Identity and Authenticity: Breaking with Our Heritage for Sustainable Regional Human Development

Abstract

In 2009 STIR (Stichting Transformation, Indexation and Research) was founded as a research NGO. It was aimed at defining, developing, implementing and fine-tuning a human-centered society vision and model (Sustainocracy). This alternative societal approach to the current money-centered reality had been conceived in an attempt to transform the human route from self-elimination (Anthropocene [Crutzen, Springer]) into one of sustainable human existence (Close, Sociology & Anthropology). At the time the word “sustainability” had the tendency to refer to everything except the human being as a species itself. STIR breaks with such existing normatives and related ways of thinking and introduces new ones with which everyone can engage (people and institutions).

STIR proposed a vision in which sustainable human progress is believed to be achieved by applying five core natural human values as a shared responsibility of all people and institutions together. The core values are, each being equally important and interrelated: positive health (physical, emotional, spiritual, evolutionary); safety (including respect); co-creation (shared responsibility); awareness (learning together); basic needs (water, air, food, warmth/shelter).

This chapter will deal with the origin of these five core conditions. We will also reflect about the essential combination of factors that got the regional development of the city and region of Eindhoven (the Netherlands) to start adopting this mindset. And how it gradually expands across more municipalities in the Netherlands and internationally.