Deep Worldview Literacy for a World in Crisis

Humanity faces an unprecedented poly-crisis — a convergence of ecological breakdown, democratic decay, intense polarization, and a pervasive crisis of meaning, amongst others. Voices across diverse fields argue that addressing these interlocking challenges requires nothing less than a shift in the worldviews, mindsets, and paradigms from which our current systems arise. As Donella Meadows argued, this is our deepest leverage point for systemic change. 

Yet, as she also noted, the deeper the leverage point, the harder to engage it and the more resistance it tends to create — and indeed, few interventions even attempt to work at this level. On top of that, we now live in a worldview-plural world. Every day, we encounter people who make sense of reality in radically different ways – up to the point they seem to be living in different worlds altogether. They operate from other worldviews, departing from different assumptions about what is true, what matters, and what needs to change.

Research shows that the confrontation between different worldviews tends to trigger defensive reactions rather than genuine engagement, because people are inclined to protect their worldviews, as these are existentially important to them. They tend to do this by dismissing or derogating those who see differently, and this happens across the political spectrum. This dynamic arguably underlies today's polarization and crisis of trust — which in itself creates a collective inability to collaboratively address our planetary challenges. 

In a world where the old stories no longer hold and new ones have not yet emerged, our late postmodern society is also characterized by a pervasive sense of moral and existential disorientation, sometimes referred to as the ‘meaning crisis’. This crisis arguably underlies the resurgence of traditionalism and populism, while also pointing to a palpable need for deeper sense-making.

All of this underscores the need for genuine engagement with our worldviews. Yet most of us have never been supported to develop the capacities for this: the ability to see our own worldview, to constructively engage with perspectives different from our own, to expand our views and embrace a more planetary perspective, and to bring alignment between what we believe and how we live.

This program sets out to do precisely that, developing 'deep worldview literacy'. We do this through a combination of powerful knowledge, personal reflection, experiential activities, and deep dialogues. The program reaches into the personal domain, inviting us to explore, exchange, expand, and express our own worldviews — as we believe we cannot ask others to change while leaving ourselves unchanged. In this vision, the inner work of deep worldview literacy is itself a form of changemaking; one that starts from the inside out.