Inherent in the ZinnHouse motto, Belong to the world, Bring your tribe, is a hierarchy of developmental stages. Each stage has value. Please suspend criticism of stage theories for the duration of this blog. 😉

Belong to the world 

When we belong to a tribe, our identity forms around an ethnic group, religious community, or nation-state. This identification can dominate our worldview. At this stage of cultural evolution, it’s all about the tribe. In my motto, I’m asking us to bring our tribes with us as we grow into a new worldview. In this new worldview, our identity is all about the world. I’m asking us to belong to the world – to something bigger (more transcendent) than our tribes. But I’m also asking that we bring our tribes. How? By integrating (not assimilating) our tribal identity into this new worldly one.

We can see world-centric morality developing when we take climate change seriously. But global warming is only one of many problems demanding international cooperation and a world-centric perspective. As Albert Einstein famously said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Today, we need a groundswell of a world-centric perspective more than ever.  

According to integral philosophers, ethno-centric, tribal identity follows from an ego-centric,  individualistic identity. It also precedes a world-centric identity. World-centrism emphasizes caring for the world and everyone in it, not just the people in our own tribe. So when I invite us to belong to the world, I’m suggesting we raise our consciousness from one worldview to the next without canceling or burying previous identities. Instead, we need to integrate what’s positive from these identities into this transcending, unfolding worldview. Indeed, the tagline of cultural evolutionaries is “transcend and include.” But inclusion is not enough.

Belonging vs Inclusion

In order for world-centric thinking to take hold (so we can solve our global problems), we need to experience Belonging. John A. Powell, internationally recognized expert in the areas of civil rights, civil liberties, structural racism, housing, poverty, and democracy and the Director of the Othering and Belonging Institute (University of California-Berkeley), said that a sense of belonging means more than just being included. When we are included, we don’t necessarily belong. The invitation is temporary. Inclusivity doesn’t mean we are part of co-creating. It just means “we get to show up to someone else’s party.” True belonging is showing up not as a guest but as a co-creator.

Powell’s ideas intrigue me and I am excited to hear him speak in a zoom webinar on May 3rd.

Belonging means having a voice in co-creating the vision for our shared world. Belonging to the world challenges us to overcome the inclination to isolate with our ethno-centric tribes, to give away our power to authoritarian, ego-centric strongmen, or to act out as strongmen.

IMHO, our voices must give rise to a compelling story of belonging to the world. That story must be as inspiring as the story of the Exodus for Jews, the Hijrah for Muslims, the birth of Jesus for Christians, the birth of Krishna for Hindus, etc. We might tell it over and over as we strive to realize it while celebrating the stories of our world’s distinct religious and secular holidays. What this story cannot be is a vision for one religion/nation to dominate others. For religious nationalism is tribal thinking which cannot solve our world problems.

Bring Your Tribe

We won’t succeed at “belonging to the world” if we don’t also “bring our tribes”. This might be harder than we think but I believe it’s possible. When we move into a new house, we let go of things we no longer need. We bring what is meaningful and what will fit. We integrate what we choose to preserve as we fill in and innovate with the new space. Today, we need to cull and innovate, to re-connect and integrate our way into a world-centric worldview. When we belong to something bigger than ourselves, including our tribes, we will all thrive. 

Belong to the world, Bring your tribe invites us to co-create a new relationship with ourselves, each other, our tribe, our world. If we want world-centric morality, we need to know we all belong in this wonderful and messy world. We need to feel empowered to build institutions, codes, and rules that will hold us, together. My argument for teaching our world’s unique religions with an interfaith orientation is all about embracing this emerging world-centric worldview.

So, C’mon! What are you waiting for? Belong to the world, Bring your tribe. 

In past blogs, I’ve shared resources for teaching from a world-centric worldview.
In future blogs, I hope to share ideas on how we can bring our tribes with us.