INTRODUCTION: WE LIVE IN CHALLENGING TIMES

We live in a world of polycrises — we see the erosion of our relationships alongside the wearing down of our habitat, planet Earth. In the face of this grave situation, this article suggests that a form of creativity is needed that follows the ‘father’ of deep ecology philosopher Arne Næss and his call for deeper questioning.¹ Næss encourages us to continue asking questions where we previously stopped asking, and he would agree with the advice of this article that it is not enough to call for peace, justice, or more charitable empathy, while leaving conditions unquestioned that cause polycrises systemically.

The Levante is particularly affected by these polycrises. ‘West Asia-North Africa is in a race against time. Within the next thirty years, increasing air pollution and climate change-induced heatwaves and droughts will push the region closer to uninhabitability, triggering unprecedented levels of human insecurity and large-scale displacement’.² This was the introduction to a conversation titled ‘Winning the Human Race Against Time’ that was held on 28th June 2022 between the former head of the Club of Rome, His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, and Mark Green, the President of the Wilson Center, a think tank based in Washington, DC, United States that informs public policy.

The erosion of our sociosphere , of our relationships with each other on this globe could be encapsulated by the term sociocide , while the wearing down of our ecosphere amounts to ecocide.³ The suffix – cide means ‘act of killing’, and stems from Latin -cida and the verb caedo, caedes, caedere, caedi, caedum . Words such as suicide or pesticide end on – cide .

Sociocide erodes the social fabric that connects people, it undermines the cohesive ‘glue’ that keeps human communities together, both locally and globally. The symptoms range from individual micro-aggressions, loneliness, and depression at the micro levels to large-scale conflicts and wars at the macro level. Ecociderefers to the destruction of the ecosphere, the ecological realm that all living beings depend on, a destruction caused by us humans, because in our hubris, we mistake ourselves to be our ecosphere’s masters. Sociocide and ecocide, the breakdown of social cohesion and the degradation of the natural environment, very often drives and is driven by long-lasting systemic humiliation — humiliation solidified into a systemic structure — South Africa’s apartheid can serve as one example.

Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan suggests that ecocide and sociocide are facilitated by the same underlying catalyst, namely, cogitocide .⁴ Cogito comes from cogitare in Latin, ‘to think’,⁵ and cogitocide means the killing of our cogitosphere, the killing of ‘the realm of thinking and reflection’.⁶ The result is what El Hassan bin Talal calls infoterror and infowar, or what cultural theorist Paul Virilio describes as the ‘aesthetics of disappearance’.⁷ Philosopher Elizabeth Minnich, a student of Hannah Arendt, has paraphrased Arendt’s phrase ‘banality of evil’, suggesting that thoughtlessness causes the ‘evil of banality’.⁸ I propose to speak of cogitocide as the ‘weapon’ of choice for whoever wants to maintain systems of humiliation.

The article begins by presenting the work of anthropologist Alan Page Fiske and his four models of sociality.⁹ It proceeds with inscribing the concept of dignity into these four models, including humiliation as the violation of dignity, highlighting the advantages of the first model. The author then presents her personal path and the lessons she has learned. The article concludes with a plea for transformative global change, so that humanity may look forward to a future defined by dignity for all.

THE FOUR BASIC WAYS IN WHICH PEOPLE CAN COLLABORATE ¹⁰

Anthropologist Alan Page Fiske has studied many societies and communities around the world and has developed a theory of meta- relational models.¹¹ He suggests that people, most of the time and in all cultures, use just four elementary and universal forms or models for organising most aspects of sociality. Fiske calls the first model communal sharing (CS), a model that is realised when people structure interaction according to what they have in common . The second model is authority ranking (AR), manifested when people establish ordered differences . Additive imbalances characterise the third model, called equality matching (EM), while the fourth model follows ratios or what Fiske calls market pricing (MP).¹² These four social models¹³ are in line with the four scales of measurement, nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio, whereby the first is the most comprehensive and qualitative, while the last is the most quantitative and least comprehensive.¹⁴

As I explain in my book on global solidarity,¹⁵ Alan Page Fiske shows that people use these four modes of coordination to organise nearly every aspect of all social domains, even the most mundane ones. When we invite friends to dinner, for example, we follow these four models — we may share the food and drink without calculating who gets how much (CS), a host may ask others to provide the meal (AR), the guests might feel obligated to reciprocate the invitation (EM), and the host may decide whether it is economically worthwhile to provide the food (MP).¹⁶ Whenever a group or a dyad interacts, ‘they can seek a consensus of the group as a whole, the chief can decide (and delegate minor aspects of the decision), people can vote, or they can use a market mechanism based on utilities or prices’.¹⁷ In general, in the face of any task, people ‘can all simply pitch in without assigning individual responsibilities, an authority can give orders down a chain of command, everyone can do an equal share (or take turns), or participants can be compensated in proportion to the amount they each complete’.¹⁸

Moral judgement follows similar paths. ‘Treat each person’s needs and suffering as your own, do what the gods or your elders command, treat each person equally, or give every person their due in proportion to what they deserve’.¹⁹ When people transfer goods or services, ‘they can give a gift without expecting any specific return; they can pay tribute in fealty to a superior (or, inversely, bestow a benefit to a subordinate as a gesture of largesse); they can make a balanced, quid-pro-quo exchange; or they can sell and purchase at market rates’.²⁰ The social meanings of land are inscribed in this logic as well, as land can be regarded as a shared commons, or as the domain or fief of a lord, or as a marker of equal status (such as eligibility to vote), or as a commercial investment.²¹

Various subfields of psychology, sociology, political science, economics, and cultural anthropology have independently developed similar concepts. Fiske writes that ‘Freudian theorists and cultural anthropologists came right to the verge of recognising that people have directively potent culturally informed cognitive models of configurations of relationships’.²²

POSSIBLE DEFINITIONS OF DIGNITY

Dignity has been written into many national constitutions throughout the past decades and it is being yearned for by a rising number of people all around the globe.²³ The Treaty of Lisbon, for instance, which forms the constitutional basis of the European Union (EU), stipulates that ‘Human dignity is inviolable. It must be respected and protected’.²⁴ On 18th October 2019, Chile ‘exploded as it had never done, unleashing social energy accumulated by decades of injustice and abuse summed up in two words: inequality and dignity’.²⁵

His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal, as Chairman of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies in Amman, Jordan, places ‘human dignity’ at the top of his list of priorities.²⁶ Indeed, I suggest that speaking about dignity provides the very common ground for inter-faith dialogue to succeed.

In my work, I build on Alan Page Fiske’s system to differentiate possible definitions of dignity and determine which definition may be most useful to address cogitocide, sociocide, and ecocide. The following sections are adapted from my book on global solidarity. ²⁷

COMMUNAL SHARING AND DIGNITY

Communal Sharing (CS) — or mutuality , as relational psychologist Linda Hartling prefers to call it²⁸ — is the most comprehensive, qualitative, and least humiliating frame of social life. This is what is commonly understood as ‘good family life’ — all members give what they can and receive what they need,²⁹ so that strong connective relationships can emerge and foster the unity of ‘all for one, and one for all’.³⁰ Differences do not divide in such a context, they strengthen the family, because everyone counts, everyone develops a feeling for what others need and everyone shares the responsibility of offering whatever support they can give. Unconditional ‘giving forward’ from the heart is the norm, coming from a place of loving generosity, beyond any quantity calculations, beyond any tit-for-tat requirements or material incentives. Coercion is as counterproductive in such a context as quantity calculations — a love-based marriage, for instance, needs trust and true intimacy to prosper, coercion destroys love. Communal sharing is therefore the realm of Homo amans, the loving being.³¹

Defining dignity in a context of CS means that all individuals in a group connect in solidarity and care. Dignity is protected when all people cooperate with each other in creating unity in equal dignity for all in their diversity. No one is being humiliated and forced to bow their heads down, the inherent human desire ‘to walk upright’ in humble pride is being honoured by all. Discourse analyst Michael Karlberg calls this definition the ‘social body frame of dignity’.³²

AUTHORITY RANKING AND DIGNITY

Authority Ranking (AR) describes ordered differences involving asymmetry among people, ranking them along vertical social dimensions. Benevolent Homo amans leaders strive to meet everyone’s needs and nurture the spirit of communal sharing by encouraging everyone to give ‘what they can’ and to ask for no more than ‘what they need’. Less benevolent leaders — Homo dominans — in contrast, maintain asymmetry by taking more than what they need and use manipulation and systems of routine humiliation to force subordinates to exhaust themselves beyond what they can give. Linda Hartling’s mentor Jean Baker Miller would describe the first type of AR as temporary inequality and the second as permanent inequality.³³

Throughout the past millennia, the dominator model of society, as theorised by social scientist Riane Eisler,³⁴ was prevalent all around the globe. In that context, one could count oneself lucky if leaders happened to be benevolent Homo amans who treated others with respect. A wife would not question her husband’s right to beat her, she only counted herself lucky if she was not beaten.

The concept of dignity in an AR context will follow this dichotomy insofar as a benevolent authority will respect every community member as equal in dignity and worthiness — a nurturant teacher, for instance, will foster the personal growth of all students. A malevolent authority, on the other side, an oppressive dictator or tyrannical teacher, will rank people’s worthiness in ‘lesser’ and ‘higher’ and look down on supposedly lesser beings. ‘Dignitaries’ will feel entitled to more ‘honourable decorum’ than others. Michael Karlberg’s ‘social command frame of dignity’ has its place here.³⁵

EQUALITY MATCHING AND DIGNITY

Equality Matching (EM) points at additive differences and equivalent exchanges, implying a balance of taking turns. Examples are carpools or babysitting cooperatives. Wherever equality matching is given priority in a society, people will offer products or services only under the condition that they can expect a return that is equivalent. A person in need cannot count on help unless she can give something back.

In such a context, the generosity of unconditional communal sharing is discredited as foolish or even traitorous. People who are willing to offer unconditional support will be disparaged as spoilers of fairness rules, whereby fairness is defined as prescribing that people should pledge support only after others have offered theirs. Offering gifts without expecting reciprocity is regarded with suspicion. The selfless care work that mothers provide to their children diminishes the value attributed to maternal caregiving rather than enhancing it, being considered ‘worthless’ in monetary terms. Even notions such as hope, or optimism are often made dependent on the probability of reasonable returns in the future.

In an EM context, dignity is linked to strict cost-benefit calculations. Dignity is regarded as something that can be earned through offering products and services or through consuming them. ‘The self’ is seen as a territory that is separated from its surroundings through contractual borders that are to be continuously guarded against possible infringements from unfair contracts. Infringements are typically felt to be humiliating and can set off cycles of humiliation and violence. Michael Karlberg’s ‘social contest frame of dignity’ is operative in this context.

MARKET PRICING AND DIGNITY

Market Pricing (MP) is a model of ratio and proportion. It is the narrowest, most quantitative frame. Markets only value what is priced, and they only work for those who can pay.³⁶ Every person, and all of their activities, become monetisable commodities. ‘No monetisability’ translates into ‘no existence’. Everything becomes a monetised business, even education, where investors target students as ‘clients’ and ‘consumers’. The concept of professionality, with its requirement to separate the personal from the professional, has its place here. ‘Job’ has to be kept apart from ‘private life’, people in the public sphere are to be treated as cogs in a monetised cog wheel rather than as fellow human beings. People with high income are lucky enough to take ‘vacation’ from this kind of professionality by what is called work-life balance, while those living in poverty are left to hope for charity.

As to dignity, in a MP context, it is tied to arithmetical calculations in terms of money and one’s ability to acquire or spend it. Dignity is conceptualised as individual autonomy in markets that are structured along the lines of competition for domination. Both EM and MP are arenas for Homo oeconomicus , the calculating human being. Both EM and MP models are the potentially most destructive and humiliating frames that legitimise the ‘social contest frame of dignity’ described by Michael Karlberg. ³⁷

THE HISTORICAL TRAJECTORY

When we look at longer historical trends, then we can deduce that during the longest period of Homo sapiens sapiens’ history, the period prior to the Neolithic Revolution, our ancestors were foragers who did not ‘go to work’ — they had ‘a life’.³⁸ They manifested cooperative companionship in line with the CS model, thus representing the most comprehensive way of being on this planet. They lived in communion with nature and approached life on this planet with dignifying humility, while applying the seven-generation sustainability rule.³⁹

In the last three percent of human history, very roughly, a period emerged where the dominator model of society prevailed globally. During this time, powerful individuals utilised practices and systems of humiliation to maintain hierarchical structures, thus manifesting the most ruthless versions of authority ranking. Nowadays, many hope that market- pricing model of sociality, with its mere quantity calculations, can act as a liberator from the dominator model of society. The outcome, however, is the opposite. As every aspect of life is moves away from communal sharing into the least comprehensive way of being, the fullness of the quality of life is lost. The Indigenous cooperative companionship is being turned into competitive detachment , as indigenous psychologist Darcia Narváez would describe it,⁴⁰ with the result that the conquistador mindset comes back.⁴¹ As theorist Isaiah Berlin formulated it, ‘Freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep’. ⁴²

We can place the concepts of many other thinkers into Fiske’s model. For instance, the substantivist model described by political economist Karl Polanyi offers space for Homo amans to unfold, while the formalist economic model gives preference to Homo oeconomicus et dominans.⁴³ Economist Peter Kropotkin, whose work enjoys a comeback now, thought that a society that is sufficiently developed could build economical systems based entirely on the communal concept of mutual exchanges and voluntary cooperation.⁴⁴ Communal sharing overlaps with the notion of Gemeinschaft (community) more than with that of Gesellschaft (society),⁴⁵ and it resonates with the African philosophy of ubuntu more than with Western individualism.⁴⁶

If driven to extremes and not contained, the outcome of MP is the stripping of everyone’s basic decency, in terms of ‘the survival and security of persons, including adequate shelter, access to food and water … and free movement’.⁴⁷ In economist Ernst Friedrich Schumacher’s words, ‘In a sense, the market is the institutionalisation of individualism and non- responsibility’.⁴⁸ Whenever homo dominans and homo oeconomicus join up and engage in competition for domination, extreme forms of sociocide and ecocide ensue, from corruption to environmental degradation. When also national sovereignty is defended by competition for domination, war is not far.

Communal sharing, in combination with the benevolent version of authority ranking, appears to be the only way to protect the dignity of the human family in the global village in the long term. We need wise teachers who explain that communal sharing is the space in which the dignity of Homo amans can unfold, the ‘loving being’,⁴⁹ or better, Homo amans relationalis , the ‘loving relational being’, or Homo solidaricus , the ‘solidary person’.⁵⁰ It is the space where the foundational sentence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was adopted on 10th December 1948 can be realised, ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights’. It is the realm of wisdom, be it religious or secular.

Many examples from religious or philosophical scriptures could be listed here, one among many is philosopher Martin Buber’s emphasis on I-Thou dialogue rather than I-It instrumentalisation.⁵¹ The only way forward for the world community seems to be to give priority to communal sharing and benevolent versions of authority ranking, to maximise their space, and to demote equality matching and market pricing to the role of servants. Never should life be sacrificed for power or profit.

KAMA MUTA, ‘MOVED TO LOVE’, AS THE FOUNDATION OF DIGNITY

In my work, I describe equal dignity as a lived experience that cannot be defined along the line of laws of nature like in physics, it cannot be quantified. Equal dignity is a visceral embodied sense of standing tall and maintaining one’s head high, on par with everyone else. Equal dignity could be described as an ‘orthopaedic challenge’, as the art of walking upright,⁵² as a posture, a Haltung , in German.⁵³ It is a posture that avoids looking up to others from humiliated inferiority as much as it avoids looking down on others from arrogant superiority. It is a posture that manifests dignified humility or humble pride.⁵⁴ Equal dignity means interacting with others as equals, in mutual respect and dignity, rather than feeling humiliated and acting submissive or feeling entitled to superiority and displaying haughty arrogance. The idea is to engage with fellow human beings on an equal footing, without demeaning oneself or looking down on others.⁵⁵

Equal dignity means leaving behind both the toleration of inferiority and the arrogation of superiority. Equal dignity encourages those in subordinate positions to recognise that they no longer need to endure humiliation passively. Simultaneously, it requires those in positions of superiority to relinquish their claims to absolute supremacy, it explains to them that humiliation no longer is a legitimate means to subjugate others to maintain hierarchy.

For equal dignity to manifest, equality is not enough. Human rights ideals represent more than just an invitation to hold heads up so that all are equals. These ideals invite everyone to also open their arms and offer respectful solidarity to others. Nobody should stick their elbows out in divisive competition, even if they were equals, just as much as nobody should smother others with choking embraces. Everyone is invited to protect unity in diversity by avoiding hostile division as much as suffocating uniformity. All are invited to meet in the middle between top and bottom, at the level of equal dignity in shared humility and solidarity, so that all can lovingly co-create a decent future together.⁵⁶

Everyone is called on to ‘be moved by love’ into what Alan Page Fiske calls communal sharing. In English, people speak of ‘being moved, touched, or overwhelmed with emotion, having a heart-warming, tear- jerking, or poignant experience, feeling nostalgia or sweet sorrow, and the rapture of divine love’.⁵⁷ The group around Fiske explored the emotion that is common to these experiences, and to avoid the ambiguity and unwanted connotations of vernacular terms as they vary across languages, they chose the phrase kama muta as a scientific term for ‘being moved by love’. Based on Fiske’s relational models theory, the kama muta framework posits ‘that being moved induces communal sharing and increases feelings of warmth’, explaining that ‘being moved is a culturally dependent positive affective state that often includes tears, goose bumps or chills, and informs the experiencing, engaging, reinforcement, and building of communal sharing relationships.’⁵⁸

Overall, within my work, I define dignity as the capacity to stand tall withopen arms, ‘moved by love’, warmly embracing others and inviting them into shared responsibility for unity amidst diversity, viewing everyone as equally valuable. I perceive equal dignity as an inherent asset that applies universally, regardless of its diverse manifestations among individuals and in various cultural settings.⁵⁹ I call for ‘respect for the equality in dignity of all individuals as free persons, free to engage in loving dialogue and responsible mutual solidarity with each other and with humanity’s ecological foundations, not free to humiliate people or deplete the planet’. ⁶⁰

Co-creating a decent future means liberating all living beings on the planet from all global and local frames that are undignifying, be they cultural, political, or economic.

DIGNITY AS SPIRITUAL PRACTICE: A PERSONAL CASE STUDY

As I explain in my book on global solidarity,⁶¹ my family’s traumatic experiences of war and expulsion⁶² taught me to embrace dignity as my spiritual practice, to consider the planet as my church, my temple, and my mosque, and to live my life as a prayer and a meditation on the concept of unity in diversity. When asked about my religion, my answer is always, ‘My religion is love, humility, and a deep sense of awe for a universe that is so much larger than what we as humans can fathom’. In this manner, I feel at home in all traditions of wisdom that humanity has ever seen, be they religious or otherwise.

My practice of dignity is my very own creative spirituality — it is a practice of being humbly and caringly embedded in the world. Since I was a child, my personal intuition led me to want to embrace unconditional ‘giving forward’. I felt called to offer my talents and resources as an unconditional gift of love to humanity, as my contribution to a dignified future of humankind, without expecting any reward. My experimentations with this practice showed me that, indeed, this is the most fulfilling and meaningful way of living.

To my dismay, I noticed that I soon shared the fate of all those care workers who experience that their efforts are being belittled as nice but negligible, as a ‘soft’ and rather irrelevant occupation for women. It is the legacy of the past millennia’s dominator societies that ‘real men’ are still expected to invest their creativity into developing ‘hard’ solutions, including ever new weapons for war, and if they worshipped divinity, they preferred ‘hard’ interpretations that justified competition for domination

Initially, when I was accused of simple-minded naïveté or even foolishness, I lacked justifications to defend myself. I was therefore delighted when I understood how much my personal path resonated with Fiske’s concept of communal sharing, which, in turn, relates to Indigenous economic theory.⁶³ Fiske’s insights helped me to stand by my own intuitions and be proud of them. After all, competition for domination is dysfunctional on a finite planet that is globally interconnected and whose resources are overstretched. It is not my fault that too few people have understood that reality has changed and that the human condition has a new foundation, to which humanity ought to adapt.

Fiske’s model helped me understand where people come from when they misunderstand my path, why some feel even provoked by it. Some condemn my choices as counterintuitive and paradox — how can rewardless life be rewarding, they ask. A ‘sober’ person, they say, invests into the future of humanity only if there are justified expectations of reasonable returns, at least at the personal level, for instance, through monetary gains. In case there is no such prospect, why should one care? Many find it dubious that I nurture dignity even though I do not profit personally, and some add that this is doubly foolish in a situation where humanity may be doomed.

Fiske’s model made me understand why so many people ask, ‘Who pays for what Evelin does?’ ‘How come that Evelin with her two doctorates is unable to monetise her efforts?’ Some suspect that I at least aspire to receive ‘points’ for dutiful behaviour as a footnote in future history books or in heaven. I always explain that I am uninterested in such points, and that the reason for why I refrain from ‘monetisation’ is to resist the erosion of moral values through market interactions.⁶⁴

People who are ensconced in pockets of affluence — those insulated to some extent from global upheavals through a steady income — sometimes express irritations at my choice to relinquish their privileges voluntarily. Sometimes, this also includes my academic colleagues with tenured positions in established institutions. They perceive their privileges as earned through hard work within contracts tied to financial gain, and some feel annoyed when I place my personal life at risk by eschewing such contracts.⁶⁵ I labour twice as hard for my commitment to communal sharing, solidarity, conviviality, gift economy, and the revival of Palaeolithic lifestyles, and they see it as overly idealistic endeavour that carries the potential of undermining their sense of entitlement. As author Upton Sinclair once noted, ‘it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!’ ⁶⁶

Others accuse me of engaging in a form of moral extortion, suspecting that I want to entertain a sense of moral superiority and use my life choices to make them feel ashamed of their own selfishness. Others are so deeply entrenched in the mindset of hierarchical authority that they cannot comprehend my perspective, which is more akin to that of a gardener — someone who nurtures and inspires, rather than commands and controls. They struggle to grasp the idea that gardening may be the best metaphor to understand the true nature of dignity and a meaningful life.⁶⁷

People who respond to my life choices in a condescending manner often come from mindsets rooted in models of human behaviour and social interaction that Fiske would call equality matching or market pricing. They tend to view the Homo economicus model, which portrays humans as purely self-interested rational actors, as the only valid framework for understanding human nature, including concepts such as human sanity and dignity. They believe that embracing market pricing reflects rational thinking and secures mental well-being and moral integrity. I observe a sense of pride among many of them, pride to be part of ‘modernity’. They celebrate having transcended the supposedly barbaric past of ‘primitive’ egalitarian communal sharing, in their belief that market pricing is a path to ‘effectively and fairly’ exchanging goods and services. I thoroughly understand that they feel personally hurt or even humiliated when I question this proud narrative of market pricing representing progress. If market pricing truly represented advancement, one could reasonably expect the world to be in a more stable and prosperous state, I argue, rather than grappling with widespread crises and challenges. The prevalence of global challenges raises doubts about the merits of market pricing as a progressive force. Contrary to the perception that communal sharing is ‘primitive’, I propose that it represents a rational form of being-in-the- world — one that warrants reconsideration and revitalisation rather than disparagement. ⁶⁸

While some misattribute my value choices and hard work as some form of concealed selfishness or moral arrogance, others write them off as psychological weakness. The kinder among my critics have pity with me when they see how difficult it is to maintain my life choices. When they advise me to take up a mainstream ‘job’, I explain that I exhaust myself — living beyond the notion of ‘job’ is indeed exhausting — precisely to save their future and the future of their children. I am not a drop-out, I am a drop-in, I drop into a gift economy, an economy of small gifts from the heart that are given with ethical intentions.

I usually explain that I wish to have a life , not a job.⁶⁹ Philosopher Immanuel Kant once said that ‘whatever has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; on the other hand, whatever is above all price, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has dignity’, in other words, ‘everything has either a price or a dignity’.⁷⁰ I have studied economics sufficiently to know that society would be better off if it organised itself in ways that livelihood would not depend on the concept of a paid ‘job’.⁷¹

Being an artist at heart, I sometimes describe my life design as a social sculpture.⁷² This is my way to express creativity.⁷³ My work does not represent a rejection of the achievements of others, rather, I see my work as a necessary evolutionary step towards new forms of progress, progress that ensures a sustainable future for all. My efforts represent a radically innovative form of innovation, one aimed at tackling the unprecedented challenges of modernity. By highlighting limitations of insular privilege, and explaining my work as innovative progress, I attempt to bridge the gap with those in affluent bubbles who resist my message.

 I see Western market-driven hyper-individualistic consumerism as a deeply wounding human experiment — I resonate with the conclusion that philosopher Thomas Pogge draws, namely, that ‘our generation is doing worse than any in human history’ given the opportunities we had and left unused.⁷⁴ Sociologists Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron accused ‘dysfunctional educations’ of reproducing dysfunctional systems

⁷⁵ that block change for the better at all levels, ‘at the levels of psychology, therapy, spirituality, religion, science, philosophy and education’.⁷⁶ In the face of ‘dysfunctional educations’, I embarked on devising the idea of a World Dignity University. ⁷⁷

CONCLUSION

All human beings are members of one frame,
Since all, at first, from the same essence came.
When time afflicts a limb with pain

The other limbs at rest cannot remain.
If thou feel not for other’s misery

A human being is no name for thee.

― Inscription at the entrance of the general assembly hall in the United Nations building, by Persian poet Sa’dī Shīrāzī
(1210–1291/1292) ⁷⁸

Philosopher Arne Næss would agree with the conclusion of this article that ecocide and sociocide cannot be addressed by the same economic frames that caused it, he would agree that it is not enough to want to solve ecocide with more sociocide, nor the other way round. New constitutive frames are needed globally and locally, and we, as humanity, have all the knowledge and skills to create them.

What is missing is a strong cogitosphere , strong enough to bring about appropriate action. We, the species Homo sapiens , even though we live in a historical moment that is unparalleled in terms of crises, it is at the same time unparalleled in terms of opportunity. History is not a predetermined process with humans as helpless victims. For the first time in our history, we, humanity, are in a position to succeed in bringing about the kinds of adaptations that can lead us out of our cascading crises. These adaptations are long overdue, overdue since millennia, only that our forebears did not yet have the tools we have.

In all of my work, I emphasise that ‘we have access to a much more comprehensive knowledge base about the universe and our place in it than even our grandparents had’.⁷⁹ The perspective of the astronaut on our Blue Marble is unique, none of our ancestors could see it.⁸⁰ Present- day generations have the invaluable privilege to see our planet from outside and thus experiencing the overview effec t.⁸¹ Our forebears did not have the opportunity to understand as graphically as we do that we humans are one species living on one tiny planet. Present-day generations are in the unique position to embrace biophilia,⁸² which means to feel ‘the ecology of the living’, it means to understand that we live in one circumscribed biopoetic space that all beings share.⁸³

Present generations have the unique and unprecedented privilege of possessing ‘all the knowledge and skills required to build mutual trust and solidarity at a global scale. We have everything needed to humanise globalisation by reaping the benefits that the global ingathering of humanity offers’.⁸⁴

Spirituality has always had the potential to energise people and to bring them together. Throughout history, this has often been abused as a tool in the service of competition for domination. Nowadays, it is a popular tool for money-making. What the world needs now is to unite under the umbrella of the spirituality of dignity. Singing in a choir brings people of all walks together as equals in dignity,⁸⁵ and the global village now waits for its citizens to form a global choir of dignity.

I have introduced the term dignism (a combination of ‘dignity’ and ‘ism’) as an alternative to the traditional labels of capitalism, socialism, or communism, not least because I have noticed that these terms frequently provoke strong emotional responses. Over time, they have become loaded phrases associated with historical humiliations. Interestingly, those who react most strongly often have the least understanding of their true meanings. My goal is therefore to move away from terminology that elicits hot feelings and instead focus on positive, forward-looking goals that can bring people together.

Dignism describes a world where every new-born finds space and is nurtured to unfold their highest and best, embedded in a social context of loving appreciation and connection, where the carrying capacity of the planet guides the ways in which everyone’s basic needs are met. It is a world where unity in diversity reigns, where we unite in respecting human dignity and celebrating diversity, where we prevent unity from devolving into oppressive uniformity, and keep diversity from sliding into hostile division. Dignism means ending past cycles of humiliation and preventing new ones from emerging. Dignism means loving care for the common good of all of humanity as co-inhabitants of one single finite habitat. Dignism weaves together all dignifying aspects of all the world’s cultural traditions into systems that protect the dignity of all living beings in our global village.⁸⁶

For a long time, I have been anticipating a new era of inspirational leadership and activism — like the impact that Eleanor Roosevelt had — to invigorate a global movement focused on promoting human dignity worldwide — nothing less than a worldwide dignity movement.⁸⁷ If we want to address the complex, multifaceted challenges that confront us, only a limited window of opportunity stands open for humanity to mitigate impending catastrophes. As the world faces interlocking and escalating challenges, from an accelerating loss of biodiversity to climate change and a rise in armed conflicts, a profound and rapid shift in our mindsets is necessary to foster global unity in respect for local diversity, a fundamental shift in our collective consciousness and actions. The central challenge we face elicits a fundamental question that humanity must collectively grapple with and find solutions to, across all cultures and languages. I ask this question at the end of my book on global solidarity:

‘How must we, humankind, arrange our affairs on this planet so that dignified life on this planet will be possible in the long term?’ ⁸⁸