Glossary
Definitions of Key Terms Used in Citizen Renaissance
The Three Seismic Shifts:
All three are described in more detail below.
Consumer: Someone whose life is defined by extrinsic values such as self-focus, selfishness and the acquisition of material goods or image and position. Consumers have lower levels of personal Wellbeing, over-consume and have high concomitant responsibility for damage to our planet.
Citizen: Someone whose intrinsic values include personal growth, emotional intimacy and community involvement. These are also values that determine how happy we are and that tend to lead us away from hyper-consumption and the concomitant damage to the planet, towards more meaningful sources of fulfilment.
Citizen Renaissance: A resurgent and active Citizenship – fuelled by the three seismic shifts of our time – where people, companies and governments will have to work to higher, more responsible and more far-seeing ethical standards.
Digital Democracy: The democratisation of opinion, action and communication thanks to the internet. In today’s world, a ‘person like me’ has just as much – if not more – ability to be heard as any so-called expert or influencer. The power of the collective is faster and more influential than ever before, and demands accountability and transparency of institutions and leaders.
Needs, Means and Wants:
- Needs: What we actually ‘need’ to make us happy, fulfilled people.
- Wants: What we desire, but don’t actually ‘need’. These desires have often been created by advertising and fuelled by aspiration and envy.
- Means: The amount of the planet’s resources we can safely afford to rely on to meet those needs. The requisite health of an ecosystem relative to that social objective.
The Perfect Storm: The Perfect Storm speaks to more than climate change, the increase in global temperatures and the melting of ice-caps. It covers multiple and associated ills – not least the alarming increase in levels of scarcity from foods to fuels, and the growing social inequalities which are leading not just to injustice but also to local, regional and, potentially, global conflict.
Public Engagement: The new Tripartite Contract between Business, Politics and Citizenship. A forum for constructive dialogue and the principal model for the Communications company of the future.
Wellbeing Economy: An economy driven by Ecological Economics – not GDP – and tuned into maximising the Wellbeing of society, now and in the future.
Wellbeing Imperative: The need for Wellbeing in the face of falling happiness. The emergence of a resurgent Citizenship away from a world driven by high-consumption and relative-materialism.
