The State of the World

Jim Garrison

Jim Garrison is the chairman and president of the State of the World Forum, which he cofounded with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1995. The State of the World Forum (SWF) is often thought of as a "shadow UN," in that it is the largest forum of world leaders outside of the United Nations. From Margaret Thatcher to Ted Turner, from the Queen of Jordan to Desmond Tutu, from Jimmy Carter to George Bush Sr., all have been part of the extraordinary dialogue that is the State of the World Forum.

 

Jim Garrison has, from the beginning, conceived the State of the World Forum as an attempt at an integral political organization (covering all four quadrants, for example), and his rather extraordinary experiences in the creation of an international world forum constitute a rich fund of political wisdom.

In this conversation, Jim presents a brief overview of today's international political and military situation, with emphasis on how America is now perceived by the rest of the world—which, frankly, is as an imperium or empire. And the dismal conclusion is that, exactly when it is most needed, there "is no political integral out there"—that is, there is no truly integral political stance being taken by world leaders.

There are a few concepts that, although not necessary for the following discussion, will help with understanding some of its details. A few terms from Spiral Dynamics are used—for convenience, here are the most relevant terms:

"The planet is on a collision course with itself. We are an accident in slow motion...."

• blue—premodern, traditional, ethnocentric, militaristic, imperial

• orange—modern, industrial, commercial, scientific, achievement

• green—postmodern, pluralistic, cultural creatives

• yellow—second tier, beginning of integral

To see how these stages correspond to other developmental structures, including Ken's own color-coded indicators of altitude, please refer to the chart below.

The political situation in today's world is largely polarized between blue conservatives and green liberals, with neither of them being integral. Thus, there presently exists no truly integral political stance capable of holding all of these positions in awareness and giving each of them their appropriate, if limited, place. The result is not only a world on the brink of political fragmentation, but a world leadership powerless to address the situation.