Principles

The World Ethic Forum is engaged in the equivalent of an open sea journey.

Navigation Tools

This type of navigation requires tools that can help us find our bearings, set our direction, track where we are – and most importantly, nurture the calling that inspired us to sail somewhere to start with. Over these first few years, we developed a few initial tools to support our exploration.  Since this process is iterative, we anticipate more clarity to come over time. 

For now, this page shares the most important and articulate of those tools: 

  • An original set of propositions articulated in 2021 around the concept of radically shared aliveness
  • A set of design principles that evolved through practice since 2021 
  • A theory of change anchored in a conceptual lens that articulates the cultural layers among which we hope to build greater coherence. 

Radically Shared Aliveness

The World Ethic Forum is rooted in a culture of radically shared aliveness. We originally articulated this culture into four related propositions. 

(1) The world is alive. The world is a highly diverse, profoundly creative process that brings forth and sustains living individuals. All living beings are subjects. They possess an inner experiencing and feeling self, through which they perceive their existence as a personal reality. In this respect, other beings are no different from humans.

(2) All living beings have rights. The effort to restore all other beings to their right as subjects is a continuation and broadening of the effort for equal rights for humans marginalized on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation, race or ethnicity. Denying other beings their existence as subjects is a form of colonization. Only in a world in which the rights of all living subjects are safeguarded, will human inequalities also be resolved.

(3) An Ideology of death underlies the ecological crisis. The current ecological crisis is due to the fact that our civilization denies non-human sentient beings their subject status. Instead, non-human organisms are regarded as things. We can therefore say that the ecological crisis is caused by an ideology of death. We want to replace this ideology with the idea of reality as all-encompassing aliveness, shared by humans and non-human beings alike.

(4) Humans must support a society of all beings. The experience of being part of a communal, shared process of being alive can change our actions and is needed to revitalise our world. Humans increase their own aliveness when they recognize and advance the subject-nature of other beings. This means granting all living subjects a place in society and expanding it into a “society of all beings.” This demands radical changes in the domains of law, science, business, education, ethics and religion.

This text is based on a draft by Andreas Weber with the collaboration of Martin Ott, articulated on October 2 and 3, 2021 in Scharans (Grisons, Switzerland).

Design Principles

The World Ethic Forum is attempting to do something unconventional: exploring the preconditions for a culture of radically shared aliveness. How does one do that? We have no template to follow, no map to let us orient. There is no clear role model that we can simply follow or replicate. 

Instead of following a template, we are guided by a series of design principles that inform both ‘what we do’ and ‘how we do what we do’. What the World Ethic Forum ‘is’ as a whole – our programs, our rhythms, our composition, who we are and what we do – is shaped by the four principles listed below.
 
Anchored in inquiry 
Our work implies an open-ended process of reflective inquiry, centred on a key calling question: How do we come to a new responsibility and life-affirming relationship with ourselves, each other and the natural world? 

If we want to invigorate radically shared aliveness, we must begin with what has led us to our current ways of being and doing. We must acknowledge what was and unfolded, and feel it deeply, with all the associated grief, anger, numbness, etc., without repressing it through judgement, shame or spiritual bypassing. We must also adopt a learner mindset, and avoid rushing to solution or jumping over the delicate and fragile phases of repair and healing. Instead, we take time to stay with what is informing us today, and allow for the emergence of pathways that are more aligned with what wants to happen than what we think should happen. 

Committed to the long-term
What we are attempting is not a small endeavour. It cannot be done in a rush, it cannot be done alone. Swift actions are certainly needed to respond to the multiple crises of our time. Yet jumping early to solutions or following one strategy only is likely to bring us back exactly to where we currently find ourselves. Patience and spaciousness are required for the work to reach the layers it needs to. 

Our work is inherently relational, and requires that we build a denser and richer fabric of relationships among ourselves, through our diverse backgrounds, and to the various layers of the topic. The wisdom and transformation we seek is not for individual benefit, but lies in the new patterns of relationships that form among us as we go through the work. Concretely, this is why we have an initial arc of seven years: so we can avoid or reduce the pressure of a short timeline, and with it the temptation to bypass what is difficult, yet essential. 

Held as a collective 
The World Ethic Forum is not a journey for the faint-hearted. Since the question we’re holding is large, daring, daunting, we need a collective vessel to hold the energy and the tensions that come with it, and develop the capacity to stay connected when things are dense, difficult, and confusing. This is particularly important because the challenges we engage with, and their underlying dynamics tend to be reflected within the group itself in fractal form. 

Open to diversity
Diversity is central to the World Ethic Forum. We gather people who would not easily cross paths, yet come together because of an aspiration to radically shared aliveness that is more profound than belonging to separate, pre-defined sectors, cultures, or backgrounds. With this diversity comes the challenge of remaining open, connected and engaged in different forms of dialogue. We cannot simply lean into pre-existing or automated ways of being. We must learn to relate, exchange, let go of assumptions and be together in this abundance of diversity. This is where we place our focus, rather than aiming for representation of any kind. 

More profoundly, the more-than-human is an intrinsic part of all of our processes. In everything we do, we do our best for other beings to be heard and have a place – extending our commitment to diversity far beyond cultural or sectorial difference.  

Turned towards the world
We feel a profound responsibility to share our learnings and insights with other people and spaces where they can find meaningful echoes. We also engage with communities, partners and the broader public, listening and sharing knowledge to avoid narcissistic echo chambers. We consider ourselves as one element within a broader unfolding ecosystem, and look for resonance with other parts of a wider field. 

In order to embody those principles and bring them to life, we cultivate three qualities:

  • Curiosity: we develop an embodied intention – and a sense of joy – to understand each other and what we’re inquiring into. This curiosity drives our engagement outwards, with each other, in our diversity, and over time  

  • Compassion: it is important that we can be with what is and what was, patiently, even caringly. We meet ourselves and others where we are, and accept the challenging emotions that inevitably will arise as we do. 

  • Courage: if we were to act as holders of truth, we would only perpetuate the old standards that underlie the current nexus of crises. Instead, we aspire to face our own tensions, our lack, our messiness, as a pathway beyond the current paradigm. As we do, we are called to experience the challenge of meeting the ‘other’, grieving, and inhabiting a liminal space.