Global Values: How We Live Together

In a previous post, we explored personal values—those that guide how you relate to yourself and how you wish to be treated by others.

Today, we turn our attention to global values.

These values reflect your place in the wider world—your family, your community, your culture, and even humanity at large. Global values influence how you believe society should function. They guide your ideas about fairness, justice, truth, freedom, and the way people should treat one another across systems and groups.

Understanding the “Cultural Ideal”

In Making Sense of the Insensible, I talk about global values particularly in relation to two “injustices”:

• The Injustice of Emotionality

• The Injustice of Temptation

In the injustice of emotionality, I highlight how cultural ideals—around truth, fairness, and justice—exist in every country, religion, and society. These ideals may differ slightly from place to place, but we recognise them through the image of the “ideal citizen” or “normal person.”

In Australia, for example, we know the stereotype well:

The little Aussie battler, the fair go, the unspoken expectation to stand by your mates.

In the injustice of temptation, I explore how shame-based societies often fail their most vulnerable. In patriarchal, capitalist systems, moderation and balance are often devalued in favour of extremes—competition, judgement, consumerism, and control.

We’re living in a world that frequently rewards polarisation. But these imbalances can leave us confused, overwhelmed, and deeply disillusioned—especially when dominant systems clash with our personal or global values.

When the World Violates Your Values

As members of any society, we contribute to its culture. But it’s also true that many large-scale decisions—by governments, corporations, media—may violate our own core values.

This is why knowing your global values matters.

If you feel inflamed, anxious, or helpless in response to world events, it’s often because your value system is being threatened.

Our strongest emotions—like anger or fear—carry immense energy. But that energy, if unprocessed, can perpetuate more fear, more aggression, more self-righteousness. When we feel wronged, we often feel justified in condemning others. But this rarely leads to change—it usually escalates conflict.

A World of Echo Chambers

Truth, fairness, and justice are increasingly blurred by cultural, political, and religious dogma. The more convinced we are that we are “right” and others are “wrong,” the more we contribute to the very cycles of hostility, misunderstanding, and harm we say we want to dismantle.

Understanding our values doesn’t mean weaponising them.

It means:

• Voting for political parties that reflect our core ethics

• Participating in religious or spiritual traditions that align with our principles

• Joining community and social groups that share our hopes for the world

Living your values leads to a life of congruence and integrity—and that creates peace from the inside out.

✍️ Today’s Activity: Clarify Your Global Values

Below is a list of global values. These represent ways you may want society—and humanity—to operate.

1. Rank them from most important (1) to least important (20).

2. Choose your top ten and explore them using the journaling prompts below.

Global Values List
Solidarity
Cooperation
Tolerance
Respect
Peace
Truth
Order
Co-existence
Productivity
Service / Contribution
Equality
Belonging
Recognition
Wisdom
Salvation
Happiness
Pleasure
Security – family / national / world
Freedom
Beauty – nature / arts

Reflection Questions for Your Top Ten

For each of your top 10 values, reflect on:

• What actions did I take today to express this value?

• What behaviours showed up in me that aligned with this value?

• What words did I speak that reflected this value?

• What beliefs do I hold that support it?

• What attitudes do I carry that express it?

These values are the foundations for your engagement with the world—your blueprint for being a conscious citizen, family member, and global participant.

Loyalty Card Check-In

And yes, it’s that time again…

🌍 Pull out your Life Café Loyalty Card.

Every time you:

• Choose peace instead of proving a point

• Speak up for justice without condemning others

• Align your outer choices with your inner truth—

You earn a stamp.

Because living your values—especially when the world pulls you away from them—takes emotional strength, clarity, and courage.

And that warrants being honoured.