The Hames Report

My Daughter the Terrorist

Regular readers of The Hames Report may recall that I am blessed with ten children. They range in age from 2 to 37 years. Naturally each sibling is special - as different from each other as one could possibly imagine. Two of them are primarily artistic, for example, one outrageously athletic and gregarious, another painfully shy, while others are caring, studious, puckish, wilful, anxious, protective... They are all gifted in their own way. And it goes without saying I am immensely proud of them all.

In an uncanny echo of my own upbringing, several of my children had a particularly tough time during my divorce. They were all caught up in the painfulness of the rift of course. But my wife and I separated at a time when one child in particular was most vulnerable to the distress that ensued. Yet, even though dwelling half a world away contrived to keep us apart, distance was not sufficient to break the bond we felt for each other. At least, I like to believe that was the case.

As with most people, my daughter's life continues to have its ups and its downs. Recent relationships, not to be too disparaging, are possibly best characterised by the social media cliche, its complicated. At times she has appeared to be at odds with the world, while her choice of boyfriends has brought happiness and heartbreak in equal measure. But these choices also defined and strengthened her, as they tend to do. Which is why I wasn't perturbed by recent events....

Within the context of our family my daughter's individuality has been intensified by the fact that she now wears a head scarf. Not just any old head scarf you understand. Living with a young Muslim guy she conforms to the hijab dress code. Although she seems unduly self-conscious of this cultural symbolism, especially within a secular society like Australia, the decision has clearly given her a calm dignity she had long sought.

I am not sure whether she will decide to embrace Islam in the future. Nor would I be fazed should she choose to do so. For the time being, however, all I know is that she remains the kind, compassionate, slightly crazy yet endearing young woman she has always been. Her dress may have changed her outward appearance - but not her sweet nature.

Yet there are those who glance at her with mistrust in their eyes. People who do not know her, particularly strangers on the street, look askance at her appearance. Some, assuming she must be up to no good, base their mistrust on an absurd stereotype recently adopted throughout the Western world. A stereotype that stokes an irrational fear that foreign terrorists are lurking around every corner.

I find all of this quite mischievous and insincere. So, for example, flying by air is the safest form of travel these days. Nevertheless we are far more likely to be killed in an airplane crash than in any encounter with terrorists. Acts of terrorism have declined dramatically over the past few years - though you might not realise that from the constant beat up of this issue in the media and the many movies made with a terrorist plot as the theme. Many people still harbour the ridiculous notion that under every burqa hides a potential terrorist. Whatever happened to tolerance of other people's cultures, social practices and religious beliefs?

Codes for dressing modestly are not unique to Islam. My mother, a strict Methodist, invariably covered her head with a scarf when attending church services on a Sunday. This was accepted practice in conservative Britain after the war. All manner of veils and head scarfs appear in the great monotheistic traditions. They have done for centuries. Indeed the first recorded instance of veiling for women is recorded in an Assyrian legal text dating from the 13th century BC, which restricted its use to noble women and forbade commoners from adopting it. This form of dress symbolises nothing more than modesty and respect - a desire to maintain social distance and a statement of cultural status and identity.

To some unthinking observers, and to professional scaremongers, my daughter wearing a khimar appears to be a security threat. Her choice of dress plays into the notion, deliberately fabricated and shaped by the state, of how we might identify a potential terrorist. She easily fits into the stereotype we have concocted to separate ourselves from the evil "other" - in addition to almost anything else we do not understand.

Of course she is nothing of the sort. She is just a young Australian woman seeking to know herself and come to terms with her situation, in a world that is often difficult to fathom, while remaining sane. To equate such appearances with terrorism is crass - a degree of bigotry that should shame us and that should not be tolerated in an intelligent and free society.

My daughter's choice of clothing denotes nothing other than options she is free to exercise, coupled with the capacity and inclination to pay for how she prefers to look. Nothing more, nothing less. Words, however, trap us in ways that are not always so evident.

Ideas and the choices we make based upon those ideas are tainted and warped by the language we use to explain ourselves - constrained at every turn by the vocabulary we have at our disposal. A good deal of the behavioural aspects of any culture can be attributed to language discourse. Some languages are inherently passive while others are much more explicit and dynamic. So while I might say, "I am going to lunch now" (denoting who is going to eat and when) my Thai wife will simply say "eat" (kin khao). Without context this random statement could be referring to anyone and anything.

This linguistic principle carries over into the way adversaries choose to describe and chide each other in torrents of misconstructions and invalid assumptions.

Advanced studies in linguistics suggest such differences in speech patterns affect not only how we think but also how we interpret events. By using different words we actually perceive reality differently.

For example, in the eyes of most Western politicians, Nelson Mandela went from being a terrorist to an anti-apartheid revolutionary, to a freedom fighter and eventually to a liberator and father of the nation. I am quite sure his most fundamental beliefs did not morph significantly during that time. But the vocabulary we used to describe him, and what he stood for, certainly changed the way he occurred to us and, in so doing, created very different images in our minds of the man's intentions and his stature as a human being.

Naturally our choice of language does not excuse us from accepting responsibility for our behaviours. But it does offer us insights as to how we might learn to respond more openly to our misunderstandings and prejudices.

In this regard context is all-important. Varying the way we speak to accommodate broader interpretations of reality may be tricky - perhaps impossible for some people. But changing the way we think based upon our speaking habits only requires a little common sense and an ability to suspend judgement temporarily.

If we are able to set aside, even for a few moments, those aspects of the Occidental mindset that trap us into supposing every young Muslim is part of an organised global conspiracy to conquer the world, we may discover a culture and a social ethos that enriches rather than depletes our own view of what it means to be human.

Who knows, we may even find that we have more in common with each other than we care to admit.

 

 

The Heritage of Poverty

The late Helder Camara, Catholic Archbishop of Recife in Brazil, famously asked, Why is it that when I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist? He also posited, in a little-known monograph called Spiral of Violence, that the poor are not the raw material for your salvation. Really? Has anyone told George Soros, Bill Gates or all those state governments that habitually outsource their social programs to the whims of the super wealthy?

Originally the term philanthropy signified a love of humanity. It told of a willingness to care for, nurture and enrich what it means to be human. Regrettably much contemporary philanthropy - including even well-meaning aid and development offered by reputable global institutions, but in stark contrast to that used simply as a device for tax avoidance - has divorced itself from such intentions, succumbing to the deceits of social media and the public relations machine. In an age when literally anything under the sun can be portrayed as being of benefit to us, many public personalities are using the "look-at-me-doing-good" mantra to help sustain the veracity of their personal brand and manipulate public opinion in their favour.

In the meantime, as philanthropy is institutionalised and public social programs progressively privatised, the media focuses our attention on sensational tales and trivia, hungry for gossip and images of celebrities among the destitute and starving.

The corporate world, too, refuses to be left out of this most lucrative game. To be known as "a force for good" has been a brilliantly effective marketing strategy adopted by some of the most destructive and cynical of today's corporations as a lawful means of seeking additional respectability for their products. With a few notable exceptions, they care not a jot for the environment or for people. This is simply another way of maximising profits. Moreover, the corporate attitude concerning any kind of moral or social contract, most commonly assigned to those responsible for Corporate Social Responsibility is, at best, one of dispassionate pragmatism.

All of this is alarming. It results in pop idols and movie stars being hailed as protectors of the poor and companies being regarded as industry game changers when their business models are clearly anything but that. But there are also far more serious consequences to consider.

Charitable foundations established and funded by the super wealthy present us with a range of problematic issues - especially in terms of their functional systemic design. So, for example, by consenting to the removal of the general public from crucial decision-making processes, we undermine the legitimate obligation of the state to provide relevant social programs for its citizens. When "we the people" no longer determine what programs are needed or where, how they can be funded, and how they should be managed, democracy itself is compromised.

The incongruities inherent within the relationship between the state and private foundations are also quite bizarre. Consider this. When governments cut social spending the tax burden on the well-to-do is also reduced - in essence providing both affluent individuals and companies with a direct financial benefit. Moreover the super wealthy in our society make their money not through income, like most of us, but through dividends based on stock ownership. The tax system has been constructed in such a way that dividends attract far lower rates of tax than income. But that is not the end of it. Individual obligations can be minimised still further, through tax write-offs, by making donations to one's own foundation. In effect whether or not to pay tax or to pursue a specific philanthropic cause aligned to personal values has now become a choice available to the wealthy.

While it is dangerous to make rash assumptions about the motives behind any individual's charitable acts it is clear that this system can be manipulated and abused to whitewash the sins of those who may have acquired their wealth through exploitation, stealth, coercion or other dubious means. In effect it enables almost anyone with money to purchase false legitimacy.

Allowing wealthy people to donate to their pet projects, when they are already minimising the amount of tax they pay in general, raises three fundamental questions vis-a-vis the intentions and performance of the philanthropic system. Is it plausible that the wealthy be given such freedom of choice as to how they use capital that would otherwise be collected in tax? If it is deemed acceptable, to what extent should they be required to give back to the society from which their wealth was derived and should this be on their own terms? If these terms favour the status quo, how should we then deal with the gaps that could potentially open up in the welfare system where certain groups of people are less-favoured and therefore exposed and vulnerable as a consequence?

There are no simple answers to such questions. But when important matters such as these are taken out of the hands of government the effect is tantamount to a new aristocracy engaging in its own distorted form of noblesse oblige.

Which brings me to a startling yet perverse truth. It concerns the design of the current system - a system that from my perspective conceals unpalatable ironies concerning interpretations and practises.

The principal capitalist notion of putting the economic means of production in the hands of private ownership is simple yet brilliant. It has brought astonishing benefits to many people, including a quality of life that was barely imaginable just decades ago. But it has also caused untold misery to millions - misery we now seek to alleviate through a mix of philanthropy and government regulation. So explain this to me. How can we tell the poor and the disadvantaged that the economic system which created their misery is now the system they should trust to save them from that misery? Won't they simply see through such propaganda for what it is?

By and large so-called democratic governments no longer adequately represent citizens. In some jurisdictions government has merged with private sector financial interests to the extent they are no longer distinguishable from one another. Indeed in the US the locus of power is now so obviously on Wall Street and not in Washington. The Occupy movement did not just give voice to a sense of economic injustice and corporate greed, it threw a spotlight on the failure of political representation and the inadequacies of the current system of wealth-creation and preservation. On one level this puts the wealthy in a privileged leadership position. But it has reciprocal (mostly undesirable) consequences. In psychology this unhealthy condition is called codependency. Within our philanthropic context the wealthy depend on politicians to maintain control of their corporations while politicians rely on the wealthy to keep the economy ticking over. Those deprived of the capacity for happiness and financial independence are marginalised. They are the discarded serfs in a neo-feudal world. But sooner or later such a system has to collapse. It is not viable.

It goes without saying that the majority of those who create foundations, give to charity, or work in developmental organisations, are well-intentioned people who care passionately about those less fortunate than themselves. Generally speaking they do not regard the poor as raw material for their own salvation. I know this for a fact as I have many well-to-do friends I admire and respect. They worry about the state of the world and the capacity of poverty to retard societal progress, and are expressing their most deeply-held values through charitable works.

Arising from genuine compassion and the need to make a difference, a new school of thought has arisen over the past couple of decades that may well alter philanthropy in a number of profound ways. Focused on "socially responsible investing" as well as ventures that have measurable social and environmental impact rather than on the maximisation of profits, these are too few in number at the moment to know whether they can help eradicate the root causes of endemic poverty. My guess is that they could. But we are still left with a political problem that is not going away anytime soon.

Letter to a Young Social Entrepreneur

This Letter to a Young Social Entrepreneur was written by Liam Black. Liam is co-founder of Wavelength. You can contact him via thesamewavelength.com or via Twitter @LiamABlack. The piece was first published at PioneersPost.com and is reprinted here with permission of both the author and the publisher.

Dear Jude

The great and the good of social entrepreneurship gather in Oxford this month for the annual Skoll love in. Heathrow arrivals teems with inspiring people from all over the world lucky enough to get an invite only ticket. Bright shiny Harvard graduates pluck their luggage from the carousel alongside grizzled old veterans from Africa and Asia and impact investors from California with great teeth.

Seminars will be run, panels will be convened, invite only dinners will run late into the night in ancient college banqueting halls and much gossip (and some bodily fluids) will be exchanged in bars and hotels across the city of dreaming spires.

The social enterprise awards culture has been fascinating to watch develop over the years. I picked up the very first Social Enterprise of the Year Award in the UK - when the prize was a bag of crisps, a quizzical, lukewarm round of applause and you didn’t even get your train fare paid. With the arrival of the Skoll and Schwab big bucks, those who are elevated to the ranks of fellows receive substantial cash – and a world of C-suite access and connectivity opens up.

The social entrepreneur PR industry grows all the time and is hungry for content and personalities. This is dangerous and results in people being hailed as saviours and game changers when their business models are nowhere near proven – still less the damaging, unintended consequences known and understood. 

The recent collapse of the Create Foundation is a sobering example for you Jude. Multi award winning – a Big Society exemplar no less – and yet it went down like a house of cards because of flaws in its business strategy, which I’m sure David Cameron wasn’t briefed about. 

Skoll et al have brought many great things to the sector and their contributions to the developing eco-system are huge. But the creation of a super league of A-List celebrity social entrepreneurs, networking, dining behind the VIP curtain is not without its contradictions and problems.

Certain of those A-Listers are bullshitters and narcissists whose mission is themselves. I have looked behind the scenes of a few of their ventures and the mismatch between rhetoric and reality is stark – as is the misalignment between personal lifestyle and public stance about the poor and oppressed.

Jude, beware of setting anyone up as a hero. Putting someone on a pedestal is one of the worst things you can do to them. Heroes are like the human body – the closer you get to them the more flawed, messy and complicated they are.

Each year the socially entrepreneurial Cirque de Soleil sets up its big tent at the World Economic Forum at Davos. Champagne is sipped whilst corporate CEOs, Russian oligarchs and Arab potentates ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ at the miracles being performed by the social entrepreneurs. The Occupy movement activisits on the other hand are kept a long distance away and canapés are not put out for them. Their diet is tear gas and police truncheon. 

Power, class – especially class – and entitlement are three subjects nowhere near high enough up the agenda of Skoll and Davos. It is very fashionable at such gatherings to hear mainstream politics trashed as unable to compete with the whizzy, sexy, genius social entrepreneurs. Yawn, party politics. How boring. How last century.

But ask yourself this: without political backing where will your idea get? What has had the biggest impact on well-being in this country in last ten years? Eden Project? Big Issue? Jamie Oliver? Divine Chocolate? Or the government’s decision to ban smoking in all public places?

Politicians are flawed and politics a dirty, compromised game but at least they must submit to democratic elections. Jeff Skoll's big money – like Gates and Omidyar – gives him big influence but to whom is he accountable? A democratic society is committed to the equality of citizens - but are foundations the voice of plutocracy? Rob Reich asked this question in a fascinating recent essay.

I hope you will win lots of awards, Jude. But just be clear about your motivations. Why do you do what you do? Doubtless a large dose of bloody-minded, rock solid self-belief is a must have. There may be no “I” in team but perhaps inevitably there is a hell of a lot of “ego” in “social entrepreneur”.

If you’d asked me in my twenties and thirties what my driving motivations were I would have said a strange hybrid of leftie politics and option-for-the-poor Catholicism filtered through the liberation theologicans of Latin America and the inner cities.   

No doubt these were important and, my god, what passionate debates there were around all that stuff in the '80s. But looking back I can see clearly that a core part of what drove me was the seeking of approval of an absent father (long story) and a huge enjoyment at the attention which came with being in the vanguard of the UK social enterprise movement. It feels very good to be talked and written about and even better if there are awards and baubles. And yes, of course, I am having my cake and tweeting it by writing this blog.

There is a need for a large dose of skepticism about middle class European and American social entrepreneurs who think they have the answer for the problems of Africa or know what the youth off the housing estates need.

And I am more than skeptical of so-called faith based social enterprises whose motivation is at its core: "I'm doing this becuase Jesus wants me to and it's how I might achieve redemption." As Helder Camara once said: “The poor are not the raw material for your salvation.”  This should be inscribed over the doorway to the Skoll Centre and at receptions in all social businesses.

 

Three Thoroughly Thoughtless Thinks

I will be uncharacteristically brief. This topic does not merit an extended argument. I have no time to waste on inanities. Yet neither can I remain silent. I am piqued. Outraged actually.

The object of this outrage? Lengthy, obtuse, academic texts - I hesitate to label them essays as this usually denotes a semblance of intelligent flowing prose; documents I found in my Trash folder today. Three of them. All published in highly respected peer-reviewed journals. And all of them pure bunkum. Unintelligible drivel authored and sponsored under the guise of scholarly erudition.

After scanning the first piece, with the pretentious title A meta-analytic review of leadership impact research: Experimental and quasi-experimental studies, a total of 21 pages of sheer twaddle written by a quintet of individuals from institutes in the US and Singapore who should know better, I rationally concluded this must be a prank - especially as I am unsure how I got hold of the wretched things in the first place. Had I received them on April Fool's Day? I mused. If so then I probably tipped them into the Trash instinctively. Perhaps they contained malware or a virus...

At that point I noticed two similar specimens. I looked for some clues as to their source. Evidently they had been sent at the same time. Actually they could have been identical were it not for the claims of different authors on the covers. The abstracts offered no hint as to their authenticity as all three were utterly unintelligible. Indeed this actually increased my suspicions that I was the unwitting victim of a hoax.

Still partly incredulous, I skimmed the contents. In each case the paper had been concocted by a pair of individuals hailing from equally prestigious establishments as the first. But these two essays had even less to commend them than the first. I returned all three to the Trash and deleted them instantly. And then I started thinking!

I will not dwell on the circumstances that allow such vacuous, self-referential efforts to clutter up and waste our time, shrouding invalid abstractions in arcane nonsense and parading trivia under the pretext of scholarship. After all it seems to be a thoroughly modern dilemma that so many untalented individuals can avoid being productive members of society by holing up in our universities. I apologise if this rant sounds as though I have metamorphosed into an extremist right-wing radio jock!

But what really amazes me is that genuinely smart people, including the majority of highly regarded scholars who have contributed so much of value to the expansion of human knowledge, can sit idly by, condone, and be hoodwinked by such hogwash. Seriously!

Although I profoundly oppose the mechanism, I do twig that the corrupt system of academic patronage requires students to cite the work of their instructors and their peers, especially if promotion or tenure is in their sights. But where is the discrimination that should immediately expose the truth of such dire and inconsequential work? Endeavours that invariably insult our intelligence? Efforts that add nothing to human wisdom or discourse?

Surely it is the responsibility of universities to enact some form of quality control and rule against those who would perpetuate ignorance and folly? Surely they should vet their graduates' work more meticulously? Surely they should insist that a few universal criteria be applied to dissertations of any kind before being let off the reservation?

One would have thought originality must unquestionably be the prime criterion. It is not useful to replicate stuff we already know. Yet even the reputation of some well-known Harvard dons has been founded on their knack of discovering commonsense and rebadging it as innovation.

Contribution should surely be another? The investment we all make in education, through the taxes we pay to the state, must result in some kind of productive value for society - even if that value is philosophical or aesthetic in nature.

Clarity, too, is essential is new ideas are to be communicated effectively. Knowledge has no way of gaining traction if insights and discoveries are constantly wrapt in turgid, self-indulgent, tracts that obfuscate and confuse. Again that is simply game playing. It is of no value to anyone whatsoever.

That is all....

A Solemn Declaration:

I solemnly declare that I am not affiliated to any educational institution, and that I do not have any financial interests in, or enjoy any other form of allegiance with, any academic entity whatsoever - including Harvard University in Boston, the Elf School in Reykjavic and the Charles W. Howard Santa School in Michigan. This declaration notwithstanding the fact I narrowly avoided a near-hit just recently. Okay, okay. I am just a slow learner I guess.

Furthermore I declare that I will continue to avoid any such relationship in the future so as to ensure I retain my sanity for as long as possible given my advancing years.

I also declare my bias in these matters. I am not the most suitable person to be praising modern academe, although as an outsider I am not entirely comfortable criticising it. Woops. I just told a lie! I do admit a preference for learning organisations and the liberation of transformational knowledge rather than of dogma conveyed through instruction and bigotry within bureaucracies that do everything they can to constrain their communities from stepping into new epistemologies. I will leave it to you, dear reader, to decide in which camp that places me. No prizes offered - just go and submit your thesis today if your answer is "Unsure".

After an early stint as a lecturer in aesthetics, one of the most enjoyable periods in my life yet also a time when I began to achieve a level of expertise in the hypocritically clandestine and self-serving nature of tertiary education, I tried to avoid the scene altogether. I failed. Vanity persuaded me to relent twice - accepting invitations I ultimately had cause to regret. On the first occasion I was forced to resign for misleading Council - a cunning conspiracy I should have seen coming and one that precipitated my premature mid-life crisis. On the second occasion I was "strongly urged" to resign, which I did out of concern for my personal safety - this time for telling unpalatable truths to those who refused to acknowledge what seemed to be self-evident to everyone else.

Terrorism: A Modern Scourge

The calculated and disturbing use of violence weighs heavily on my mind this evening as memories of the bombing in Boston continue to resonate. Even here in South East Asia, half a world away from the East coast of the US, security is being tightened. To what end nobody is quite sure. This is simply a reflex response to events beyond our immediate control and comprehension.

In times of orchestrated horror we tend to believe the myth that terrorism is an effective tactic for the weak and most vulnerable in our society. Striking anywhere at any time, terrorism is a grotesque form of theatre. It exposes the fragility of public safety while appearing to confer coercive power on the disadvantaged. As a weapon it can cripple optimism and blunt hope for a just world. But only if we allow that to happen.

For all is not necessarily as it seems. Concealed within despair are the seeds of hope. Disruptions to our daily routines, however traumatic, provide us with a rare chance to reframe principles, realign intentions, reinvent relationships and practices. At least that is the case if we have the presence of mind to stop and reflect, when all else conspires to have us sustain our rage at the sheer futility of hatred-fuelled violence. More often than not we ignore or disparage such opportunities. Indignation prompts us to dig in our heels and then to watch in dismay as the status quo entrenches itself and individual human rights are further eroded.

Which is precisely what terrorists want of course. Even the most terrifying acts of violence cannot shock without an audience to react. So what should that reaction be? What would cause terrorists to pause and reconsider the wisdom of such provocation?

From Boston to Iraq and from Gaza to Bali it appears nothing and nobody is immune from such ferocious unpredictability. Terrorist acts are a blemish on civilisation. Even the causes for which terrorists do battle, if and when they exist and irrespective of what they might be, are stigmatised by such brutality - degraded irreparably by an assault on human fragility and innocence.

Ultimately terrorism of any kind is an abomination, an act of cowardice that serves no useful purpose in the long-term. There can be no justification for it. No sane argument can ever condone the use of violence - other than at extremely unsophisticated and emotive levels of reasoning. Whether undertaken by irate and crazed individuals, ideologically-driven extremist alliances, or instruments of state, terrorism should be condemned. It does not become us. We are better than that.

Inculcating fear into the hearts of our opponents has been a hostile tactic used since the beginning of recorded history. But today a terrorist has access to a global congregation. Acts of terrorism are repeated ad infinitum by the news media so that they sink deeply into our psyche. As a consequence terrorism has become a scourge of modern life.

Hijackings, bombings, and slayings around the world may appear to be isolated events. But they all have one thing in common: they reflect a primitive faith in violence as a legitimate way to provoke social, political, or religious change. Terrorist acts are part of an absurd logic in which the ends justify the means - a philosophy that is pursued to its most irrational conclusions today. For while terrorism is undeniably disruptive and engenders fear, it almost always results in greater obduracy and a refusal to concede to threats.

It matters not whether it is viewed as a crime or a sacred duty, a justifiable response to oppression or an unforgivable atrocity, terrorism is a savage and highly immature response to situations where dialogue and diplomacy are deemed too weak or slow to effect enduring change.

While most commentators, especially right-wing radio jocks, stir passions and kindle hatred by focusing on international terrorism, it is actually home-grown fundamentalism that should give us more cause for concern these days. Artificially-imposed borders are increasingly porous. We traverse them constantly in telecommunications and airplanes. One might have assumed this raises the risk of global terrorism. The opposite is the case. As our society become more interconnected and empathic the threat of international terrorism decreases. On the other hand the numbers of home-grown fanatics are on the rise.

The root cause of contemporary terrorism is quite uncomplicated from an Earth-scale perspective. A burgeoning population of over seven billion people is putting our most life-critical systems under stress, to the extent that they are beginning to break down. Many people are now denied even basic rights such as food and potable water. Lives are incessantly at risk. At the same time an affluent elite, far fewer in numbers than ever before in relative terms, divorces itself from discomforting realities elsewhere to focus on acquiring even greater wealth, at the continuing expense of the disadvantaged. What used to be a worrying disparity a century ago is now a chasm, producing tensions and inequalities that demand resolution sooner or later.

Unsurprisingly the most common reaction to escalating inequalites in modern society is to apportion blame where possible (clearly exemplified in Britain this week as Margaret Thatcher, a powerful symbol of division even in death, is laid to rest) and, at the same time, to strive to have one's voice heard above the din of normalcy and compliance demanded by the state. This can be achieved gradually (through peaceful protest and social activism of various kinds) or more rapidly through unlawful violence. Terrorism!

The grief and incomprehension hanging in the air from terrorist acts like the Boston bombing, invariably accompanied by the oft-repeated resolve to bring the culprits to justice, suffuses our lives. This mantra blinds, often temporarily, any innate capacity we might have to understand and to forgive. But it must never be allowed to cloud our judgement. Nor must it lead to acts of vengeance, for that merely puts us on the same level as the perpetrators of violence.

So how should we deal with events that seem so senseless? How can we understand the psychological tensions and anxieties that lead people to commit such distressing acts of violence? And how might we eradicate terrorism from our lives - or is such a proposition simply wishful thinking?

A predictably limited range of strategies will be adopted in the US - some openly, others secretly - in the days and weeks ahead. Most of these ploys have been in use globally for at least the past decade. We have had plenty of time to convince ourselves of their effectiveness. In truth, though, they are costly, ineffectual and unsettling - motivated by a narrow self-interest and based upon a few flawed assumptions.

Moreover they relentlessly prop up existing conditions - particularly those aspects of our lives we enjoy and take for granted. We have fought many wars and sacrificed millions of lives to achieve and maintain key attributes associated with these life-conditions - attributes that include our indulgent quality of life, quirky purchasing habits, licentiousness and other liberties. Sadly a disconcerting dissonance arises from the fact that these same conditions and attributes are denied millions of others, or are abhorrent to them, to such an extent they are prepared to fight until they acquire them or destroy them, depending upon their beliefs.

Essentially there is only one humanitarian choice available to us if we would free the world from acts of terror. This choice could reframe current dynamics, transform our thinking, and eventually lead to a shift in the root causes underlying zealous fundamentalism. It requires an uncommonly long-term view of human progress. And it needs a different level of consciousness to surface what has not yet become obvious to the current batch of world leaders. But its greatest challenge is that it would compel us to let go of the manner in which our current life-conditions have been achieved and are still nurtured. Three factors would need to be deployed:

1. Calling a halt to all manner of state-sanctioned terrorism and installing instead a mix of empathy and constructive dialogue as a transparent and preferred model for civilized exchange and the intentional advancement of our species
2. Putting more resources into understanding the underlying causes of terrorist behaviour from multiple perspectives and diverse cultural lenses. This would require generous humanitarian engagement (transcending the need for violence) to produce co-designed solutions all parties could consider socially desirable, culturally acceptable and morally defensible
3. Using the new intelligence in alignment with peaceful motives to work together in creating a society where ideas, choices and the opportunity to celebrate our shared humanity are in unity and distributed more evenly.

It would be negligent of me not to mention two other alternatives. After all it is these strategies that form the basis of our approach today. It is likely we will continue to pursue these if the recent past is any judge.

First we can continue to shun the disadvantaged, the impoverished, and those who consciously choose not to adopt our truths or vision of what matters - in effect a selective culling through starvation, segregation, marginalisation, and other imposed forms of injustice. This strategy, motivated by selfishness, greed and deeply ingrained empirical ambitions, has endured for centuries. It is an agonisingly slow death and is an expensive proposition. But proof that it works is the very existence of terrorism.

Second we can continue to remain oblivious to the hardships and suffering of those less fortunate than ourselves, expressing surprise and outrage when they rise up against us from time to time, as they surely will.

Hopefully we will decide to pursue the former course before forces over which we have no control rise up in massive retribution against our most venerable institutions. Some may call this the dream of an idealist. I call it humanitarian pragmatism.

 

 

Riotous Fun & Speed

Organising as performance art

I want to write about two sublime examples of human beings at the peak of their abilities - individually and collectively. They know why they are doing what they do, pour joy and passion into how they do it, and attract undying and enduring loyalty from their devotees as a result. They are at the pinnacle of human achievement, never failing to enthral us each time they perform. The secret to their success is the insight that organising (of any kind) is a performance art and that risk is an integral part of that...

Then I want to pose the question: How can our business and government organisations be more like that - where dedicated allegiance to a higher purpose, liberated by mutual respect, trust and precision, takes us beyond what we thought humanly possible into an amplifying spiral of abundant value?

Mozart's gift was to write music that is perfection in its simplicity - astonishing at the level of craft, yet embracing a certain inevitability in its surface unfolding. Take any piece by this composer and listen to it performed by the Australian Chamber Orchestra - one of the most critically acclaimed ensembles in the world. In each intricate sound architecture there is not one note too many, nor one too few. Change a harmony and the work will be diminished. Displace a single phrase and the whole structure may fall. Yet the true genius of the man, if contemporary accounts hold credence, is that he wrote down such exquisite music as if it were already complete in his head. In effect Mozart composed the entire architecture of sound events, dynamics and relationships prior to committing it to paper.

What is even more extraordinary, from an organisational perspective, is that the tiniest and most subtle alterations in expression, including spontaneous nuances of tuning, timbre, tempo and dynamics, can be accommodated within the score, allowing Richard Tognetti and his players in the Australian Chamber Orchestra, to add their own vitality to the music with no loss of authenticity. We still hear it as Mozart. This is an astonishing example of creative synergy at work in spite of a 300 year gap between invention and realisation.

A Ferrari Scudera Formula 1 racing car is similarly engineered for perfection. Using sophisticated computer modelling, carbon composites and instant recalibration, each car is fabricated to be as fast and as agile as possible, within an established set of rules from which the team must not deviate, in pursuit of a ruthlessly self-evident goal.

Here impulsiveness and unplanned interpretations are excluded. There is no room for error when a pit stop, involving the fitting of four new tyres and a meticulous refuelling, can take less than 3 seconds when there are competitors trying to exit the pit lane ahead of you. How is that possible? The answer is precision. Every aspect of the car's performance, every component from chassis, tyres and engine to aerodynamics and transmission, plus every facet of a team working harmoniously as one, must combine in a performance that is as near flawless as humanly possible, from beginning to end.

Most company Boards would like to believe their staff capable of working together in ways where well-rehearsed practices lead to inspiring results and legions of loyal customers. Most would yearn for the impeccable speed, agility and synchronicity achieved by Ferrari's motor racing team. And many would give anything for the joyous vitality and inventive culture of the ACO.

But what would this take in practical terms? Is it simply too fanciful a proposition to be considered in the cut-and-thrust world of business? Certainly not. There are no industries more competitive than motor racing or the arts. Is there wisdom in these two examples that could be applied to the benefit of almost any enterprise? Undoubtedly. More pertinently, if that is the case, what are the most crucial lessons, and how might we use them to create organisations that verge on optimum effectiveness, are exciting places to be, and that generate socially beneficial, culturally desirable and economically efficient outcomes for many?

We could start by noting a significant divergence between the two examples, differences that are often ignored, glossed over, or misunderstood by executives who use sporting or musical metaphors without a great deal of thought as to their relevance in a particular situation.

Mozart's music is a complex adaptive system. Its genesis arose from a creative impulse over 300 years ago that continues to morph over time. Here is a dynamic system within which an infinite variety of purposes co-exist and require aligning, where there is zero organisational redundancy, and where many tiny, spontaneous, nuances can be incorporated in real-time without any loss of effectiveness. Indeed these tiny changes may enhance the overall performance without in any way, shape or form, detracting from the embedded aesthetic structure. These changes can even intensify our experience of the piece. In live concert music there can never be a performance which exactly replicates another. Actually that is the point. Generally speaking artists embrace spontaneity and shun predictability.

The Ferrari racing team is also a complex adaptive system of a different kind. Here there can be no unintended variety. Surprises introduce unacceptable risks and hazards. Instead predictability is deliberately sought and variation, of any kind, is the enemy. There is a single dominant goal - to finish the race intact, quickly, and faster than the other cars. To that end each element must fit perfectly into the overall schema in ways that support two individuals - Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa - by giving them the best possible chance of achieving the desired result. Meanwhile repetitive practice is considered to be the most effective means for enabling the team to function as a single, finely-tuned unit.

So what lessons can be learned and applied from these examples? How can we re-envisage the task of organising in ways that aspire to create systemic vitality and viability as a platform to launch enterprise brilliance? There are fundamentally two strategic leverage points within human systems that can alter energetics in ways that lead to improved performance and outcomes. They are (i) designing the whole enterprise, including its teleology, for abundance, and (ii) configuring people, ideas and relationships, to consciously unleash entrepreneurial energy. Liberated people are the alchemy of change.

Designing for Abundance

There are several aspects of resilient design worthy of reflection. Most importantly for those who work in business is the need to comprehend that many of the factors which constrain business excellence are precisely those used to liberate it in other domains. Here are the most notable of these factors translated into corporate terms:

1. Take the business ecosystem into account

Most executives are taught to focus just on their part of the business. Many can not even entertain a whole-of-enterprise mindset so fixated are they on improving their own patch. In this day and age such conventions are genuinely perilous.

Instead of always trying to optimise enterprise revenue, profits, value and productivity, efforts that almost invariably lead to unacceptable trade-offs at the expense of some other parties - particularly staff and customers - the business ecosystem, of which any enterprise is just one part, must also be considered by all those in strategic roles. Indeed envisaging the business ecosystem as it is supposed to function (in other words its ideal state) should be a daily practice for every strategic mind within the business. Without this knowledge, regularly updated, people will act unilaterally and blindly, market opportunities may be missed, operational risks will escalate and even the most resilient strategy will start to unravel.

But for this ideal state to be apparent, some kind of visual depiction of the system, in conjunction with a simple narrative explaining why specific performance outputs are desired, is vital. Many business organisations believe ensuring process capability will result in effective organisational performance. It will not. There are two reasons. Firstly, processes that are optimal in closed environments, can cause unforseen tensions and even functional crashes when interacting with other optimal processes in the broader ecosystem. Secondly, focusing purely on process detracts from a deeper understanding of an enterprise's unique role in the broader community and this, too, will constrain performance. It is the interface (of relationships, alignments and flows) between processes that matter, as well as how these blend to generate shared value. This is a simple fact of life and yet it is mostly ignored. The moral is to understand and embed your higher purpose in the business. Always start with this design in mind - just as Mozart did during his lifetime and just as Ferrari team manager Stefano Domenicali does today.

2. Viability before excellence

An organisation must be viable before it can excel. Viability infuses an enterprise with the potential for brilliance. Comprising both strategic and operational clarity constantly revitalised by relevant system-wide information, processed and conveyed in real-time among its members, a viable enterprise works seamlessly and silently to achieve its espoused purpose. Free flows of strategic intelligence across the enterprise are vital.

Without it members of the enterprise may well act in ways that are undesirable. If the string section of the orchestra is playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No: 23 and the wind section is playing Concerto No: 24 the result will be an excruciating cacophony - although the individual playing may still be technically true in both instances. It is only information provided by the Manager of the orchestra that prevents such silly occurrences. Yet this kind of absurdity occurs in companies all of the time when the higher level purpose, roles and activities are not made abundantly clear. The lesson is to ensure viability through assuring economies of flow and an environment that is transparent rather than closed to such information.

3. Improving productivity can be misguided

Attempting to maximise the productivity of the workforce in orchestras and racing teams, or indeed in any service-based enterprise, can backfire. In organisational systems there are two levers that can lead to improvement. The first focuses on identifying and then developing those capabilities, inherent or to be acquired, that are likely to bring success. The second attends to, or removes, any factors (sometimes referred to as system constraints) that are resulting in failure or poor performance.

Both of these levers require a profound knowledge of the system - a detailed forensic diagnosis, including why the system functions as it does - before actions aimed at improving productivity can be successfully implemented. This is especially the case when a few minor modifications are proposed.

As circumstances and external conditions are fluid and demand constant adjustment and recalibration, the foundations for performance excellence, especially continuity and viability, must be achieved and sustained in other ways. In the Ferrari team each member is responsible for a specific set of tasks and outcomes. In order to achieve these outcomes the team comprises exactly the right number of people; each of them a single point of accountability. This clarity of task removes indecision and uncertainty, particularly in moments of danger, while enhancing consistency.

The lesson is to approach strategic design from a whole-of-system altitude and to focus on what practically matters - not on abstractions, invalid assumptions, or theories.

People are the alchemy of change

Highly-committed, highly-skilled, smart and talented people, working together at the very edge of their capability and potential, are essential for peak systemic performance and for the transformation of any business. Depending upon the requirements of the score, an orchestra comprises just the right number of professional musicians with the requisite degree of innate talent and honed skills. The Ferrari team, too, will have not one person too many, nor too few, for that would put the entire operation in jeopardy. In any human enterprise there are a few critical imperatives to keep in mind:

1. We rarely exceed our own expectations

Putting a cap on what might be possible, by setting targets or insisting on a particular course of action (excluding unethical conduct of course) does not work well in the context of striving for excellence. It can even make life more dangerous than it needs to be in when imposed on a Ferrari racing team. This is why an expression of what is possible must remain forever open and fluid; while an explicit covenant of what is not acceptable must be evident and actively enforced. Only then can we surprise ourselves and others by lifting performance to unthinkable levels, taking us beyond what was previously thought possible. The lesson is to unshackle team potential rather than stifling it.

2. Individual contributions matter

Mozart's music remains an idea on paper until it is brought to life by the 18 musicians who are the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Likewise, a Ferrari race car can be seen as an impeccable combination of engineering know-how and competitive aesthetics. But it must be driven to its limits in order to realise the intentions underlying its design.

Assuming an organisation has the most appropriate talent available to it - smart, self-motivated, willing to learn, collaborate and adapt - people must be given the means whereby they can excel. Often this entails removing a raft of rules and regulations that are superfluous and can stifle innovation, without putting at risk the viability of the whole. It also means ensuring just the right number of people are working in the business on just the right activities. No more and no less. This is the enabling energy we call leadership. It is the role of Richard Tognetti in the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Stefano Domenicali in Ferrari, and the directors in any business enterprise.

3. Practice and rehearsal are essential

Individual skills and collective proficiency must remain in an advanced state of vibrancy in order to achieve excellence while avoiding potential hazards. Although esteem and self-confidence must never be allowed to falter, hubris must not take over. It is the ever-present comprehension that a small error can lead to catastrophe that keeps performers on their toes, to the extent that their attentiveness does not lapse, even for one moment. The lesson is the need to gradually raise the stakes by increasing performance expectations over time so as to avoid drift, disinterest and demotivation.

4. Variation is always present

In the context of provisioning for system improvement, variation is always going to be an issue. As we have noted in our two examples, variation differs in type and impact. Encouraged at some level within the orchestra, it cannot be tolerated in Formula 1 racing. The tendency in business organisations is to adopt practices that ignore the variation inherent in the demand for services and to usher in excessive controls instead. Unfortunately this has the reverse effect of what is intended. Forcing workers to meet a range of non-critical standards leads to them using their ingenuity to meet the standards - which is not the same as fulfilling customer needs.

Where operational control is put entirely in the hands of managers - the conductor in the case of the ACO - creativity will stall while performance will become stale and second-rate. The lesson is to avoid codifying method. Reinforcing management control over a talented team is discouraging and invariably dampens performance. It also leads every team member with a hammer to see every problem as a nail.

Co-incidentally the same lesson applies to fools who use tools that are entirely unsuitable for the task in hand - like the widespread use of "lean manufacturing" tools in service organisations where "waste" is not the same as in manufacturing environments, and where duplication - undesirable in manufacturing - can be a vital part of fulfilling customer needs in a service enterprise. The questions we should ask in these situations are: Who invented this tool? What problem were they trying to solve? Do we have the same problem here?

On time and timing

In addition to the lessons we can learn from companies like Ferrari and the ACO, both of whom organise themselves in ways that enable optimal performance, two important elements I have not yet mentioned have to do with time (and timing) and design philosophy.

It is pretty obvious that both the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Ferrari Scudera are acutely aware of time and how they can use it to their advantage, in a variety of ways, but invariably matched to the conditions in which they are operating from one moment to the next. It is the essence of their business after all. They know that planning requires a far more measured tempo than preparation. Practice takes that up a gear. But performance is on a different plane altogether. For when the lights flash green, or the baton descends in the spotlight, the situation becomes electric. Everyone is on edge as time blurs and the ordinary is transformed into the extraordinary.

Neither the race nor the concert can go on indefinitely of course. If our life lacks variety, particularly if we constantly work in performance mode, with all the tensions, physical stresses and high levels of concentration that entails, we quickly become worn-out through exhaustion. Such a frenetic pace is impossible to sustain for lengthy periods.

The opposite is also enervating. Contrary to conventional wisdom, many organisations suffer from change fatigue not because of the speed of change per se but because of frequent changes in direction or management whims, and the feelings of futility and tedium arising from these.

Changing the timing and pace of various activities helps to sustain high levels of performance. Bursts of concentrated activity can trigger innovation while providing a degree of focus that companies who insist on regulated, undeviating routines can never experience. Anticipation, too, is a great motivator. Indeed in some cases, anticipating an event can be more pleasurable than the event itself. Knowing that, why do so many organisations remove all sense of anticipation from their consciousness of time and timing?

The capacity to mix up the pace of change is often missing in organisations that insist on adhering to old-fashioned management controls as their rationale for managing risk. This is sad, not just because our conscious use of time is the epitome of artistic and sporting endeavour, and therefore one of the pinnacles of human achievement, but because shrewd timing can sharpen attention, increase morale, and sustain high levels of performance for indefinite periods.

An Easter Penance

I am the product of what is often euphemistically described as a broken home. I was just eight years old when my hitherto secure world imploded. In the space of a few minutes, though the emotional turmoil seemed unrelenting, I was parted from the person I most adored.

My dad was my hero you see. We were devoted to each other. If I ever became a father I wanted to be just like him. He was there for me whenever I needed him. He was always the first person to pick me up when I fell. The first to carry me on his shoulders. The first to crouch on the floor with me to play. The first to tell me bedtime stories about far-off exotic lands. The first to sing me to sleep.

I am sure he did not have a single enemy in the world. He was loved by everyone. Indeed my most vivid memory is of him standing on a tractor, steering with his foot, and yodelling at the top of his voice in encouragement of the village cricket team who waved back in wild enthusiasm at these clownish antics.

I have carried his absence with me throughout my life. It has become a void that will never be filled. My personal torment, undiminished by time, was probably compounded by the simple fact I was deprived of the chance to say goodbye. Without my father's love I rapidly withdrew into a profound silence. For weeks I did not utter a word. Nor did I shed a single tear. My mum was frantic with worry in spite of several psychologists reassuring her that mine was a normal reaction to the trauma of loss. I probably felt it was the best protection from things I did not yet comprehend. That would soon change....

One morning, weeks later, I was aroused from sleep by an unfamiliar sensation. I was trembling. There were butterflies in my stomach. Something within me had shifted. As if awakening from a coma, I closed the door on recent events, deliberately consigning them to a past over which I had been able to exert no control. New beginnings now seemed vaguely possible. The light streaming through my window on that crisp Autumn morning warmed not just the room but also my heart. I recall feeling tense - ready for what was to come but as yet unable to staunch the flood of conflicting emotions that wrenched me into a harsh and cruel present. My public mourning came to an end that day. It was the day I broke my silence.

I went downstairs, clung to my mother's apron, and cried. Sorry mummy, I wept, I just love my daddy and I want him back. But he is not coming back to me is he? The question was rhetorical. I knew the answer before I had asked the question. It was the first time I had spoken in over seven weeks. The first time I openly acknowledged the truth of my situation. Whether he had really loved me or not, the reality was palpable: my father had gone from our lives. It was a death of sorts, and my mum sobbed quietly with me.

Although still very much suffering from the shock of parting that was also the day I put my father to one side. In his place my mother, a gracious woman, highly protective of her youngest son and possessed of a puritanical work ethic, became the centre of my world. Relationships and travel and work and children did little to diminish her standing in my eyes. She remained that way until her death at the age of 97. Mum became the reason behind everything I did - a saintly woman who shone a light that would guide me on my chosen path through life. Nor did she once waver. Because of her strength and fortitude I became the person I never imagined I could be - though I did not know that at the time, such introspection being overwhelmed by my invisible yet all-consuming pain.

My father left his little family on the spur of the moment, or so I rationalised. In truth the manner of his departure must have been methodically considered - a strategy that is very common and which I myself ruthlessly copied many years later, albeit in different circumstances. But, unlike my own children who remain in close contact with me, I never saw my dad ever again. The rift broke my heart - though not my spirit and certainly not my determination to live an extraordinary life, of which dad, had he known about it, would have been proud to call me his son.

Although official statistics do not indicate abnormal behaviour, resorting to crime, or social delinquency is more prevalent in this population than in any other, kids whose lives are disrupted by poignant events are different. They adopt different survival techniques. This is not to imply any kind of inevitable descent into dysfunctionality. It is more an inner conviction I cannot refute. It is what it is. Leaving my first relationship (after 23 years of marriage, during which time my wife and I raised eight wonderful children) with so many misgivings and a burden of responsibility that still weighs heavily, merely reinforced for me the trauma involved when relationships of any kind break down. Guilt, anger, envy, disbelief, depression, devotion, resentment, shame. These are all factors that have to be accommodated and transcended at some stage. There is no escape - no quarantine from despair.

Children from broken families have to overcome emotional hurdles not usually encountered by those in more functional families. Most importantly they need to rapidly acquire coping mechanisms; beliefs and behaviours that will compensate in some small part for the emotional damage wreaked. These strategies can help get them through tough times, deal with stress, and adjust quickly should and when the need arise.

My personal reaction to this early encounter with loss and bereavement became entrenched in an intense resolve to let nothing in the future interfere with my sense of purpose and identity - nor with my destiny, whatever that turned out to be. At school, and then university, I remember feeling I warranted more attention than I was getting. Mind you I had absolutely no idea why or what that meant.

It manifested for the most part as a strong sense of connection - with nature, music, poetry and spirituality - but also a feeling of being alienated from most of my peers, with the exception of a small coterie of close friends, fringe dwellers like myself I suspect. Also, an intuition that my authenticity mattered, had yet to be discovered, and would probably differ quite significantly from what my friends, teachers and family wanted or expected me to be, was becoming more and more evident.

I suppose these things were nothing out of the ordinary for a child who was deemed to be shy and aloof with an artist's temperament for discovery. I was creative at least. But in the English school system at the time creativity was viewed with some disdain and an almost callous disregard. This was a decade before the liberation of pop-art in the 1960s legitimised all manner of creative experiments and social happenings. As a young man I came across as politely precocious, stubborn, disobedient and anti-authoritarian. This latter was possibly the worst crime, even for a genius, which I most definitely was not.

To this day I recall my most pressing behaviours, coping mechanisms that I still find useful, were aimed at finding proof of various kinds. Proof that reality is only what my own experience reveals to me. Proof that I had been loved unconditionally by my parents and could love unconditionally in return. Proof that I could remain true to my ideals as I grew up and matured into adulthood. Proof that I was not inadequate as a human being. And, more pertinently, proof that I could be both shy and outgoing, witty and serious-minded, athletic and academic, artistic and scientific - rather than complying with the theory of the time which would have none of such polarities. Seeking proof in a variety of circumstances was my way of dealing with life's turbulence.

In fact this approach was to illumine my chosen path in quite uncommon ways. I was caught up in day-dreaming as much as in serious study. I imagined new societies, new cultures, new learning systems and practices - and even new languages and cultures. A thirst for knowledge for its own sake engulfed my waking moments, emancipating me from allegiances that might usually be expected and considered normal in young people. There was no frivolous cavorting at parties, for example. An occasional beer at the village pub with close friends was a pleasant diversion. But girlfriends, smoking cigarettes, pornography and experimenting with drugs were all taboo. I was the epitome of an anti-social nerd. That I appeared to have absolutely no interest in the opposite sex became common gossip in the village. That I was in love with humanity, and the Earth we all share, remained hidden for many years - even from myself.

I have never spoken about this openly. Not even with my closest friends nor with my children who, years later, were justifiably distressed when I left their mother holding a two-year-old baby in her arms after 23 years of marriage. To think about all of this now is to open wounds unimaginably deep that have no substantive cure. Tears and sorrow are the sole therapeutic aftermath for breaking this conspiracy of silence. Any healing is only superficial. There is no hope of consolation. So why do it at all? And why now?

As we evolve, as individuals, as richly diverse communities, and as a species, we must rediscover how to weave life's lessons into a unifying fabric that serves all of humanity. Indigenous societies were practiced at this craft as knowledge was passed in narrative form from one generation to the next. By and large, however, we have lost the capacity for the communication of intimate knowledge, as well as the wisdom we classify as mythical - so as not to confuse it with our more pragmatic desire for productive or useful information.

An immense treasure house of knowledge, much of it unique, resides in us as individuals. We accumulate this information every minute of each day over a lifetime. But unless we are authors, artists, poets, scientists, architects and engineers, able to capture it in a communicable form, or become so publicly celebrated that our life is archived for others to appreciate, what we uniquely know dies with us. In other words much of our personal experiential know-how remains inaccessible to anyone other than ourselves. Although it must tacitly exist, we have no means available for accessing and using what is best described as the composite societal "brain" that is humanity. What a waste!

Recent advances in technology promise much. Currently, however, we lack adequate means for expressing and transferring personalized knowledge to others, tools for visualizing complex phenomena, observatories for identifying the whereabouts of potentially precious information, and reliable processes for extracting and using individual learning. If we had that capacity it would enable an emergent universal wisdom to be shared and used for the common good. At the moment it remains trapped within discrete memories and experiences - like flies in amber.

Lessons from my personal story are clear. Could I have been better equipped to deal with emotional trauma had I received some warning signals concerning the deteriorating relationship between my parents? Possibly. Could I have revived such lessons learned as a child to help save my first marriage? Again, that is entirely feasible. With relevant knowledge and foresight I might even have been able to circumvent both situations. But I was not afforded that luxury and one has to live with the consequences, especially when signals that would otherwise alert us to danger are either absent or too weak to perceive. Could things have been different if I had been able to reach into others' experiences in a way that gave me more options? Certainly. For that is the power that comes through distributed intelligence and a community of mind.

A final footnote will dispel any lingering sympathy you might have for me. My father tried to get in touch with me towards the end of his life. He was living in a nursing home on the south coast of Sussex, not far from where he had played with me as a boy. I was living half way around the world. His letter, only a few lines scrawled in a very spidery hand on lined paper, must have taken him a while to write. He was blind in one eye and suffered from debilitating arthritis, I was later told.

I waited a few weeks before replying. My response was pompously clinical - a typewritten letter, in which I went to great lengths to explain how much joy and love he had sacrificed by not being a part of my life and the lives of his grandchildren. I suppose I wanted him to feel some remorse or guilt. I did not ask him about his own journey. I showed not the slightest interest in his current circumstances. I did not even tell him I was still devoted to him and loved him with all my heart.

I never heard from my father again. He died soon afterwards. But because of that single, selfish lapse, my grief and my shame both persist. I have no doubt they will accompany me to the grave.

Yeeha Yahoo!

Although I have a reputation for being incredibly serious, people who know me well appreciate my wacky sense of humour. I smile a lot - mostly at my own antics. Staying centered, not taking oneself too seriously, and laughing at life's follies are all good for one's state of mind, we are constantly assured. My initial motive, I am pretty sure, was part of a conscious effort to survive the brutality of the British public school system with my sanity intact! Close friends believe it may have partially worked.

I am especially amused by whimsy - recipes that go badly wrong for no apparent reason, my young son's dexterity with his iPad, dog owners who shadow their pets armed with a plastic bag and a shovel, tourists gazing intently at maps, and singers who remain enthusiastically oblivious to the fact they are tone deaf, for example.

And then, of course, there is organisational lunacy, which is in a class of its own. All organisations spawn quirkiness, some of which can be hugely entertaining. Ricky Gervais's popular television hit The Office is proof of that. With few modifications this show even worked in the US. There are so many things about corporate life that crack me up. But none more so than some of the daft decisions made from time to time by people who should know better.

I invariably collapse in uncontainable giggles when I see voluminous reports on a company's cultural climate, for which the leadership team possibly paid millions of dollars, comprising all manner of impressive charts and statistics - yet not a single wise or truthful word. Or when a Board finds a new CEO they trust will work miracles, anouncing as much to all and sundry and promising zillions in profits to shareholders, only to realise a few months down the track that their superstar is human. Or again, when a new CEO assures everyone they can "fix the problem" (insert your own problem topic here) by recycling a cherished strategy that may have worked once upon a time, or by using the latest management fad as if it were a panacea for any old issue. "Look over your shoulder. Pay attention. Do you see what everyone else is doing? Okay. Duplicate that then, losers!"

All three cases are examples of lazy management - an inability or reluctance to think through the consequences. And all three are hilarious if you happen to be watching from the sidelines.

But pure whimsy can often slide into a theatre of the absurd when it comes to the clashing of egos in the world of international business. For example, it amazes me how swiftly self-styled business doyens will leap into the fray to cast doubt on each others' wisdom in recitals of mind-numbing triteness. But when an entrepreneurial CEO breaks free from the gang with painstakingly considered ideas about how to turn around poor company performance, howls of derision fill the airwaves. If the CEO also happens to be a young woman, beautiful and smart, ridicule can be viciously withering.

This was recently the case when Richard Branson, middle-aged marketing wizz-kid, entrepreneur extraordinaire and author of Screw Business as Usual, uncharacteristically weighed into a debate about recent changes in Yahoo ushered in by Marissa Mayer, the CEO of some 8 months standing, who was previously a high-flying executive in Google.

Mayer is an engineer and inventor credited with several patents in artificial intelligence and interface design. She is one hell of a smart cookie - wealthy, attractive and internet-savvy. During her short incumbency she has been panned for her fashion sense, her youth, her ambitions and her lack of "real" leadership experience - whatever that means. She has also been censured for providing free meals for her staff, for accepting the CEO's job when she was pregnant, for declining maternity leave, and then for bringing her baby to work. I must admit to finding all of this hysterically funny. But it has its serious side too.

As far as I can tell there seem to be three main reasons for the passive aggression shown to Mayer. The fact she is a woman, bucking sacred orthodoxies, and getting results others could not achieve.

1. The fact Mayer is a woman, and something of a celebrity too, challenges one of the few male bastions still relatively intact - leadership of a Fortune 500 company. The rare blend of technical brilliance, charm and dedication to her work also seems to have offended many feminists.

2. Mayer's commitment, carefully considered, to instigating a number of management changes that were long overdue, and of which a majority of the staff approve (such as abolishing the work-from-home policy which had been partly responsible for deteriorating levels of morale) led to an international outcry and managed to offend those people like Richard Branson who stand for novelty and seem to reject as regressive any policy deemed by them to be uncool. But it was a courageous decision - one that took fierce determination to push through and to sustain.

3. After some initial uncertainty and even anger from some employees, Mayer's overall strategy - aimed at boosting company loyalty, revitalising products, and putting innovation through collaboration back on the agenda - appears to be working. While many commentators viewed Yahoo as a poisoned chalice, business performance seems to have taken a turn for the better and morale is dramatically improving. Some commentators, hoping to be able to point to the rise and fall of Mayer, clearly find this unpalatable. We can probably put that down to jealousy or envy.

Actually many problems at Yahoo had been obvious for some time and clearly needed fresh thinking to be resolved. The company failed to spot the two foremost trends on the internet: social networking and mobile communications. Its home page and email services are relics, used mainly by people who never bother to change their habits. It ceded its crown as the biggest seller of display ads to Facebook and Google. Its stock price was falling....

But these are all explicitly business-related issues. Meanwhile, within the workforce, the culture had become dysfunctional. Motivation was absent. Bad habits had become widespread. A majority of employees assumed the company was on its last legs and had lost any desire to help change that perception. Mayer seems to comprehend what many other CEOs do not.  Addressing cultural forces like these are fundamental in providing a platform for business renewal. The two are inextricably linked.

A recent internal survey found that 95 per cent of employees were now optimistic about the company's future, a 32 per cent rise from the previous survey. Resumes have begun arriving from employees at competitors, which rarely happened in the past.

Mayer is the fifth CEO at Yahoo in five years. The previous four were clueless. They had no firm understanding of the internet and their appreciation of organisational culture was even less. Personally I believe Mayer's appointment will prove to be a stroke of brilliance. Only time will tell.

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Isn't it interesting that the Arab awakening began in Tunisia with a fruit vendor who was harassed by police for not having a permit to sell food — just at the moment when world food prices hit record highs? And that it began in Syria with farmers in the southern village of Dara’a, who were demanding the right to buy and sell land near the border, without having to get permission from corrupt security officials? And that it was spurred on in Yemen — the first country in the world expected to run out of water — by a list of grievances against an incompetent government, among the biggest of which was that top officials were digging water wells in their own backyards at a time when the government was supposed to be preventing such water wildcatting? - Thomas Friedman

In a world where literally everything is connected, I believe it is essential that we remember and value what many aboriginal societies discovered a long time ago: that social, environmental, and economic benefits arise from being able to develop and maintain an ability to think in terms of how people, objects and events relate harmoniously to one another. In modern parlance this is called systems thinking. It stems from biological science, though it is not something you will usually find taught in high schools.

The capacity to make connections that are not necessarily obvious at first glance is especially vital in situations where a variety of social, technological, cultural, environmental and economic threads are all mixed up and not easily unravelled. It is hard to imagine such a complicated tangle of conflicting patterns and dynamics without some kind of overarching picture or description of what we are dealing with - in other words the whole messy world of connections and interrelationships evolving over time.

Take one random topic: global food security. Here, industries such as health care, education, nutrition, agriculture, manufacturing and logistics are all influenced in different ways, from time to time, by a range of local events - such as droughts, land degradation, pest infestations, shipping disruptions, fuel shortages, famine, economic instability and wars. Moreover, underlying causal factors, beyond the control of any single authority - climate change and demographics, for example - must also enter the equation.

It should be clear from just this one example that throwing resources into solving discrete problems within one part of the system is likely to be ineffective and possibly futile - at least without a profound knowledge of how the entire thing works. It may even aggravate a situation that is already extremely fragile. Instead, critical thinking abount the entire system, its higher level rationale, networks of relationships, operational abberations and internal constraints, takes priority over everything else.

Systems mean different things to different people. Most commonly though, a system is best thought of as a set of interacting components that form an integrated whole - like a human body, an organisation, or a rainforest. Organic systems, too, as distinct from purely mechanical or information systems, can be defined in a number of ways. But essentially what we visualise when we depict or talk about an organic system is a multifaceted web of affiliations between agents, events, structures, processes and activities, that evolve over time in ways that are both predictable and uncertain. This latter tension results in what is often referred to as emergence - spontaneous events that were not anticipated, arising from the sheer variety and dense interplay within such structures. These systems are said to be dynamically complex and adaptive.

To make matters even more complicated some very large systems, like planet Earth for example, have a vast number of interconnected (higher level) meta-systems and (lower level) sub-systems, infinitely recursive, and all displaying similar degrees of sophistication. This richness, or intricate variety, is a potential impediment to a full understanding of the system under scrutiny. It can also coerce us into supposing we can grasp the workings of the entire system through radical simplification, or via a highly specialised, technical knowledge of the discrete parts. We cannot. That is a cruel delusion prolonged by our penchant for analysis - an inculcated way of making sense of the world.  There is certainly simplicity beyond the surface complexity, but that is only accessible to those who have the knack of synthesis.

Systems invariably behave very differently to anything we assume by examining the discrete parts. Rationality is often absent. Prediction is hit and miss. Even in situations where our technical knowledge of the various parts is extensive, our understanding of the whole will not be enriched one iota. It is true that we can sometimes approximate the likelihood of certain conditions occurring through the use of smart data and sophisticated computer modelling. But the slightest shift in assumptions regarding contextual conditions, or how variables spontaneously interact, will consign our findings to irrelevant conjectures very quickly.

An analogy often used to point out differences between living and mechanical systems is the stripping down of an automobile compared to the dismemberment of a horse. A mechanic can strip down a car and put it together again systematically with no loss of efficiency. Well-oiled and maintained, the machine's performance will be as good as new. Better even. The same cannot be said for the horse which will inevitably end up irreparably disabled, or dead.

So while being systematic will ensure technical functionality it cannot be relied upon to improve an organic system. A far more sophisticated understanding of the system's anatomy and physiology is needed in order to change the pathology or to improve the life-force within an organic system. Being systemic is to inquire into the complexity of living organisms and ecosystems in the hope of gaining profound knowledge (of that system) for change. While systematic evaluation occurs within methodical, deliberately ordered procedures, systemicity is about the evolutionary manifestations of the whole system - its past, present and possible states. These states can often be unpredictable and surprising - unless underlying constraints within the system, and within the system's external environment, are well understood.

We are schooled to be systematic and much of our everyday existence relies on this. However many of the problems facing humanity today are systemic in nature. The use of linear analysis and systematic thinking is not be very enlightening in our globalised world.

If we really want to understand the working of an organic system then pattern-seeking and synthesis, rather than analysis and prediction, become the most beneficial skills. Even then we are up against factors outside of our control. Bizarrely, as quantum physics has demonstrated, even the fact we can observe a system will change its behaviour in the most unpredictable of ways.

Quantum physics aside, the main point of misperception for many people is the difference between systemic states (generally unfathomable without an intimate knowledge of those key factors causing the system to constitute itself and behave as it does) and outputs systematically derived (which are mostly predictable and can be engineered to occur). Indeed the confusion between these two "effects" probably accounts for the number of times corporations optimistically reengineer discrete processes, expecting to get different whole-of-enterprise results, only to be bitterly disappointed when company performance remains much the same as before.

Another critical factor is the divergence in cognition and aesthetics when designing systems as opposed to processes. Linear design processes are used by engineers to assure robustness in structures. Security agencies use this kind of systematic thinking to minimise risk. It is also used in organisational design to assure efficient work-flows, for example. This kind of "linear" design thinking is at the core of good project management. It is methodical and watertight.

Organic systems, on the other hand, need to be supple, adaptive and responsive to even the most subtle changes in external conditions. Because of this the design of systems is altogether more ethical and holistic - a process of evolution requiring us to continuously monitor, map, navigate and recalibrate in order for the system to remain in alignment within its shifting context. If systematic practices are linear and planned, systemic methodologies are fluid, aesthetic, and endlessly adaptive.

The main point of this lengthy and pedantic explanation into the difference between systematic processes and systemic inquiry is to highlight situations where some of our more common practices serve only to reify bad habits. One example I have already mentioned occurs within corporations where the rigid, hierarchical nature of cultural structures, butts up against the linear materiality of most operational processes. In that environment almost any attempt to improve performance of the whole system will most likely fail. There are simply too many cultural and political constraints for a start.

That is not to say there are no alternatives. For example, one might begin with an in-depth appreciation of the various states the organisation has generated (and continues to produce) within its industry and/or community. A systemic inquiry could be conducted in which the most significant trends and patterns are sought. Where and how the system generates value (social, financial, cutlural) would be identified. Relationships, both significant and incidental, would be scrutinised. Beliefs, values, promises and brand resonance would each receive attention, especially where these conflicted or created unanticipated stress points. Abstractions or invalid assumptions about the workings of the business would be systematically eliminated during the course of such an inquiry. The resulting map or visualisation would reveal the few key factors that are causing unwanted or unnecessary results. Design - benign yet precise - would then identify the smallest of nudges to change the energy within the system for optimal performance. Configurations, processes, reporting relationships and structures might not need to be altered at all. But enterprise results would be transformed with the least amount of effort.

What will be apparent, even from this single example, is the synthesis required even to surface relevant patterns; the need for suitable tools for helping visualise complex information from various altitudes; the facilitation of an inclusive dialogue that is sufficiently sophisticated to avoid the traps set by ego, status, power and ambition; and a willingness to let go of current hypotheses in order to explore the whole territory before arriving at any preliminary conclusions. Generally speaking whole systems can be shifted with the tiniest of prods and with minimum disruption. The large consulting firms will not tell you that.

My other example is at an altogether higher level but illustrates the points around interconnectivity I was making previously. The world-system is often broken down into a number of life critical sub-systems (for example energy, industry and economy) with little or no appreciation for the dynamic connections between these domains, and even less for how they relate to create a viable and enduring whole.

A few months ago I gave the keynote address to a UNDP conference in Bangkok. My topic concerned the literacy of social and economic "development" and, in particular, how our assumptions about foreign aid need to shift. During the ensuing discussion, one of the participants from India asked what strategic questions we should be asking about recent events that could disrupt the prevailing paradigm. My interrogator was chiefly concernd with slum dwellers, whose numbers are set to increase from 1 billion to over 3 billion by the turn of this century, and how the wealthy will be mostly immune to any food shortages caused by global warming.

My response was to suggest two questions, for which I already knew the answers. First I proposed we should find out whether there is a correlation, or even a direct causal link, between the escalation of extreme weather events around the globe and the outbreaks of social unrest we are witnessing across the Arab world. There is.

I then submitted that a more profound knowledge of climate resilience might come from investigating the linkages between wheat shortages, price fluctuations and supply chain disruptions, caused by a number of factors including climate change, and the tipping point for revolutions. It does.

The fact that such causal relationships probably do exist is important for three reasons. First they illustrate the actuality that local hazards can easily escalate into global conditions. Second they help us work out what can be done to improve the overall efficacy and security of (in this case) the global food system. Third they act as potential acupuncture points for shifting the energetics within a social system, particularly in settings that might otherwise be considered too outlandish to be taken seriously. So, for example, nations in the Middle East could transcend the risks posed by climate change by investing in clean technologies. This would concurrently bolster employment as well as mitigating the more immediate impacts being felt from environmental collapse. This kind of applied foresight in government policy could turn two of the region's most formidable challenges into meaningful opportunities.

The first point I was trying to get across was one of interconnectivity - that everything is connected to everything else, but that we only become conscious of that when we have tools available to see that is the case. The second point has to do with purposeful design - that patterns we detect at one level, and the underlying causes for the way such patterms manifest (at a deeper level) are all linked in ways that matter in terms of strategic outcomes. So food security in one part of the world is linked to peace and stability in far distant places. Renewable energy initiatives can lay the foundations for green growth in arid territories while water conservation projects to enhance climate resilience could bring otherwise-divided communities together, thereby helping to resolve conflict across an entire region.

Ultimately the nexus between human rights, biodiversity, natural resources, climate change, urbanisation, food security, migration and social discontent all synthesise into a fundamental pattern that can only be discerned and adequately addressed through engaging in systemic design. Without that capabilty the more toxic impacts from these patterns will deteriorate and the world-system will turn on its dark side. I would like to think that the re-design of our world-system in this way might result in a new social contract for the human family in which radical empathy, cooperation and equity are all writ large.

 

The Fog of War

Being human is to be fallible. We all have frailties and flaws. Sometimes these are of little consequence. But often we feel ashamed of our shortcomings and try to hide them by compensating for our mistakes in some way, quickly moving to correct the more blatant errors, rationalising our way out of a situation, or simply pretending nothing happened or, if it did, we are not personally culpable.

Most poignant, though, is when mistakes are openly acknowledged, manifestly regretted, and forgiveness sought - if that is appropriate.

Human shortcomings are most clearly on show, and thus most easily censured, in situations where the full glare of the media spotlight falls on an individual - especially when those in public office are called upon to exercise wisdom and fall short.

Naturally, it is very easy to criticise with hindsight. In truth it is impossible to fathom the myriad conflicting thoughts and emotions that tug people this way and that when under extreme pressure. In that context I am always fascinated by the principles, often unspoken, that guide the decisions of our most eminent judges, law-makers, elected officials, and industry and community leaders.

It was this curiosity that led me to watch yet again a remarkable documentary. The Fog of War meticulously examines the reasoning underlying the actions taken by Robert S. McNamara when he was US Secretary of Defense, during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the Western allies.

McNamara was 85 years old when the movie was filmed giving him the advantage, one might expect, of a heightened awareness of why events during his tenure unfolded in the manner they did, and a reflective sagacity that comes only with age. I was not disappointed. Here was a remarkable figure - one of the very few public servants who looms large in 20th century narrative. Irrespective of one's feelings about McNamara the man, the film leaves little doubt about the influence he was able to wield and his sincerity in using the power that came his way.

He becomes strangely emotional when pondering the nature of his close relationship with Presidents Kennedy and Johnston, less so when acknowledging his own mistakes and those of his associates. All in all McNamara comes across as shrewd, meticulous, and logical rather than a towering intellect. At times he appears genuinely self-effacing and reflective - a humility in stark contrast to the arrogance he often displayed when in office.

What is so moving, however, are the moments of truth - those times when his values, set out in the movie as a set of principles in which action and commentary are embedded, fail him in terms of moral guidance. This becomes particularly evident during the movie's Epilogue. Indeed it is only when McNamara becomes unusually reticent, opting for silence by evading any further interrogation into his deeper motives or feelings, that we sense an underlying anguish. What originally comes across as unwavering self-belief turns out in the end to be built on a quicksand of fragility and doubt.

I am translating the term "failure" not as an unfortunate discrete decision, nor even an action in which trade-offs result in unintended consequences, but in the more explicit sense of a consciously chosen credo (in the form of eleven principles which, on the surface, are non-exceptional) totally unable to accommodate and adapt to the messy milieu generated when a variety of cultural mindsets all interpret conditions differently.

This is most apparent in McNamara's pessimistic rationale that human nature is impossible to change and that sometimes, in order to do good, we must resort to doing evil. After some genuinely enlightened insights - that it is vital to empathise with one's enemy in order to limit any potential destruction that can be caused through callous indifference, that rational behaviour cannot save us, and that even seeing and believing is not always truthful, for example - this despairing conclusion that human nature is permanently fixed and that conflict is thus an inevitable part of the human condition, is both a tragic miscalculation and a moral blunder of monumental proportions.

The greatest tragedy is not that the surfacing of shared meta-perspectives (from which alternative, more mutually-beneficial choices might emerge) is precluded, but that McNamara senses our capacity to avoid war will forever remain just beyond our grasp. We are all burdened and traumatised by such ennui - ultimately trapped by what we assume "to be human" means.

The final impression of McNamara left by The Fog of War is of a thoroughly decent man, motivated by patriotism, loyalty and service to a cause that was beyond himself, but ultimately persuaded by a set of universally acceptable, yet utterly conflicting principles, into escalating conflicts that served no real purpose.

We are all trapped in prisons of our own invention - belief systems that cause us to see, act and imagine the world a certain way. It is also axiomatic that we make decisions within these bounded belief systems, and then allow those decisions to shape us. If humanity is to transition to a more empathic and abundant worldview we must find ways to step into new epistemologies - ways of knowing that let us see conflict and war not as inevitable but as the most crude and destructive choice we can make in almost every situation.

The Leader's Dilemma

We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented

                                                                  Peter Singer - Ethicist

Leaders across the world, young and old, men and women, in every sector of society, are encountering a moral dilemma that is fundamentally different from the many ethical dilemmas they face every day of the week. What is far more intriguing is that possibly 99.9% of those in leadership positions go about their business entirely unconscious of this fact. Rather like the weird laws of quantum physics that reconstrue our reality, this issue is outside of their comprehension.

So What's the Problem?

In a word - ethics. There seems to be much attention afforded ethical leadership these days. So much so that we might be forgiven for wondering whether such inordinate fascination with the topic arises from the prospect that integrity is simply rare in today's leaders, or moral responsibility is deemed to be only a minor facet, and therefore a potential distraction, for aspiring leaders.

After all, in a competitive world, the determination to win at any cost has been a slogan famously touted, and relentlessly and passionately pursued, by business corporations, government agencies, and sports clubs alike. The corporate conscience, particularly, is typically wedged into a risk and compliance framework where any responsibilities for a "higher" purpose can be conveniently excluded. The fact that this device nearly always works against the company's best interests is ignored.

The recent ruckus surrounding US cyclist Lance Armstrong is a case in point. In his shrewdly stage-managed television appearances with Oprah, Armstrong's admissions of wrongdoing were pronounced more as a mark of disdain for his detractors than as any implicit personal dishonour. Similarly, many high-flying business executives and celebrity politicians are taught that winning is the only imperative. How one wins is much less important. At the end of the day it is only the numbers that count. They almost appear to be saying, What's the problem? What price principled behaviour in such settings?

But instead of going down this well-worn path, railing in righteous indignation at the obscenely excessive wages awarded some CEOs, gross misconduct in companies like Enron, rate-rigging and insider trading scandals on Wall Street, the graft encountered when doing deals with family-owned businesses in Asia, and the flagrant immorality of dictators like Assad in Syria who care only for themselves and their entourage, let us pause for a moment and reflect on this issue from a higher altitude.

As ethics is a branch of moral philosophy it is pertinent to start by trawling through some fundamental questions vis-à-vis what we mean by the term ethical leadership; what role context plays in surfacing ethical leaders; and what values are assumed to be virtuous from the meta-ethical viewpoint of leading. Only then, I believe, can we reach any firm conclusions regarding the relevance of ethics in leadership today.

To be quite clear: I see a preliminary inquiry of this nature as an inherently ethical task in its own right - an essential step prior to advocating any preferred code leaders could or should adopt in order for their leadership to be considered ethical.

If ethics is essentially the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong, assuming there even is such a thing as right and wrong, then ethical leadership is presumably the embodiment of an explicit set of objective principles we can access to help us choose which practices are most likely to help or harm others in any situation.

The two phrases in italics in the previous paragraph expose the crux of a problem too frequently glossed over. Are constructs such as right and wrong absolute - unvarying from one age to the next and from one cultural group to another? Or are there subtle variants we are obliged to take into account before labelling any act unethical? Major differences of opinion over emotionally-charged issues such as abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment, for example, seem to indicate that ethical behaviour depends upon the circumstances, and is therefore relative to specific individuals, culture or time.

This flies in the face of most mainstream religions, particularly the great monotheistic traditions, which all hold ethical relativism to be naive and morality to be objectively true. As all the great religious movements invariably hold themselves to be authorities on ethical behaviour it behoves us to take their views into account. That is not to imply they are necessarily correct. If morality is objectively true, and consequently applicable universally, what set of foundational principles exist to help us determine right over wrong? In spite of the obvious answer to this question from a religious viewpoint, making such judgement calls is increasingly difficult in a world as complex as ours, and where context is a kaleidoscope of continuously morphing life-conditions.

There are at least three fundamental factors that potentially complicate our capacity to distinguish between right and wrong - especially in situations that are foreign to us or outside of our own cultural milieu with its familiar semiology and phenomena. There is also a fourth factor that could actually enhance our capability to discern right from wrong - irrespective of context. The first three factors are:

1. Our worldview and the world-system that manifests in a corporeal sense as a direct result of that worldview
2. The evolution of that worldview in terms of epistemological progress - possibly best explained by Clare Graves as a never-ending quest for higher-order systems as existential problems change and become increasingly complex
3. The various cultural mindsets and social theories-in-action we are conditioned into utilising when interpreting the prevalent worldview.

The compensating fourth factor is a human neurophysiology that intuitively enables us to sort right from wrong by following what our heart (a viable neural network in its own right) is telling us. Unfortunately this innate capability has been allowed to remain dormant in a world that values material, explicable, artefacts over the affective domain of felt sensations.

I want to expand on each of these very briefly before returning to the issue of ethics and the moral dilemmas facing today's leaders.  

1. Worldview & World-System

Our worldview is a shared cognitive construct - a suite of interdependent beliefs and assumptions "about" our physical reality. It manifests as palpably "real" in terms of a world-system full of the multiple expressions of what it means to be part of humanity. In terms of quantum physics the worldview brings the world-system into concrete materiality, and this then reifies the worldview.

We take the world-system for granted. It is the bedrock of our existence - the life conditions we discern and experience each day and the social milieu in which we are immersed from birth. It matters little whether we were raised in the parched deserts of Sudan, the chic urban landscape of Paris, the dense rainforests of Borneo, or the congested slums of Mumbai. Regardless of where or how we live, what money we earn, the specific skills we have acquired, or our social status, the world-system is as natural to us as the air we breathe.

It is important to understand that the worldview and world-system are different modes of consciousness - not just equally "real" but reflections of each other. Research into neuro-plasticity (the ability to change the physical configuration of the brain through changing thought patterns and behaviours) is already substantiating that proposition.

Worldview and world-system have reified each other for around 50,000 years - that era in human evolution when the notion that life had meaning and direction beyond mere survival first gained credence. Along the way, both have been nourished by a stream of fluctuating sentiments about human purpose and capability and tested in a cauldron of competing ideologies. These forces have forged an ethos comprising an internally congruent set of eight attributes that collectively define what seem to be indisputable truths concerning humanity. Putting ideology and politics aside:

1. Humanity can be sorted into two groups - a small class of privileged "owners" serviced by a much larger and compliant underclass of "serfs"
2. Wealth and power acquired by the privileged group is protected via various political, military and policing mechanisms
3. An all-encompassing dogma - in which it is believed an elite few within the privileged group possess a higher wisdom, or are representatives of a deity or divine beings - endures in some form
4. An industrial war machine is viewed as a crucial component of the economy and held up as validating the inherently combative nature of the species
5. Most aspects of production are controlled by the privileged group - through ownership, language and access to services and skills, for example
6. Games, entertainment and mass media are deployed as a social distraction in ways that help maintain compliance within the social order
7. Nature is exploited as a "God-given" right given that humans (made in the image of God) are superior to all other forms of life
8. A compelling narrative within society, based upon competition, scarcity and difference - is used to manufacture consent.

This set of eight attributes does not imply a universally applicable monist integrity. On the contrary our worldview is something of a chameleon, changing its tone, colour and intensity over time according to its changing surroundings and cultural maturity, as described below. But the critical thing to note is that this worldview was instituted, shaped and given legitimacy by us. As a social construction it is a designed artefact and can be rejected, remodelled or transcended. If that is what we want.

Until now it is explicitly what we have not wanted - nor even anticipated as being necessary. I cannot find evidence of any serious or persistent critique that comes close to challenging the veracity of our worldview. Indeed across the sweep of history, in every culture, architects of the bloodiest upheavals and social entrepreneurs behind the most compassionate enterprises alike, have unconsciously assumed the validity of this credo.

So it is fair to presume that this worldview is the preferred epistemological framework for homo sapiens, that we have not yet been compelled to discover substitutes, or that we are not sufficiently capable of understanding it to the degree that reinventing it (or at its more pernicious aspects) becomes feasible.

Within the boundaries of the prevalent worldview the choice between good and evil is clear. Loyalty to the leader is good. Disloyalty is bad. Killing is legitimate if it is in service to the elite. Evil if it is not. And so on. Adhering to these principles is an autonomic response. In other words we do not even have to think about it. 

There can be no doubting the current worldview has brought great affluence, health and well-being to many millions of people. The reservation I have is whether it can do the same for the one billion people eking out an existence in urban slums, and those billions of the Earth’s inhabitants who are on the cusp of starvation, have no security, shelter, income or education, and are victims of injustice and discrimination.

The privileged in all contemporary societies - essentially those who control the flow of money, ideas and resources, including elected and self-appointed leaders, the priesthood, public intellectuals, high wealth industrialists, bankers, politicians and their advisers, royalty, business corporations and industry lobbyists - put most of their effort and capital into preserving and reinforcing the existing order. And why not? They have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are and, let's face it, some things are just too difficult to change. Nor is embracing an existing state of affairs and safeguarding venerable institutions necessarily a bad thing. Indeed it can be stabilising and comforting – something most of us yearn for at some stage in our lives.

But occasionally, betrayed by hubris and distracted by the very means that have been constructed to maintain consent, the old-guard fail to heed the all-too-obvious signs of impending catastrophe.

Arrogant leadership, inadequate or flawed information, and decisions driven by vanity rather than wisdom have instigated almost every contemporary tragedy - from the sinking of the Titanic to the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger and even the collapse of Enron and Lehman Brothers. Now it seems, with climate change, we may be heading into a situation that threatens humanity itself. Yet we continue to ignore warning signs, convinced of our invulnerability and oblivious to the damage already being wreaked by the “lock-in” to our industrial worldview and the financial structures underpinning it.

The privileged are unlikely to change their ways until they feel pain. But wealth can quarantine us from the worst of adversities. In practical terms we know that if climate change turns out to be as disruptive to our way of life as scientists are predicting, it is the poor, the disadvantaged, and those who remain trapped by circumstances, who will suffer most. The elite can still sleep easily in their beds. 

2. Epistemological Progress

Although structural elements persist, more or less intact, as normative practices within the world-system, psychological aspects of our worldview mature and evolve. They are part of an unending human quest for advancement. Triggered by increasing contextual complexity, the worldview adapts (literally changes its mind) to accommodate new life conditions.

Clare Graves, a student of Abraham Maslow, identified six stages of epistemological development within the worldview at its most basic (1st tier or subsistence) level - an evolutionary process spanning the past 100,000 years. Each of these six stages, he concluded, co-exist today - within individuals, communities, and entire cultures.

Graves also proposed a further two stages (2nd tier variants) in a process he supposed would eventually comprise an iteration of all six stages - but from a higher level of consciousness. Two of his students, Don Beck and Chris Cowan, later turned Graves's theory into a colour-coded hierarchy of "memes" (systems of core values) which they called Spiral Dynamics.

More recently, philosopher Ken Wilber pointed out that leaps in development from one "version" of the worldview to another typically occur in a manner that transcends and includes what came before, rather than destroying it. So, for example, the rational logic of Enlightenment thought did not eradicate passion. 20th century science did not wipe out spirituality. Both were integrated into a more holistic knowledge base within which to appreciate and celebrate human existence.

This is an important lesson. If the survival of our species depends upon reinventing the current worldview - removing its more iniquitous qualities in the creation of a more benign and compassionate society - then that reinvention must transcend and include previous versions of the worldview, rather than trying to eliminate them, pretending they do not exist, or treating them as in some way inferior.

We will certainly not find that at all easy. To reject what is breaking down, so as to embrace more relevant, effective models, is an intrinsic human trait. Overcoming tensions inherent between different versions of the worldview, also requires a rare maturity. This is evident when observing the clash of values between indigenous communities (Beige-Purple memes in Beck & Cowan's taxonomy) and the modern world (Red-Blue-Orange memes); in tactics used by the environmental movement (Green meme) when opposing the fossil fuel industry (Orange meme); and even when multinational corporations (Orange meme) use every trick in the book to avoid paying their fair share of state-imposed taxes (Blue meme).

In terms of leadership ethics, the more significant factor for us to contemplate is not so much the individual memes, though these are fascinating topics for exploration in their own right, but the changes in existential conditions that are activating a leap in consciousness, accompanied by intense transitional turbulence, between the 1st and 2nd tiers of evolution Graves had anticipated.

Comprehending life's conditions through various epistemological lenses also entails departing from the relative clarity and consistency that was evident within the framework of the worldview. But as soon as we descend from this paradigmatic level we run into trouble. Changing epistemological conditions explains why, at a certain time, we threw Nelson Mandela into gaol as a terrorist and then, as time passed, released him and hailed him as father of his nation. It sems we can live with such apparent inconsistencies without so much as flinching.

3. Cultural Conditioning

Whereas our worldview is a shared, albeit largely unconscious construct - a paradigm we tacitly accept without question that seems to develop, in epistemological terms, by "transcending and including" previous versions of itself - mindsets are many, diverse, pliable and osmotic.

Originally arising from a unique combination of cultural and social conditioning, as well as collective responses to shifting contextual and environmental circumstances, each cultural mindset is an idiosyncratic "lens" through which we sense, make sense, and process meaning. Varied expressions of these meanings are then enacted locally. These expressions of meaning, or behaviours, are autonomically shaped to fit within the prevalent ethos of the worldview.

Historically speaking mindsets evolved in one of two ways. First through the merging of two or more cultural systems - which occurs when one country conquers and inhabits another. So, for example, detritus of the Dutch and French occupation of colonies in South East Asia are still embedded in today's societies. Second by way of modifications to customs and rituals (although rarely myths, which seem to remain mostly intact) when other traditions are encountered and subtle elements of the "new" system are absorbed through cooperative interaction - as in trade or education, for example.

In both cases, some patterns, most evident in vernacular and specific rituals, though initially distinct, gain in prominence while others, often for no apparent reason, fade in significance or simply vanish altogether. Recently, moreover, the globalisation of new social media has had the effect of hastening the morphing of traditional mindsets, including the venerated Sinic-Confucian, Indic and Occidental traditions, fracturing them into many new hybrid forms.

Once upon a time humanity's dissimilar mindsets contained astonishing variety. The homogeneity brought by modernity now threatens to destroy much of that richness. Languages, for example, so vital in preserving distinct cultures, are in a state of rapid decline. Some experts estimate that only 50 per cent of the languages alive today will be spoken by the end of this century. With the death of each language we squander a vast cultural heritage. A unique "imagining" of the world disappears forever.

This is not just a romantic or aesthetic passing. Contained within each language is an understanding of how discrete human communities relate to the world around us as a cornucopia of scientific, medical, botanical and adaptive knowledge. More crucially, we lose unique expressions of humanity and testimonies composed over centuries of life on this planet. We also lose perspectives that might give us valuable clues as to how we can reinvent the prevalent worldview in ways that make sense and do not set human progress back.

So now we have posed a further complicating factor in terms of ethics. While the principles determining what is good and bad are clear within the worldview we share, becoming slightly warped within the context of epistemological development over time, the fact of differing cultural mindsets as interpreting filters now allows for ethics to become trapped within a paradox of uncertainties. In this domain, particularly when intentions diverge, there can be no absolute moral authority concerning the composition of ethical leadership. We need to qualify any judgement with the phrase - it all depends....

4. Human Neurophysiology

As I mentioned earlier in this essay, we all inherit a neurophysiology that can be used intuitively to help us separate right from wrong in specific situations. The fact is we have allowed this gift to lie dormant in a world that values material, explicable, artefacts over the softer, affective realm of felt sensations.

Recent research in neuroscience provides compelling evidence that our experience of life is not purely a function of cognitive knowing but can also be accessed as feelings within both the cardiac and enteric neural networks of the body.

In terms of ethical conduct we sense warmth and compassion in the heart. Conversely, unethical behaviour is felt in the the gut - as pangs of guilt and even remorse. We also now know these neural networks combine to create the multiple intelligence feedback loops we need in order to fully engage with and contribute to society. That is how we are able to love, spot malevolence, react to danger, empathise, protect innocence, find joy in music, show respect, and take flight.

Information gleaned from the cardiac and enteric neural networks are not mediocre or primitive forms of intelligence, nor are they in any way inferior to that produced by the brain, though we regularly treat them as such.

Both kinds of intelligence dominate in the survivalist (Beige meme) and animistic (Purple meme) versions of our epistemology. Because of that they are perhaps most evident in parts of the world that are relatively isolated from the rest of civilisation. In these locales they are used to help people decide when to congregate together for safety, who to trust, where to locate drinking water, and how to live off the land.

Such widespread usage suggests that, with practice, these highly refined forms of intelligence can act as a clear moral compass for those of us trying to navigate the complexity of contemporary life conditions.

Theories-in-Use

There is one other vital piece of the contextual puzzle we should take into account before advancing any firm conclusions regarding ethics in leadership. It has to do with how we define leadership, and our expectations of leaders, in the first place.

The leadership literature (a relatively recent and mainly US-Eurocentric phenomenon) exposes three mainstream "source theories" as the basis for the phenomenon we label leadership. Most of our expectations about leaders and leading are embedded in just two of these - charismatic theory and contingency theory. But all three theories reflect the life conditions of the era in which they were originally conceived.

A little over a century ago the sociologist Max Weber suggested that strong leadership centered around what he called charismatic authority. Weber's proposition was that people would willingly follow any visionary individual whose perceived exemplary character, valour or standing was such that people were charmed into his ambit. The implicit assumption was that the most effective leaders had appealing personalities.

Contingency theory dates from the mid-sixties when Fred Fiedler, an organisational psychologist, introduced a radical idea that had nothing to do with personality. He proposed there was no ideal model of how best to lead. On the contrary, he suggested the optimal course of action depended upon the circumstances. In other words he assumed that for every situation there was an ideal leader, with an ideal course of action, waiting in the wings. Several contingency approaches, including the highly popular Situational Leadership model, were developed concurrently in the late 1960s. It could be argued that the entire head-hunting profession is based on contingency theory.

A decade later Robert Greenleaf initiated a more humanistic approach to leadership. His ground-breaking "servant-leader" philosophy advocated a participative approach to leadership and work. Until then it had always been assumed power should be held and exercised by a single authority - the leader - which, in most cases, is the CEO of a company or the Prime Minister in a cabinet. Greenleaf's model challenged the entire authoritarian belief system and has since enabled many liberating kinds of leadership and ways of organising to emerge.

Action-research undertaken by The Hames Group with an international clientele from around 1998, which resulted in my book The Five Literacies of Global Leadership, concluded that the most relevant leadership practice for today's life conditions is one that relates to the theory of social identity as formulated by social psychologist Henri Tajfel. He suggested people tend to align their identity and self-esteem with any group capable of including and expanding that uniqueness within a broader community of purpose.

This coincides precisely with our definition of Five Literacies leadership: an integral praxis in which 2nd tier perspectives enable the transcending of ego in favour of an intense empathy with group culture that is continuously concretised. Five Literacies leaders experience the wholeness of existence through profound interconnectivities that mark us as a single dynamic human family. Whether it is Warren Buffett's activist approach to philanthropy, Lynne Twist's passion to empower the indigenous people of the Amazon through her Pachamama Alliance, Ai Weiwei's determination to hold a mirror up to Chinese authoritarianism, or Richard Branson's undertaking to "screw business as usual", Five Literacies leaders see abundance where others see scarcity as they mindfully collaborate to improve one or more aspects of the human condition.

In terms of ethics, the implications of these three source theories for leadership are startling. For if the wisdom to act with sapience - the capacity to reflect on our own consciousness - is the primary trait distinguishing human beings from other animals, then the ability to exercise free will in the choices we each make becomes a moral imperative. Indeed one might argue that any form of overt external manipulation is potentially unethical. By reinforcing the supposed superiority of certain individuals over others, the theory of charismatic authority fits the prevalent worldview immacutely. This explains why it is so popular. But in practice, the conscious manipulation of another person's choices is wide open to unprincipled behaviour, especially in cases where it results in people genuflecting to the leader merely in order to keep their job or to avoid conflict.

Similarly, the use of contingency theory, too often used in business as the justification for newly-appointed leaders being given sole discretion over the fate of others is, in my judgement, unconscionably immoral. At least in circumstances where knowledge has advanced to the stage where we should know better.

Residual Doubts

Because of the complexities and subtleties in the few key issues I have raised here, all of which, apart from the neurophysiology we seem to have neglected in preference to more hard-edged data, have the potential to hamper our ability to decide what is right or wrong in any situation, I am assuming ethical relativism to be a more accurate hypothesis in an age characterised by intensifying dynamic complexity but muddied by increased cultural homogeneity.

Moral and ethical dilemmas are strewn in the path of today's leaders, especially those who are intent on preserving competitive trade-offs and strategies for provisioning based on scarcity, from "subsistence" (1st tier) levels of the worldview, at a time when the imperative to lead has shifted to a 2nd tier platform, where a revitalised sense of being, and a new kind of society with a hive mind and holistic morals, yearns to be born. In that, as in every other context, it is a common error to reach hasty verdicts concerning a leader's integrity and authenticity, especially when our conclusions are based purely upon observable behaviours. We would do far better to spot empathy, to examine the alignment of vocabulary and intentions, and to note their ability to be a force for good.

I have always held profound questions to be more enlightening than answers. Clearly there are many awkward questions implied by the points I have raised. For example, can present-day leadership be regarded as ethical and relevant if it is not from a 2nd tier perspective? If there are critical ethical differences between different mindsets, which one should prevail if consensus is important? The one with the most adherents? The one with the loudest voice? Or the one that most consider "morally correct" within the context of the prevailing worldview? If the latter, who is to say what is morally correct? Should a lack of pertinent information be tolerated as an excuse for unethical behaviour? If so what about denial? Can an ethical leader act in the best interests of a minority? If someone is branded a terrorist by one group and a hero by another, who should we believe and what factors might change our opinion? And if a majority of people hold a leader up to be good, does that necessarily affirm his or her temperament to be ethical?

Any lingering doubts or preliminary conclusions I might have concerning leadership ethics can be inferred from the two fundamental questions I now put to myself.

1. Does the opportunity to lead entail making a moral choice?

Western leadership models based upon charismatic and contingency theories all take observable behaviours as the ultimate predictor for interpreting a leaders' motivations and, additionally, for identifying leadership potential. Leaders acquire greater wisdom and maturity through a mixture of innate talent and experience - and this is evidenced by the results. So leadership in this context is inevitably focused on extracting better performance (from others) without questioning whether the purpose behind what is being done is relevant, sustainable - or ethical. In effect, by ignoring the question why, any hypothesis that leadership involves making a moral decision and sticking to it is conveniently dodged. But surely almost every strategic choice in today's world is a moral one?

Let's take the example of a large international coal mining company. Prices are firm and exports to countries like China are at an all-time high. These are boom times and the senior executives are rewarded appropriately. Profits are good and shareholders are happy. But that is only today's reality. What of the future? Even the International Energy Agency, the peak body for the fossil fuel industry, concedes that we probably need to leave 80 per cent of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground if we are to keep within a "safe" climate where temperatures rise by only 2° Celsius. Does our CEO factor that kind of information into the company's strategic plans or does he adopt a wait-and-see tactic? This is not a simple decision.

Even if he is an enlightened soul and wants to make a difference by insisting the company invests more in renewable energy, should he view the current constraints within today's value chain as a constant? And if so, how does he then deal with the many, complicated, return-on-investment variables in the alternative energy conversation that would be bound to impact detrimentally on the annuity value of the bonds that went to finance current operations? Should he highlight the social cost of transformation in order to transcend current realities, or try to hide it as a potential impediment to change?

With bond markets representing close to the equivalent of 70% of the GDP of Europe and 60% of the US GDP and with over 30% of global institutional investment and pension value invested in these long-maturity instruments, it is reasonable to expect that the cost of clean energy will require an intermediate realignment of wealth expectations. Does our CEO enter that particular fray, or leave it for others to debate?

What decision would you make? After all your company's priorities are agreed by a Board that represents shareholders' interests. Does your Board understand the needs and desires of shareholders, or do they assume that these coincide with their own? And are these needs aligned with the aspirations of your staff? Is that important? Do you care? More than likely, especially given that your current worldview meme is aggressively Orange - sorry but it would have to be for you to have donned the CEO's mantle - the choices you perceive to be possible will be circumscribed by your belief system. You may even have a blindspot that prevents you "seeing" Green meme alternatives.

And so your likely response will be to ignore the IAE and continue with business-as-usual. You might even decide to invest more in exploiting current assets if your reading of the IEA's advice leads you to believe prices will eventually contract and the industry will hit hard times.

Five Literacies (or 2nd tier) leaders evolve an integral praxis based on overtly holistic principles and humanitarian values. By adopting a worldcentric philosophy and being open to entirely new epistemologies, they deliberately put themselves in the way of novelty. Resulting revelations provoke an “awakening” to alternative possibilities within any situation where leadership is required. In this awakening process, wisdom (an inner sense of authentic being) beomes the crucial factor, rather than behaviour.

Thus 2nd tier leaders are able to express a deeper purpose, from which spring original responsibilities. This constantly transforming and expanding sense of duty then gives rise to distinct and additional choices, which lead to alternative decisions, which then result in different leadership behaviours. Some of these behaviours might resemble what we see from 1st tier leaders. Others may appear to be totally inexplicable.

Let us briefly examine why this should be the case. If we take our previous example of the coal mine, it is highly improbable a Five Literacies leader would see similar systemic dynamics or have such a limited range of options available. Trade-offs would be unacceptable. Alternative solutions would need to be found. Our CEO would instinctively want to act on behalf of those who are not yet born. She would deem the fact that solar and wind power are now being purchased by some utilities at a lower price than coal a critically relevant issue. She would weigh up the costs involved in delaying any transition her company might need to make to renewable forms of energy.

All things considered I imagine her strategy would be structured around innovation, the creative destruction of business-as-usual, and alternative strategies for investing impactfully and with due caution. She would need to tackle the inertia of established financial models that have been so successful in overwhelming even the best alternative intentions of the world’s largest corporations, among whom are counted all the major oil and natural gas companies. And she would have to do that through radical and unprecedented forms of collaboration. Would her Board support her in such a quest?

The deliberate choice to exercise leadership from a 2nd tier state of being opens up considerable opportunities for leaders to evolve the basic elements for a radically empathic worldview. Knowing this, is it wrong for our former CEO to put his head in the sand? Is he being unethical in pursuing profits above everything else? After all his peers are all playing the same game and he is considered by his Board to be a "good" leader because he delivers on his promise to the market.

And if our more socially-committed CEO pushed ahead with transformational change in the face of hesitation from the Board, opposition from shareholders, and diffidence or even hostility from the industry, how long would she remain CEO? Contemporary leadership calls for courage as well as vision, just as it always has.

2. What prevents us from seeing that which is in front of our eyes?

Doing what is best for humanity, with the least amount of damage to other species and to the environment, is arguably the highest form of moral conduct - at least from the perspective of Clare Graves' Yellow-Turquoise memes of epistemological progress.

If the scientific and spiritual evidence concerning contemporary life conditions within the world-system we have knowingly nurtured is such that 2nd tier stewardship is now the only ethically-conscientious form of leadership, that within this framework lesser ambitions border on the unethical, where are the ethically responsible leaders? Why, apart from a few heretics and misfits who agitate for change, do we only see what must be classified as unethical (i.e. conventional) behaviour?

To assume that all of the leaders in Enron or Lehman Brothers were evil, greedy and selfish is far too simplistic. To suppose that the officials who represent their nations at the annual UN-sponsored failures on climate change are self-serving bureaucrats who do not care about the future of the planet, is also patently false. On the other hand to see evil by the Bush administration wrought upon the evil of terrorists following 9/11 may be much closer to the mark than we care to admit. If cultural mindsets are potent forms of motivation, as I believe them to be, how can the righteous who claim justice within the context of one paradigm, retain any form of moral authority in situations where they themselves become the perpetrators of the acts they hold to be evil?

Clearly there must be more to the story than religious bias or ingrained combativenss. We are obligated to comprehend how such ethical violations and consequent collapses occur, for without that knowledge it is impossible for us to consciously evolve. We must discover what prevents us from seeing what is obvious to others. But in order to do that we need a process for interrogating the performance of any system, to explore its profound nature and to surface what factors cause it to behave the way it does.

All of which is not too difficult if... (and it's a big if) we can put aside extreme or emotional responses to the beliefs, needs and expectations of those with different cultural mindsets, and others who habitually interpret the current worldview from a different stage of epistemological awareness, than us.

Actually there are a number of processes for "transformational" design available to those who need to solve ethical dilemmas - though many of these are not necessarily in common currency, nor are they being utilised in situations where they would have the most beneficial impact, like negotiating peace treaties, for example. In generic terms the requisite steps are quite simple:

• We need to include in any conversation everyone who might be impacted by our decisions as well as all salient factors that might hinder or obstruct our appreciation of alternative viewpoints - including deeply ingrained beliefs and values as well as clearly observable external dynamics and events.
• In design thinking all options must be considered from a variety of differing perspectives, cultural mindsets and epistemological memes. That means assessing all choices against moral principles that might conflict with each other. If such a clash is evident, or there are obvious divergences between the rights of different groups, however trivial these might be considered by one party, then the facilitator must find a way of including and transcending those original principles so as to arrive at a new, mutually-agreeable position.
• When converging on any options, we must analyse and project intended and unintended consequences into the future. We must grasp who will benefit and who might be harmed by any intended action, not just today but in 50 or 100 years time. And we must be able to agree what options are the least problematic.

All the methods I have encountered, that could claim to produce morally acceptable outcomes in the majority of cases, for the largest number of people, make certain the process for deconstructing and reconstructing conventions regarding what is right and wrong, and of testing these for their legitimacy within diverse cultural contexts, is inserted between the "making sense" phase of learning and the "designing" phase of enacting new solutions. I have seen this device used by wise people, over and over, in the most convoluted and sensitive of circumstances. In fact I often refer to this as the epiphany window, so predictably does its employment lead to the resolution of ethical dilemmas and moral paradoxes.

Sadly, too few leaders adhere to such a method - mainly because most are still ensconced in a "command and control" belief system that plays out in purely pragmatical terms. There is also another problem in that both "making sense" and "designing solutions" are inherently cerebral activities. They occur in the brain. As we have now discovered, cognition can easily override our other senses, convincing us to take a particular course of action when our heart or our gut is warning us that what we're proposing "feels" unethical.

So what, finally, can we say about the state of ethics in leadership today? We simply cannot assume, even in an age of intensifying globalisation and homogeneity, that diverse communities in different parts of the world and with unique pressures on them for survival, share the same moral code. Even less can we presume that leaders who become celebrities, by accident, or because they have charismatic personalities or conjure up impressive results within their sphere of influence, intentionally consider the ethical dimension in their determination of what will work best.

So should do we look for in ethical leadership? Where are the examples of leaders who instinctively want to create better futures for everyone and whose impulse is to help others shift from a worldview and world-system that benefits but a privileged few, to one in which every individual with a name and a dream matters and is respected? In order to answer these questions confidently and accurately one would need the power to see deeply into the souls of our leaders. Until we have that power we must rely on other, more tangible signs.

Visible behaviour is certainly one of these. Others might include what is said and by whom; the manner in which it is expressed, the vocabulary prudently selected and the alignment with perceived actions; the intentions shining through the words; the metaphors used to express what is important and what is not; the frisson of excitement perhaps, felt in shivers up and down the spine when we listen to someone we respect and admire.... Ultimately we all seek our own clues.

Of all the "leaders" in the world at the moment, across all nations and sectors of society, in business and government, in the professions and community organisations, in charities and families, only a few are leading from a 2nd tier stage of consciousness. More join their ranks every hour of every day. This has to be seen as a blessing, for we are at the dawn of a transformational era in which new possibilities for our species constantly beckon.

I cannot say with any confidence that the CEO of the corporation from whom I buy my computer, the PM of the nation in which I reside, or the chairman of our local council are 2nd tier leaders. These positions are filled by people who, by and large, have not thought through the consequences of their decisions with any great clarity or purpose, certainly not from a worldcentric or planetary viewpoint. Their belief system reinforces the concept that they, and they alone, are in charge.

Are they unethical as a result? I guess it depends. If the CEOs of BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto or ExxonMobil, take the time to read (and understand) the latest scientific evidence on global warming and climate change and still retain the belief their responsibility is only to their shareholders, then yes. They are unethical. Culpably so. Indeed in a future age they will probably be found guilty of ecocide. And if banks continue to invest in the development of new coal mines in the light of the same evidence then clearly they, too, are unethical.

So perhaps we use ignorance as an excuse for unethical leadership. Perhaps that explains why so much corporate and government leadership is plagued by misconduct. Perhaps we need to invest more resources educating our children about ethical behaviours and ethical minds so that the young generation demands new standards from us all.

Until then I am only sure of one thing. Massive rapid change is impacting the current worldview - deflecting, warping and even eradicating some attributes we have never bothered to challenge and elevating others to a more prominent position. Society is awakening to new possibilities for our civilization.

As with any bifurcation point in a complex adaptive system there are numerous possible pathways stretching ahead. But without ethical leadership, from a 2nd tier platform of wisdom, and an expansive and inclusive appreciation of what might be possible, we can forget evolution, carry on with business-as-usual, and prepare for the destruction of everything we hold to be good and true.

Thriving in the Transformational Age

The following piece was written by my dear friend Robb Smith following his presentation to a TEDxNevada meeting last week. Robb was previously the CEO of Integral Institute and is currently the founding CEO of the human development company Chrysallis.

I had the privilege of giving a talk at TEDxNevada last week where I discussed the end of the information age and the rise of the transformation age. I mark the beginning of the transformation age at 2007, a year that saw the confluence of the first "next generation" smartphone (iPhone) and the concomitant rise of high speed data networks to support them. While the date is ultimately unimportant, what is important is the arrival of systems that support rapid reconfiguration of every aspect of human life, from our work structures to our family lives to our political processes.

To transform means to change the shape of (of what? … everything). Because a significant portion of the entire human family is now interconnected in real-time, the transformational era can take an opinion in Shanghai and within weeks it could dramatically influence purchasing behavior for certain products in Reno. Our collective attitudes, behavior, energy, and spending now constitute a complex, global and fundamentally chaotic school of fish. Or perhaps more apt, a flock of Taleb’s black swans.

This gives rise to extraordinary opportunities, as successful enterprises can be built faster than ever before. But it’s also a time of extraordinary creative destruction, a la Schumpeter, as yesterday’s franchise power may be displaced by tomorrow’s upstart. Even deep asset-rich verticals are not immune – think about being a hotel chain, and then AirBNB comes along and turns every spare bedroom in the world into a substitute for your product. This can happen now unlike any time in the past because billions of people can access a service platform vis a vis a high speed, access-anywhere data network over a very powerful 4” pocket device. In philosophical terms, the human “noosphere” is now completely open to get hacked. This genuinely changes everything.

It also alludes to the single largest challenge humanity will face in the 21st century: how do we keep 9 billion people engaged in a life-affirming way? The phenomenon known as “technological unemployment,” where people and their jobs are displaced by computers and other technologies, is only going to get more pronounced over the coming decades. Indeed the very promise of technology, and the very reason that appetite for technology is so high to begin with, is chiefly that it generates significantly positive ROI or life enhancement through cost, time and energy savings on pre-existing tasks. Tautologically: technology is that which eliminates the need for work.

We have 7 billion people on the planet today and are heading towards 9 billion by 2050. Jim Clifton tells us in The Coming Jobs War that there a little over a billion “good jobs” today and yet we need 3 billion even today to keep the world gainfully active (notice I don’t say economically productive, per se, for reasons I get into below). And yet on the one hand the need for jobs is going to get larger with population growth and on the other we’re going to shrink our relative job base through increasing technological enhancement (I’m guessing shrinking in some sectors will be nonlinear). The gap of job supply to demand is going to get far worse than it is in 2013 (and unemployment and wealth disparity obviously follow).

From my point of view we’re not yet even discussing this challenge in the right way. Clifton points out that his Gallup Organization has conducted the first worldwide poll and that the number one thing on everyone’s mind around the world – over religion, politics, tribal differences, etc. – is the possibility of just such a good job. And its opposite, lack of such a job, is the soil in which terrorism, sectarian hatred, regressive tribalism, and other dangerous phenomena grow. No surprise there.

But let’s be clear: at our current pace of economic production and resource extraction from the planet, if the world was to live like we do in the West we’d pull the equivalent of 4-5 Earths a year out of the ground. We will strip mine the earth in a single generation if we try to keep pace with the raw arithmetic of job requirements, even assuming that we could figure out how to economically justify them (we can’t under the existing labor-price allocation system).

So let’s tie all this together and watch the vice-like squeeze where something will have to give: we choose between a massively disparate world of haves and have nots in an era where angry mobs with technology can give rise to instant revolutions (and coming soon: bioterrorism can wipe out societies with a plane ticket); or we choose to continue the current paradigm of supporting the have nots through globalization and in so doing strip mine the planet in a generation and create a massive heat furnace through carbon pollution within 3 generations. Nice choices.

Some may think these are these extreme views. I don’t believe they are, and the data already indicates that these are the very systemic breakdowns we’re facing. I think they’re simply inevitable outcomes of the pace of winner-enrichment or loser-disenfranchisement inherent to our existing technoeconomic paradigm.

I see it at home here in the US all the time now: there are the parents who "get it", and the many more who do not. The "get it" parents know that by the time their 5 year old today is of college age in 2025 he will be competing with a 17 year old Indian girl living in Hyderabad who has already passed masters-level coursework from MIT/Harvard’s edX online university, for free. She will be trained in a deep technology skillset and will have working experience in the software platforms necessary to start being technically productive from day 1. She’ll speak perfect English and she’ll work long hours for $4 an hour. Hiring her won’t require a 30% overhead load on wages for the healthcare drag coefficient that a US-based worker will require. And, because of the Hindu culture she comes from (true for the Sino-Confucian culture as well), she’ll be respectful, deferent and enjoyable to work with: no hints of the narcissism characterizing the generational products of a postmodern US that has been ascendant since 1945.

Now the parents who "get it": they’ll see all this and have their son in a personalized online learning environment (eg. Knewton) with personalized skill assessment of mental complexity (eg. Lectica), all despite knowing that even a great education is just table stakes; Ivy Leagues will be no sure path to success (and entrance is going to get even harder anyway, a lottery ticket starts to look like better odds).

Instead they’ll understand that to succeed in this era they will have to develop their kids’ “ways of being” differently: not just to follow rules but also to create systems that redefine rules; not just to excel academically, a commodity, but also to develop deeply in social-emotional capacities for leadership and perspective-taking; not just to understand a pre-given world of facts and narratives but also to craft, tell and inspire new narratives; not just to see the world through a self-centered view of scarcity and success but also to humbly serve the world through a broader view of evolutionary unfolding.

These are parents who home school their kids (or “hack” school, as my friend David LaPlante’s son Logan called it at TEDx), who engage them with meditation before Mickey Mouse, who model love as the only master worth serving, and who teach their kids to see into and beyond the epistemological confines of a world largely in over its head.

It is in this transformational era, and the adaptations I expect millions of people will make in their own lives in seeking out a healthy, happy way to live in it, that I expect the greatest transformation of all: the shape of our civilization itself may change in dramatic ways in the coming decades. Work will have to be redefined to mean life-affirming activity (though still contributive to society), while art and creativity will have to flourish in the face of spare time (witness platforms like Etsy that are replying to this fact, already here). And those who win will be expected to give more to social systems that can support everyone (a moral shift that also is deeply pragmatic). Perhaps we’ll end up with social support that looks like more like Norway (a country that The Economist reports China is looking closely at for lessons; China seems to understand the problem, not surprising that given a billion people there could be viewed as a huge microcosm for the planet).

The evidence above points to shifts that will be constant, befitting a transformational era where everything can have its deep structures reconfigured quickly and across borders and ideologies. Parents who get it are merely at the forefront of what will be required of all adults who want to thrive in a transformational world: being will supplement striving as the sole mode of life.

And the only reply, in our own lives and ultimately as that of a civilization, is to move into a state of being that allows us to surf the big waves of evolutionary progress as they unfold. It is a life that finds the simplicity on the other side of all this complexity. It is present, loving, empathic and wise. It works hard, it plays hard and it holds its own fearful, grasping ego gently in its open hand. And it understands fully that the faster one sees, acts and practices as a genuine global citizen the more aligned they will be with reality as it actually is right now.

Finding America

Game Theory - based on the rationale that everyone acts in their own interest - is a pretty harsh and unforgiving way of seeing and understanding world affairs. It can also be a precise tool in the right hands.

Since publishing Star Spangled Banners, which was an attempt to critique the delusional nature of some facets of the American psyche and their manifestation within a contemporary setting, I have received requests for specific details of what I believe should be done to effect a transition towards a more viable and relevant role for America in the 21st century.

Whether or not radically different policies can be put in place remains debatable. No matter how one appraises the current situation, any viable new policy aimed at unshackling old mindsets will demand a degree of political will and adeptness that are currently absent, a design utilising genuinely transformational thinking that shifts social, political and economic aspirations and discourse and, of course, relevant support from all sectors of society. Well, I didn't say it would be easy!

Because of my total concentration on the US in Star Spangled Banners a few of my readers accused me of rabid bias. To be clear, my intention was not in any way to insinuate America shoulders a unique burden. Far from it. Many nations have an urgent need for positive narratives that include and transcend past flaws and misdemeanours with candid humility but that point confidently towards a compassionate and abundant future - whether they realise this or not. So, for example, my own country of Australia still needs to concede and come to terms with the impact of the "stolen" generation. China and Japan must face up to wartime atrocities. Israel must let go of its fears in order to behave less belligerently towards its neighbours and deal with Hamas. And so on....

But in focusing on the US I was singling out the all-encompassing and imposing position of US culture and strategy in the world today, from which none of us can escape. Contemporary America is a commanding universal presence - an empire of the mind. It casts an overwhelming shadow on the world-system that goes far beyond mere militaristic, political or economic power.

Because of the tone of my previous narrative, too, other readers inferred that I would hail the decline of the US with glee. Not so. To many people, the USA is a symbol of freedom and of unity through diversity - a soaring expression of the human spirit comprising creative flair, scientific & technological competence and entrepreneurial imagination. It should be cherished as such.

But it is not. Mostly, I suspect, because the self-appointed and elected custodians of Brand USA - a mostly high-wealth clique of conservative bankers, government bureaucrats, politicians, generals, industrialists and media czars - deem themselves best able to preserve the illusion of benevolent empire. They therefore have no reason, and certainly no desire, to change the status quo. In fact their impulse is to reinforce the current fiction, and to subjugate any challenge to it, under the pretext of defending the "land of the free" from unwarranted attack. Their hubris is astonishing.

Actually, paradoxically, they are probably correct in their belief at least. Through constant repetition they have successfully fabricated a meme founded on the sentimentalisation of deceits, but that has immense popular appeal, which they are now intent on preserving at any cost.

Personal freedoms, liberty and limits to government power may be written into the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, but these principles have become, at best, aspirational in real terms. My colleague David Martin reminded me of the following: The US stole its land from indigenous tribes. Religious freedom was never evident - indeed the early Puritan settlers were as committed to burning witches as their Lancashire counterparts. America has never had a peacetime economy - the industrial supply of gunpowder was always as important as cotton. American hostilities in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya and more recently Pakistan, has exacerbated the threat of terrorism. In the past decade US law makers have comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. Need I go on?  

But the real issue we are exploring here concerns what policy alternatives, if any, would result in greater, more sustainable, benefits for a social majority. Star Spangled Banners analyses how a particular set of factors have been permitted to become the norm, eroding moral authority in the process. I concluded that what is most at stake, and at once the most cruel deception, is the concept and trappings of empire - sustained as it is by an iniquitous economic shock doctrine (appropriately labelled "disaster" capitalism by Naomi Klein) as this is conceived, interpreted, espoused and practiced.

The intertwined pillars of empire and economy have become warped by arrogance and greed: they no longer benefit the masses - still less those of us who advocate radically empathic models of social organisation including peer-to-peer interactions, commons-based institutions, liquid democracy, and the like. These encrusted notions of empire, the same ones being projected by the US onto China - which goes a long way to explain US foreign diplomacy in Asia by the way - are causing strife and anxiety, at home and abroad. Indeed within the US itself, increasing numbers of citizens are dismayed by the systematic erosion of democratic rights, and constraints to their liberty, which were foisted on American society after 9/11 and are still escalating at a pace under the current administration.

My issue, therefore, is not with the American people per se but with the venality in Washington and the corruption that has been allowed to insinuate and embed itself so deeply inside the web of affiliations between major corporations, Congress and the military. The greatest domestic danger, constantly voiced by many of my friends in the US, is a fear that divisions already apparent within society could deepen and eventually erupt into uncontained civil violence. The other major risk is a nation so deluded by its self-importance, driven by hypocrisy and paranoia, that it loses all contact with reality and becomes isolated from the rest of the world as a result.

So, from the point of view of a neutral, though avowedly partially-informed witness like myself, some form of transition is vital in order to restore America's credibility - for its own good, as well as the world at large, where large numbers of people concede the pivotal importance of a strong, healthy and incorruptible US.

And at one level it is pretty clear what must be done. The following strategic themes should not really come as a huge surprise. Any points emphasised here do not offer any startlingly new insights by any stretch of the imagination. On the contrary they have been the topic of considered articles and discussions by many reputable commentators. And they have featured as the central motifs in seminal books by writers as diverse as Jeremy Rifkin, Robert Reich and Jeffrey Sachs.  

There are five broad issues that, while ostensibly domestic, actually go to the core of US regression as a moral power in the world. Although I have teased them out here, the nature of their mutual dependence is such that a complex set of unprincipled associations has been created over time. This rusted system of interdependencies manifests over and over as a tainted culture. But it has become so resilient that the likelihood of cultural metamorphosis is now extremely low.

1. Inequities between the super wealthy and the poor - where the average CEO of a large company can take home a salary 400 times the wage of an average worker - is an obscenity that must surely be addressed or remain open to ridicule. Unfortunately the US corporate model sets the tone for many other countries where senior executive salaries are too often based upon repute rather than performance. Personally I can find no way of justifying payments of hundreds of millions of dollars to very mediocre talent when the President of the United States only earns an annual salary of $400,000.

2. As a general rule, Wall Street investment bankers should no longer be encouraged or allowed to determine US economic strategy. Their involvement has been disastrous. Their firms, too, should be kept at arms length from policy makers in Washington and their advice, if called upon, should routinely be treated with suspicion.

3. The squalid ways in which corporate wealth is used to buy political influence (through campaign funding, lobbying and outright graft, for example) deserve to be outlawed. Likewise the abuse of political clout, most obviously through tax cuts, deregulation and sweetheart deals between government and industry, should be considered unconstitutional and dealt with accordingly.

4. Close links between the military and private industry should be examined and the more insidious of these decoupled - if only to avoid the continuation of futile war mongering in foreign lands and the associated squandering of many tens of trillions of dollars that could be put to far better use.

5. By far the most destructive government-industry relationship is that between the large oil companies and the Pentagon. This relationship is responsible for the nation’s dependency on oil as well as the escalating military trap in the Middle East. Big Oil has consistently and successfully fought the intrusion of competition from other energy sources (including nuclear, wind and solar power) while maliciously pushing confusing propaganda aimed at keeping climate change off the national agenda. Similarly the relationship with Big Pharma and government has resulted in a pseudo-market system where medical costs remain excessively high and large profits are made by the private healthcare sector.

This perusal, though cursory, should not be treated as an assault on US values, still less on American citizens, but rather a starting point for stepping into new epistemologies in order to reinvent what, for many people, is a story of human decline rather than an illumined pathway to a future of abundance and hope.

Normally the energy within any complex adaptive system can be altered in precise ways through a forensic interrogation aimed at identifying constraints that are causing the system to behave predictably - such as the five points above. I have no idea whether the system of bully empire can be rescued given the levels of corruption and decay that are so evident. I do know that the only chance of this happening is by the US itself crafting strategies so smart that, through the tiniest of nudges, the basic architecture of its politics and metasystem shifts inexorably away from the current dominant meme.

Inevitably this will be resisted by the dominant players - until the US implodes under pressures of its own making or is forced to pay attention as the rest of the world simply shuns Brand America. Which brings us back to Game Theory.

Do not for a moment underestimate the doomsday scenario - the implosion and decline of the US empire - as a possibility. The more the US sows mistrust and is perceived to be more of a menace than a benign force for good, around the world and within its own borders, the greater will become the general interest of others to betray America. If the catalogue of strategic mistakes continues to escalate and America basks in the illusion of previous glory, the more likely this scenario will become. The US needs to undertake a cultural course correction before other nations decide betrayal is the better option.

 

Star Spangled Banners

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.

Will Durant

Many readers of The Hames Report will be aware of my oft-stated reluctance to be drawn into debates about the future of the United States of America. One might have thought this to be a topic any proficient futurist should not, indeed could not, dodge – particularly given that nation’s undisputed influence and standing in the world of the mid 20^th century.

Over the years there have been several reasons for my hesitancy. I have many close American friends; smart, decent human beings I love, respect, and have no desire to offend – though most of them, I have to say, agree with the gist of my analysis. I am also relatively ill-informed about the country, having visited infrequently, getting to know only a few large cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and New York, and none as intimately as those in Europe, Australia and Asia. I learned to appreciate American culture and customs vicariously. Being socialised in the European tradition, too, was a factor. While this did not necessarily create an aversion towards American culture per se, it did mean my empathy for all things American didn’t run particularly deep. Nor, frankly, was I overly impressed by the few Americans citizens I encountered abroad, who I invariably found uncouth, brash, larger than life. Please pardon my candour. This was the sixties you must remember…

But other factors, far more fundamental than any of these, constrained me from just leaping in with well-intended (yet bogus) wisdom. Initially these had most to do with what I interpreted as an unpredictability in the American psyche: a fickleness I had trouble comprehending. As an impressionable 13-year old I recall being untroubled by the “threat” of communism yet terrified at the thought of US hegemony. Indeed during the height of the cold war I was far more anxious about the havoc John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were wreaking with their massive armouries than any exploits by committed communists in the Societ Union and Vietnam. Kruschev in the Kremlin was undoubtedly dangerous - but entirely predictable. The US appeared to be far more impulsive, narcissistic and condescending.

The unfolding of events under the guise of globalisation during the latter part of the 20^th century did little to change my mind in that regard. As far as I was concerned the American persona remained essentially unfathomable. Until, that is, I began to notice patterns that appeared to suggest an aging empire, under extreme pressure, and extended far beyond its capacity to function morally. The US was overstretched militarily, economically and culturally. This was bound to have negative consequences at some stage. That much was unavoidable.

Today, with these same patterns constantly reified, the situation is clear-cut. The US is now entirely predictable: a bully – at once abrasively righteous, overflowing with hubris, and egregiously ambitious. Irrespective of which party dictates domestic politics in Washington we know the US will be the prime aggressor in international disputes. It cannot help itself. Indeed it perceives that almost as its sacred role. So we can be certain such incursions will be undertaken under the pretence of combating evil or protecting nations, or freedoms, or democracy - or whatever else seems to be the most legitimate excuse at the time. We also know the US will intervene in matters that do not concern it if the dispute in any way threatens America’s quality of life. We know, too, the US will invariably put its own selfish interests above all else. And we also know, because we have been told often enough, that God will save America.

So why should my newfound awareness (I am reluctant to label it as anything more than a collection of personal insights and reflections) give me, a total outsider, licence to critique an entire nation, when previously I had maintained a tentatively complicit silence?

It is, quite simply, the thought that this extraordinarily potent cauldron of all that the human spirit promises, could descend into a vortex from which recovery becomes all but impossible. A collapse so unnecessary would be tragic. However, rather like the tsunami that hides its malevolence before finally crashing onto the shore with such pent-up ferocity, I now believe the US is on course for a catastrophe of its own making but that, until now, it has naively attempted to ignore or deny.

In recent months I have been tracking a number of contentious issues in US politics. These include what has become a totally watered-down health insurance solution, cynically labelled Obamacare even by its own architects; the bizarre, occasionally hysterical, statements offered by the gun lobby as an explanation of why their constitutional right to bear arms has nothing to do with recent atrocities; policy responses to climate change - especially the calculated indifference towards experts like Jim Hansen and his ilk; and the so-called fiscal cliff – a slow-burning saga concerning debt and taxes that fails to comprehend US living standards are funded by the rest of the world.

All of these issues are unfolding against a background of excess and a tenacious determination to cling onto business-as-usual by the nation’s largest and most profitable corporations. Actually, let us be quite clear about this, there is no crisis in corporate America - still less on Wall Street where life continues much as before. On the contrary, the crisis to which I am referring is a cancer in the nation’s soul.

I have been watching all of this evolve and meld with growing fascination but some disquiet. Reluctantly I now believe what we see playing out on Capitol Hill on a daily basis is not democracy at work, as is so often claimed, but the very opposite of that - a cynical betrayal comprising the unravelling of egalitarian principles in unconcealed obeisance to established business interests, powerful industry lobby groups, Wall Street bankers and the industrial war machine.

Nostalgia is a seductive liar. But in the case of America nostalgia itself is just a cruel illusion. For the US was never what it holds itself to have been. Instead it created a tautological prison of its own invention, from which now it cannot escape, without some form of metamorphosis.

During the early years of the 20^th century the US held itself up to be the epitome of liberalism and free enterprise. As a result of such propaganda it became admired by a large proportion of the rest of the world, who aspired to live like the average US citizen. And why not? Consecutive state and federal governments had established benign business conditions wherein entrepreneurs and innovation combined to create a cultural force and an economic engine without parallel. As the message got out literally hundreds of thousands of people from around the world were drawn to this magnet of individualistic opportunity - their diverse backgrounds, eclectic skills and productive energies adding immensely to the alluring potency of Brand America.

But somewhere along the line, probably following the end of the Korean War but most obviously during the subsequent cold war with the Soviet Union, US hubris intensified, competition emerged from the most unlikely sources, life became a little tougher, and the utopian dream began to look a little tattered.

Outstanding achievements in trade and commerce, science and technology, management, space exploration, the arts and entertainment – envied by some yet despised by many - spawned new enemies at every juncture, both at home and abroad. Meanwhile, across the nation, particularly after 9/11, an insidious paranoia crept into the soul of American society. Parochialism became even more deeply ingrained. Political and corporate power was openly abused but turned toxic in the process. Relationships soured. The widespread putrefaction and canker in American society had taken root. The empire turned on its dark side.

Today the US is more hated and envied than loved – even by its allies. Consequently the most critical questions concerning the future of the US revolve around three fundamentals:

1. What, if anything, can be done to assist a nation that finds itself in a state of advanced malaise and decay - yet finds so many ways to evade the truth about itself, including intensifying a somewhat crude totalitarian impulse, in the hope it can avoid the shame such truths must inevitably bring?
2. How can the US restore a moral authority that was always meagre, has been inexorably worn down over decades, and is now at risk of being extinguished altogether, because of myriad miscalculations in both foreign and domestic policies?
3. What will it take for America’s friends and allies to put aside their obsequious pandering and help the US to accept realities and transform – particularly in ways that provide relevant support and care that relieve it of the intolerable burden of regarding itself as the “sole superpower” and “leader of the free world”?

A large part of the answer to all three questions has to do with the fashioning of a new narrative that is capable of escaping the trap of constant denials and delusions; a story that signifies the American persona for what it actually is - and could become through transition.

Central to this narrative will be the restoration of democratic principles and economic justice within a society that prides itself on freedom and, for the greater part of its recent history, saw itself as a paragon of virtue. No nation can live up to and sustain that kind of reputation, least of all one that has created mayhem wherever it has ventured - usually uninvited. Leaving this element of the old story intact is to invite continued ridicule.

Regulatory reforms, too, must be undertaken, if only to unshackle toxic, co-dependent relationships, that tether certain industries - particularly oil, pharmaceuticals and agribusiness - to government largesse; and to eliminate, as far as possible, discrimination in a society where CEOs can be paid 400 times more than their workers and where political clout and corporate power are so wantonly abused.

Yet there will not be much motivation for change of this nature while financial and political benefits continue to flow to super-rich individuals and corporations with vested interests in maintaining the status quo. Without reform, though, the US will undoubtedly founder. It is in none of our interests that it be allowed to do so.

Finally a counterpoint which I find intriguing – one that was made recently when my dear friend and colleague Dr David Martin from M.CAM, surely one of the smartest public intellectuals in the US today, commented on my previous piece concerning China’s princelings, which I called Dancing Dragon. David’s argument concerns the China-US nexus – only viewed from a contrarian angle. He points out that the newly elevated leaders in Beijing now possess every autocrat’s ultimate dream: they control the ideological agenda in China while holding the US economic illusion hostage. How ironic to think that the US fantasy of “free market capitalism” relies on a Communist autocracy that has an equivalent illusion!

Dancing Dragon

For at least as long as I can remember, pundits in the West have been predicting the imminent collapse of the Chinese miracle. If the speed of reform isn’t sufficient, then the unintended impacts of the one child policy will surely do the job. If it isn’t the numerous non-performing loans in the banking sector that sow the seeds of destruction, then it is bound to be China’s militaristic and territorial ambitions.

Depending on which expert you choose to believe, the list of possible impediments - mostly valid in terms of their individual gravity - goes on and on. And it is certainly true that China faces enormous threats to its future stability on a variety of fronts.

But such factors are invariably distorted by a range of erroneous fictions we apply in a desperate effort to provide lucid reasons for why collapse is inevitable. Myths like: Chinese workers are good at counterfeit manufacturing but are unskilled at creative innovation, for example. Or, productivity in Chinese industry can never match Western efficiency. Rapid and disruptive change of the kind China has undertaken is unsustainable – sooner or later the entire experiment must collapse, just as it did in the Societ Union. Up-and-coming entrepreneurs leave China for the West where there are more opportunities…

To anyone with even a basic inkling of life in contemporary China these statements are patently false or gross simplifications of the truth. The red dragon’s dance is already reshaping markets, competition, trade and politics. But for most of us the dance itself remains a mystery.

Of course each of the aforementioned issues, as well as other broadly accepted problems (such as escalating labour costs, the private property bubble, an aging population, and the drag of state-owned enterprises on the economy) could all bring adversity to China. But so far none of these factors have had the kind of seismic impact many commentators predicted. Nor are any of them likely to bring China to its knees – now or in the immediate future.

My confidence that this is the case, a point that will doubtless be challenged by those who think they know better, is based upon a simple conviction: when the hordes of China-watchers tell us what is happening in China (and why) they rely on official versions of tightly-scripted public utterances, which are themselves open to misinterpretation.

By and large their observations are filtered through an Occidental lens that "diffracts" actuality. This also applies to Western correspondents living in China - as in witnesses who fail to engage directly with the communal socialist experience. Furthermore, upon closer analysis, many of the more dire predictions aimed at China are a combination of ignorance, wishful thinking and a failure to comprehend three important tenets:

1. There is absolutely no compelling reason for China to copy the West’s most favoured models and practices in order to grow and prosper
2. Market capitalism particularly, at least as currently practiced in the West, is inherently flawed. As its undesirable side-effects become more and more costly in human terms it is hardly surprising that the Chinese leadership should overtly try to avoid the more obvious traps they see playing out
3. In view of 1 and 2 above, forging a uniquely hybrid path of state-supported capitalism is strategically sensible - especially given China’s unique history, culture and communitarian ethos.

So within the context of China’s re-emergence onto the world stage it could be argued that the best chance of continued success will come from China doing what it has done for the past quarter century or more – at least since Deng Xiaoping opened the country to international competition following his visits to Singapore in 1978 and the US the following year. After all, the record of social progress since then has been phenomenal.

But these three tenets may also give us a clue as to an emerging factor that could be of greater concern. Indeed it could very well signal an inner decay that eventually brings down the empire – or at least causes it to change tack dramatically. This wild card concerns (i) palpable rivalries between the princelings - a term used to describe the close-knit network of sons and daughters of revolutionary heroes who have increasingly gained political kudos and influence in China – together with (ii) the enormous affluence of this group when compared with ordinary Chinese workers.

You may have noted this situation reflects a similar trend in the West where the extreme wealth of a small minority of individuals and corporations is rapidly reaching a point where revolution, paradigmatic meltdown, or both, are not out of the question. But in China, both the rot and the potential damage is likely to go far deeper, particularly since dynastic putrefaction and decline, after a year or more of public scandal, is a topic of common gossip on the street. When leaders lose control of the dominant narratives in society anything becomes possible.

Since taking over the leadership of the Party in November 2012 incoming President Xi Jinping has repeatedly warned that corruption and decay have become so corrosive that they now threaten the party and the state. He has openly criticised China's bureaucracy, hoping to curb the previously ubiquitous extravagance. Yet even now, claims are circulating about the fortune that has already been amassed by members of Xi’s own family.

Last year one such story dominated the front pages. Bo Xilai, one of the Party’s most favoured princelings, fell from grace in spectacular fashion. The disclosures surrounding Bo’s inner circle, where mass torture was condoned and multimillion dollar favours were meted out as a matter of course, uncovered a world of ruthless fraud and duplicity few had imagined. The case opened a Pandora’s box - effectively blowing the lid on the families of other leading Maoist revolutionaries and Politburo members (including that of the outgoing Premier - the venerable Wen Jiabao) who, it is alleged, abused their status and power to grow vast business empires and amass personal fortunes.

At this stage the long-term political damage is hard to estimate. But as wealth becomes more and more concentrated in the hands of a small elite, the potential threat to the state is amplified by the rise of a large and increasingly vocal internet community that have no problems finding inventive ways to get around the firewalls of the state censors. 

Many people conveniently forget that Chairman Mao Zedong declared the only way to break free from the dynastic cycles that had characterised Chinese history until then was through democratic reform. That was in 1945 and it is questionable as to what he actually meant by that statement. But what Mao didn't count on was how the children of the so-called Eight Immortals (founders of the communist revolution) could foul things up so easily.

By exploiting the trust of the state and gaining unlimited access to high-level political connections, the princelings are reaping vast rewards from China’s explosive growth. In an outcome that would have Deng Xiaoping turning in his grave the growing divide between the rich and the poor once again echoes that of the pre-Communist era - further delaying badly needed curbs to state control that is often used to mask underlying inefficiencies.

Massive changes to the political underpinnings of China could be in the offing as a direct result of these scandals - although the trigger for political change is most likely to be an economic one. So, for example, no industrializing economy has been able to avert a financial crash at some stage in its history. I would not expect even pragmatic China to be an exception. A crisis of this nature could be ignited by any set of factors. Yet the one element the Chinese leadership is most loath to confront, the narrative they most want to keep secret from the rest of the world, is the sight of Party officials becoming modern-day Rockefellers while a large minority of citizens languish in poverty.

Deng once proclaimed that “to become wealthy is glorious” though I think it highly improbable he would have given his blessing to the corrupt practices now threatening to destabilise and unravel the entire socialist ethos and Party infrastructure. It would never have occurred to him that generating wealth could cause a rift in the social fabric of the nation sufficient to be China’s undoing. But when you examine the unequal distribution of wealth in Chinese society today it’s hard not to see that as a distinct possibility.

 

At the Breaking of the Day

It is Christmas Eve. Yet how can that be? There is no crisp snow here. No Christmas tree. No presents to be seen. No Santa Claus or Yule Log. There are no carollers at the door... What mischievous charade is this?

I am sitting quietly in our garden as the sun sets, sipping iced peach tea and watching the tropical palms sway gently in the cool evening breeze. I hear bird song, the buzz of insects and the murmur of our neighbours. Nico is exploring - picking up bits and pieces that catch his attention and examining them intently. He has such an eye for detail. First a pebble. Now a tiny shrivelled leaf. He turns and beams as a butterfly brushes past his nose before vanishing into the lush foliage.

Like all young children this boy is a gift from God – a miracle life force, at once innocent yet all-knowing. His unbounded energy prompts comparisons with my other progeny (particularly Dylan when she played tennis with a flair few others could emulate) triggering memories that, though relative strangers these days, are still outrageously vibrant and intact…

But how quickly life passes. It is hardly credible that another year is rushing towards its apotheosis. A few moments ago, or so it seems, I was playing Bach on the village organ, marching to Aldermaston to protest the stockpiling of nuclear weapons, writing music under the vines of a farmhouse in Spilamberto, lecturing at Dartington, dashing to the hospital in the middle of the night for the birth of my first son, Ben. And then? A kaleidoscopic helter skelter of experiences as my life unfolded in ways that were overflowing with bittersweet, yet ultimately enthralling, adventures.

This year I will celebrate my 68^th birthday and, as the serenity of my inner life intensifies, ordinary routines, once taken for granted, demand just a little more perseverance. Yet the external almanac of imposed seconds, minutes and hours now start to yield liminal patterns of a clarity and wholeness I had not previously perceived. Perhaps this is what we mean by the wisdom of the elders.

To be sure, I am now better able to observe and respond to small changes in my physical constitution. The tinnitus in my ears occasionally drowns out whispered words or subtle sighs; thus silence is louder than before. My wrists are weaker, the capacity to unscrew lids from jars, for example, is ridiculously diminished. Minor aches that would have hardly been apparent just a few years ago now hang around, as if anticipating some kind of exaggerated response if they can only persist. Glancing in the mirror is invariably startling – particularly as my mind insists this image of an elderly man cannot possibly be an authentic reflection.

But along with the minutiae of changing physical circumstances come unexpected and entirely delightful companions. Contemplation without any preconceived material purpose. A yearning for stillness. A deeper acceptance of certain universal truths. A capacity to bask longer in the sheer wonder and beauty and lightness of what it means to be human and alive.

There was a time when the impetuousness and arrogance of my youth prevented more noble intentions. In stumbling towards their own uniqueness, in testing the limits of their prowess, and in exploring their relationship to the rest of the human family, young people inevitably position themselves at the axis of their circumscribed insentience. For me, academic success, albeit tempered by an unrelenting discourse with petty distractions and selfish concerns, seemed so incredibly important. Later, arcanely romantic notions of the artist working apart from society appealed to the hermit in me. Gradually though, as I learned to put ego and hubris aside, I discovered within myself a profound empathy for others - an affiliation with their struggles and aspirations - I had not realised were a part of my own sense of identity.

Today, grand schemes that have the potential to benefit humanity matter to me most. Trivia, political game playing, brutality of all kinds, and petty mindedness, can be treated with the contempt they deserve.

There is still much to do. I have no time for regrets. Even less for unkind words, envy, resentment or bitterness. But gratitude and appreciation. Now these are different. Without exception, every single person I have met has enriched my life’s journey in ways that were special and often sublime. Each individual helped make it the extraordinary experience I vowed it would be.

I love this world and my life with a passion. Whatever lies ahead I am determined to embrace with all the open-hearted mindfulness I can muster. At the breaking of each new day, I look forward to the path ahead with uninhibited joy and enthusiasm.

Perhaps that, too, betrays a certain kind of wisdom...

Enabling the Human Spirit to Soar Again

In any closed system - like planet Earth - the ecological viability of economic activity is an inextricable component of past and present performance as well as latent potential.

All human activity is reliant upon nature in one form or another. Our industrial economies draw a combination of physical supplies (metals, fish, timber and oil for example) and intangible benefits (such as photosynthesis, pollination and decomposition of waste) from nature before pumping waste back into the environment. Physical laws and constraints we knowingly design into this panarchic framework ultimately determine overall performance of the world-system.

It is pretty clear that if we neglect nature, opting for destruction or depletion of natural resources in order to pursue material affluence, a point will be reached where any malfunctioning within the natural ecosystem will inflict loss, pain and damage back into the economy. Recent extreme weather events are a striking example of how we inadvertently create undesirable feedback loops between economies and the environment - although we hardly ever talk about such events in these terms. In this regard we are witness to an inviolable truth: when nature responds to human excess the economic costs are considerable.

This, of course, is precisely the concern regarding global heating. Extensive burning of fossil fuels by increasing numbers of people over the past century or more, hand in hand with land clearing that has reduced the role of forests as carbon sinks, has caused a considerable build up of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, trapping in heat and disrupting natural climatic cycles.

Clearly there are some profound questions we must ponder. For example, how did we get into the habit of thinking of the economy in isolation from nature? What must change in order for us to be capable of seeing the consequences of future industrial activities with heightened awareness? And how should we best adapt - given that prevention, and possibly even mitigation, have become all but impossible?

Today these questions are self-evident. They are on everyone’s minds. But what if climate change is merely the first, most palpable, instance of adverse feedback between two random factors in a world-system we intentionally constructed and conscientiously maintain? How can we become more conscious of the entangled causation between systemic factors so that future emergencies can be anticipated with greater accuracy? What if the world-system itself (in terms of intentions, assumptions and shared values) is inherently flawed?

With hindsight the trap into which we have fallen over the past few decades is easily expressed. In its most basic form it has two obvious aspects plus a third facet that is, as yet, insufficiently appreciated:

1. Following the industrial revolution most economic models were built on the primary role of "market pricing" as the single most important device for coordinating economic activity. However, much of the natural environment remained in public hands. Lacking a market price, nature was not considered part of the dominant economic paradigm. It fact it was invisible to most economists. Being “external” to the real economy, nature was wittingly excluded from any calculations to do with societal progress.

2. Since the early 20th century almost all economic indicators have paid allegiance to ''national accounts'' with most attention being accorded the "bottom line" of gross domestic product – the market value of all goods and services produced in a country over a certain time. While GDP is a reasonably fair indicator of employment conditions, for example, it fails to take into account the rate we are using up natural resources. Nor does it factor in the cost of any damage economic activities are doing to the environment.

3. By focusing on (mostly technological) solutions to current problems - virtually excluding past decisions and alternative possibilities from serious consideration - we effectively relinquish control of the future. This is a design issue. Alas, it is also a fairly common human folly.

This third element (the lack of foresight) is the wild card in the pack. Not only has it caused the most damage, it allows orthodox wisdom, however irrational, to persist. Indeed one might argue that if our pathological tendency to focus only on present problems could be corrected, and design automatically considered an "expanded now" comprising a landscape of past, present and possible options, the other two factors would not present such an impasse.

Of course, a century ago global economic activity was tiny relative to the vast tracts of the natural world. Unless we had mindfully thought the unthinkable, posing specific questions about the unintended consequences of our actions within the closed system we call Earth, we could not possibly have anticipated that economic activity would grow exponentially over the coming decades, fuelled by a rapidly expanding global population and ever-rising material standards of living. We could not have known how damming rivers, irrigating crops and sinking bores would interrupt the water cycle; how clearing land, running farm animals and growing crops would interfere with soil quality; or how ever-improving technologies would strip our oceans of fish.

Indeed I suspect we only really took stock of our reality when we saw our "blue marble" for the first time - the exquisite beauty and frailty of Earth taken from space in 1972 by the astronauts of Apollo 17.

By paying attention only to the present, by framing current performance as a series of discrete process problems, by disregarding exotic cultures almost entirely - unless it is to pillage their resources, by arrogantly pursuing strategies intended to defy and conquer nature, and by relying on linear, reductionist thinking that accommodates only the most rudimentary methods of systemic inquiry, we have failed to uncover key questions that might have indicated other, more viable, ways forward. We have also escalated the risk of civilizational collapse.

Personally I have no desire to continue wondering why we repeat mistakes that could have been avoided if only we had been more inclined to study our multi-dimensional past. I do not want to spend my time trying to convince the ignorant among us of the need to design the future. On the contrary I want to shift from thoughtful words to mindful action. The ancient Mayan calendars, frequently and willingly misinterpreted by the more paranoid or fearful among us, intimate the potential for humanity to enter a prolonged cycle of cooperation, empathy, prosperity and abundance. But we need to make it happen.

The rationale for my own life's adventure arises from an unconstrained love of the human spirit, a sense of innate curiosity about the future, and the need I feel to help reinvent obsolete models in the design of viable futures where all human knowledge is used to far greater effect. For these reasons, and in a spirit of abiding hope and optimism, I have initiated a global navigational project - code named Wayfinder.

Wayfinding refers to an ancient knowledge tradition that allowed Micronesians to travel vast distances on the open ocean. Using finely-tuned observations of the stars, the sun, the clouds, the ocean swells, and other signs of nature for clues to direction and location of a vessel at sea, these master navigators were voyaging with pinpoint accuracy for thousands of years before the invention of European navigational instruments. By continuously monitoring the environment they knew where they were, relative to where they had come from. Wayfinders held their vessels to be fixed points on a star compass - the art and science of wayfinding enshrined in their ability to visualise a destination until it materialized on the horizon. These mental constructs ensured they did not get lost.

Today, our society is in urgent need of master navigators in addition to a process for finding our way into the future we desire. Having lost sight of where we have come from, and perplexed by current conditions, our future has become unclear and the way confused. Indeed without revised plans and a drastic course correction we risk losing our way completely.

Provisions on our vessel Earth, once plentiful, are now insufficient - demanding that we get to a safe haven fast. Industrial modes of subsistence have become incapable of providing for a human family of seven billion people. Systems we once took for granted - including those which provide us with energy, food, water, a healthy environment and a vibrant economy - are all highly stressed or failing. They were not designed for present circumstances, nor are they viable in their current form. Many of the institutions upon which we rely for sustenance and security are also struggling. Born out of an impulse to compete they are ill-prepared for the cooperation we need to overcome the most perilous dilemmas of our time.

Alternatives are essential. Some can already be detected - just over the horizon. We are beginning to think as one world. An alternative story of the human family is emerging from the fog of uncertainty. This is a story of renewed purpose and unbounded aspirations. A story that embraces cultural diversity, human ingenuity and planetary stewardship. A story attracting more sensitive provisioning and more enduring solutions to the most life-critical issues facing us. Most of all a story demanding our devoted attention - for it is the future story of humanity on Earth.

But where are the modern master navigators with the skills to recalibrate our current course and lead us unerringly to that future? Where can we go to find that rare capability of pragmatism tempered by wisdom, intelligence inspired by creativity?

Imagine an advanced, technologically-sophisticated meeting place – a decision theatre where powerful imaging and information technologies are tuned into detecting (even anticipating) relevant shifts in world-system dynamics. Imagine these technologies have the capability to convert information into a variety of real-time visualizations - maps that allow those so ordained to comprehend, monitor and respond to complex emergent data far more effectively than exists elsewhere.

Now imagine an interconnected network of such "agoras" located in strategic hubs around the world – in Tehran, Kampala, Brasilia, Beijing, Geneva, Singapore, Johannesburg, New Delhi, Canberra and San Francisco perhaps. Imagine, too, community leaders, entrepreneurs, indigenous elders, artists and influencers from all walks of life, and from a mélange of cultures, convening in these decision theatres for one purpose – reconfiguring the current world-system - process by process, issue by issue - so that it is sustainable in every conceivable way and justifiable from every point of view.

Imagine highly-trained curators guiding participants through a unique process of integral inquiry - enabling a synthesized wisdom from past and present traditions of knowledge, intelligence, spirituality, emotions and practices, and capable of transcending present-day problems, to evolve. Imagine cadres of contemporary Wayfinders openly sharing new wisdom in ways that enable more viable systems to be rapidly designed, prototyped and deployed - wherever they are most needed.

Finally, imagine new forms of liquidy democracy being used to refine and deploy new knowledge instantly, in every corner of the world, generating resilient change, helping established agencies to implement alternative policy options, and connecting at the grassroots with social entrepreneurial movements and activities.

What you are imagining is Wayfinder. A politically neutral, internationally-collaborative approach to assuring a future of abundance, radical empathy and viable systems.

Wayfinder is both a planetary nervous system, an autonomic governance mechanism, and a globally-distributed design laboratory whose practice field is the renewal of society’s most life-critical systems. Our intention is to create empathic communities of mind sufficient to supplement, refocus and further the reform ethos of discrete international bodies and sovereign states.

Into this environment we are inviting masters and artists from multiple disciplines and demographics, to experience and design viable futures for humanity and in ways that allow us to consciously evolve the human species. These are the Wayfinders. Their praxis is wayfinding - a deeply engaging process in which their collective energy is devoted to improving the human condition by awakening (in themselves and others) new ways of thinking, doing and being.

Based on the principles of viable living systems Wayfinder connects all sectors of human society, across all physical, religious, political, economic and psychological borders, to consciously advance a radically empathic society with an equitable economy and morally sustainable practices. In essence Wayfinder is a global mechanism for enabling the human spirit to soar once more.

A New Politics

Humankind's greatest crisis coincides with the rise of an ideology that makes it impossible to tackle. By the late 1980s, when it became clear that man-made climate change endangered the living planet and its people, the world was in the grip of an extreme political doctrine whose tenets forbid the kind of intervention required to arrest it.

Neoliberalism, also known as market fundamentalism or laissez-faire economics, purports to liberate the market from political interference. The state, it asserts, should do little but defend the realm, protect private property and remove barriers to business. In practice it looks nothing like this. What neoliberal theorists call shrinking the state looks more like shrinking democracy: reducing the means by which citizens can restrain the power of the elite. What they call ''the market'' looks more like the interests of corporations and the ultra-rich. Neoliberalism appears to be little more than a justification for plutocracy.

The doctrine was first applied in Chile in 1973, as former students of the University of Chicago, schooled in Milton Friedman's extreme prescriptions and funded by the CIA, worked alongside General Pinochet to impose a program that would have been impossible in a democratic state. The result was an economic catastrophe, but one in which the rich - who took over Chile's privatised industries and unprotected natural resources - prospered exceedingly.

The creed was taken up by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. It was forced on the poor world by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. By the time James Hansen presented the first detailed attempt to model future temperature rises to the United States Senate in 1988, the doctrine was being implanted everywhere.

As we saw in 2007 and 2008 (when neoliberal governments were forced to abandon their principles to bail out the banks), there could scarcely be a worse set of circumstances for tackling a crisis of any kind. Until it has no choice, the self-hating state will not intervene, however acute the crisis or grave the consequences. Neoliberalism protects the interests of the elite against all-comers.

Preventing climate breakdown - the four, five or six degrees of warming now predicted for this century by green extremists such as, er, the World Bank, the International Energy Agency and PricewaterhouseCoopers - means confronting the oil, gas and coal industries. It means forcing those industries to abandon the four-fifths or more of fossil fuel reserves that we cannot afford to burn. It means cancelling the prospecting and development of new reserves - what's the point if we can't use current stocks? - and reversing the expansion of any infrastructure (such as airports) that cannot be run without them.

But the self-hating state cannot act. Captured by interests that democracy is supposed to restrain, it can only sit on the road, ears pricked and whiskers twitching, as the truck thunders towards it. Confrontation is forbidden, action is a mortal sin. You may, perhaps, disperse some money for new energy; you may not legislate against the old.

So Barack Obama pursues what he calls an ''all of the above'' policy: promoting wind, solar, oil and gas. Ed Davey, the British climate change secretary, launched an energy bill in the House of Commons last week whose purpose was to decarbonise the energy supply. In the same debate he also promised that he would ''maximise the potential'' of oil and gas production in the North Sea and other offshore fields.

British expert Sir Nicholas Stern, author of the 2006 Stern report, described climate change as ''the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen''. The useless Earth summit in June; the feeble measures now being debated in Doha; the energy bill and electricity-demand-reduction paper launched in Britain last week (better than they might have been, but unmatched to the scale of the problem) - all expose the greatest and widest-ranging failure of market fundamentalism: its incapacity to confront our existential crisis.

The 1000-year legacy of current carbon emissions is long enough to smash anything resembling human civilisation into splinters. Complex societies have sometimes survived the rise and fall of empires, plagues, wars and famines. They won't survive six degrees of climate change, sustained for a millennium. In return for 150 years of explosive consumption, much of which does nothing to advance human welfare, we are atomising the natural world and the human systems that depend on it.

The climate summit (or foothill) in Doha probes the current limits of political action. Go further and you break your covenant with power, a covenant both disguised and validated by the neoliberal creed.

Neoliberalism is not the root of the problem: it is the ideology used, often retrospectively, to justify a global grab of power, public assets and natural resources by an unrestrained elite. But the problem cannot be tackled until the doctrine is challenged by effective political alternatives.

In other words, the struggle against climate change - and all the crises that now beset both human beings and the natural world - cannot be won without a wider political fight: a democratic mobilisation against plutocracy. This should start with an effort to reform election campaign finance - the means by which corporations and the very rich buy policies and politicians.

But this is scarcely a beginning. We must start to articulate a new politics, one that sees intervention as legitimate, that contains a higher purpose than corporate emancipation disguised as market freedom, that puts the survival of people and the living world above the survival of a few favoured industries. In other words, a politics that belongs to us, not just the super-rich.

This piece was written by George Monbiot. George is a Guardian columnist and the author of The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order and Heat: how to stop the planet burning.

 

 

 

 

Tilting at Windmills

The time for scepticism is long past. The time for informed action, though, is also quickly passing us by. As the UN climate negotiations continue in Doha "people all over the world are watching as floods wash away their lives, fires consume their houses and droughts decimate food crops. Just last week, UNEP released a report warning that melting permafrost could release massive amounts of methane – a powerful greenhouse gas – into the atmosphere, bringing the planet ever closer to runaway climate change".

Here’s a letter from three powerful advocates for a safe climate to the leaders and negotiators in Doha. The authors are Bill McKibben founder of 350.org; Nnimmo Bassey of Environmental Rights Action & Coordinator of Oilwatch International; and Pablo Solon, Executive Director of Focus on the Global South, former Bolivian Ambassador to the UN and former chief negotiator for climate change.

2012 saw the shocking melt of the Arctic, leading our greatest climatologist to declare a ‘planetary emergency’ and it saw weather patterns wreck harvests around the world, raising food prices by 40% and causing family emergencies in poor households throughout the world. That’s what happens with 0.8ºC of global warming.

If we are going to stop this situation from getting worse, an array of institutions have explained this year precisely what we need to do: leave most of the carbon we know about in the ground and stop looking for more. If we want a 50-50 chance of staying below two degrees, we have to leave 2/3 of the known reserves of coal and oil and gas underground; if we want an 80% chance, we have to leave 80% of those reserves untouched.

That’s not “environmentalist math” or some radical interpretation – that’s from the report of the International Energy Agency last month. It means that without dramatic global action to change our path the end of the climate story is already written. There is no room for doubt – absent remarkable action, these fossil fuels will burn, and the temperature will climb creating a chain reaction of climate related natural disasters.

Negotiators should cease their face-saving, their endless bracketing and last minute cooking of texts and concentrate entirely on figuring out how to live within the carbon budget scientists set. We can’t emit more than 565 more gigatons of carbon before 2050, but at the current pace we’ll blow past that level in 15 years. If we want to have a chance to stick to this budget by 2020 we can’t send to the atmosphere more than 200 gigatons.

Rich countries who have poured most of the carbon into the atmosphere (especially the planet’s sole superpower) need to take the lead in emission reductions and the emerging economies have also to make commitments to reduce the exploitation of oil, coal and gas. The right to development should be understood as the obligation of states to guarantee the basic needs of the population to enjoy a fulfilled and happy life, and not as a free ticket for a consumer and extractivist society that doesn’t take into account the limits of the planet and the wellbeing of all humans.

There’s no longer time for diplomatic delays. Most of the negotiators in the Eighteenth Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) know that these are the facts. Now is the time to act for the future of humanity and Nature.

Good intentions and logic aside, this plea is bound to fall on deaf ears. Within the very general terms of its Charter, the UN has come to believe that it (and it alone) has carriage over global issues where a unity of response is required. In practice the UN has become a default mechanism for matters like climate change because of our collective inability to challenge such assumptions, or to create alternative bodies more capable of doing the job. Possibly relevant in the years immediately following the 2nd World War, the role of the UN has become increasingly ambiguous in an era of instant communication, smart technologies and overwhelming complexity.

So what if unity (of nations) is no longer required in this context? What if diversity is actually more relevant and should be valued as such? What if the struggle for consensus actually impedes impactful investment or hinders more effective cooperation? What if there are better, more rational, alternatives we could be pursuing to build momentum faster? What if even the most basic tools needed for systemic transformation are not available to the negotiators at Doha? What if they are unaware that such tools even exist?

As regular readers of The Hames Report know, I recently called for an end to the UN's stewardship of the annual climate debate farce for purely practical reasons - see Any Advance on Doha? below.

A different institution is needed in order to initiate and engage in design thinking and constructive dialogue (i.e. transformational narrative) that can lead directly to informed action. This probably needs to be a limited-life "SWAT team" that is not politically motivated (nor bound by political expediency), that does not concern itself with easily-manipulated targets, and that is not populated with "experts" who have vested interests only in preserving the status quo.

This "SWAT team" should be a working community of possibly no more than 50 individuals - comprising systems thinkers, visionaries, scientists, designers, entrepreneurs and policy makers - people who are not trapped in the present but are capable of imagining, designing, rapidly prototyping and freely distributing a range of future alternatives - ethically compelling, socially desirable, economically feasible, systemically viable pathways, strategies and solutions for alleviation, attenuation and adaptation. In order for this to be remotely feasible three things would need to happen:

1. Somehow the UN must be persuaded to abdicate its current role - or at least step aside - not from a sense of failure but in a deeper awareness of enlightened responsibility. It should acknowledge (a) it is incapable of reaching a satisfactory outcome in these matters and (b) that nation states, geared up to compete rather than to collaborate, are possibly the least appropriate mechanism for reaching agreement on strategies for tackling climate change. Until this courageous step is taken no other body can step into the breach and the world will remain under the false illusion that a result must eventually emerge from the current process.

2. To remain relevant in this context the UN needs to demonstrate a more engaging and conscious form of leadership by stepping into a new epistemology. It can do this by openly declaring the human family to be facing a planetary emergency in which no single entity or sector has the solution - and asking for help. Following such a proclamation, the UN could then justify putting its weight behind new, even experimental, approaches - including the use of a "SWAT team" as envisaged here - and use its waning influence to persuade others, across all sectors of society, of the wisdom of such alternative approaches.

International NGOs from the Clinton Global Initiative to the World Economic Forum and the World Bank could also take it upon themselves to support such an endeavour in the spirit of radical empathy. This simple act would make it clear to people everywhere that we're in this together and that we cannot rely on governments alone to sort out the problems for which we are all responsible.

3. As a consequence of #2 above the conventional wisdom, wherein nation state governments are expected to reach a legally-binding consensus on climate change, would be downgraded. Informed action, on the other hand, would be upgraded. It is clear that a universal agreement regarding how to go about reducing carbon dioxide and methane emissions in the atmosphere will probably not be forthcoming. Indeed it is probably wishful thinking. Setting targets is even more pointless. It is evident that new forms of collaborative action are necessary. Eveything that can be done must be done.

Most of the causes for our heating planet come from energy-related pressures on traditional industrialised methods of production and distribution, combined with the ever-increasing consumption demands from a population of seven billion people. The majority of these people are now located in the world's major cities.

But cities also happen to be engines of innovation. On at least one level it makes far more sense for cities, individually and collectively, to implement real strategic solutions than for national governments to spend their time - Don Quixote-like - trying to agree on theoretical targets. Indeed there is no reason why cities should not "compete" against each other for the entrepreneurial talent and resources required to protect life-critical systems and natural amentities for their citizens. That would at least be putting their free market instincts to better use.

Nations, cities, corporations and individuals should all be able to choose the most appropriate strategies and mechanisms to deploy - given their particular circumstances. Because of international trade there will be obvious cooperative and commercial partnering opportunities. But in order for them to do this they have to be able to see a full range of viable pathways available to them and to find ways of matching these with compelling incentives to invest. Such a catalogue of possibilities does not currently exist in the public domain - not in a single accessible format at least. A SWAT team would provide that catalogue - not just in theory, but in practical, ready-to-implement, form.

One thing we do know. Business as usual can no longer be an option. Nor must inaction be given any form of legitimacy. There can be no exceptions. Time is running out, of that there can surely be no doubt? We do not need nations to reach consensus on targets. We need action to be taken by those best placed to take action - such as cities and corporations.

Actually all we need from nations - in terms of "unity" - is an undertaking that by 2015 every country will enact a suite of coherent and aligned actions that make sense for them, each according to their means. Debt should be forgiven and investment capital made available by richer nations so that poorer countries can comply with this undertaking. If that pledge is broken a universally agreed law of ecocide could be enacted. Indeed prosecuting such an act of law might be a more fitting role for the UN in the future, rather than a facilitator of negotiations that go round and round in circles and end up in frustrating limbo.

 

Any Advance on Doha?

One of the signs of insanity, it is often asserted, is continuing to behave the same way, all the while expecting different outcomes.

This week diplomats from around the world are converging on Doha where the 2012 international debate on climate policy will be taking place under the auspices of the United Nations. After the failure of previous meetings of this nature one would have thought the UN might have tried something different; a little more audacious perhaps? Or, dare one say, inspired? After all you would imagine they might be getting desperate by now.

But if that is the case, it is not evident from the program. They are continuing to do the same things as before, though possibly with even greater enthusiasm.

The task, daunting but logically flawed, is pretty straightforward. In the face of potentially catastrophic global warming it is to agree a second phase of the Kyoto Protocol and to lay the groundwork for a new treaty that will take force in 2020.

Of course it would be unwise to pronounce the meeting an abject failure before it even starts, although history indicates this to be a strong likelihood after the near implosion of last year’s talks in Durban. But with the best will in the world I cannot see anything enduringly positive emerging from these talks. The likelihood is that the space for future negotiations will contract. The reasons are very obvious:

1. The Kyoto Protocol was never a satisfactory mechanism. For a start it did not include the US, and major nations including the US, Japan, Russia and Canada have already opted out of a second round. Second, in spite of fines for non-compliance, it was never legally enforceable. Third, it was based upon the imposition of aspirational targets. Setting targets without a profound knowledge of the system is always a hit and miss affair, besides which they are so easily manipulated. The fact that targets do not work was proven by a growth in emissions rather than the reverse.

2. The Doha meeting is being held against a backdrop of palpably worsening climatic conditions, extreme weather events, and progressively agitated warnings from climate activists – none of which support informed reflection. Dire warnings certainly raise awareness, but do little to inspire cooperation or initiate alternative solutions. Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth trumpeted the dangers of inaction louder and with greater clarity than most scientific reports. The truth is the movie only succeeded in raising public anxiety. Now is the time for insightful collaborative action, not just more existential warnings of impending doom. Unfortunately the UN is not geared up for that.

3. The nation state grew from a worldview that was essentially combative - a belief that competition is an innate and inescapable part of what it means to be human. Thus the state defends and protects those citizens who choose to live within its borders, in return for which its citizens compete with those in other states for resources, territory, influence and wealth. To many individuals in the private sector this is the natural order. But the same worldview prevails in government as well as most non-government organisations. So the chance of almost 200 nations coming together for two weeks to reach consensus on an issue as complex as climate change is absolutely incongruous. It is not going to happen. Nations and their representatives are simply not equipped to cooperate. Nor is their ability to transcend differences sufficiently mature. It is just not in their DNA. And so it comes as no surprise to find overly simplistic groupings playing power games in Doha. Like the supposed differences between developed and non-developed nations, for example. In the end it is all semantics. The issues facing us call for unity, not rivalry.

4. The pain is not yet sufficient. As yet there is no burning platform. Gradually the relevance of extreme weather events is starting to sink into the collective conscious, particularly in those parts of the world suffering unprecedented droughts, fires, storms and flooding. But many people remain sceptical and have yet to link these incidents with long-term climatic trends. We are far too complacent. Until the accumulated strain on the planet is apparent to the casual observer - in terms of rising temperatures, sea levels, heatwaves and other weather-related occurrences - and on a daily basis, it is highly improbable that any collective action will be forthcoming.

5. Any effective communication, such that conveys compelling ideas or provokes collective action, is deliberately avoided or understated. Almost all briefing documents, reports, pledges, commitments, protocols, conventions and records of the meeting, supposedly intended to expound and inform, are invariably bogged down by a babel of weasel words – ambiguous, tortuously verbose or deliberately vague. This results in a weird kind of bureaucratic etiquette where nothing meaningful is said. Indeed the art of drafting these documents is to avoid saying anything explicitly that could cause offence to anyone at all.

6. Too many cooks have been invited to the feast. I don’t have the figures for Durban or Doha but there were well over 20,000 official negotiators in Copenhagen. How on earth can 20,000 or more people arrive at any kind of consensus? Sometimes it is difficult enough to agree with one’s partner. Do you recall the last meeting you attended with your peer team? Now imagine if the agenda had comprised just a single highly contentious topic. Can you remember how difficult it was to reach any kind of sensible agreement that each of your colleagues could live with? And was that with seven people? Twelve? In Doha there are thousands of cooks trying to bake a cake. They are armed with a multitude of ingredients. But each team is carrying a different recipe and each wants to satisfy their own individual palate. The creation will not be one to your liking. Of that I can be sure.

7. The UN uses a combined conference and workshop approach predicated on the notion of experts informing each other in the hope of narrowing options and settling on an array of desired outcomes. This instructional and essentially linear mode of communication has a long and checkered history. But in the current circumstances it is entirely inadequate since instruction does not necessarily result in new learning nor lead to behavioural change. For success to grow from these annual convocations the organisers must shift to a transformational mode of collaborative inquiry. And therein lies the rub. For the UN is hampered by being caught in a grand scheme where sheer numbers prevent effective dialogue.

8. Currently the emphasis for these meetings seems to be on resolving the problem of atmospheric carbon dioxide and soot particles by setting targets to reduce emissions. This is not just a “now” problem. It resonates back in time at least 300 years and casts a deep shadow into the future. So one might reasonably expect the problem solvers to be conscious of this expanded time-frame and to take it into account during the course of their deliberations. After all we cannot afford to put another foot wrong only to realise our mistake in 20 years time. But no. Factors of systemic cause and effect over time are considered irrelevant. So there is no exploration of which decisions led, directly and indirectly, to our present circumstances. There is no genuine comprehension of why particular choices were favoured over others. There is no grasp of the information that was available, what compelled people to make a decision, nor even the prevailing conditions in which a certain decision was thought to be the best one at the time. If our negotiators are ignorant of the past, there is even less comprehension of the future. There is no unifying narrative for a desired future that would benefit humanity as a whole. On the contrary, everything is predicated on extrapolative modelling (which has been proven to be unreliable) and on untested assumptions. There are three critical points in navigation. You must know where you have come from, where you are now, and where you want to get to. This also assumes you know “why” you are headed in a certain direction. I venture to suggest the vast majority of the people attending the Doha conference this week haven’t a clue about any of these three points. They are without a compass and lacking even the capacity to know in which direction to face.

9. The UN should not be the auspicing body and mechanism for climate change action. Not that there can be any alternative while the UN occupies this space. The UN must step aside before other candidates can step forward. Nor should representatives of nation states be the prime negotiators deciding the fate of humanity. Historical legitimacy is one thing. But the UN is anything but united and power invested in tired institutions like the nation state, tethered to a habit of competing rather than collaborating, simply cannot act with the necessary speed, agility and shared empathy. The most effective global diplomacy today is that enacted on the ground by hundreds of thousands of interconnected individuals and non-government entities. Perhaps the time has come for the UN to abdicate its role in this domain or to outsource this particular function to a body more capable of getting results.

10. Climate change is an integral and systemic matter. As such it is a failure of our collective values and individual behaviours as much as it is of whole systems not working as they once did. To understand the issue of global warming in all its complex variety we must know and appreciate how the whole system functions - not just the observable symptoms that are easily explained by science. We must understand the most axiomatic factors within the system. We must understand its dynamics. We must also monitor the pace, metamorphosis and impact of its emergent qualities in real time. Anything less than this profound knowledge, or focusing on just one tiny aspect of the whole system while ignoring the rest, is pure negligence. Such an ill-informed approach can only ever provide partial solutions. Sometimes it can make matters a lot worse. So we should look for evidence that a systems approach is inherently understood by the delegates in Doha. We must be able to see them using maps, causal loop diagrams, fitness landscapes and other visualisations of the complexity involved. Sadly, I see no such evidence.

Conclusions:

While success breeds success, successive failures ultimately lead to weariness and despair. The UN does not have time on its side – a decade, perhaps, or two at the most before the cost of procrastination is overshadowed by circumstances in which the majority of the human population will be struggling to deal with the effects of hostile climatic conditions.

Success would be nice. But this is only likely to accrue from radically different goals, more intelligent procedures, a determination to cut through red tape, more proficient facilitation, and where the conditions for success have been mindfully constructed as part of the process. If, on the other hand, these meetings continue on their current trajectory, and fail to reach a universally acceptable consensus for action soon, it is highly probable more individual states will choose to opt out of the farce altogether.

In Doha this week all eyes will be on the US and China. But in spite of new faces on the dance floor the music is the same slow tango. There is little evidence that the political ambition for aggressive action to combat climate change is going to change any time soon.

 

Reinventing Development

The Way It Is

In 1945, the year of my birth, there were around 1.8 billion people inhabiting the planet. This was not many more than the previous millenium. Today there are more than seven billion. Yet the sixth billionth child is only 13 years old! That gives us an idea of the exponential explosion of our species over the past century. The causes for such a remarkable surge in human fertility are various. Two stand out above all others…

1. Advances in health care, the elimination of many life-threatening diseases, new drugs, prosthetics, non-invasive surgery and, more recently, genetic modification, have all allowed us to live longer, healthier lives. That was fairly predictable. But the second had unforseen consequences.

2. A geo-engineering project by two scientists, Haber and Bosch, resulted in a method for extracting nitrogen from the air and synthesising it in ammonia that could then be used as a fertiliser. At scale the new fertilisers produced an abundance of food. Unpredictably they also signficantly altered the natural global nitrogen cycle - polluting groundwater, depleting the natural capacity of soil to grow food and increasing levels of atmospheric nitrogen dioxide - a potent "greenhouse" gas.

The overcrowding caused by seven billion people is resulting in consumption rates that are not sustainable – particularly given that many of the resources upon whichwe rely are finite or simply cannot be replenished overnight. This puts a premium on oil, gas and other petrochemicals, for example, raising the cost of staple foods, throwing even more people into poverty, and putting stress on myriad downstream systems and their associated practices.

Whether it is food, education, corrections, health care, energy or social development, most systems in use today were designed for a different era and a much smaller human family. Many are not working well today. Some, particularly a few life-critical systems concerned with energy, food and water, are in early stages of collapse. 

As systems begin to fail we blame each other and conflict increases. Meanwhile a sense of anxiety, and a concern for the future, has become pervasive - pushing many young people to the edge. Alienation, poverty, youth crime, substance abuse and suicide are becoming a disturbing feature of contemporary life under this existential shadow.

The key theories of human behaviour, together with the principles on which our world-system is predicated and which we assume to be enduring traits (like competition) are inceasingly unsustainable. Some are even irrelevant. Moreover systems that served us well in the past have become ineffective while others are actually detrimental to human health and well being. 

The solution stares us in the face. We must reinvent systems, institutions and practices we once thought permanent but no longer benefit us. Reinvention is the most urgent and compelling need of our time. It is also the most apposite developmental narrative.

A New Narrative

Reinvention is not some implausible theme from a science fiction movie. On the contrary reinvention is a natural part of evolution - a key element of what it means to be alive and human. It is no surprise we are immersed in processes of reinventing. But the new story, a narrative of social transformation, mutuality and co-creation, is rapidly moving into a higher gear. It has become crucial for the purposeful advancement of humanity.

Seemingly nothing is exempt, nothing quarantined from the need for reinvention. Through the convergence of human physiology, robotics and nanotechnology we are reinventing what defines our physical nature. We are reinventing how we connect with and relate to each other, through the new social media of Twitter and Facebook. We are reinventing how we learn, how we organise, and how we manage. We are reinventing business models.

We are even reinventing capitalism - moving away from focusing just on shareholder wealth to a model of co-creating shared value. This is being done through:

• Reconceiving products and markets [for example through initiatives like the Global Innovation Commons, open-source design and crowdsourced funding]
• Redefining productivity in the value chain [for example by reducing the use of energy, logistics and resources; investing in socially positive procurement and distribution practices; focusing on employee wellbeing; and establishing deep roots in the communities in which companies operate]
• Redesigning the links between companies and communities [for example via industrial ecosystems based upon symbiotic clusters in defined communities.

In all these examples an underlying leitmotif is apparent: they all aim to create wealth for those involved as well as having positive social impacts. In all of them, too, new values emphasising openness, cooperation, transparency, reciprocity, adaptiveness, generosity of spirit, empathy and collaboration are evident.

Four Stories

So what does the new story of reinvention hold for social development? Here are four cases that challenge how we have traditionally thought about aid and development.

1. Paul van Zyl was an eminent human rights lawyer until he transformed ethical markets previously dominated by the Oxfam model. His company occupies a position in luxury-end ready-to-wear fashion. Maiyet uses local niche artisans in Peru, India, Kenya and Columbia to produce highly sought-after clothes, shoes, bags, jewelry and other accessories which are sold through prestigious outlets in the major cities of the world. Through Van Zyls example we immediately grasp that human talent is both universal, refined, and not restricted to peasants weaving baskets or whittling bamboo whistles in perpetuity.

2. Meechai Viravaidya is known throughout his native Thailand as Mr Condom. He is the pioneer of business enterprises (like the Cabbages & Condoms restaurant chain) whose overriding purpose is to be profitable so as to support NGOs focused on tackling family planning, rural poverty and HIV/AIDS. These and other initiatives strive to put the power of informed action back into the hands of local communities, especially women and children.

3. Rob Smith is an entrepreneur from Navada. Starting life as a venture capitalist he has since become more concerned with human development. Chrysallis is the world's first behavioural change platform, enabling people to download personalized "Paths" that support the exact change they want to make in their lives. Paths are being created by thousands of experts, authors and researchers around the world looking for a fast and powerful way to deliver their expertise to millions of people through a real-time, adaptive learning application on mobile, desktop and slate computers.

4. Jan Owen is the CEO of the Foundation for Young Australians. She was recently voted by the Financial Review as the most influential woman in the country. Jan is responsible for a scheme that provides a structured journey into volunteering and global citizenship for young Australians aged between 13 and 20. After participating in up to five years of volunteering and social action opportunities, Young People Without Borders culminates in an extended one-year volunteering placement in Australia or the Asia-Pacific. This is seen as the launch pad for post-school life. Young People Without Borders is intended to transform a generation - embedding the notion of contribution and giving back to society into the DNA of all young Australians.

Some Lessons:

• From Information to Transformation

The traditional paradigm of development, with its delivery mechanisms based upon informational and instructional modes of communicative action (including gift-giving and donating) is becoming obsolete. Sadly it has too often resulted in co-dependent relationships twixt agency and beneficiary. This is probably unethical - especially when new skills and knowledge that would amputate such unhealthy relationships are not dispensed.

We must now make conscious attempts to direct our energy within transformational modes of empowerment in which beneficiaries of development are encouraged to contribute to society in ways that do not result in disadvantage or cause them to lose their dignity and self-respect. In the process we must appreciate that sophisticated talent exists everywhere. It is not confined to the so-called developed world.

• The new literacy of development

In transformational mode, the capacity to deliver (any service whatsoever) applies equally to both agency and beneficiary. All parties must engage in the evolution of a new literacy - involving the application of design thinking and language - able to include and transcend any tensions and dilemmas that previously manifested as impediments to effectiveness.

This will require us to change many of our assumptions about our own roles and responsibilities in the unending quest for human advancement, equality and justice. It necessitates a shift in the conversation from our comfortable exterior world of budgets and measurable goals to one of deeper forensic interrogation of our interior values, belies and assumptions concerning what really matters.

• Redesigning systems

Any dynamically complex system - including our current world-system – can only create what it has been designed to create. If we view the state of any system, or the outcomes the system produces, as unsatisfactory, we need to redesign the system – or at least our intentions and the constraints embedded within the system that cause it to behave in the only way it can. If we really want to eliminate poverty, for example, we can do that. But we will need to fundamentally alter our methods of distribution (of food, learning, technology, health care, etc) for that to happen. Anything else is self-deception.

•  The “feel good” factor

If innovation of our world-system is required in order for development to advance, then possibly the most vital target for innovation relates to the “missionary" mindset. This invariably interprets human development purely in terms of helping those less fortunate than ourselves as a means to our own salvation. Whether this means giving a couple of coins to a beggar on the street, “adopting” a child growing up in an exotic land far away, or serious involvement in social enterprise, the return on our “investment” is too often a feel good factor that allows us to tick the box, convinced we have done all we can to assist, thus absolving us from the guilt we would otherwise feel. We can then conveniently ignore the problems, convinced we have done all that we can do and just hoping they will go away.

•  Rapid prototyping

Results matter. As does speed. Combine both and it is far easier to attract capital whose stewards are usually impatient for a return on their investment. Unfortunately most traditional enterprises in this space, international NGOs, state governments and corporations alike, are more caught up with obsolete notions of corporate social responsibility on the one hand, and reporting their activities to make them look better (in order to attract even more funding for their obsolete mission) on the other.

In the traditional domains of aid and development the pace of actual change is glacial. Most modern initiatives that actually change people’s lives for the better, engage on the ground, speedily and without making matters worse. Fast-moving enterprises that are not weighed down by the burden of bureaucracy are able to cut through excessive red tape that causes many well-intended programs to wilt in their impact and significance.

• Provisioning for change

Focusing on money and budgets is the dead hand of social development. The obsessive need for funding constrains us, requires sustained effort from everyone concerned, and enervates new ventures. It is time for notions of scarcity to give way to an ethos of abundance. In that context, provisioning for success requires much more than just funding. It embraces what we have in abundance - ranging from entrepreneurial ideas and energy, to influential networks, partners, technologies, and passions. All of these matter just as much as funding. And if we apply the principles of impact investing, by focusing on getting results - fast and with the least disruption – the funding will appear.

• Beliefs really do matter

Traditional boundaries between sectors and activities, especially those which simply reinforce hierarchy, are rapidly disintegrating. In their place a more fluid and flexible array of alliances and partnerships are emerging in which aligned beliefs and values count for more than what is actually made. The why rather than the what becomes the ruler of success.

Take Apple, for example. Led by Steve Jobs, this company has become the most profitable company in the history of the world and one of the most admired and coveted of global brands. Apple differs fundamentally from companies like Dell. The reason is simple. Every decision taken by Apple is the result of knowing why it exists. The company’s core ethos is ingrained in the beliefs of people intent on providing us with aesthetic experiences. By contrast, Dell and Acer know only what they do. It is a profound and striking strategic difference.

Final Thoughts:

In order to be sure that social and economic development becomes sustainable we must find ways of creating shared value. Shared value arises when we comprehend the human condition in all its richness and respond in ways that recognise the need for mutuality and parity in everything we do.

In that context it is evident collaboration through partnering, fuelled by a spirit of mutuality, is becoming the most effective canvas on which social enterprise can grow. We are also witnessing similar dynamics in innovative forms of conscious investment, based upon values-aligned inputs, which are now transforming philanthropy.

That said, the gravitational pull of the past is exceptionally strong – especially in the few intergovernmental agencies whose entire ethos is bound up with helping people - and we still have much learning to do. Much that we need to let go. I am reminded of an indigenous Australian woman who, facing a task force of well-intended public servants from Canberra said: If you have come to help us, then please go away. If, however, your salvation is bound up with ours, please stay and we will work together.

This piece is reconstructed from a keynote address to a cross-sectoral conference convened by the UNDP in Bangkok, Thailand, earlier this week.

Reviving Confucius

For those of us who grow up in the richly varied landscapes of Europe, where unanticipated changes seem to occur around every corner, rapidly morphing into the next surprise, or those of us accustomed to the frenetic pace of life in great cities like Los Angeles or Tokyo, flat expanses of tundra or sleepy townships off the beaten track are the most dreary of places. They often lack sufficient variety to hold our interest for more than a few moments.

Pyschologists accept that in order to grab our attention in any enduring way our minds require some form of equilibrium - a level of variety that equates to our ingrained expectations of what makes a thing interesting or beautiful or relevant. Too much variety and we are overwhelmed. But if our expectations fall short - through insufficient variety - we tend to be bored by what we perceive as monotony; missing tiny details and subtle distinctions that might otherwise capture our attention.

The same can be said for the heed we pay other cultures and regimes, especially those we brand “alien” for no other reason than they differ in some form from our own. Where we experience qualities that are similar or identical to ours (language, customs, mannerisms) we show abiding interest – analysing patterns and trends in the greatest detail and comparing insights at a level of granularity aimed at affirming our (usually innate) understanding of the most subtle changes. In comparison, our fascination with alien cultures tends to be both short-sighted and fleeting.

Granted, most of the time our assumptions are based on what we have been told by others, rather than on what we have discovered for ourselves. Familiarity is also an issue: we take far more notice of those we know. It is difficult to trust those for whom we have scant regard. This is why those of us who live in countries like Australia or England are more caught up in the euphoria of Barack Obama’s re-election than in China's transfer of leadership during the 18^th Party Congress which is in full swing this week.

So it is possibly surprising to some, in an age where the Chinese economic juggernaut, in conjunction with its widely criticised downsides, such as environmental destruction and an unforgiving attitude towards any kind of political activism, tend to hit the headlines, that Confucianism is on the rise again across China. In truth it didn't actually disappear - although it did go into hiding for a while. It could well have consequences that are important to note now.

The revival of Confucianism is almost impossible to discern from outside the country. Within China, however, it is a weak signal that a very different kind of temperament is emerging regarding social change. It is particularly evident in the subtleties of language increasingly favoured by the government, as well as in the many rituals promoting a sense of moral social responsibility that can be found in the public schools. And when speaking to influential people (PPC officials, artists, entrepreneurs and university intellectuals, for example) it is easy to discern a tacit accord in terms of the pertinence and potential value of Confucian ideals to contemporary Chinese society.

In many respects it seems as though Confucianism is the most enduring aspect of the Sinic cultural mindset - an impulse underlying Chinese consciousness that simply chose to hold its breath during the past few decades of political disruption and is now re-emerging into the dawn of a new China. Expressions relating to social unity and familial virtue, for example, are fast gaining in popularity, especially among young people. Meanwhile Confucian ideals of peace, tolerance, and harmony are signified in the messaging at all levels of society.

Particularly significant is China’s official stance on climate. While the ill-informed among us still insist China is doing nothing about global warming and that the Chinese leadership cares nothing about environmental pollution, the reality is very different. Some of the most encouraging thinking about humanity’s paradoxical relationship with nature is coming from China. Within a Confucian framework, this makes absolute sense. Confucian scholars criticise most economic and political regimes, including market-fuelled democracies, for being ecologically illiterate – unable to deal with the environmental crisis simply because nobody is consciously representing the interests of future generations. Here is an opportunity to take a very different tack.

Other clues reinforcing this change in attitude will become evident in due course. Foremost among these is likely to be a more enlightened approach to the economy where growth and development are balanced with environmental and social imperatives. In the future it is quite feasible leaders will be promoted on their ability to implement environmentally sustainable practices in addition to their economic achievements, which are always relatively easy to measure, yet vulnerable to distortion and corruption. Such an ethos would have strong links to the Confucian ideal of harmonious relationships with the environment as the prime source of social well being.

Expect to see this trend towards pragmatic Confucianism play out in almost all future government policies related to the major challenges facing the country as well as the relationships China weaves with other nations. It is far removed from the tired Occidental view of an empirically ambitious and oppressive China, hell-bent on world domination.

 

Global Warming Caused Hurricane Sandy

That's right. Global warming systemically caused Hurricane Sandy - and the Midwest droughts and the fires in Colorado and Texas, as well as other extreme weather disasters around the world. Let's say it out loud, it was causation, systemic causation.

Systemic causation is familiar. Smoking is a systemic cause of lung cancer. HIV is a systemic cause of AIDS. Working in coal mines is a systemic cause of black lung disease. Driving while drunk is a systemic cause of auto accidents. Sex without contraception is a systemic cause of unwanted pregnancies.

There is a difference between systemic and direct causation. Punching someone in the nose is direct causation. Throwing a rock through a window is direct causation. Picking up a glass of water and taking a drink is direct causation. Slicing bread is direct causation. Stealing your wallet is direct causation. Any application of force to something or someone that always produces an immediate change to that thing or person is direct causation. When causation is direct, the word cause is unproblematic.

Systemic causation, because it is less obvious, is more important to understand. A systemic cause may be one of a number of multiple causes. It may require some special conditions. It may be indirect, working through a network of more direct causes. It may be probabilistic, occurring with a significantly high probability. It may require a feedback mechanism. In general, causation in ecosystems, biological systems, economic systems, and social systems tends not to be direct, but is no less causal. And because it is not direct causation, it requires all the greater attention if it is to be understood and its negative effects controlled.

Above all, it requires a name: systemic causation.

Global warming systemically caused the huge and ferocious Hurricane Sandy. And consequently, it systemically caused all the loss of life, material damage, and economic loss of Hurricane Sandy. Global warming heated the water of the Gulf and Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in greatly increased energy and water vapor in the air above the water. When that happens, extremely energetic and wet storms occur more frequently and ferociously. These systemic effects of global warming came together to produce the ferocity and magnitude of Hurricane Sandy.

The precise details of Hurricane Sandy cannot be predicted in advance, any more than when, or whether, a smoker develops lung cancer, or sex without contraception yields an unwanted pregnancy, or a drunk driver has an accident. But systemic causation is nonetheless causal.

Semantics matters. Because the word cause is commonly taken to mean direct cause, climate scientists, trying to be precise, have too often shied away from attributing causation of a particular hurricane, drought, or fire to global warming. Lacking a concept and language for systemic causation, climate scientists have made the dreadful communicative mistake of retreating to weasel words. Consider this quote from "Perception of Climate Change" by James Hansen, Makiko Sato, and Reto Ruedy, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:

...we can state, with a high degree of confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 were a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small.

The crucial words here are high degree of confidence, anomalies, consequence, likelihood, absence, and exceedingly small. Scientific weasel words! The power of the bald truth, namely causation, is lost.

This no small matter because the fate of the earth is at stake. The science is excellent. The scientists' ability to communicate is lacking. Without the words, the idea cannot even be expressed. And without an understanding of systemic causation, we cannot understand what is hitting us.

Global warming is real, and it is here. It is causing - yes, causing - death, destruction, and vast economic loss. And the causal effects are getting greater with time. We cannot merely adapt to it. The costs are incalculable. What we are facing is huge. Each day, the amount of extra energy accumulating via the heating of the earth is the equivalent of 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs. Each day!

Because the earth itself is so huge, this energy is distributed over the earth in a way that is not immediately perceptible by our bodies - only a fraction of a degree each day. But the accumulation of total heat energy over the earth is increasing at an astronomical rate, even though the temperature numbers look small locally - 0.8 degrees Celsius so far. If we hit 2.0 degrees Celsius, as we may before long, the earth - and the living things on it - will not recover. Because of ice melt, the level of the oceans will rise 45 feet, while huge storms, fires, and droughts get worse each year.

The international consensus is that by 2.0 degrees Celsius, all civilization would be threatened if not destroyed.

What would it take to reach a 2.0 degrees Celsius increase over the whole earth? Much less than you might think. Consider the amount of oil already drilled and stored by Exxon Mobil alone. If that oil were burned, the temperature of the earth would pass 2.0 degree Celsius, and those horrific disasters would come to pass.

The value of Exxon Mobil - its stock price - resides in its major asset, its stored oil. Because the weather disasters arising from burning that oil would be so great that we would have to stop burning. That's just Exxon Mobil's oil. The oil stored by all the oil companies everywhere would, if burned, destroy civilization many times over.

Another way to comprehend this, is that most of the oil stored all over the earth is worthless. The value of oil company stock, if Wall Street were rational, would drop precipitously. Moreover, there is no point in drilling for more oil. Most of what we have already stored cannot be burned. More drilling is pointless.

Are James Hansen's numbers right? We had better have the science community double-check these. And fast.

Where do we start? With language. Add systemic causation to your vocabulary. Communicate the concept. Explain to others why global warming systemically caused the enormous energy and size of Hurricane Sandy, as well as the major droughts and fires. Email your media whenever you see reporting on extreme weather that doesn't ask scientists if it was systemically caused by global warming.
 
Next, enact fee and dividend policies, originally proposed by Peter Barnes at Sky Trust and introduced in US Senate legislation as the KLEAR Act by Maria Cantwell and Susan Collins. More recently, legislation called fee and dividend has been proposed by James Hansen and introduced in the House by representatives John B. Larson and Bob Inglis.
 
Next. Do all we can to move to alternative energy worldwide as soon as possible.

This piece was written by George Lakoff who is Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. George is the author of The California Democracy Act, a grassroots California ballot initiative now organizing public support at camajorityrule.com. He is also the co-author (with Elisabeth Wehling)  of The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic. This is a slightly abbreviated version of an article published in Alternet on 30^th October 2012.

A Civilized Society

There is a widespread belief the terms worldview and mindset are interchangeable. I cannot agree and contend there are profound differences. Furthermore that these differences matter.

The former manifests as an explicit philosophy, shared view, or conception of the world (a unified society of mind) while the latter aligns the values and attitudes we acquire as infants and subsequently apply to interpret, engage with, and contribute to society in a coherent manner.

Whereas our worldview is a shared, albeit largely subliminal phenomenon - obdurate and unchanging, a paradigm we tacitly accept without challenge - cultural mindsets are diverse, numerous, and evolve over time. This evolution occurs by way of subtle (sometimes mysterious) modifications to customs, myths and rituals that create myriad rich distinctions between groups and communities. Some of these are reified while others, often for no apparent reason, fade in significance or simply vanish altogether.

Since very recent breakthroughs in genomics have confirmed the idea that ethnicity (in its biological sense) does not exist - that it is an illusion - differences in social context, together with the processes of inheriting and disseminating norms and customs, have provided crucial insights for appreciating alternate facets that connect and distinguish (rather than divide) human beings.

Arising from a unique combination of cultural and social conditioning as well as collective responses to shifting contextual and environmental circumstances - cultural mindsets are the idiosyncratic “lenses” through which we sense, make sense, and process meaning - expressions of which are then enacted locally. These expressions of meaning (or behaviours) are autonomically shaped to fit within the prevalent ethos of the worldview.

Deeper attitudinal expressions of this ethos (behaviours congruent with our most life-affirming beliefs) become ingrained moral tenets - for the most part universally accepted. To step outside the bounds of these laws is to invite immediate hostility and separation, an existential position we learn to avoid, for such individuals are promptly labeled outliers, heretics, psychopaths, felons and delinquents. All are dealt with as misfits.

Note that this presents us with a bittersweet paradox. Science and spirituality both hold that a viable living system can only be designed by an intelligence external to that system. Anything else is mere process. Logically, then, effecting radical change to the current worldview, can only come about by recreating the system from the outside-in. I am not suggesting for one moment that we hand over responsibility for the future of humanity to criminals and delinquents. Far from it. But public branding of the types mentioned above could be construed as a clever device for helping safeguard the status quo – on the condition it had been deliberately contrived by an elite cadre with that sole purpose in mind. After all it conveniently devalues any possibility of “what might be” by admonishing and quarantining those who would change “what is” (in this case the world-system) without which the worldview would lose its legitimacy. Such conspiratorial intentions might even be deemed acceptable by a majority of people if the worldview were benign, equitable and just. But it would be intolerable if the worldview happened to be toxic or malevolent in any way. I will return to this argument later.

So while these terms worldview and mindset are both meaningfully distinct yet inextricably related, they are not identical. Nor is this just a pedantic view but a necessary discernment within the context of conscious evolution, for it helps signify a grand societal challenge humanity has conveniently ignored for the past few thousand years.

Value in Cultural Diversity
In spite of our nomadic existence and the trend towards mixed relationships, cultural mindsets can still be observed in their purest form within bounded territories such as a township, island or remote expanse of land. The indigenous Ubuntu of South Africa, the Inuit of the Arctic and the Koori peoples of Australia are examples of this. But because of progressive urbanisation over the past century, heightened more recently by the surge in social media and mobile telephony, many unique traditions and mores of these formerly discrete communities are blurring into an homogenous milieu.

Akin to the loss of biodiversity in the natural environment over the past century or more, the contraction of the world’s disparate cultures and their corresponding cultural mindsets into a uniform monoculture, is accelerating. The human family, once a richly variagated tapestry of cultures, languages and tribes, has been subjugated by a range of factors. Not least among these has been the emergence of an irresistible hybrid. Global in scale. Enabled by rapid leaps in artificial intelligence, information and communications technologies. Driven, from all points of the compass, by a psychosomatic desire for greater novelty that is fuelling a manufacturing frenzy from companies scrambling over one another to fulfil that need, this contemporary collective impulse, glibly labelled globalisation by some, now engulfs us all.

This contemporary condition derives its uncompromising potency from the conjunction of the world’s three most widespread cultural mindsets – namely Occidental, Indic and Sinic readings of the worldview. But now they are incited by a single myopic teleology: ownership and the acquisition of material wealth. At one level, this represents a convergence of the prevailing worldview and mindset hybrid, to the extent that it is almost impossible to distinguish between them and even more difficult to uncouple. Fused in a single overriding purpose they have become all but inseperable: a globalised presence representing an unprecedented accord between the two phenomena. At a lower logical level, a similar problem can be recognised in the growing tendency to equate democracy with capitalism.

In both cases it is not in the least bit melodramatic to represent the contemporary condition as the triumph of materialism over belief. To some extent I see this as a pathological state - one whose consequences should concern us all. The demise of cultural diversity has already had a profound impact on our habits, practices, relationships and future well-being. It has led to an unhealthy obsession with growth, monetary gain and affluence. It has positioned us as separate from (and superior to) other species and the environment upon which we rely for our health and survival. It stirs greed, envy and resentment, at the same time as it devalues compassion, generosity and appreciation.

It is also rapidly diminishing our legacy of inheritable knowledge - most evident in a loss of biocultural diversity - such as local social structures, languages and dialects. Indeed, we appear to be on the brink of a mass extinction of languages. Global languages such as Mandarin Chinese, English and Spanish are now in the ascendancy. In situations where lesser languages are labelled primitive, overtly suppressed through government regulation or tacitly subdued, through an association with shame or suffering, and where there are obvious economic benefits from speaking a more international language, there is a strong possibility that the languages people use in their daily lives for expressing their unique identity will simply vanish without trace.

This loss of biocultural diversity is significant from a variety of perspectives. But in the meta-context of disentangling our worldview from the various cultural mindsets we have traditionally used to interpret that worldview, from which the world-system is constructed, it is absolutely critical. Indeed, if we are unable to prevent a further assimilation of cultural mindsets into an homgenous, self-reinforcing, world-mind of unchallenged supremacy, it is highly probable that humanity will have sealed its fate. The pragmatic nomos of managing the economy will have totally appropriated the sacred logos of human purpose.

Worldview - Role & Ethos
Distinctions, even finely-grained, between worldview and cultural mindset are important if we are to comprehend which factors cause our world-system to be like it is and where, in the final analysis, we must look if we want to re-design or improve it. Why should world-system change be so vital? Why cannot we simply all speak the same language, stop worrying about the Earth’s climate and warring states, and simply enjoy the material wealth we have so conscientiously created and deserve?

I believe there is a compelling answer to that question. But for any answer to make sense we need to revisit the constitution and temperament of the prevailing worldview - its underlying ethos. We must get a sense of whether this ethos serves humanity's purpose, or whether only a very small minority of the population gain from its longevity. Are its values still relevant? Is its impact toxic or benign? Destructive or creative? Are our collective interests best served by its most profound assumptions, or have these beliefs outlived their relevance in an era of such extraordinary volatility and interconnectedness?

Over the course of human history the past thousand years have been the most startling in terms of "change". During this relatively short period we can trace our journey from nomadic tribes to settled villages, to the larger townships created by the industrial revolution, to the vast urban conurbations of today. At the same time we can point to an acceleration in the pace of instrumental change - from the agrarian revolution, through the industrial revolution, to the present day where, from a technological perspective at least, the speed of innovation has become exponential. Actually an identical trend, matching the pace of the times, is evident in music. For example, if one compares the calm, almost motionless, nature of medieval polyphony with today’s multi-layered sophistication, the increase in harmonic and rhythmic complexity is very apparent, coincidentally mirroring, at every stage, changes that were taking place elsewhere in society.

In spite of such accelerating change in so many factors of our lives, we tend to focus and remain absorbed primarily by five topics: politics, power, personalities, production and purchases. I include governance in the second category, and money and the acquisition of wealth in the latter two. These five themes and their interaction form the cinematic backdrop to our lives, which then inform the topics and ventures to which we attach most significance. Together they have become the leitmotif promulgated in the narratives we weave for each other – appearing as headlines in popular media and as captions in our personal messaging. The world – and consequently our world-system - is awash with this leitmotif which appears in myriad different guises. It is incessant, undeviating and, one supposes, unintended. Or, at least, not deliberately designed by any single group, to function as it does. Naturally, if there existed a global PR firm led by Edward Louis Bernays, working for an enterprise like the UN, I might be more suspicious...

Intentions are essential to ponder in this context, of course, especially as the collective behaviours of seven billion people now inadvertently reify the prevailing worldview which, overwhelmingly, is one of individualistic narcisissm and rampant consumerism. Nothing wrong with that – might be your response. Possibly not. But if we take a long hard look at the nature of this “conception of reality” which drives the motif of industrial economism, in order to examine our intentions in that light, we might well arrive at a somewhat different conclusion.

For this single, audacious idea, has remained untouched by the commotion of humanity’s advancement across the ages. It has persisted essentially intact, pure and immune from change - in every community, in every region, and in every era. We have even given this idea, this worldview, a name. We call it civilization. Civilization is something we all espouse. We all lay claim to being civilized. Everything that is not civilized we call uncultured, inferior or primitive. Those whom (we assume) aspire to become civilized we judge to be illiterate, pre-literate, or some equally disparaging term signifying a lack of social or technological maturity. By that simple designation we ensure a majority of people regard its visible manifestation, the world-system, as the pinnacle of human progress. But what is this idea? What is this worldview? How can we actually "see" it in order to describe its essence with any degree of accuracy?

Naturally enough the shift in perspective needed, the step into a new epistemology, cannot be achieved from within the chaotic hurly-burly and familiarity of everyday life in the valley. Climbing to base camp is not much help. The summit, too, can be shrouded with swirling mists. Even here in this relative silence there is too much to confuse and confound. And so the next step takes us into the void. We learn to “see” differently from this higher altitude. From here we sense the most expansive cosmology of humankind - one encompassing the most impenetrable pathways into the human psyche and the infathomable tracts inhabited by the soul. From there, but from there only, it is just possible we will be able to discern and appreciate the landscape of the worldview with greater clarity.

Far beyond political ideology and philosophy, transcending history, and reaching more deeply into the collective conscious than any branch of psychology can possibly map, some surprising distinguishing features become apparent in the expanded "now" of this epiphany:

1. Power & Authority
Conspicuously we now comprehend that the inherent power to change whole systems is vested in guardians of the status quo. In reality such power is wielded by very few people and their institutions at any one time. Most of the population remains an underclass of consenting serfs who work at the behest of these guardians, comprising eminent individuals elected to positions of authority, others who are self-appointed or who grab power for themselves, plus a few who acquire clout by virtue of their personal fortune or friendships. This group, let us call them the leaders in preference to more emotionally-charged terms like elite or establishment, protect their status and authority by various means (including the formal apparatus of the state, the military, and rules governing society) often in open opposition to one another.

Perhaps such opposition is a good thing. If those with power consciously decided to cooperate in order to maintain the status quo within the current world-system the options and opportunities for radical change would diminish considerably. Outside of conspiracy theories, many verging on irrational hysteria, we can probably discount such schemas as mere fantasy.

2. Aggression & Hostility
One element it is impossible to discount is the way hostility and conflict is used by the leaders - both to cling onto and bolster their (personal or institutional) power, in addition to controlling all aspects of production and distribution. Indeed, from the warriors of the Zhou Dynasty in ancient China, through the medieval Crusades right up to the pre-emptive strike strategy so enthusiastically embraced by the US empire, the industrial war machine has been used as a key economic factor to boost public morale and manipulate patriotic feelings, as well as stimulate consumption.

3. Communications & Compliance
Words ignite change and can shape the course of destiny. So it is no surprise that language is used by leaders to transform our emotions via carefully crafted messages. Most aspects of messaging in society are orchestrated - whether it be gossip, news, corporate marketing, public relations spin or government propaganda. Generally speaking these messages are aimed at stimulating a specific commercial need, or creating a sense of well-being that, utlimately, lead to civic compliance. Breaking or challenging the hereditary contract existing between leaders and society (particularly the presumed obligation of acting in the best interests of the community) can spark uproar. This is why public activism and campaigning organisations like Wikileaks and Avaaz, for example, have caused such vituperative reactions from the established patrons of the status quo. It is not that the law has been contravened that hurts them. It is the fact that social conventions implying trust have been shattered and found to be a sham. When cornered in this manner, a prey strikes back with all its cunning and venom.

4. Central Narratives
Again the pivotal stories constructed or sustained by the leaders invariably choreograph public opinion and feelings in ways that are either aimed at stifling complaint or nurturing consent vis-a-vis the way things are. Paradoxically these stories have also inspired some of the most beautiful works of art over the centuries. In this regard it is fascinating to search through literature to find the three foremost categories of myth that have held sway across the ages:

· Chief among these stories are the God-myths - explicit stories of a higher creative intelligence to which we must all eventually submit. Used by kings, witch doctors, shamans, law-makers and prelates alike, as well as by some of the world’s most enduring institutions, these stories might just be a distraction. But they are a clever one – appealing to our innermost yearnings, the desire for renewal and hope, and the craving for hierarchy of some kind, mostly so that we can delegate responsibility, it must be said.

· Likewise rational and scientific narratives elevating human beings to one of pre-eminence over other species neatly fit lessons in the scriptures of all the world’s great religions, urging us to subdue nature and exploit it for our own use. We needed no second bidding on that count. I suspect we’ve even exceeded the Almighty’s aspirations there!

· The third category promotes notions of societal advancement and progress through economic means. These stories choose to ignore purpose and vision in order to endorse continued economic growth and development within the context of increasing competititon for scarce resources. These stories invariably provide compelling arguments for constantly needing to boost production and grow GDP, as if this were the pinnacle of human achievement. The logic is clear. If more and more stuff is manufactured the likely result will be complacency rather than complaints. As Noam Chomsky so eloquently put it, this is the manufacturing of consent.

Conclusions
It would be understandable, yet far too simplistic, to construe what I have claimed here about the differences between worldview and cultural mindset as coming from a deeply-ingrained, extreme, socialist point of view. As far as my self-awareness is able to stretch, it does not. I have tried to be as “objective” as any individual can possibly be. My observations of our current worldview derive their relevance and legitimacy from the fact that we find identical features cropping up everywhere. They were as common in medieval Europe as in Maoist China. They occured in Mussolini’s fascism as well as Lula da Silva’s workers’ party in Brazil. They are felt in the turmoil of revolutions and in extended periods of peace. They occur in the most prosperous nations like the US and Japan and in the most poverty-stricken like Somalia and Afghanistan. They are as universal as anything can be.

Likewise, the connotations I put on my analysis are above the politics of the past and attempt to envisage a future where all people share in the joy of what it means to be alive and human. So, if anything, my position is not ideological but humanitarian - deeply engaged with the potential for humanity to evolve differently, and prosperously, by accessing an entirely different set of moral intentions and design criteria.

My conclusion is as inevitable as this latter premise. Progress will not come from sitting idly by watching our diverse cultural mindsets, with their vast repository of knowledge, customs and languages stretching back into antiquity, decline in importance and utility. It will not come from tweaking the current paradigm in a futile effort to placate public critique, protect current positions, and delay changes that are probably inevitable. And it will certainly not come from pretending that everything is fine - that we will soon end the melodrama and return to some semblance of normality.

No. Radical change is required. It is now an emergency we must tackle. But how difficult could the conscious redesign of our civilizational worldview really be?

Whether it is climate change, water conservation, increasing the capacity of the planet to produce nutritious food, ending war or eliminating poverty, the technologies and financial capital we have at our disposal today are sufficient for our needs. The means of production are already shifting in a new industrial revolution where distributed systems, additive manufactures, online intelligence and open source enterprise, will be able to cater for the common good.

The capacity we have for creativity and innovation is already unparalleled. Our capability to learn and adapt is remarkable. Human ingenuity and willpower, especially when under pressure, is astonishing.

But we are dragging our feet when it comes to harnessing any of these capabilities to improve the world-system for greater good. Instead we resort to myopic stupidity in projects that are constantly constrained by the gravitational pull of a worldview that is dangerously obsolete. If we wait too much longer for evidence this worldview is unworkable we will probably be responsible for consigning future generations to a life of unwarranted misery. I do not want that. My children certainly do not want that. I am sure everyone reading this piece does not want that. So what must we do?

Fundamentally it is a matter of design. Especially the design of revised intentions and a vision for what the human project on this planet could become if we were to restore the dynamic idea of a single human family. That will require us to be uncompromising in addressing the four features I previously identified:

i. Power and authority will need to migrate from the current group of individuals - the leaders (with their particularized institutions and highly protective strategies for success) to the community – a global commons enabled by new technologies where knowledge is exchanged and shared openly in new and enlightened forms of governance and human enterprise. This immense task will need to undertaken sensitively and in ways that "include and transcend" the very best our species has created and loves. It will need to discard those things (tangible and intangible) that no longer make sense. It will need to navigate the bewildered and hostile reactions we can expect from those with vested interests in preserving the status quo. And it will need to avoid the potential for creating different forms of corrupt practice we witness ingrained within the present world-system.

ii. War is unnecessary. I do not mean to demean the sacrifice made by men and women who go to war in the genuine belief they are fighting for freedom, or democracy, or human rights, or whatever argument their leaders have made to convince them of the need for conflict. But if we all aspire to a common goal, collaborate to distribute the wealth from production more equitably, and global issues confronting us are adequately resolved, the reasons for fighting fade. Indeed putting an end to all conflict would be the most appropriate memorial for such human sacrifice. Historically conflict has been a subterfuge, a device deliberately manufactured and deployed by the leaders because of an impulse to protect the status quo, maintain artificial distinctions, or seize hold of resources. In almost every other instance it is promoted as the final straw in situations where all other options have been tried yet found wanting. In reality this final reason is purely a failure of imagination coupled with an willingness to engage for mutual benefit.

iii. Communications need to become open and globally transparent. Attempts by current leaders to limit public freedoms, such as controlling the Internet, for example, must be met with a courageous and firm resolve to ensure they do not triumph. Messages traversing the public domain will need to convey the truth rather than hide in various shades of grey. For example, I find it absolutely abhorent that the tobacco industry is able to fund research proving smoking cigarettes is not a health hazard when so many millions die each year from inhaling tobacco smoke. The same indictment can be alleged at the fossil fuel industry. The game is up. We will no longer be duped.

iv. Finally the key narratives in society will need to be redrafted. These, after all, are the myths that persuade and influence. Outmoded themes of apathy, competition and scarcity must quickly be replaced by themes emphasising empathy, cooperation and abundance. The new consitution for Iceland is an object lesson in how this might be accomplished. It was drafted from thousands of contributions invited from citizens online. Although Iceland is a bounded jurisdiction there is absolutely no reason we cannot apply the same principles to creating and expressing a global vision for the human family – a new ethos for a worldview starved of fear, superstition and individual heroes.

Our collective future is bound up with being able to make substantial, long-lasting changes to the constraints we have already identified in the prevailing world-system – including manifestations of inequity and injustice in addition to toxic and wasteful practices. If we can change the assumptions and intentions underlying the prevailing worldview, bringing a wealth of diverse knowledge, wisdom and cultural diversity to bear on dealing with the issues facing us, we will not simply survive but set the scene for a new golden age.

When in Europe...

I hesitate to talk about economics. I know little economic theory; still less how to manage my own finances. Even my personal banker has no problem pronouncing me financially illiterate. So when I start ranting on about the global economy I am always careful to preface my commentary with the cautionary phrase: I am not an economist. But.... This is not merely a device to declare my ignorance of such arcane matters, but also to distance my observations from a perverse logic, frequently divorced from reality, most economists still seem happy to apply.

Of course there are rare exceptions. James Quilligan, Jamie Galbraith, Diane Coyle and Ann Pettifor spring immediately to mind - as well as financial innovation specialists like David Martin of M.CAM. These exceptionally erudite individuals seem to have a profound understanding of how the economy works in practice. Generally speaking, however, I fail to grasp how most economists constantly get things wrong – using a thousand words and multiple graphs to tell us nothing we had not already fathomed out.

But if economists are bad, then politicians are abysmal - or perhaps just totally out of their depth and out of touch at the same time. No apologies are needed to have a valid point of view regarding politics and the political process. We are all experts. And why not? No special training is given for this job, though one might argue it is urgently needed. And although high morals and good intentions are assumed, it often seems as though a lack of wisdom, limited intelligence, an aggressive ego and the possession of at least one pathological disorder, are pre-requisites for success in this game. So what intrigues me even more than economics is that each time political leaders tell us they have the solution to an economic problem they actually make matters far worse. Take the European situation, for example.

When the EU initially advised fiscal austerity (cutting deficits) as their preferred solution to dealing with the problem of sovereign debt, a long recession was almost guaranteed. Why so? Because in times of austerity people do not buy goods and services. Market growth contracts. A cycle of hopelessness sets in. Common currency arrangements in the EU also mean individual countries are unable to devalue their currency as a short-cut to raising competitiveness - a ploy that can sometimes act as a circuit breaker in an otherwise brutal death spiral.

More significantly, if governments, banks and business corporations all pursue constrictive policies at the same time then growth of any kind literally dries up. Indeed under a broad contractionist ethos we can anticipate bigger rather than smaller deficits. In other words, if there had been no policy change in Europe, a resolute focus on austerity would have resulted in the opposite of what was actually intended.

As it is we are still witnessing widespread austerity fatigue, high levels of civic unrest - particularly among young people and the long-term unemployed in nations like Greece, Italy and Spain - continued economic decline, and real threats to political stability. Even the concept of a single Europe is under threat.

Auspiciously, perhaps just in time, more enlightened advisers saw the need for serious structural reform and - especially in a country like Greece - massive debt relief, as counters to fiscal austerity. In that context the decision to establish the European Stability Mechanism (to purchase government bonds, cut interest rates and bolster public finances) heralds a much wiser and far more malleable approach to the economy, which should help increase political stability and settle community disquiet. 

It certainly shows a determination to ensure the eurozone’s survival, which is a vital signal to be communicating at this time. Whether it actually solves deeper, structural problems, or merely delays the inevitable, we can not know. Perhaps that will become clearer when Greece leaves the EU, which I regard as almost inevitable.

The farce does not begin or end in Europe. On the contrary the next economic theatre will be the US that is currently facing what some have referred to as a “fiscal cliff”. The idea of the US economy failing is preposterous and, one has to hazard, improbable. The 20^th century was dubbed the American century after all and the US economy is still easily the strongest internationally. But nothing endures forever and the economic fate of the US is also a political issue at its core.

There are fascinating unknowns of course; many potential black swans ready to surprise. China and India have far more innovative cultures than anyone in the Western world cares to admit. Furthermore the diversity of embedded productive knowledge in those economies is to be envied. And they are only just beginning to fire up their creative capacity. Only time will tell whether the US can find ways to prosper in a world where most of its assumptions are unravelling at a rate of knots and where a regrettable mix of imperial arrogance and militaristic follies finds that nation overstretched in so many different dimensions simultaneously.

 

A Disruptive Influence

This piece - The Role of the Corporate Philosopher - is an extended version of an interview I conducted with Business Connect magazine in Australia prior to the Australian Chambers Business Congress in September where I gave a keynote address on Future Paradigms for Business.

What is a corporate philosopher?

A corporate philosopher is a thorn in the flesh of the status quo. A disruptive influence. Someone who poses fundamental challenges to standard thinking and practices. In a business context, philosophy is incredibly useful and entirely pragmatic. By posing unusual questions, and inviting uncommon insights, I help reconceive how any social, political or business ecosystem - an enterprise perhaps, or an industry, an economy or even a government - can become more effective in the world as a force for good. That is best done by dismantling conventions that exist concerning what is done and how we do it – and by challenging the, occasionally fiercely guarded, rationales and logic regarding why we do it.

At a practical level I try to shed light on what is really going on by accessing a profound knowledge of the ecosystem within which I am working - its social relationships and dynamics particularly. In collaboration with others I seek to understand how patterns of events might be driven by mechanisms we do not intend or by assumptions that are no longer relevant. Through that process of inquiry we can better anticipate what might happen tomorrow and how we could or should deal with the unintended consequences of our activities.

How important are the lessons from the past?

The past is of vital importance to the conscious evolution of humanity - and on many levels. Ultimately human progress demands that we understand our past. Without a genuine appreciation of where we have come from, where we are, and our desired destination, we cannot possibly know in which direction we should head. These three points on the compass are critical - except in situations where any path will do. However hard one might try, it is actually impossible to divorce the past from the present because our shared "community of mind" is incapable of deleting the memory of things past.

So instead of ignoring what happened yesterday, or pretending that it is not important, I actually encourage those with whom we work to embrace the past. We can do that by making it even more explicit – mainly through dialogue and various forms of narrative. By using methods that compress past and possible into the present moment - an “expanded” now - we can make intriguing links between what is, what was, and what could be.

Early on in my career I worked with my business colleague Marvin Oka to create a methodology we called Strategic Navigation. The practice crux of Strategic Navigation exists in a deliberately "atemporal" space. In other words it enables perspectives, concepts and schemas from the past, present and possible to collapse into real-time strategic design, where new intentions become clear and responses to current conditions are evident. At one level it’s a profoundly simple way of ensuring there’s no trade-off with what is happening today and what you might want to be doing in the future. This kind of real-time, strategy-as-process method of planning is still not practised widely. But it should be. It helps us to learn from the past and avoid sacrificing future benefits in favour of today's expediencies.

Businesses rely on data to form strategies and make decisions. But are there different approaches?

Executives might believe they rely on data to make important decisions, but this is mostly an illusion. Computers rely on data but human beings are not automatons! People rely on imagination, feelings, memories and gut intuition, much more than we want to admit. Even the widely accepted notion of left brain - right brain preferences (i.e. the logical analysis-creative synthesis split) is only a half truth, as recent research into brain plasticity has proved.

The truth is we tend to be guided by our memories (emotional reactions to what or what did not work for us previously), by intuition about what "feels" right, and by trust (or a lack of trust) in others' opinions. Even when we think we’re being totally objective, we are not. Furhermore it is quite common for us to fabricate “intelligence” using highly selective data on the basis that it reinforces what we already know, believe to be true - or want to be true.

Most strategic conversations in business and politics today are very shallow indeed, especially those that rely on data as evidence for strategy finding – simply because they lack variety and tend to focus purely on the exterior world that we can touch, measure and manipulate. My work is integral, in the sense that by introducing uncertainty, diversity and ambiguity into a deeper dialogue about the future, and by engaging our innermost concerns about what matters, we immediately engage a disruptive technique for shifting people into alternative dimensions of thinking, being and doing.

As you know, one of my most fundamental premises is that attempting to undertake ‘business as usual’ in the next decade will become more and more impossible. People who stick to current formulas will come unstuck. We’re facing so many wicked problems as a species, as well as unprecedented opportunities for doing things differently, that business has an important role to play in creating wealth based upon new models and new propositions.

So while there are many different approaches to thinking strategically (and timely, accurate data is still useful in terms of validation) all of them demand that we are more resilient, open to constantly-morphing alternatives, and able to adapt rapidly to unforeseen changes in the conditions surrounding us.

How does one disrupt in ways that do not destroy?

A lovely question. Are you assuming that destruction is always a bad thing? If so I would challenge your proposition. As we have seen occur throughout history, sometimes it is necessary to "destroy" the old in order for the new to rise like a phoenix from the ashes.That can also be done creatively in order to avoid what is now often referred to in the military as "collateral damage"....

But to answer your question.... Creative disruption depends upon the power of the question. I often pose questions that stop you in your tracks. By using different types of questions you can reach into new understandings of what is possible. This then allows you to step into different epistemologies, or ways of knowing.

Let me give you a counterintuitive example of the kind of disruption I am talking about. Over the past few years we've developed and beta-tested a method of collaborative inquiry we call Strategic Acupuncture. That title is indicative of an alternative approach to the health and energy within any system. Strategic Acupuncture is a process for resolving highly complex issues that are costing a business dearly, but seem impossible to eliminate. A large consulting firm would often view such issues as an aspect of cultural change requiring several years of "cultural change" and a small fortune to remedy. Consultants are generally very disruptive to one's business, and costly in terms of their fees!

Strategic Acupuncture turns such conventional wisdom on its head. We can tackle any complex problem and devise an enduring solution within a few hours of forensic interrogation – in a way that a consulting firm is simply not geared up to do. Strategic Acupuncture is low cost, forensically precise, unobtrusive, benign and rediculously fast. So this is a disruptive technique. But in this case the disruption is targeted at the orthodox consulting models so casually imposed - rather than one's business operations.

Strategic Acupuncture sounds like it requires an intensive few hours!

Yes, it’s exhausting for all concerned. But the intensity means that solutions can be detected within hours and days rather than months or years. And it has saved some clients literally millions of dollars when viewed within the context of managing costs, the best use of available resources, talent retention, brand reputation and, of course, customer satisfaction. So the intensity, while exhausting, is certainly worth it.

What barriers do you come across using this and similar processes?

Because of the scientific phenomenon of entanglement, solving complex problems in any organisation becomes a matter of systemic design. In this case entanglement is the inextricable connectivity existing within any community of people, in addition to the processes they have invented to get things done, and the mechanisms they have installed to know that things are being done in a certain way.

Unfortunately most business or organisational problems are viewed as discrete, bounded issues. This can be hugely problematic, especially when possible solutions are put forward by a particular constituency (say a group of engineers or the HR department, for example) because they invariably perceive the problem through their "window on the world" - or their own disciplinary lens. Making matters worse still, a CEO or senior manager will often have their own pre-conceived solution to a problem. Human nature being what it is they then have a tendency to throw money at this pet solution, even if it’s clearly wrong to do so, in an effort not to lose face or raise doubts regarding their own judgement.

In truth all systems are perfectly designed to deliver what they deliver. The only way to change that is to change the intention or the constraints limiting other outcomes. So we deal with the kinds of situations I have mentioned by stripping away invalid assumptions, abstractions and theories until a new clarity is perceived. To be frank, we are not even particularly concerned to dwell on the so-called "problem" because the real solution will be in finding the tiniest way to flip the energy within the system so as to achieve what is actually intended. If a problem remains a problem it is simply because the problem solver does not understand how the system is actually working. If you understand something it is simple. If it is not simple then you do not understand it.

We encounter other barriers of course. Many of these are psychological in nature. Scepticism is a common problem, especially initially. After all we have been told so often and repeatedly that complex matters, like culture change, take time and effort to fix. This belief is a hard habit to kick. People like me, a published author, mentor and successful strategist - but without the legitimacy or resources of a major consulting firm behind me - are seen to be flying in the face of convention. It is far easier for an Executive Committee to believe their own orthodoxies and half-truths. Engaging a large consulting firm has its benefits. For one thing the bank will not flinch, even when a proposal costs of millions of dollars - in fact even less so when it costs millions of dollars! Meanwhile Committee members are relieved of the responsbility to think deeply about their own beliefs and what really needs to change.

Let's face it, we know from published statistics, that most takeovers, restructures, re-engineering projects and change programs are a futile waste of time, money and effort. They shift people around like pawns in a game of chess but ultimately make little difference to performance and adding no additional value to the business. What is really needed, before moving into action of any kind, is a profound knowledge of the broader business ecosystem together with the imagination and courage to change only what needs changing. Everything else is a distraction.

Then there is the issue of capability. Because most managers typically make decisions without the profound knowledge of the system I am talking about, deep forensic inquiry into a system's architecture and performance is not a capability many executives or government bureaucrats possess - or believe they need. Many Boards and senior executives would rather turn a blind eye to the fact that most so-called "intractable" problems are actually easily resolvable. Consequently they are much more open to initiating BIG change programs with BIG budgets. I am not sure why. Perhaps it is human nature... I mean the belief that we must pay big bucks for quality. But it also helps sustain the arcane and elitist nature of much orthodox management theory.

Leadership is a big focal point of your recent work. What is the impulse here?

All around the world there is a dearth of authentic and appropriate leadership - in government and in the private sector alike. The leadership literacies that were appropriate a century ago are no longer relevant because the environment has shifted so dramatically, not to mention the exponential speed of technological change. But that has not fully registered as yet. Nation state governments were invented to compete with each other, so it is hardly surprising that the capability and urge to cooperate (on an issue like climate change, for example) is not forthcoming in those circles. Besides the global geo-political context has become so complex that most politicians and their advisers are simply out of their depth these days. Even then they still cling to conventional means rather than invest in new approaches. For example, if it were not so serious it would be hilarious that we send literally thousands of officials from all around the world to the Rio+20 climate summit hoping that a consensus of some kind would emerge. How could that possibly be? I don't know about you but I have difficulty negotiating a consensus of any kind from the members of my family! But at Rio there were over 20,000 people trying to negotiate an outcome! How deluded is that?

In the corporate space, many CEOs and boards are thrashing around, trying to make sense of what’s happening and not being particularly successful at thinking through the consequences. Generally speaking they are hoping and trusting that we will return to a time of relative calm and stability. Again this is an illusion. But that view is unlikely to shift until we experience more pain, which is guaranteed. So far there are no compelling narratives able to replace the myth of industrial economism which has brought affluence to a fortunate few but despair to many others.

Are there cultural factors to effective leadership?

Yes indeed, especially in such an interconnected world as ours is these days. I suppose there are two slightly different inflections to consider here. Both are important factors.

Within the ethos of "disaster" capitalism, fixated as it is on growth and utterly dependent upon continued consumer spending, the factors that dominate our lives appear to be all economic - as if financial matters and the accumulation of wealth have become the sole reason for our existence. It is important to see what is going on here. In effect we have upended the relationship between logos (human vision and purpose) and nomos (the economic management of that purpose) such that the latter is now thought to be the main game. Sadly, tenets preserving and reinforcing this perspective are enshrined in law are now often even misconstrued as tenets of democracy.

Many of the assumptions concerning what matters will become invalid in the future as we shift towards a different kind of relationship with each other and with the planet. Our elected leaders, however, are singularly ill-equipped to collaborate in the creation of a new kind of society, whatever that could be. That is just one of the reasons we are witnessing an awakening in protests and civil disobedience in many parts of the world. Citizens have decided not to wait for their elected representatives to act on important issues concerning us all and are taking matters into their own hands. While this is laudable at one level it also means the conscious collective evolution of the human family remains unremittingly on the back burner. Leadership is abdicated due to a lack of vision of what might be possible, or even desirable, and our attention becomes obsessively enamoured with the economics of growth and little else.

Another problem is the assumption, held by many in the West, who should know better, that the pinnacle of leadership has already been achieved - primarily within developed nations and their institutions. This linear notion of exclusive progress is especially enshrined in the arrogant mentality of "empire" that is still rife in the US and parts of Europe and is being projected onto China - though not by the Chinese themselves. Yet some of the most civilised and empathic contemporary leadership arises not from the US or Europe but from within indigenous communities and small countries like Bhutan, Bolivia, Thailand and Turkey, for example.

Although humanity has arguably shared a single, dogged worldview for at least 2,500 years, the many cultural mindsets used to interpret that worldview leave me with the distinct impression that a new society with a different worldview cannot possibly emerge from the US or similarly bankrupt and exhausted nations. Which is just another reason to have hope in the cultures comprising the Global South and Asia.

‘The future of everything’ is a tagline of The Hames Report, which you author. Can one man intelligently discuss the number of things that shape the future?

Ha! I’ve never been asked that question before! The research on which I base my writing is synthesised in collaboration with many others. This includes an extensive global network of thought leaders from many cultures and all walks of life currently numbering well over 2,000. So the conclusions I reach are not just personal opinions but the summation of many voices, most far wiser than my own.

Much of the research we have been conducting over the past decade has been aimed at distinguishing between the worldview we all share and the vast variety of cultural mindsets each one of us accesses to translate that single worldview into local meanings and idiosyncratic practices that make our world so rich.

What I fundamentally believe, is that for human beings to remain on this planet, and transcend to another level of consciousness and being – the worldview itself has to change. Behind the strapline ‘the future of everything’, are fundamental design ideas. Ultimately it comes down to what we believe we’re here to do, what is important, and how we want to relate to each other and to the planet.

The 11th Anniversary of 9/11

I believe the following article to be an important contribution to truth. The author is Paul Craig Roberts. Although I do not know Dr Roberts I am well aware of his reputation and credibility. This article was written for the Journal of 9/11 Studies on the eleventh anniversary of September 11, 2001 - the day that terminated accountable government and American liberty. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was also columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments and his internet columns have attracted a worldwide following.

In order to understand the improbability of the government’s explanation of 9/11, it is not necessary to know anything about what force or forces brought down the three World Trade Center buildings, what hit the Pentagon or caused the explosion, the flying skills or lack thereof of the alleged hijackers, whether the airliner crashed in Pennsylvania or was shot down, whether cell phone calls made at the altitudes could be received, or any other debated aspect of the controversy.

You only have to know two things....

One is that according to the official story, a handful of Arabs, mainly Saudi Arabians, operating independently of any government and competent intelligence service, men without James Bond and V for Vendetta capabilities, outwitted not only the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency, but all 16 US intelligence agencies, along with all security agencies of America’s NATO allies and Israel’s Mossad. Not only did the entire intelligence forces of the Western world fail, but on the morning of the attack the entire apparatus of the National Security State simultaneously failed. Airport security failed four times in one hour. NORAD failed. Air Traffic Control failed. The US Air Force failed. The National Security Council failed. Dick Cheney failed. Absolutely nothing worked. The world’s only superpower was helpless at the humiliating mercy of a few undistinguished Arabs.

It is hard to image a more far-fetched story–except for the second thing you need to know: The humiliating failure of US National Security did not result in immediate demands from the President of the United States, from Congress, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and from the media for an investigation of how such improbable total failure could have occurred. No one was held accountable for the greatest failure of national security in world history. Instead, the White House dragged its feet for a year resisting any investigation until the persistent demands from 9/11 families for accountability forced President George W. Bush to appoint a political commission, devoid of any experts, to hold a pretend investigation.

On September 11, 2001, a neighbor telephoned and said, “turn on the TV.” I assumed that a hurricane, possibly a bad one from the sound of the neighbor’s voice, was headed our way, and turned on the TV to determine whether we needed to shutter the house and leave.

What I saw was black smoke from upper floors of one of the World Trade Center towers. It didn’t seem to be much of a fire, and the reports were that the fire was under control. While I was trying to figure out why every TV network had its main news anchor covering an office fire, TV cameras showed an airplane hitting the other tower. It was then that I learned that both towers had been hit by airliners.

Cameras showed people standing at the hole in the side of the tower looking out. This didn’t surprise me. The airliner was minute compared to the massive building. But what was going on? Two accidents, one on top of the other?

The towers—the three-fourths or four-fifths of the buildings beneath the plane strikes–were standing, apparently largely undamaged. There were no signs of fire except in the vicinity of where the airliners had hit. Suddenly, one of the towers blew up, disintegrated, and disappeared in fine dust. Before one could make any sense of this, the same thing happened to the second tower, and it too disappeared into fine dust.

The TV news anchors compared the disintegration of the towers to controlled demolition. There were numerous reports of explosions throughout the towers from the base or sub-basements to the top. (Once the government put out the story of terrorist attack, references to controlled demolition and explosions disappeared from the print and TV media.) This made sense to me. Someone had blown up the buildings. It was completely obvious that the towers had not fallen down from asymmetrical structural damage. They had blown up.

The images of the airliners hitting the towers and the towers blowing up were replayed time and again. Airliners hit the top portions of the towers, and not long afterward the towers blew up. I turned off the TV wondering how it was that cameras had been ready to catch such an unusual phenomenon as an airplane flying into a skyscraper.

I don’t remember the time line, but it wasn’t long before the story was in place that Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda gang had attacked the US. A passport had been found in the rubble. Another airliner had flown into the Pentagon, and a fourth airliner had crashed or been shot down. Four airliners had been hijacked, meaning airport security had failed four times on the same morning. Terrorists had successfully assaulted America.

When I heard these reports, I wondered. How could a tiny undamaged passport be found in the rubble of two skyscrapers, each more than 100 stories tall, when bodies, office furniture and computers could not be found? How could airport security fail so totally that four airliners could be hijacked within the same hour? How could authorities know so conclusively and almost immediately the names of the perpetrators who pulled off such a successful attack on the world’s only superpower, when the authorities had no idea that such an attack was planned or even possible?

These questions disturbed me, because as a former member of the congressional staff and as a presidential appointee to high office, I had high level security clearances. In addition to my duties as Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, I had FEMA responsibilities in the event of nuclear attack. There was a mountain hideaway to which I was supposed to report in the event of a nuclear attack and from which I was supposed to take over the US government in the event no higher official survived the attack.

The more the story of 9/11 was presented in the media, the more wondrous it became. It is not credible that not only the CIA and FBI failed to detect the plot, but also all 16 US intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency, which spies on everyone on the planet, and the Defense Intelligence Agency, Israel’s Mossad, and the intelligence agencies of Washington’s NATO allies. There are simply too many watchmen and too much infiltration of terrorist groups for such a complex attack to be prepared undetected and carried out undeterred.

Washington’s explanation of the attack implied a security failure too massive to be credible. Such a catastrophic failure of national security would mean that the US and Western Europe were never safe for one second during the Cold War, that the Soviet Union could have destroyed the entire West in one undetected fell swoop.

As a person whose colleagues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington were former secretaries of state, former national security advisors, former CIA directors, former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I was troubled by the story that a collection of individuals unsupported by a competent intelligence service had pulled off the events of 9/11.

As a person with high level government service, I knew that any such successful operation as 9/11 would have resulted in immediate demands from the White House, Congress, and the media for accountability. There would have been an investigation of how every aspect of US security could totally fail simultaneously in one morning. Such a catastrophic and embarrassing failure of the national security state would not be left unexamined.

NORAD failed. The US Air Force could not get jet fighters in the air. Air Traffic Control lost sight of the hijacked airliners. Yet, instead of launching an investigation, the White House resisted for one year the demands of the 9/11 families for an investigation. Neither the public, the media, nor Congress seemed to think an investigation was necessary. The focus was on revenge, which the Bush neocon regime said meant invading Afghanistan which was alleged to be sheltering the perpetrator, Osama bin Laden.

Normally, terrorists are proud of their success and announce their responsibility. It is a way to build a movement. Often a number of terrorist groups will compete in claiming credit for a successful operation. But Osama bin Laden in the last video that is certified by independent experts said that he had no responsibility for 9/11, that he had nothing against the American people, that his opposition was limited to the US government’s colonial policies and control over Muslim governments.

It makes no sense that the “mastermind” of the most humiliating blow in world history ever to have been delivered against a superpower would not claim credit for his accomplishment. By September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden knew that he was deathly ill. According to news reports he underwent kidney dialysis the following month. The most reliable reports that we have are that he died in December 2001. It is simply not credible that bin Laden denied responsibility because he feared Washington.

But Osama bin Laden was too useful a bogeyman, and Washington and the presstitute media kept him alive for another decade until Obama needed to kill the dead man in order to boost his sinking standings in the polls so that Democrats would not back a challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Numerous bin Laden videos, every one pronounced a fake by experts, were released whenever it was convenient for Washington. No one in the Western media or in the US Congress or European or UK parliaments was sufficiently intelligent to recognize that a bin Laden video always showed up on cue when Washington needed it. “Why would the ‘mastermind’ be so accommodating for Washington?” was the question that went through my mind every time one of the fake videos was released.

The 9/11 “investigation” that finally took place was a political one run from the White House. One member of the commission resigned, declaring the investigation to be a farce, and both co-chairman and the legal counsel of the 9/11 Commission distanced themselves from their report with statements that the 9/11 Commission was “set up to fail,” that resources were withheld from the commission, that representatives of the US military lied to the commission and that the commission considered referring the false testimony for criminal prosecution.

One would think that these revelations would cause a sensation, but the news media, Congress, the White House, and the public were silent.

All of this bothered me a great deal. The US had invaded two Muslim countries based on unsubstantiated allegations linking the two countries to 9/11, which itself remained uninvestigated. The neoconservatives who staffed the George W. Bush regime were advocating more invasions of more Muslim countries. Paul O’Neill, President Bush’s first Treasury Secretary, stated publicly that the Bush regime was planning to invade Iraq prior to 9/11. O’Neill said that no one at a National Security Council meeting even asked the question, why invade Iraq? “It was all about finding a way to do it.”

The leaked top secret Downing Street Memo written by the head of British intelligence (MI6) confirms Paul O’Neill’s testimony. The memo, known as the “smoking gun memo” whose authenticity has been confirmed, states that “President George W. Bush wants to remove Saddam Hussein, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” In other words, the US invasion of Iraq was based on nothing but a made up lie.

As an engineering student I had witnessed a controlled demolition. When films of the collapse of WTC building 7 emerged, it was obvious that building 7 had been brought down by controlled demolition. When physics instructor David Chandler measured the descent of the building and established that it took place at free fall acceleration, the case was closed. Buildings cannot enter free fall unless controlled demolition has removed all resistance to the collapsing floors.

If airliners brought down two skyscrapers, why was controlled demolition used to bring down a third building? I assumed that structural architects, structural engineers, and physicists would blow the whistle on the obviously false story. If I could see that something was amiss, certainly more highly trained people would.

The first physicist to make an effective and compelling argument was Steven Jones at BYU. Jones said that explosives brought down the twin towers. He made a good case. For his efforts, he was pressured to resign his tenured position. I wondered whether the federal government had threatened BYU’s research grants or whether patriotic trustees and alumni were the driving force behind Jones’ expulsion. Regardless, the message was clear to other university based experts: “Shut up or we’ll get you.”

Steven Jones was vindicated when chemist Niels Harrit of the University of Copenhagen In Denmark reported unequivocally that the scientific team in which he participated found nano-thermite in the residue of the twin towers. This sensational finding was not mentioned in the US print and TV media to my knowledge.

Several years after 9/11 architect Richard Gage formed Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth, an organization that has grown to include 1,700 experts. The plans of the towers have been studied. They were formidable structures. They were constructed to withstand airliner hits and fires. There is no credible explanation of their failure except intentional demolition.

I also found disturbing the gullibility of the public, media, and Congress in the unquestioning acceptance of the official stories of the shoe-bomber, shampoo and bottled water bomber, and underwear bomber plots to blow up airliners in transit. These schemes are farcical. How can we believe that al Qaeda, capable of pulling off the most fantastic terrorist attack in history and capable of devising improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that kill and maim US troops and destroy US military vehicles would rely on something that had to be lighted with a match? The shoe and underwear bombers would simply have pushed a button on their cell phones or laptops, and the liquid bomb would not have required extended time in a lavatory to be mixed (all to no effect).

None of this makes any sense. Moreover, experts disputed many of the government’s claims, which were never backed by anything but the government’s story line. There is no independent evidence that anything was involved other than firecracker powders.

The case of the underwear bomber is especially difficult to accept. According to witnesses, the underwear bomber was not allowed on the airliner, because he had no passport. So an official appears who walks him onto the airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas day. What kind of official has the authority to override established rules, and what did the official think would happen to the passenger when he presented himself to US Customs without a passport? Any official with the power to override standard operating practices would know that it was pointless to send a passenger to a country where his entry would be rejected.

The circumstantial evidence is that these were orchestrated events designed to keep fear alive, to create new intrusive powers for a new over-arching federal policy agency, to accustom US citizens to intrusive searches and a police force to conducting them, and to sell expensive porno-scanners and now more advanced devices to the Transportation Safety Administration. Apparently, this expensive collection of high-tech gadgetry is insufficient to protect us from terrorists, and in August 2012 the Department of Homeland Security put in an order for 750 million rounds of ammunition, enough to shoot every person in the US 2.5 times.

Naive and gullible Americans claim that if some part of the US government had been involved in 9/11, “someone would have talked by now.” A comforting thought, perhaps, but nothing more. Consider, for example, the cover-up by the US government of the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed or wounded most of the crew but failed to sink the ship. As the survivors have testified, they were ordered in a threatening way not to speak about the event. It was twelve years later before one of the USS Liberty’s officers, James Ennes, told the story of the attack in his book, Assault on the Liberty. I continue to wonder how the professionals at the National Institute of Standards and Technology feel about being maneuvered by the federal government into the unscientific position NIST took concerning the destruction of the WTC towers.

What will be the outcome of the doubts about the official story raised by experts? I worry that most Americans are too mentally and emotionally weak to be able to come to grips with the truth. They are far more comfortable with the story that enemies attacked America successfully despite the massive national security state in place. The American public has proved itself to be so cowardly that it willingly, without a peep, sacrificed its civil liberty and the protections of law guaranteed by the Constitution in order to be “safe.”

Congress is not about to expose itself for having squandered trillions of dollars on pointless wars based on an orchestrated “new Pearl Harbor.” When the neoconservatives said that a “new Pearl Harbor” was a requirement for their wars for American/Israeli hegemony, they set the stage for the 21st century wars that Washington has launched. If Syria falls, there is only Iran, and then Washington stands in direct confrontation with Russia and China.

Unless Russia and China can be overthrown with “color revolutions,” these two nuclear powers are unlikely to submit to Washington’s hegemony. The world as we know it might be drawing to a close.

If enough Americans or even other peoples in the world had the intelligence to realize that massive steel structures do not disintegrate into fine dust because a flimsy airliner hits them and limited short-lived fires burn on a few floors, Washington would be faced with the suspicion it deserves.

If 9/11 was actually the result of the failure of the national security state to deter an attack, the government’s refusal to conduct a real investigation is an even greater failure. It has fallen to concerned and qualified individuals to perform the investigative role abandoned by government. The presentations at the Toronto Hearings, along with the evaluations of the Panel, are now available, as is the documentary film, “Explosive Evidence–Experts Speak Out,” provided by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

The government’s agents and apologists try to deflect attention from disturbing facts by redefining factual evidence revealed by experts as the product of “a conspiracy culture.” If people despite their brainwashing and lack of scientific education are able to absorb the information made available to them, perhaps both the US Constitution and peace could be restored. Only informed people can restrain Washington and avert the crazed hegemonic US government from destroying the world in war.

Pretending It Isn't Happening

It's eerie. The global climate disaster is happening right now... and humanity is just pretending it's not happening.

There are no comparisons to be made. This is not like war or plague or a stockmarket crash. We are ill-equipped, historically and psychologically, to understand it, which is one of the reasons why so many refuse to accept that it is happening.

What we are seeing, here and now, is the transformation of the atmospheric physics of this planet. Three weeks before the likely minimum, the melting of Arctic sea ice has already broken the record set in 2007.

The daily rate of loss is now 50% higher than it was that year. The daily sense of loss – of the world we loved and knew – cannot be quantified so easily. The Arctic has been warming roughly twice as quickly as the rest of the northern hemisphere. This is partly because climate breakdown there is self-perpetuating.

As the ice melts, for example, exposing the darker sea beneath, heat which would previously have been reflected back into space is absorbed. This great dissolution, of ice and certainties, is happening so much faster than most climate scientists predicted that, one of them reports, “it feels as if everything I’ve learned has become obsolete.”

In its last assessment, published in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted that “in some projections, Arctic late-summer sea ice disappears almost entirely by the latter part of the 21st century.”

These were the most extreme forecasts in the panel’s range. Some scientists now forecast that the disappearance of Arctic sea ice in late summer could occur in this decade or the next. As I’ve warned repeatedly, but to little effect, the IPCC’s assessments tend to be conservative. This is unsurprising when you see how many people have to approve them before they are published.

There have been a few occasions – such as its estimate of the speed at which glaciers would be lost in the Himalayas – on which the panel has overstated the case. But it looks as if these will be greatly outnumbered by the occasions on which the panel has understated it.

The melting disperses another belief: that the temperate parts of the world – where most of the rich nations are located – will be hit last and least, while the poorer nations will be hit first and worst. New knowledge of the way in which the destruction of the Arctic sea ice affects northern Europe and North America suggests that this is no longer true. A paper published earlier this year in Geophysical Research Letters shows that Arctic warming is likely to be responsible for the extremes now hammering the once-temperate nations.

The north polar jet stream is an air current several hundred kilometres wide, travelling eastwards around the hemisphere. It functions as a barrier, separating the cold, wet weather to the north from the warmer, drier weather to the south. Many of the variations in our weather are caused by great travelling meanders – or Rossby waves – in the jet stream. Arctic heating, the paper shows, both slows the Rossby waves and makes them steeper and wider. Instead of moving on rapidly, the weather gets stuck. Regions to the south of the stalled meander wait for weeks or months for rain; regions to the north (or underneath it) wait for weeks or months for a break from the rain. Instead of a benign succession of sunshine and showers, we get droughts or floods.

During the winter a slow, steep meander can connect us directly to the polar weather, dragging severe ice and snow far to the south of its usual range. This mechanism goes a long way towards explaining the shift to sustained – and therefore extreme – weather patterns around the northern hemisphere.

I have no idea what is coming to Europe and North America this winter and next summer, in the wake of the record ice melt, but it’s unlikely to be pleasant.

Please note that this record represents a loss of around 30% of Arctic sea ice, against the long-term average. When that climbs to 50 or 70 or 90%, the impacts are likely to be worse. Our governments do nothing. Having abandoned any pretence of responding to the environmental crisis during the earth summit in June, now they stare stupidly as the ice on which we stand dissolves. Nothing – or worse than nothing.

Their one unequivocal response to the melting has been to facilitate the capture of the oil and fish it exposes. The companies which caused this disaster are scrambling to profit from it. On Sunday, Shell requested an extension to its exploratory drilling period in the Chukchi Sea, off the north-west coast of Alaska. This would push its operations hard against the moment when the ice re-forms and any spills they cause are locked in. The Russian oil company Gazprom is using the great melt to try to drill in the Pechora Sea, north-east of Murmansk. After turning its Arctic lands in the Komi Republic into the Niger Delta of the north (repeated oil spills are left unremediated in the tundra), Russia wants to extend this industry into one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems, where ice, storms and darkness make decontamination almost impossible.

As I write, activists from Greenpeace, whom I regard as heroes, are chained to Gazprom’s supply vessel, preventing the rig from operating. These people are stepping in where all governments have failed. David Cameron, who still claims to lead the greenest government ever, is no longer hugging huskies. In June he struck an agreement with the Norwegian prime minister “to enable sustainable development of Arctic energy.” Sustainable development, of course, means drilling for oil.

Is this how our children will see it: that we destroyed the benign conditions which made our world of wonders possible, then used the opportunity to amplify the damage?

All of us, of course, can claim to have acted with other aims in mind, or not to have acted at all, as the other immediacies of life seemed more important. But – unless we respond at last – the results follow as surely as if we had sought to engineer them. Stupidity, greed, passivity? Just as comparisons evaporate, so do these words. The ice, that solid platform on which, we now discover, so much rested, melts into air. Our pretensions to peace, prosperity and progress are likely to follow. “And like the baseless fabric of this vision, / The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, / The solemn temples, the great globe itself, / Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve.”

This piece was authored by George Monbiot. George is the author of the bestselling books The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order and Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain, as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man's Land. His latests books are Heat: how to stop the planet burning and Bring on the Apocalypse.

Future Paradigms for Business

Parallel Universes

Against the broad sweep of human history on this planet the last few hundred years have given rise to astonishing innovations. These have resulted in prosperity for a large proportion of the human family and the accumulation of massive wealth by a small minority.

But as we begin to internalise and comprehend the real costs associated with this remarkable and unprecedented phase of exponential growth and development, there is increasing evidence that a fundamental course correction is needed (at least in the means of production and rates of consumption) if continued affluence is to remain a viable goal for the majority.

Although the title of this piece hints at future paradigms for business I actually want to share with you some of the advances that are already disrupting the status quo, as well as those that are rapidly emerging; the reasons these breakthroughs are happening now; and what benefits we might expect to flow from the new paradigms.

Sometimes I feel I am living in two realities or parallel universes - although it is probably more accurate to describe this as a turbulent transition from a past with which we are all familiar, to a future that is different in a number of fundamental respects.

The reality with which we are all familiar is a “business-as-usual” world in which change is slow and predictable, power and relationships are absolute, vested interest drives much government policy, and future aspirations often appear to be merely a reworked extrapolation of a seductive past. In my parallel “business-as-unusual” universe, where multiple futures have already arrived, change is exponential and disruptive in its impact, entrepreneurial energy abounds, social innovation (rather than just profit maximisation) drives purpose, and the business landscape being shaped bears little resemblance to what happened yesterday.

The veracity of this parallel universe is increasingly clear and pregnant with possibility. But we must first appreciate that these new possibilities are part of a groundbreaking business framework that departs quite radically from the paradigm of industrial economism which governed our lives in the past and which many of us in corporate life are still hell-bent on preserving.

Indeed these diverse, emerging paradigms are driven by core values, priorities, energies, relationships, behaviours and an awareness that are all fundamentally different from those currently dominating the pages of the Financial Times and The Economist. They proclaim forms of management and organisation that are both revolutionary yet liberating. At the same time they offer hope for a future world where all can benefit and not just a wealthy minority.

Our Civilisational Crisis

Let me tell you the story of how this new business paradigm is emerging - in ways that are bound to shape business in the future – and why old myths simply cannot survive. I want to tell you about four interconnected emergencies that indicate a need for the course correction to which I referred earlier:

BEHAVIOURS IN CRISIS: When I was born in 1945 there were 1.87 bilion people on the planet. Most of the mechanisms for organising and managing we still use today were sufficient for this number of people. But human fertility, coupled with chemically-based agriculture and extraordinary medical advances, rapidly spawned a global populace of seven billion people. Today, because of our interconnectedness, these seven billion people all aspire to be as affluent as the most wealthy in our society. Furthermore, because the corporate PR machine keeps telling us to buy goods that have in-built obsolesecence, we have become a throw-away society, addicted to consuming more and more stuff we do not need.

SYSTEMS IN CRISIS: While the patterns of consumption have changed because of sheer numbers, the means of production have merely scaled up to try and cope with the increased demand. This is now putting the economy, the environment, energy sources and governance practices under severe stress. Indeed viewed through the lens of viability all four of these life-critical systems are in an observable state of collapse. Water scracity together with the rising cost of food are in the front-line of this particular crisis.

CULTURES IN CRISIS: The result is a quandary in society where cultural differences of any kind whatsoever, fuelled by the competitive nature of even our most venerable institutions and enacted in law, lead not to a celebration of diversity but to a monoculture of blame, superstition, division, rancour, conflict and terrorism. The disturbing paradox is this: We need more cooperation in order to avoid volatility in global food markets in order to ensure that (generally poorer) grain-importing nations do not spark ever more dramatic contagions of food inflation and political upheaval. Instead, nervous countries have responded with me-first competitive policies - ranging from export bans to grain hoarding to neo-mercantilist land grabs in Africa.

CRISES OF PERCEPTION: None of us is immune from any of these crises. We read about them in the newspapers, see them writ large on the Internet, and have them rammed down our throats when watching television news. We are all feeling the pressure, even if we are unsure why we should feel so stressed and anxious. Repressed emotional responses to world events generate feelings of hopelessness and futility – particularly among young people, many of whom seem dangerously alienated; increasingly frustrated and dismayed by the materialistic world we have created and which is their inheritance. One has only to look at the figures for youth suicide and youth crime to understand this sad trend.

Four Aspects of Globalisation

Lest there are some readers who doubt my logic or object to my telling the story of the human project in this manner, let us focus on just four irrefutable aspects of globalisation that are now staring business in the face:

• First, the human family is almost fully interconnected for the very first time. There are 5.9 billion mobile subscribers worldwide covering 86 per cent of the world’s population. Facebook, if it were a country, would be the third most populous country in the world with its 900 million users. 
• Second, power no longer resides just in the hands of institutions such as the UN but is being devolved to myriad non-elected entities. Wal-Mart’s corporate revenues are bigger than Norway’s GDP, ExxonMobil’s are bigger than Thailand and GE’s are bigger than New Zealand. Furthermore most pragmatic diplomacy is now carried out via a mix of international NGOs, high-net-worth individuals, and networks of like-minded activists (as exemplified by the Occupy movement) who protest against inequity and injustice and do not wait for permission to topple what is seen to be wrong, unfair or against the wishes of the majority.
• Third, our corporate stewards are not worldcentric leaders. Possibly less than 5 per cent of the current batch of corporate leaders are “globally awake” in the sense that their natural way of being and leading is attuned to generating societal transformation from a truly global perspective. That means 95 per cent of our leaders still act from an outdated egocentric impulse and are focused purely on creating wealth for themselves and a small cohort of investors.
• Fourth, today's rate of consumption is massively unsustainable at a global level. At current levels of production humanity’s ecological footprint is 50 per cent greater than the earth’s capacity to sustain it. This would be okay if we all aspired to acquire the quality of life of the average farmer in Pakistan. But we do not. On current projections, every year until 2030, 150 million people will be entering the middle class, which will increase global energy demand by 40 per cent and cause the demand for water to outstrip supply by 40 per cent.

Taking each of these factors in turn one might easily be tempted to say - "So what? It is just a fact of contemporary life." But the combination of these four factors creates a picture of an interconnected world that increasingly demands our most powerful organizations be structured and governed by principles that transcend growth and profit maximization solely and begin to account for a truly worldcentric view of human, environmental and societal well-being.

Because of the far-reaching nature of such changes this news is mostly conveyed by the corporate media - if it is conveyed at all - in terms of doom and gloom: of intensifying volatility leading to an inevitable deterioration in living standards. Why should we be so fearful of change - given human ingenuity and our instiable desire for advancement?

It is not just because the new framework deviates from what many of us assume to be normal. What this framework promises is so radically different it shatters the social and business conditioning of 300 years of industrial economism. And that is scary for those of us who are trying to stop the future in its tracks.

Naturally, all of this is incredibly exciting if you happen to be an entrepreneur, innovator or futurists. So let’s take a closer look into this changing business context; the operational shifts that will flow from that; and the leadership capabilities required for business success in this transition.

The New Business Revolution

As a futurist it would be remiss of me if I failed to anticipate some of the most interesting challenges facing us. So here are five strategic features and an additional five trends I see as golden opportunities for business as we begin to redesign our life-critical systems in ways that create enterprises which are far more conscious of society’s actual needs:

Five Strategic Features:

1. COLLABORATIVE. Possibly because the era of rampant economic growth is fast coming to an end, our social mores are moving from competition (within an ethos built out of scarcity) to cooperation (within an ethos of abundance). Individuals and companies alike are seeking opportunities for symbiosis where, once again, cooperative enterprise makes good business, social and environmental sense.
2. OPEN SOURCE. In situations where competitive behaviours are already obviously failing us we are witnessing the power of peer-to-peer networks, open source design, and global commons initiatives, all ultimately heralding startlingly alternative approaches to ownership, property rights, the exchange of value and even governance.
3. DESKS ON WHEELS. Many conventional institutions are withering and struggling to stay afloat as traditional hierarchies collapse and friendships and intimacy become the basis for organising human enterprise. Spontaneous order organisations where you follow your own instincts and projects, and where command and control disciplines are non-existent, do not waste any talent or energy and are now beginning to scale-up into organisations comprising large numbers of people.
4. WORLDCENTRIC. Driven by new social media we can connect to almost anyone, anywhere, at any time and for any reason. In that context organisations are fast acquiring a worldcentric conscience and framework for decision-making – understanding that their licence to operate now depends upon trust, transparency, speed, and integrity as never before.
5. DISTRIBUTED. Driven by the convergence of new communications technologies, distributed energy and 3D printing - a third industrial revolution is underway. This will rapidly create a new industrial and social symbiosis in which there is no waste and where we each carry our own energy - a world in which distributed networks and clean, low-batch, desk-top manufacturing will become the new norm.

 Five Trends to Watch:

1. ENERGY EFFICIENCY: Everyone has heard about Moore’s Law – the doubling of computing power every 18 months. Not many understand that the same principle also applies to energy efficiency. Extreme energy efficiencies (with many miniature devices using only ambient energy sources) will put an overwhelming amount of nanodata in the hands of consumers - enabling conscious purchasing and other decisions in ways that are only just becoming apparent.
2. SUBSTITUTE ECONOMIES: The market economy is being relegated to just one of a number of different modes of economy production. The “gift” economy based upon different social, cultural and financial notions of value and exchange will be scaled-up in ways that offer a valid alternative to today’s unsustainable monetary system.
3. NOMADIC WORK: Enabled by more sophisticated and pervasive information and communications technologies the shift from places to spaces promises to save costs by encouraging increasingly nomadic organisational arrangements. Many large corporate offices will contract and orthodox structures (from sales forces to call centres) will give way to new practices that eliminate unnecessary management costs while providing for a level of customer intimacy and satisfying the consumer's need for instant gratification.
4. NEW METRICS: New measures will assume greater prominence as externalities are factored into the real cost of goods. In terms of investment - we can forget GDP as a useful criterion. Economic complexity (the amount of diversity in the embedded productive knowledge in any economy) will in future determine where investment is targeted. In many countries this will create a wave of capital investment in renewable energy, new forms of agriculture, water technologies, medical science and nano-engineering, etc.
5. NATURE'S WAY: Biomimicry will become increasingly important in terms of manufacturing and design as we successfully decipher many of the problems that nature has already solved.

Again these are not discrete factors. Indeed all of the above features and trends will have the effect of rewiring our brains - in terms of work, leisure and our potential contribution to society – just as the convergence of new prodution methods and communications technologies did with previous societal transitions.

New Leadership Literacies

I am sure you realise that these fundamental shifts in the patterns of human production and consumption are genuinely transformational. They require different mindsets, different values, different intentions, and different architectures in order to work effectively.

But these shifts also imply a higher level of conscious leadership to ensure success: a leadership based upon collaboration; leadership capable of adapting wisely and in real-time to unforeseen events; leadership that transcends individual ego and vested interest to harness worldcentric values as well as social and ecological benefits. In other words the future demands a different set of leadership literacies.

Being literate allows us to contribute to society. For example, if you are musically illiterate you may appreciate a piece of music but you may not be able to compose a song, read a music score, play an instrument or even whistle in tune. Leadership is similar in that the literacies required to lead us into the future I have described have changed and are continuing to morph. During a ten-year period I witnessed these new leadership literacies in practice – used almost instinctively by those who are awake to the new opportunities I have been talking about but entirely ignored by those who are still content to play in the old paradigm.

These domains of knowledge and new approaches were later explained in my most recent book, The Five Literacies of Global Leadership. In summary they are: 

1. Networked intelligence via preferential and collaborative networks will increase our appreciation of what matters - and when….
2. Foresight. An expanded “now” will replace “the vision thing” – collapsing past, present and future states into a new awareness of strategic opportunities for both individuals and enterprise
3. Strategic Navigation in real-time, with its emphasis on adaptiveness and decision-making based on real-time strategic intelligence is replacing conventional strategic planning which is too slow to adapt in this days and age
4. Deep Design is a capability that engages all manner of people in different dialogues and community decision-making about every aspect of the business and replaces the assumed executive license for determining strategy
5. Brand Resonance – the amplification of aligned, ethical, messages where trust, authenticity and being seen to be a force for good portray the truthful purpose of an enterprise and its people.

Conclusions

Business-as-usual (at least as I have defined it here) is becoming less of an option by the day - although that may take a while to sink in - especially in developed nations where it is so easy to live or where we are endowed with such plentiful resources and talent, and in countries like Australia where the geography quarantines the populace to some extent from the social hardships existing elsewhere.

Resisting the changes I have indicated will be futile in the long-term – although short-term expediency will still drive business motives for the time being, particularly in those larger corporations that find it difficult to change or are more concerned to maintain their immediate relevance rather than their long-term viability.

But the future of business and the business of the future holds out incredibly exciting promises, as we head into a world where the most urgent of our dilemmas can be solved, people and the planet are held to be as important as profits and growth, and where prosperity and well-being can be achieved for every member of the human family. That, I would argue, is the true destiny for the future of business.

This piece is a summary of the background material I used as reference to a keynote address I delivered to the Australian Chambers Business Congress in Melbourne on 16^th August 2012 entitled Megatrends: Future Paradigms for Business.

 

The Seduction of Evil

As a scholar in Jungian psychology, I tend to look for synchronicities hidden in events that might reveal deeper meanings. In this spirit, I think it is worth contemplating a possible relation between the depiction of the Joker in The Dark Knight and what James Holmes was accused of doing at the opening night of Dark Knight Rising.

Anyone who saw The Dark Knight in 2008 could not help but be struck by the extraordinary way Heath Ledger expressed the power of the Joker. His mastery of that part brought into stark relief the randomness of evil that was mesmerizing because it was so authentic. He made evil live - compelling, seductive. He made the Joker so charismatic, even Batman was drawn into his sway. I saw the movie a number of times just to appreciate his mastery of the part which so powerfully expressed the complete psychopathology of the Joker. It was a portrayal of evil as intense as anything I have ever seen on the silver screen. When I learned that Ledger had died of an overdose of drugs shortly after making the movie but before the film was released, the first thought that crossed my mind was whether there was any connection with his total immersion in the part of the Joker.  Had so powerfully acting the part of unmitigated evil in the movie somehow unleashed or exacerbated an evil in his own soul?

When it was revealed that James Holmes had dyed his hair red and identified himself as the Joker to the arresting police, my first thought was that he probably had watched The Dark Knight dozens of times and had become "possessed" by the archetype of evil so powerfully displayed in that film. It was more than acting. There was a tangible quality to what was performed that made the evil present and enticing. Even to the end, I respected the strange integrity of the Joker along his pathway of devastation. He was compelling to me.  I believe it was this quality that became contagious and then entered and consumed the soul of a young man susceptible to its hypnotic qualities. The archetype of the Joker came alive with The Dark Knight and wreaked its havoc on the opening night of Dark Knight Rising.

It is worth noting that James Holmes was an honor student in the neurosciences. He is highly intelligent and of a scientific mind.  We often think of evil as somehow a mistake, a result of not really understanding the true reality of a situation, almost a state of ignorance. Not so, evil is real. It is a force, an intelligence, a spirit that arises from the deepest part of our individual and collective unconscious. It is, ultimately, of cosmic origin. Once it emerges, it can grip individuals, societies, even nations, and send them to their doom. It uses intelligence for its own dark ends and can infect the greatest genius.  In fact, it is precisely when human will is given over to it that its most destructive aspects are unleashed. This was what gave the Joker his extraordinary charism. He had completely abandoned himself into the power of capricious evil and celebrated it with demonic delight, being no more concerned with his own life than the lives of others. He celebrated the anarchy of chaos.

Archetypal possession is a complex and challenging psychological phenomenon. To get a measure of both its complexity and its mesmerizing power, it might be helpful to recall Jung's first observations of it as he witnessed the socio-political situation in Europe in the 1930s and the rise of the Nazis. For Jung, the phenomenon of the Nazis was perhaps the clearest case in history of archetypal possession. Their experience at a collective level can tell us much about Holmes at a personal level.

In a lecture given in Cologne and Essen in February 1933, Jung stated that "just as for the individual a time of dissociation is a time for sickness, so it is in the life of nations. We can hardly deny that ours is a time of dissociation and sickness."  He went on to state that this sickness is a "crisis," meaning that "the sickness has reached a dangerous climax."  The tragedy, he said, was that "the whole of Germany heaved a sigh of relief when a megalomaniac psychopath proclaimed, 'I take over responsibility.'"  For Jung to refer to Hitler as a "megalomaniac psychopath" seems so obvious today but in 1933 it was considered a radical and offensive statement.  His lectures fell on deaf ears. It is supremely difficult to wake people up to impending catastrophe when everything appears normal in their everyday lives.

In 1936, Jung again wrote extensively on the German shadow. It was clear to him, he said in an article entitled "Wotan," that "a hurricane has broken loose in Germany while we still believe it is fine weather." Germany was in the grip of a profound archetypal possession which he called "Wotan" after the Teutonic god of frenzy and rage. This force, which had lain deeply buried in the German psyche for centuries, now burst forth in raging fury. But paradoxically hardly anyone in Europe could see that there was even a problem. Said Jung: "A god has taken possession of the Germans and their house is filled with a 'mighty rushing wind.'"  Hitler "has infected a whole nation to such an extent that everything is set in motion and has started rolling on its course towards perdition."

The paradox to which Jung pointed, so relevant to the situation of James Holmes today, is that even while an individual or an entire nation can be in the grip of a "frenzy of demoralization," the individual or the society can still appear to be perfectly normal. Indeed, the individuals that are collectively engaged in actions that from a distance can be judged to be completely insane can remain completely conventional in their ordinary affairs.  Even the craziest person is not completely crazy, something even more true of hysteria, where nothing appears to be really wrong beyond a few "excesses" here and there.  With mass killers such as Holmes, like with the Nazis, we can expect many parts of their lives to appear entirely normal even while they are in the grip of completely delusional fantasy projections which will only end in an orgy of violence. They are planning this drama while interacting with people in completely normal ways.

Until he allegedly walked into the theater and threw that canister of tear gas, opening fire that would kill 12 and injure 38, even his closest acquaintances would have considered James Holmes "normal." But underneath the veneer of normalcy, the archetypal power of the Joker was eating away at his soul, waiting for the right moment to explode.

It is worth noting that exactly one year ago, on July 22, 2011, Anders Brevik bombed government buildings in Oslo, resulting in 8 deaths and many wounded, and then proceeded to carry out execution style killings at the Workers Youth League of the Labor Party on the island of Utoya, resulting in 69 deaths and scores wounded, mostly teenagers. Like Holmes, he appeared perfectly normal both before and after his horrendously evil deeds.

Part of what happens is that, like Faust, people like Holmes or Brevik project those aspects of their shadow that they do not acknowledge in themselves upon other people and other countries, races, and religions.  Once this projection is complete, it then becomes their sacred duty to "defend the realm" and obtain and, in the drama in their mind, use hugely destructive weapons in order to defend themselves against the evil they see on the other side. Because they cannot take on military forces, their demented minds go after the innocent -- totally vulnerable and unprotected. For Brevik, the "enemy" was the "immigrant" coming into Norway. He was defending Norwegian "purity" against the “infidel.” We shall see what emerges for James Holmes.

As we mourn this tragedy, therefore, let us contemplate the subtleties of evil and the insidious way it can intertwine within our psyche and consume our soul. Let us contemplate that what is true for James Holmes is true for us all. There is no doubt that ours is a time like the 1930s. Evil is afoot. It is stalking the land and yet, somehow, we all go along our merry ways. We all act as if it's nice weather even while increasingly it isn't. We are all hiding various fears and terrors within while we live our normal lives in the face of rising chaos.

The dramatic tragedy of James Holmes is thus at its deepest level a parable of our time. Ours is a time of colossal failures in government to deal with climate change and the financial crisis. Ours is a time when because of our failure to deal with climate change, we are facing a devastation that will dwarf the destructiveness of the Second World War, the ultimate price Europe paid for not stopping Hitler at the very beginning. This is exactly what is happening to us and we are still virtually asleep, our governments preoccupied by trivial matters in the face of their historic choices. Then when explosions occur like James Holmes we are shocked and resume "normalcy" as quickly as possible rather than looking for deeper meanings.

What we must now know is that because our external state is completely chaotic and increasingly turbulent, exactly like it was in the 1930s, archetypal forces such as Wotan are being unleashed. The Joker may be the Wotan of our day. Like then, it represents an invisible form that seeks out and interacts with specific personalities, through which it co-creates a certain expression. There will be more James Holmes. Individuals like him and Brevik will pop up with random abandon and increasing frequency.  It is the energy in the air, the Zeitgeist. It expresses the chaos of our time and the loss of our connection with nature and each other.

In the face of this, let us remember Jung's admonition, that the only way, in the end, to defend ourselves from evil's seductive power is to cultivate strong ethical safeguards in our personal lives, reinforced by a clear social morality.  Because we have no clear social morality, we must deepen our personal lives with the  crystal clear recognition of what is at stake. Our entire civilizational structure is sliding into chaos and only our personal strength, in community if possible, will see us through.

We must re-commit in these dark hours to become beacons of light, knowing the difference between good and evil, and courageous to stand for what is right. Had James Holmes been graced with someone who would have done this with him in an effective way, he might have flirted with the archetype but, in the end, inspired by hope, gone to the movie and enjoyed it, celebrating art, as were all the people in the theater before he shot them.

This opinion piece was written by Jim Garrison, past President of Wisdom University and State of the World Forum. He is also the founding President of a new university brought about by the merger of Wisdom University and Giordano Bruno Globalshift University.