Small and large businesses, schools, governmental, nongovernmental, and civic organizations are demonstrating what decades of studies bear out: operationalizing values is the best insurance for living and working with robust people, within robust economies, on a robust planet.

I have been asked to tell you about the findings from my research identifying the core components of a safer, more equitable, and caring world—especially one where women and children are finally safe—a goal that is very close to my heart.

Of course, the question was—after a century and a half of “Social Darwinism” claiming that it was all about competition, from the lowest to the highest—could our world now dominated by the shark-tank rubrics of business, economics, and politics adjust to this astounding news? Could it realize that because of this basic blunder about Darwin’s message, we had, in fact, ended up with dystopia instead of utopia?

The founding fathers warned us of times like these. Intent on presenting a unified front to the world, they discouraged factions and political parties. I, therefore, characterize the birth of the nation as a form of Unitive Consciousness, even if it was not the most evolved nor long-lasting form.

Humanity is in a time of transition, one that we can navigate successfully only with a shift in consciousness. How can we wake up from the collective neuroses that have driven our civilization into decadence and decline?