Why Future Human Well-Being Will Require a Leap In Understanding—And How It Can Be Achieved

In previous posts, I’ve argued that we today confront a Crisis of Purpose. I’ve described how we need a new kind of guiding narrative and new ways of thinking if our future is to be bright. I’ve also proposed that … Read More

The “Big Band Theory”–Creative Systems Theory Takes On Existence As a Whole

In my book Quick and Dirty Answers to the Biggest of Questions, I describe how Creative Systems Theory helps us address all manner of “ultimate questions”—big picture concerns that in times past have tended to leave us baffled. In other … Read More

Perspective for a Time of Deep Discord: Why We See Things So Differently (and Why Just Trying To Talk About It Is So Often Not Helpful)

In these times of extreme social/political polarization it can be unsettling—indeed frightening—just how differently people with conflicting views can see things. We can legitimately wonder if the discord we encounter today will in time put the whole democratic experiment in … Read More

Looking Out Twenty to Fifty Years: An Extended View Helps Put Cultural Maturity’s Challenge in Perspective

In an earlier post that looked at the concept of Cultural Maturity’s big-picture significance, I briefly described a recent recognition that provides insight important to effective culturally mature advocacy. As I’ve finished up my new three book series and begun … Read More

Why Science and Religion Need Not Be At Odds: A Brief Look at How Creative Systems Theory Reconciles this Most Fundamental of Conflicts

[The following reflections are adapted from two of my most recent books: Cultural Maturity: A Guidebook for the Future and Quick and Dirty Answers to the Biggest of Questions.] The concept of Cultural Maturity proposes that the reason many ultimate … Read More

The Future of Morality: Why Moral Decisions in Times Ahead Will Require Skills New to Us as a Species

Addressing future moral challenges will require new human capacities, capacities that before now we could not have fully understood, much less applied. In part this is because we will be confronted by new kinds of moral questions—for example, those that … Read More

Reflections on the Completion of Cultural Maturity: A Guidebook for the Future—Good News and Bad News As We Confront Cultural Maturity’s Challenge

Six months have now passed since the release of the last volume in my new three-book series. Working on the series has taken the larger portion of my creative energy over the past fifteen years. Finishing up has provided time … Read More

A Different Kind of Idea—Implications for Cultural Maturity’s Challenge and Significance

The concept of Cultural Maturity and other contributions of Creative Systems Theory represent not just fresh thinking, but a fundamentally different kind of idea than we are accustomed to. Appreciating how this is so helps highlight what makes these notions … Read More

Medicine’s Most Important Question in the Long Term Will Take Most People By Surprise: “What Is a Body?”

When we look to medicine’s future, we tend to think in terms of technological advancements such as exotic transplant surgeries and gene-centered treatments. But in the long term, some very different kinds of concerns become pivotally important. In an earlier … Read More

Human Purpose, the Evolution of Narrative, and the Challenge of a New Cultural Story

I was invited recently to comment on how our cultural narrative—the stories we tell—has evolved over time, and how it continues to evolve today. It is a great topic, and one that makes a particularly accessible entry point for understanding … Read More

Rethinking How We Think: The Critical Role of Multiple Intelligences

When it comes to culturally mature understanding, one of the most essential recognitions can also initially be particularly hard for people to get their minds around: the simple fact that intelligence has multiple aspects. Culturally mature systemic perspective requires that … Read More

The “Feminine Mistake” (with apologies to Betty Friedan)

It is important to recognize a kind of confusion that can come when first encountering the concept of Cultural Maturity. It can have people either be attracted to the notion for wholly wrong reasons, or dismiss the concept because they … Read More

Taboo Truths

The concept of Cultural Maturity highlights how the critical tasks before us as a species require that we think and act in newly sophisticated ways. We can appreciate this challenge by noting how often today’s essential questions demand that we … Read More

Beyond Culture as Parent: The Radical Change that Gives the Concept of Cultural Maturity It’s Name

To fully grasp what culturally mature awareness and leadership ask of us, it is important to appreciate what ultimate defines it. We can think of Cultural Maturity in terms of today’s increasingly demanding challenges and the greater sophistication needed to … Read More