Volume 5, Issue 6
It is in the division, and therefore the conflict, of the American citizenry’s declaration of worldview or lack thereof.
The invective and toxic debate on policy issues is often intensified because people begin their arguments with the definition of the culture and society that they seek. They are getting the cart before the horse. Before the substance of culture can be determined, one must decide upon the simple basis for one’s worldview. Worldview determines culture. Culture will establish a government designed to advance and protect the tenets of that culture. The definition of your worldview is the basic essence of principle guiding your life’s decisions.
Let’s explore an example.
Religious beliefs are a crucial ingredient in the formula for a worldview. If one believes that unalienable rights come from a Creator, then rights are eternal and unchangeable in eternity. Atheists believe in a natural law based upon a physical universe. Rights evolve as viewed through the lens of the times. Each view is distinctive, generating a different destination for culture and government. A person may say, “I just want my child to get a good education.” That is not a worldview. That is a cultural result of a worldview. If your goal in life is to achieve whatever you want, given your talents and energy, then your worldview cannot be based on communism. It must be based on a free and open society. In communism, you exist to maintain the state for the purpose of stabilizing existence. Individual goals have no place in communism.
I worked in the independent elections for the new nation state of Ukraine in 1991. Their worldview was nationalistic. It was to establish Ukrainian culture for the generations. They had been under communist rule for seventy years. Government bondage had dictated normalcy. The great Russian bear dominated their mindset. Upon winning independence, an emphasis was placed on democracy. They were handicapped in that they had to immediately establish the structure of government to engage their neighbor states in the commerce of providing necessary services. They have struggled governmentally. And their latest conflict with Russia will now challenge them to determine a unifying definition of worldview for themselves.
Why?
Because the core essence of the principle of an individual’s worldview is the full complement of that to whom or what one is ultimately loyal and for which one is willing to die.
In 1989, thousands of young protestors were killed in Beijing, China, while protesting communist government policy. This tragedy is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre. I worked with the Chinese government in 1990 and 1991 to reform and restructure their financial industries for emergence into the world’s banking system and architecture. Western banking then and today is based on capitalism, open and free markets, and freely floating currencies. As communists, the Chinese economic plan is based upon dictated goals of the state rather than the determinations of free enterprise. Their worldview is at absolute odds at its core with the worldview of Western democracies. It is the epic battle of worldview premises – do people live to serve the state or does the state exist to serve the people? China today is in great peril economically. They have responded externally to the economic priorities of the world. Yet internally, they have mismanaged their currency through errant state planning. Their worldview fails both the individual liberty test and the religious freedom test.
Tonight, when you tuck your children or grandchildren into bed, and they, sensing the tension in the outside world, ask the question in the simple way that only a child can ask, “Papa, what do we believe?”
It is your obligation to answer with full confidence and commitment to the principles of your worldview.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?