To matter, we must add value — not just feel valued. The media reinforces a “me culture” that focuses on feeling valued. We must seek to create a “we culture” in which the right to feel valued is balanced with the responsibility to add value, to ourselves and others.

In working with individuals, organizations or communities, achieving clarity of vision is essential. Effective helpers do two things; they help envision a better future and a better process. In short, we envision the ends (outcome) and the means to achieve it (process).

Plans are paradoxical. We must have successful plans to enjoy life, but too many plans get in the way of living! If we have an effective plan, we can stop planning and start enjoying life!

Within a given social context, some values appear at the foreground of our consciousness, while others remain in the background. To attain the necessary balance, we must shift the neglected values to the foreground.

“To each his or her due,” states a traditional definition of justice. To wit, justice is the fair and equitable allocation of power, resources and obligations in society. This is a useful beginning, but it begs the questions what’s fair and what’s equitable.

As we fight hyper-individualism and its deleterious consequences for the world, I thought it would be useful to remind ourselves what are the main tenets of an emancipatory communitarian philosophy.

Life is a dance between what we want and possess and what the context can offer. Sometimes we have to change the environment to make it more in line with human needs.