In Quest of Engaging Values: context of the Human Values and Wisdom Project

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The 20th century saw a multitude of studies and commentaries on values. It is ranked as one of the bloodiest centuries of all times. Nations continue to engage in extreme violence in the defence of values -- and are prepared to make use of pre-emptive nuclear strikes to that end. Nevertheless, appreciative inquiry into values and discussion of their nature remains a very "safe" and respectable topic. Appealing to values is a standard process in which all authorities engage -- frequently as a means of disguising agendas in conflict with those values and avoiding exploration of differences in values labelled by the same words.

The subtext of any values discourse tends to imply that "if only everyone would agree with our preferred set of values then all would be well". The corollary is then "if you are not with us in this, you are necessarily against us" and therefore part of the problem. The possibility is not considered that if we do not understand how we are part of the problem we cannot understand the nature of the solution required.

The challenge explored here is whether it is possible to break out of the trap of what might be framed as the "values game". This may be especially important in response to the seemingly unmanageable crises of the global knowledge society of the anthropocene era. Given the elusive nature of values, the question addressed here is whether individuals and groups can engage with and embody values more effectively as a means of engaging with these crises -- which strategically are essentially crises of values. This applies especially to those strategic crises relating to the environment -- currently epitomized by the value conflicts regarding "climate change".

The initial context for the following exploration was the instigation by the author in 1972 of the Human Values Project that formed part of the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential (online since 2000). This work, briefly summarized below, highlighted a range of issues -- notably the strategic implications for any transition from a knowledge society to a wisdom society (see Documents relating to Human Values and Wisdom).

No distinction is made here between "ethics", "morals" and "values", the argument focuses more generally on the latter as including the former. Of particular importance now appears to be the recognition of the limitations of the typical descriptive focus on values and their significance -- avoiding consideration of both the challenge of tokenism and the manner in which people might better comprehend and engage with configurations of values in enabling more appropriate navigation of emergent psycho-social complexity.

Following clarification of these issues, the question explored is how people and groups can comprehend and engage with configurations of values -- by which elusive sets of values might be "held" -- as argued in the subsequent paper (Coherent Value Frameworks: pillar-ization, polarization and polyhedral frames of reference, 2008). The issue of "topology" is highlighted to contrast this approach with the universal tendency to present sets of values as a checklist, organized simplistically and asystemically. There is then little consideration for the mnemonic factors that reinforce and sustain engagement with them -- and appropriate use of them as a strategic vehicle relevant to a global knowledge society challenged by the "political will to change".

This challenge of engagement is the focus of a subsequent paper (Topology of Valuing: psychodynamics of collective engagement with polyhedral value configurations, 2008). The latter document contains the References for all three. The argument of all three is summarized in a final paper (Embodying Values Dynamically: integrating sets of polarized static values through indicative metaphor, 2008). The exploration was undertaken as a contribution to a Panel on Ethics and Policies for Sustainable Futures (Hyderabad, 2008) of the World Academy of Art and Science.

It is readily assumed that it is obvious what values are and that it is therefore a simple matter to understand them. In engaging in further discussion of values, and despite responsibility over decades for a "values" project (discussed below), a preliminary confession is in order. It is quite unclear to the writer what "values" "are" in "reality".

Despite the extensive literature on what values are, this recognition seems to be in accord with that of others. For example:

• Behind the misty wall of words, the diverse, even contradictory, interpretations, motivations and utilisations are an indication of fundamental divisions concerning values. In particular, the most basic human rights are more frequently invoked as a weapon of attack or defence against some party, rather than recognized as the royal road to a positive relationship between individuals and groups in an objective form of fraternity. René Maheu, Director-General, UNESCO
• In contrast with what is commonly assumed, a description, when carefully inspected, reveals the properties of the observer. We, observers, distinguish ourselves precisely by distinguishing what we apparently are not, the world. Francisco Varela

It was in this spirit that it appeared appropriate to explore values as "strange attractors" in psycho-social systems, in the light of the subtler understanding of the complexity sciences (Human Values as Strange Attractors: coevolution of classes of governance principles, 1993). As such they could be understood as phenomena beyond the typical definitional game-playing with which exploration of values is most frequently associated. Values are not conventional conceptual objects. Any assumption that they can be so treated disconnects whatever they are from the manner in which they function in psycho-social systems -- and above all from the process whereby people engage with them.

As cited in that study, Walter Truett Anderson (Reality: Isn't what it used to be, 1990) reviewed the challenge as follows:

The conservative indictment is correct, and yet the strategy that logically follows from it -- to rebuild consensus, to get a core of standard values and beliefs in place in every American mind -- is doomed to fail. To see that you only need to look at the variety of things being offered by people who are in favour of some such consensus building (p. 4).

Anderson comments on a group of conflicting proposals then continues:

All of these proposals make sense, in a way. Each of them looks good to certain groups of people, particularly those whose values and beliefs are the ones being proposed for the national culture. And I am sure the great majority of Americans have never heard of any of these people, or their books. Humpty-Dumpty is not going to be put back together again. Efforts to do so are ultimately self-defeating, because campaigns to make people choose any particular system of value and belief tend to have the subversive effect of informing people that they are free to choose systems of value and belief. (p. 5).

A preface by Chris Mowles (Values in international development organisations: negotiating non-negotiables, Development in Practice, 18, 1 2008, pp. 5 - 16) to an extensive discussion can be fruitfully quoted at some length because of its frankness regarding these matters in practice:

As a consultant to international NGOs (INGOs), I am often asked by staff and managers to work with values. A number of patterns repeat themselves in the interchanges between us, and there are unspoken assumptions about the role of values in organisational life that I am expected to share. The principal of these is that an organisation can 'have' values, and that they should be fully shared by the employees: the way to undertake strategy, then, is to have a strong vision for the organisation, which is a way of realising the organisation's mission and values; and to find ways of airing this vision so that employees can commit themselves to it. Often I am enjoined to help staff and managers to 'close the gap' in practice between what they aspire to do and what they actually find themselves doing....

Over the past ten years I have been struck by how often values, which are supposed to be a source of organisational solidarity and motivation, end up being cited by managers and staff alike as one of the principal causes of their discontent with each other, or indeed for partner organisations' discontent with INGOs.... How do staff and managers who work in organisations with an overtly moral mission tend to explain and exercise that morality with regard to each other?

Values are... also frequently a source of demoralis

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