Part One: Developing a Sacred Worldview

Chapter 1: America 7.0 (cont.)

In most of the upgrades, a precipitating crisis reveals design flaws in the beliefs, values, principles, or practices built into the last operating system. After passing through the crisis, which typically sheds light on the problems of the last operating system, there is an expansion of freedoms and rights along with better safeguards to institutionalize the advances of the past and to protect those who have been disenfranchised. For example:

• Problem: South secedes from the Union à 3.0 upgrade without slavery
• Problem: Great Depression à 5.0 upgrade with a better societal safety net and financial protections
• Problem: Social unrest of the sixties à 6.0 upgrade with more integrated society and protected civil rights

Before each new evolution, we often pass through a period of increased resistance to change. This time of stability is an essential part of integrating the gains of the past and allowing them to become part of the new “tradition” of our society. However, the stabilizing aspect of tradition can turn into stagnancy and block further evolution. So something needs to stoke the fires of change. In addition to the collective crises that give a “push,” inspiring leaders emerge that offer a “pull” to lead American society forward, visionaries such as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr.

The upgrade to America 7.0 hasn’t been distinguished by a singular crisis as an evolutionary driver but a series of them that have begun to force a shift in our orientation from being nation-centered to being global citizens. Financially, the market crash of 2000 followed by the much more major 2008 – 2009 global meltdown began to reveal how deeply interconnected we all are economically. In the first fifteen years of the new millennium, we’ve been roiled by the spread of terrorism, fear of global pandemics like Ebola, and an increasing challenge to the sustainability of our planetary ecosystems. All of these crises are forcing us to begin to think and act out of concern for the whole world rather than just America. That’s because we are globally interconnected now to a degree that is unprecedented in history, which has been driven by the rapid interconnection of the Internet as well as finance, trade, media, and travel.

The America 7.0 operating system is thus slowly emerging in the first decades of this century, pushed by many evolutionary drivers. It’s leading us toward a fundamentally new operating system for our country that will take decades to fully realize even while some changes have already begun to emerge. It is our first truly global operating system, which corresponds with a real sense of becoming global citizens. At the root level, America’s 7.0 operating system is built upon the evolution of a new level of consciousness as a country, which then leads to a new set of governing assumptions, political structures, and our national psychology. The operating system of our nation cannot simply reject the old code. It must evolve in an integrated fashion, which means completing the unfinished parts of the last stage. That’s why our maturation as a country requires facing what is no longer helpful about our beliefs, thoughts, and habits as well as what we’ve hidden in our shadows, which we will explore more later in the book.

For example, the presidency of George W. Bush caused angst for many people committed to the new global operating system, partially because his “go it alone” style of foreign policy felt increasingly out of sync. In this way, President Bush provided an exaggeration of some of the independent and nationalistic assumptions that we are outgrowing, which was actually helpful in the long range, provoking a clarification of where we are going, which is increasingly toward interdependence and collaboration.

However, to move forward, we need to also embrace what was virtuous and valuable about Bush and his allies rather than only pointing at problems and inadequacies. After all, they represent aspects of the American character that we need to build upon in America 7.0. Growth rarely happens through self-hatred, even while it does require rigorous self-reflection. Shifting the core patterns requires releasing our judgments and finding appreciation for the perceived “problems” of the past. That spirit of love and acceptance is a foundation for the deeper changes to happen. For America 7.0 to be a true upgrade, we cannot jettison the old but need to build upon and extend it. If not, we compromise the efficacy of the new platform.

In America’s next operating system, we need the strong, single-pointed, and resolute warrior who is willing to stand for what he believes is right, something obvious in President Bush’s administration. Simply rejecting the warrior values outright will not work. That would be like deleting essential lines of code from the next operating system. What we need is to upgrade the warrior and integrate him with the emerging global operating system. It’s not the warrior qualities in Bush that were the problem; it’s the use of those qualities in situations for which they did not represent skillful means.

Integration is the main difference between an upgrade and a rebellion. The values of a rebellion tend to be in opposition to the dominant culture’s values. They are countercultural rather than transcultural. When in rebellion, we enter a tug-of-war for dominance; it’s either the old operating system or its antithesis. A true upgrade, though, transcends and includes both polarities while letting go of what no longer serves. When that happens, the warring factions recognize that their most important priorities have been honored in a new viewpoint that is more whole.

All of this relates to the importance of exploring our country’s shadow. Doing so with rigor is a requirement to activate a new system because it allows us to see the inadequacies of the last stage more clearly. We need to recognize where we have been unconscious, blind, or untruthful with ourselves so as to help less developed parts of our national character to find their next higher expression.

The 7.0 operating system for America is very much a global operating system. It is not defined by thinking only of American citizens but by expanding our care for the world. It requires releasing old animosities and building new strategic alliances. It builds upon a global Internet and media, with international travel growing each year. Most of all, America 7.0 is about seeing ourselves as global citizens and American citizens, as an increasing number of us do.

As we have now entered the transition to America 7.0, the culture of America 6.0, which is more rooted in identities of religion, race, and nation, is still prominent but starting to decline. These two cultures are not defined by skin color, language, ethnic group, or religion. They represent ways of seeing the world that have unique national expressions while transcending the borders between nation-states.

To be continued in the next issue of Catalyst...

Click on the following to read:   Installment #1   Installment #2   Installment #3   Installment #4  Installment #5