Starfish Community

Friends, if the organizing principle of this new community is development, raising the poor out of poverty, and social transformation, then I suggest you think seriously about adding a new category to the HIST Model that deals with religion, worldview and/or culture.

At the root of whether a nation or people is poor or prosperous are deeply held beliefs and worldview assumptions. Therefore the key to helping the poor will require going to the root and dealing with these assumptions and beliefs. They, in turn, shape the various HIST categories (education, agriculture, etc.). Most of the DNA resources are focused at this root level, so when I post a resource, I find that none of the available tags really fit. It would help if you could add a tag for culture/worldview.

Scott, I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but you can create any tag that you would like if it's not already available. The current list of tags is just a starting point and will likely grow with the content. To create a new tag, simply click on the add/edit tags button when you are in a topic. Simply type your desired tag and click the plus button.

To add to Debbie's comment - we encourage adding new tags. We'll monitor tag usage, and bump popular topics to the home page.

This is one of the reason we chose a tag-based organization over something like categories or forums. The community decides how to organize topics and what the labels are for the buckets.

Tags not only let you add big, important categories that we've overlooked, they let smaller groups create a place to have very specific conversations (For example, someone could create a set of tags for conversations about the various models of SteriPEN UV water purifiers.)

Scott,

We have been discussing this issue and feel strongly that Culture and Worldview fall under the Education Sector of the HIST model. We are going to add this as a subcategory. Thanks for your input!

maybe there should be a "Weltanschauung" tag?

Mike, I'm not sure that putting this under education is appropriate. Culture, values, worldview, religion, etc. are certainly related to education but I think they are significant in their own right and should be addressed as topics on their own. I'm curious to know why you feel strongly that they should be under education.

Scott Allen certainly brings up an interesting point in that "world view" is being seen as more and more critical to holistic community progress. The question as to whether it is critical enough to warrant a full service level status is also good one. I think our original take was that world view is a state of mind/beliefs system and as such, it is changed and influenced by education as is values and belief systems. Other than education, if World View was a full category, what categories would go under the WV category?

Scott; I couldn't agree more that a culture, or nation's deeply held beliefs, world view, or "religion" is absolutely foundational and warrants a high level of status in our model. "Religion" can be defined as a fundamental system of beliefs concerning man's origin and relationship to the cosmic universe as well as his relationship with his fellowmen. A close cousin to this is "morality" which may be defined as a standard of behavior distinguishing right from wrong.

George Washington, in his Farewell Address, said this: "Of all the dispositions and habits which can lead to political [ and by inference, cultural] prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.... And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.... Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail to the exclusion of religious principle."

I think that the amount of interest in worldview specifically at the Expo warrants a new tag! In this case, all of the other tags could fit under worldview, if it is the wholistic piece that informs the way we function in all of our other fields! :)

Worldview and how it relates to successful economic development and success in business and entrepreneurship was certainly a topic of great interest in the economic development / job creation break out groups.

I tagged the notes from that discussion under "worldview" as well for just that reason.

Specifically: we touched on the theme of why in some African cultures, worldview (specifically beliefs re: the need to support other relatives, especially in family crises) seems to work against the success of many small businesses (business owners liquidate their resources to help a family in crisis) where that seems less prevalent in some Asian cultures that also have very strong ties among extended families. (This is of course a huge oversimplification and gross generalization of what some of us have observed.)

Is it a difference in terms of time-orientation or short-term vs. long-term thinking? What roles do religion play, for instance in creating a tendency towards fatalism that works against successful business initiatives and entrepreneurship?