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So I was forced to peel away another layer, to go still deeper, again asking why? What blocks us from believing in the possibility of such change—change in the direction of more genuine democracy—and engaging ourselves in the process of bringing it about?

What could possibly be powerful enough to allow us to tolerate and condone as a society what as individuals we abhor? Few of us would allow a child to suffer deprivation in our midst. Yet as a society we do just that. In the United States, we allow one quarter of our children to be born into poverty, which results in twice the chance of their being physically stunted compared to middle-class children. And what could be powerful enough to allow us to destroy majestic redwoods, to dredge breathtaking coastlines, to drain rich wetlands—to obliterate that which has inspired feelings of security, thanksgiving, and awe in human beings over eons of time?

Perhaps, I thought, it’s that as individuals we have come to believe we have neither the capacity nor responsibility to do otherwise, to do other than acquiesce to forces beyond our control.

We are in large measure who we believe ourselves to be. I had always believed in the power of ideas to shape our reality, but this concept took on new meaning for me as the 1980s progressed. I came to see that what we believe ourselves to be reflects assumptions so taken for granted that they’ve become like an invisible ether. We live unconscious of their power. I became convinced that as we approach the 21st century, we remain captured in a set of ideas about ourselves which is a legacy of at least three centuries. This may sound strange, especially from someone arguing the quickening of change. But striking also is continuity, continuity in our ideas of ourselves that we now must consciously examine.

The Power of Ideas

To make myself clearer, let me take you the next step in my own quest, peeling away another layer in my “onion” of discovery.

I wanted to bring to the surface the “big ideas”—the assumptions about who we are and the nature of our ties to one another—that lie behind our acceptance of the social structures in which we live. I had become convinced that there was only one thing strong enough to explain our behavior—behavior that was needlessly destroying millions of lives each year from hunger and disease, and undermining the integrity of our fragile planet as well. It is the power of ideas. But how do we get at those ideas?

My answer in part became: “through talk.” We must talk in order to surface underlying assumptions, to nudge ourselves and each other to reflect upon the reasons why we think and act as we do. We must talk in order to discover whether our ideas have simply become unexamined habits of mind, habits which thwart instead of aid effective living.

So I decided to stop writing tracts about just what I believe. I wanted to engage those who had never and would never pick up one of my existing books—books they might dismiss because they challenge the status quo.

I wanted to write a dialogue in order to provoke dialogue—to get people talking. So I set out to write in two voices. One voice would speak from the inherited assumptions that make up the dominant, modern worldview; the assumptions that limit the very questions we’re allowed to ask. The other voice would be my own, struggling to articulate an emerging alternative. These voices in print became Rediscovering America’s Values, published in 1989.

In the years of research required to write Rediscovering, I became ever surer that indeed we all do carry unexamined mental baggage, now centuries in the making. This metaphorical baggage we now need to put through the “security check.” We must open up this baggage, examining it in light of its consequences and for its security threat to our future.

In considering my case, please excuse my audacity in capturing a few centuries in a few sentences.

In the 17th century, René Descartes located the human soul in its