These worldviews are not inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’. They’re stories, value patterns, and structures that help people make sense of their experience and world. People’s worldviews are often profoundly shaped by the context they grew up in, and the challenges they were confronted with. Each worldview brings forth qualities, values, and possibilities, as well as pitfalls and limitations. The morality of one’s behaviors and choices thus depends on how one relates and gives expression to these worldviews, rather than only on the content of the worldviews.
At the same time, people’s worldviews can become radicalised, highly ideological, or pathological. Put simply, when individuals see their worldview as the only valid perspective, and other perspectives not only as ‘wrong’ but also as ‘evil’, radicalization is occurring. Then worldviews run the risk of encouraging or justifying ‘bad’ behaviors – like the exclusion, oppression, or even prosecution of other groups or people who think differently.
Each of these four worldviews – though neutral in their basic structure, with potentials as well as pitfalls – may thus be turned into extremist ideologies. This is quite obvious when considering the radicalization tendencies prominent in today’s world. An example may be the anti-democratic movement of Christian Nationalism that’s currently gaining political power in the United States. This ideology appears to be a radicalized expression of the traditional worldview. Another example involves some of the more extreme aspects of the “woke” and transgender activist cultures, which at times come off as caricatures of the postmodern worldview.
It’s therefore of great importance to explore our attitudes towards our worldviews. Instead of promoting any particular worldview, our educational programs are focussed on supporting people to develop healthy and inquisitive relationships with their worldviews – fostering the humility, openness, curiosity, tolerance, and reflexivity that are vital for our planetary civilization to flourish.