The Ill Health of Society - Understanding the Root Cause

I ask you to consider the deeper purpose of the gift called life. When I ask people whether they believe the situation in our society and the world is getting worse or better, nearly all respond that they think it is getting worse for the majority of people and we need to do something about it but feel helpless in doing anything about it.

Before I provide information on what I consider to be the root cause I want you to consider patterns of behavior in which strong beliefs were established and accepted as truth. In Scotland between 1590 and 1662 around 2500 people were accused of and executed for witchcraft, many for acting as midwives to relieve women from pain in childbirth (The church and thus the majority of people believed God intended women to have pain in childbirth thus relieving this pain was going against God’s will and this was considered to be witchcraft). Another example in which strong beliefs were held despite the evidence was that it took the Catholic Church 300 years to accept the belief that the earth rotated around the sun. Scientists tell us that our universe has evolved over 13.6 billion years and in which we are a fragment of time and yet a Pew survey found that 79% of Christians believe in the second coming. This belief is that Jesus will return, and the righteous dead will be resurrected, and together with the righteous living will be glorified and taken to heaven. The rest of humankind will perish. This Christian belief is widely held but is a very different belief from that of science. It is important to challenge this Christian belief and other long-held beliefs when we gain evidence that they are no longer valid.

Scientists tell us that Homo sapiens evolved about 300,000 years ago. For all this time our purpose has been ensuring the physical material survival, safety, propagation of the species and, yes, happiness of our society. I choose to refer to this phase in human existence as Phase 1 of evolution. What we consider to be a satisfactory level of personal well-being and security is a personal choice. However, that purpose has already been realized by many people in the USA and other nations.

The continued accumulation of more resources by those who are already sufficiently secure and wealthy has resulted in adherence to a top-down domineering management culture. Gallup’s 2023 State of The Global Workplace Report identified the one clear answer that leaders can do today to potentially save the world. The answer was “change the way your people are managed”. (Jon Clifton, CEO Gallup.) The management changes that employees reported they wanted included more autonomy, greater respect and clarity around goals.

The ill health of society is exacerbated by consumerism in which we are encouraged to believe that more material goods will make us happy. It is well-known that buying material things results in temporary joy, and the happiness found in buying a new item rarely lasts longer than a few days. Researchers call this temporary fulfillment: retail therapy.

The root cause of ill health in society is a continued commitment to the purpose of accumulating more and more resources for survival and security and the belief that buying material things is a means of achieving happiness is the root cause of problems of inequality and ill health in our society.

Although this root cause applies to society as a whole it applies particularly to wealthy human beings who give priority to pursuing more power and wealth. Many fail to realize that our relationships and love for each other are what truly make us happy and that increasing the love for each other and our planet will enable the evolution of our species. The short story at the end of the tab “Human Evolution a Historic Perspective.” Illustrates that.


1. The Ill Health of Society - Understanding the Root Cause

2. Our Leaders Will Not Realize Human Evolution - We Need an Alternative Pathway

3. Human Evolution, a Historical Perspective

4. Phase 2 of Human Evolution - Transcendence

5. Our Personal Contribution to Human Evolution

6. Our Challenge

7. What Are Constructs?

8. Learning How to Change

9. Building the Foundation for Learning and Change

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