Free Fall

Our civilization feels like its in free fall. Much of what we have previously taken for granted now appears to be broken as old operating strategies refuse to work any more. Just as humanity is confronting limits imposed by nature on what it can and can not do, so an impasse has been reached in our ability to deal with critical issues in a collective manner - that is as a species.

During the coming decade we are likely to face a cascade of massively disruptive crises that will feed on each other both economically and ecologically. Many of these will disable institutional power players, potentially opening up space for new socioeconomic, governance and technological innovations to embed. As that happens, collaboration on an unprecedented scale will be needed to transition the human community into one that is at once more viable, resilient and benign to life.

In that regard it is useful to distinguish between two scenarios articulated by my friend Michel Bauwens. The first presupposes enlightened leadership from at least a fraction of the political and business elite. This is difficult because it requires a level of consciousness and individual altruism able to rise above perceived self-interests. The second focuses attention on local resilience but accomplished in ways where the resulting innovation flows are accessible universally – for example through open source design and peer-to-peer communities. Elements of both scenarios are critical to success. Both must be framed within different logics of possibility and desirability.

There appear to be five factors currently hampering civilizational renewal. They have nothing to do with technology, infrastructure and investment capital, and very little to do with politics. In fact all five of these factors are relatively intangible. What they do have in common is an affiliation to the cultural or psychological space within which we typically respond to shifting and uncertain conditions.

Very simply stated these factors are (i) the detachment of ideas and social relations; (ii) fears and apprehension, engendered through an apparent lack of control as well as a distrust of others motives; (iii) outdated and invalid mindsets; (iv) competitive conduct; and (v) the fragmentation of endeavours. Let us examine each of these in turn.

1. DETACHMENT

As the umbilical bond human beings have with each other expands we become more highly attuned to a global “community of mind” as an experiential phenomenon. Increasingly we feel an integral part of a cohesive human family. At the same time it is almost unbearable to digest the pain arising from such knowledge. How is it that we can wreak so much misery and suffering on our fellow beings?

When it comes to tangible events and issues the opposite condition seems to prevail. Here, critical issues facing humankind are becoming uncoupled from each other in our cognitive analysis of them. We no longer discern the interrelatedness. They are separate in our minds. In first seeking that which separates one idea from another we fail to discern and appreciate the crucial pattern that connects. When it comes to issues like climate change or terrorism, for example, we continue to apply linear thinking (usually with greater enthusiasm than before and even in the knowledge that our solutions are not working and cannot possibly work) yet stop striving to design a different world where such symptoms (of a system in stress) would simply disappear. There are perhaps five fundamental reasons for this:

Myopia - We have become blind to the obvious – those things that really matter. The warning signs of a system in distress are there to be seen – but only by those possessing sufficient bandwidth to perceive them as such. We are more commonly deceived and distracted by many thousands of iterations of just a few seminal messages, smudging clarity and transforming meaning into inconsequential pap. This “consensus illusion” as David Martin put it has deceived us into believing we are operating with more information when, in fact, we are becoming indoctrinated with less information.

If that were not alarming enough many signs are not appearing on our radar screens because they are either imperceptible to us culturally or are showing up only at the intersections of our knowledge. With few exceptions we are no longer in the habit of looking for the truth at the edge. Even if we were looking in the right places we lack the tools to bring into sharp focus what we might see there. In other words the territory has changed but our maps and reasoning have not kept pace. We have all become so busy interpreting what is going on from our own, deeply embedded, meaning structures that we have become myopic to viable alternatives.

Despair - Most people find it almost impossible to grasp the complex nature of change. Consequently modern society is out of its depth - deficient in the capacity to make sense of what is going on at anything more than a superficial level. Worse still, as hype around our most critical issues escalates, our ability to confront matters is overwhelmed by a belief that such a thing cannot possibly be happening to us. It is simply too much to bear. The result is that collective cognition shuts down - or diverts to less existential matters, like sporting events, celebrity gossip and other diversions.

This is known as apocalypse fatigue. People suffering from this condition feel helpless to do anything about the issues confronting them. They would much rather ignore any threat to their own existence by acting as if it isn’t true, shrug their shoulders in despair, or turn away from reality simply because it is too dreadful to contemplate. Ultimately there is only one question that really matters. Whatever happens over the next few decades the wealthy will survive. The three billion or so people who are not so fortunate will be wiped out. Do we really care? If so, what should we be doing about it.

Exclusion - The occidental mind (unlike Sinic, Indic or even Islamic mindsets for example) is rational, responding best to deductive logic which it values over alternative methods of knowing. Accordingly those of us in the West have been conditioned into building and dissecting structures one piece at a time. We have been taught to analyse and measure critical dimensions before applying problem-solving techniques to re-engineer these parts. Using this logic results in solutions ranging from the brilliant to the commonplace.

Method, on the other hand, remains consistent - dependent upon ranking and available resources. So one or more parts of a structure (those perceived to be the weakest links) are improved while other parts are ignored. When we see deterioration in different parts of the structure we switch our attention to those elements and ignore the parts we were working on. While we in the West have become very adept at this kind of structural reductionism we have neglected to develop similar expertise in the design of viable and enduring systems.

Our greatest weakness, however, is in applying deductive logic to every challenge facing humanity. By excluding alternative ways of knowing, including indigenous wisdom, we are requiring all other cultures to engage through the ideology of the occidental mind should they wish to participate in their own survival.

Overload - We are assailed by all kinds of information every hour of our waking lives. It has been known for some time that too much information causes a condition known as sensory overload. This produces disorientation and a lack of responsiveness as well as lowering our ability to make accurate predictions. Not only does sensory overload make it more difficult for us to express and comprehend complex systems, constructing effective long-term solutions becomes even more problematic when we are exhausted by the very information that might have the solution embedded within it.

Displacement - We have developed a highly refined sense of shifting the blame. It is not my problem is a conditioned reflex acquired through our instruction-based, rather than inquiry-based, educational methods. As we are routed into careers, social memes, and classes, we develop a highly refined sense of what is in our purview. We seek public sector solutions to our wantonly excessive consumption. We rely upon government intervention when our sick and aging need care. We look to the police for community relations. We look to the clergy for morality.

Regardless of evidence showing a lack of cognitive alignment within our collective transmuted accountability, the notion of someone else should remains our dominant modus operandi. Then, when these systems fail, we animate them with our projections of an accountability that they never accepted in our opening premise. By focusing on the role of leaders and obsessing on artefacts of hierarchical structure we have lost our moorings on citizenship and personal responsibility within community. In reality we are the problems we project on others. But then we, too, are the capacity to solve the same.

2. FEAR

In spite of the highly controlled machinery of denial, misinformation and propaganda a growing minority vaguely comprehend the seriousness of our predicament. A few are even trying to do something about it. But having a partial sense of circumstances beyond our control has also encouraged society’s communicators to go to town in ways that exploit our growing sense of angst and that are detrimental to longer-term planetary solutions.

Some journalists have leaped on discrete issues to push their own frenzied (often negative, cynical and commercial) self-interest. As a consequence most memes dealing with the contemporary human condition are conveyed via a strange mix of edgy fear coupled to competitive dogma rather than from a sense of hope, inspiration and abundance. It must be said that some recent strategies by celebrity politicians and well-meaning activists have also unintentionally contributed to an overwhelming feeling of helplessness that has humanity in a vice-like grip.

3. HUBRIS

Most of the seeds responsible for today’s rampant damage across so many sectors of society were sown during the industrial revolution. Those seeds exhibited a way of thinking that was uniquely occidental in its approach to economic growth, innovation and development and was ultimately responsible for the success of Western economies. 

Of late it culminated in blatantly exploitative mechanisms of production – variants of the capitalist ethos that have become driven by greed and are designed to promote the acquisition of wealth above any other goal. Developing states, including China, have started to emulate this model, or a hybrid of it.

Today, because of the exponential demand for food, water, energy and goods from the seven billion people who inhabit this planet, a perfect storm of economic and social flaws inherent in the original design is about to break. In spite of this all relevant societal memes are predicated on the notion that occidental worldviews, values and beliefs hold the key to societal renewal. This is hubris and narcissism. Western views of progress already border on the irrelevant in most non-Western traditions.

Future solutions to the civilizational problem must of necessity integrate and transcend current worldviews if they are to be effective. That means giving an appropriate voice to those cultures, along with giving credence to alternative economic and social modes of development.

4. COMPETITION

The political inertia we see does not spring from apathy or any lack of a desire to change. Again the problem can be found in our thinking. In this case the notion of competition (the prevalence of competitive behaviour) traps us in circumstances where it is expected that we fight others in order to safeguard our own parochial interests. Thus the lack of any real political leadership is first and foremost the result of us succumbing to an obsolete economic paradigm with its associated suite of constraints concerned with preserving the national interest.

The fact is we are beholden to mechanisms, from the nation state to the G20 and even the United Nations, that effectively hinder collaboration on a planetary scale. Conventional wisdom maintains that we are fundamentally competitive social beings. Most biological evidence points to the contrary. But this is part of the paradigm we must shatter in order for the communal needs and interests we all share to shine through.

5. FRAGMENTATION

If the lack of a unified vision or platform for change is a serious issue then the splintering of any strategic focus and alignment are huge contributing factors to a demoralizing diffusion and dilution of energy. Currently there are myriad discrete and well-meaning initiatives, strategies, campaigns, movements and media all vying for our attention and funding across a range of theatres. Such diversity is overwhelming and a distraction in its own right. There is also far too much talk and not nearly enough inspired leadership for action attached to these ventures.

The key will be to find strategic acupuncture points that liberate new energy flows that concentrate and embed entrepreneurial passion and innovations within the world-system. A critical element in this regard will be investment capital for renewal. The injection of capital and resources from business and high net worth individuals is still channeled overwhelmingly into old ‘sunset’ industries and interests – including the servicing of war and conflict which is a highly profitable business.

Two things must change. Firstly new business models must be invented to challenge prevalent assumptions governing investment, value and profitable exchange, ultimately making it more attractive to invest in things like renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, charitable agencies and alternative governance systems. Secondly, however inconceivable or idealistic it might seem, we must wean ourselves off military combat. Peace is a prerequisite for societal renewal. We cannot create peace by practising warfare.

So there is our dilemma. For the first time in history we are faced not with a simple problem requiring a simple solution, but with a fiercely diabolical human condition – a world-system so immensely and dynamically complex that even the most sophisticated reductionist thought, coupled to rational evidence and the most incredible breakthroughs in technology are totally insufficient to correct the unintended consequences of our defective design. Yet we insist on using old tools and thinking to combat this enemy. It is not the planet that is at risk but our civilization.

I am deeply indebted to critical ideas and inputs from my colleagues at The Constellation, especially Christine McDougall, Laurent Labourmene, Lindley Edwards, Robb Smith and Dave Martin.