilizations
NOTE: “Love” is in quotation marks because love is the value-emotion that points to: Honesty, truthfulness, respect, loyalty, devotion, faithfulness, recognition, acceptance, appreciation, validation, discretion, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, authenticity, vulnerability, genuineness, listening, supporting, sharing, consulting, confiding, caring, tenderness and many more. These values constitute the operational definition of love. (Source: Sacred Relationships, A Guide to Authentic Loving, Daniel Raphael, 1999)
Their grievous error was made because they were unconscious of those values being erroneous. They assumed that their values were correct and that all they needed was more money, bigger armies, and more powerful weapons to conquer their enemies. We could insightfully say that their assumed values defeated them, every one of them.
Being assumed, they were invisible to the parents, children, and adults who came to rule and administer those empires and states. It seems obvious that the empires and societies of Assyria, Rome, Greece, Egypt, China, the Maya, Inca, Aztec, Persia, Babylonia, Phoenicia, and the British Empire, for examples, came into existence without the consciousness of the underlying values that would eventually defeat them. And now they are gone. Our own societies and global civilization will also decline, as we are already seeing today, then collapse and disappear as have all former societies and civilizations due to the same causes unless we become conscious of and use the values that have sustained our species for over 200,000 years!
We now have the consciousness of those values to educate and enculturate each new generation with them to initiate the social sustainability of our democratic societies and nations. It only remains for us to teach those values and skills to parents who will raise their children to eventually become the decision-makers who lead and guide our societies into an enduring peaceful future.
The characteristics of these seven values. Our conscious awareness of these values will eventually change the course of human destiny for the better. The self-evident nature of these values is only one of several characteristics that have obscured their presence while in plain sight.
1. Self-Evident — The three primary values are self-evident similarly as those stated in the famous sentence in the United States Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths (values) to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. The proof of this becomes evident when people around the world are asked whether they would like to enjoy an improved quality of life, as they define it.
2. Universal — These values are universal to all people of all races, cultures, ethnicity, nations, and genders. Ask anyone, whether they live in Buenos Aires or Baltimore, Houston or Hanoi, or any other city if they would like to develop the innate potential they brought into life … to improve their quality of life with an equal ability as anyone else would or could. The answers are universally the same whether a poor person is asked or a multi-billionaire. Everyone I have talked to as a holistic life coach has chosen to improve the quality of their life, and grow into their potential.
3. Irreducible — The three primary values are the superordinate values of our species and are not subordinate to any other values. The pursuit of an improving quality of life, growth, and equality provide the foundation for human motivation, as interpreted by the individual, and expressed in a personal hierarchy of needs. Together, these seven values provide us with a unified, values-based theory of human motivation. Eponymously, it becomes the Raphael Unified Theory of Human Motivation, or RUTHM. 9
4. Organic / Innate / Timeless — Even though I cannot prove it, evidence seems to suggest that these seven values are organic to our species and are perhaps embedded in our DNA from our earliest beginnings. They have motivated us, everyone, to yearn for the improvement of our quality of life materially and socially. We can safely predict that these same values will continue to motivate our species to enjoy an ever-improving quality of life, and to grow into our innate potential in future centuries and millennia.
LIFE the ultimate value. Life provides the pivotal element for the existence of the other six values as a system of values. Decisions made about life are qualified by the other six values that become the criteria for human decision-making, to express the highest values of human existence and our humanity.
The three primary values, (quality of life, growth, and equality), are the original cause of human motivation and material and social progress that have given us the capability to sustain our species over thousands of generations.
The three secondary values, (empathy, compassion, and “love”), are also organic to our species and share the same characteristics as the three primary values. They exist in us as an impulse to do good. They are proof that people are innately good, and created that way! For example, we want peace for others as much as we want peace for ourselves because we are wired with the values that make us human – humane.
These seven values are integral and provide a holism of decision-making that motivates us to progress individually and collectively, while also reaching out to others who are less able or capable of doing so for themselves. These seven values create a oneness of humanity that is only violated by willful decision-making.
These values give us the capability to choose to grow into our innate potential in the seven spheres of human development: physical, mental, emotional, intellectual, social, cultural, and spiritual.
An integrated decision-making system of values. Because these two sets of values are innate to our being, they provide for a holistic, integrated system of decision-making. When applied consciously, they can be used by anyone in any situation, personal, social, or organizational, whether religious, secular, corporate, political, or governmental to provide positive answers to difficult social problems and situations. As individuals and in organizations, through our decisions, actions, words, and thoughts we define our self as being one with all people, human and humane, or separate and apart.
These values provide organizations with the capability of designing short term goals that fully support strategic and long term goals. Progress toward short term and long term goals can be easily cross-validated by these seven values. They offer all organizations of all sizes a rational means to move toward that state of sustainability by including these values in their:
Vision statements,
Intention statements,
Operating philosophies,
Mission statements,
Program objectives,
Human resource policies,
Social policies and protocols.
9 Raphael, Daniel 2015. Social Sustainability Handbook for Community-Builders. Infinity Press. ISBN: Trade Book: 978-0-692-41640-2 e-PUB ISBN: 978-1-4951-6048-6, p 28-30.