Future of Western Civilization-Progress Report (The Future of Western Civilization Series 1)

By Nicholas Beecroft

Melanie Mortiboys interviews Dr Nicholas Beecroft for this Progress Report on the project exploring the Future of Western Civilization in the light of the interviews so far.

The Future of Western Civilization Series 1

Dr Nicholas Beecroft, a Military and Organizational Psychiatrist, has spent 25 years exploring the worlds of Medicine, Psychiatry, Business, International Relations and the Military. In the Future of Western Civilization Series, he interviews visionary leaders to discover their inspiring, positive and practical visions for the future and challenges them with incisive questions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nicholas Beecroft
• Release date: Apr 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310722998

Nicholas Beecroft

Dr Nicholas Beecroft is a Consultant Psychiatrist who has spent 25 years exploring the worlds of Medicine, Psychiatry, Business, Leadership, International Relations, Politics, the Military and Spirituality. He created the Future of Western Civilization Series of interviews with visionary leaders. He is author of Analyze West: A Psychiatrist Takes Western Civilization on a Journey of Transformation and New Magna Carta: A Psychiatrist’s Prescription for Western Civilization.

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The Future of Western Civilization:Progress Report

Psychiatrist Dr Nicholas Beecroft Interviews Visionary Leaders

Series 1, Book 4. Volume 35

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2014 Dr Nicholas Beecroft

Western Civilization on the Psychiatrist's Couch Oil Painting by Melanie Mortiboys Copyright © 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

Contents

Future of Western Civilization Series Mission

Acknowledgements

Dr Nicholas Beecroft

The Future of Western Civilization Progress Report

Other Books in the Series

Contact & Social Media

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Future of Western Civilization Series Mission

I’m Dr Nicholas Beecroft, a Consultant Psychiatrist in London. I’m exploring the Future of Western Civilization through a series of interviews. I want us to rejuvenate our energy, direction and self-confidence as a Civilization. My mission is to create a positive, appreciative space in which leaders at the evolutionary edge of our Civilization can share their experience and set out their vision for our future to inspire others. They are visionaries sowing the seeds of future transformation, all genuine, creative, courageous people who care about whom we are and where we’re going.

By Civilization, I mean Western Civilization-the one I’ve lived in; to one that is transformed the world over the last 500 years; the one that has gone global; the one that faces enormous threats, challenges and has the unprecedented opportunity to evolve to an amazing future. When there’s so much changing all at once, old structures failing and a huge array of emerging threats, that all generates a lot of anxiety, pessimism and fear which distract us from putting energy into creating new solutions, generating new ideas and envisioning a better future.

Behind the News Headlines, usually quietly, under the radar, there’s a lot of good stuff going on; the seeds of the future taking root in the present. There are lots of evolutionaries trying out new ideas, new technologies, new ways of organizing and more integrated, conscious and balanced ways of thinking and being.

Western Civilization has been supremely successful in all kinds of ways of which we should be enormously proud. Science, technology, industrialization, democracy, individual rights, personal freedom, property rights, the rule of law, Christianity, humanism, organization, capitalism, feminism, civil rights, philosophy, music, art, even Imperialism have all, on balance, transformed the world for the better and have created new life conditions with new challenges and problems. In some cases, these advances had nasty side effects and some have become imbalanced. In others, they have replaced older structures and beliefs, and many babies have been lost with the bathwater.

Human Civilization is made up of human beings who are conscious beings and physical animals, all interconnected like a shoal of fish or a flock of birds. I’ve interviewed a huge variety of people across a variety roles, professions, beliefs, politics, status, nationalities, religions, social classes and backgrounds. What is crystal clear to me is that whilst the world we live in is hyper-complex, we operate in it using a kind of mini-map of our Civilization in our minds which we use to navigate through the world, guided by our inner compass of intuition and rational thought. It is astonishing how similar these inner maps are, and the patterns are clear. This is how we self-organize in what is a complex living system-just like a beehive or wildebeest migration.

Now we are super-connected by the internet, media and travel. We carry in our pockets access to billions of people and to just about all the knowledge that ever existed. Turning inwards we have access to instinctive intuition, heart, wisdom, common sense and judgement. Put together, that represents vast human potential and the most amazing opportunity for personal and cultural evolution ever. Looked at like that, just about all of our shared challenges and threats are solvable and a much better world is highly realistic. We’re engaged in conscious evolution of ourselves and our Civilization.

There is a huge range of threats and challenges to The West and to the whole World. People focus their attention on different ones depending on their situation, beliefs and emotional make-up. The list is pretty depressing and overwhelming-so I’ve turned it into a list of positive questions instead. Here’s a start:

Who are we?

Where are we going?

What kind of future do we envisage?

How do we rise to the challenges we face?

What do we believe; what is right, what