Hope Springs Eternal
Charles Dickens set the scene for his novel 'A Tale of Two Cities' by saying: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
He could well have been describing the dilemmas we are experiencing in these early decades of the 21st century. For while we can find statistics pointing to increased health and longevity, fewer conflicts, falling crime rates, and the eradication of extreme poverty and disease, we can also catch glimpses of a species in crisis.
I am not referring to climate change or environmental collapse, a new arms race, terrorism, the failure of democracy, food insecurity, the refugee crisis, the precarious state of topsoil, forests and oceans, the menace of autonomous weapons, or even possible civil war in the US. These are all just symptoms of a deeper malaise. The crisis that troubles me is far more insidious.
Unseen it remains unspoken. Unspoken it remains unopposed. This matters because we are rapidly approaching the end of empire - an era in human history conditioned by predatory expansionism, colonization, genocide and unjust exploitation. These key factors, that happen to symbolize the Western episteme, are increasingly irrelevant. A transition is imminent. It is utterly unavoidable.
How we approach that evolution, and whether our species will survive the disruption, has yet to be determined. But one thing is abundantly clear. We do not yet possess the narrative, nor adequate mindset, to make it through. Any metamorphosis on this scale will require a giant leap of evolutionary development. A leap, if you will, of collective consciousness. This is the crisis to which I refer.
Somewhere along the way we forgot what it means to be human. We became trapped in a cognitive and emotional gridlock that prevents us coming up with solutions to the existential crises facing us. There are various reasons for this apparent lapse in sentient recall. Most of them seem to be linked to the way we live our lives and relate to each other. In an extractive economy, where goods are manufactured by the many for the few, life can become too easy for the rich, yet impossible for the poor. It was not always like this.
In 1945, the year of my birth, around 2 billion people inhabited Earth. Over the course of my lifetime this has grown to 7.99 billion – each individual striving for a better quality of life. This population explosion has put untold stress on systems that were never designed to cope with such large numbers. As our most life-critical systems fail, we start to blame each other for their collapse. Leaders take fright. Dread and humiliation now become the weapons of choice in the arsenal of those whose courage and competence is limited to a relentless patching up of the present. The pressure is on. But blaming others for our predicament, by fabricating fear, corrodes trust. Now, the sense of despair that hangs in the ether, as hope for a better future vanishes, infects us all with its angst – from schoolchildren to the affluent. Bewildered, faced with problems we do not fully grasp, our recourse is to buy more and more stuff in the belief it will make us happy. Thus the cycle of desire and consumption continues unabated...
What remains is sustained by the most blatant lie in the human story - a belief that kneeling at the altar of materialism, in a manic quest for more money, possessions, greater status, and social approval will salvage us, tugging happiness along in its wake. Deep within ourselves we know this is improbable. Recent experience has revealed truths we dare only whisper.
This is an emotionally charged accusation. Capitalism is like religion. Simply by challenging its relevance, we can be accused of heresy and societal destabilization. Let us accept the risk and take this line of inquiry a little deeper though...
Corporate advertising is the public relations arm of an economic system that works by making us feel deficient, envious or inadequate in some way, then telling us the answer is to constantly buy more stuff - or upgrade what we already have. And when global brands, utilizing business models that rely on advertising, continue to insist we need their latest products in order to be beautiful, cool, smart, admired or connected, and we gradually become aware this is affecting our mental health, what should we do?
After all, we are all party to this deceit. We sustain the delusion through our infatuation with competitive individualism - the foundation of a civilization with a warped sense of its own exceptionalism. A culture made sterile by its addiction to extrinsic values and goals, and its voracious appetite for novelty. A culture incapable of shaping the future from alternative design ontologies. A culture where hopes for something different are constantly dashed.
Contemporary society only prescribes one cure for this malady. Economic growth. But this only fuels our yearning for more and more material goods. It also detracts from having our more intrinsic needs - such as authenticity, affection, relations with nature and friends, mutual respect, meaningful work, and a chance to contribute to the community in which we reside, or to live a life in service to others - fulfilled.
The most important questions for those who seek to disrupt the status quo, therefore, concern what we can do to break free from such patterns. What new narratives and belief systems are needed to free us from the prisons we ourselves created in the naive expectation they would lead to improved health, wealth and wellbeing? What can be done to restore hope and trust? How can we dismantle the constraints of the past, in ways that are the least disruptive, so that a transition to a world that works for everyone becomes at least possible?
By itself, optimism is not a solution. It simply gives us license to believe change is uncalled for and that everything will be fine even if we choose to do nothing. Pessimism is not an option. It drifts soon enough into passivity. Besides, in situations that can appear so overwhelming we readily default to compliance and inaction.
If environmental breakdown is creating an uninhabitable world, if our civilization is reaching its endgame, then so be it. The problem is too big. We are at least being amused to death by an endless supply of new gadgets, fashions, celebrity scandals, and other hedonistic pleasures. Perhaps it is easier just to give up. To go with the flow. And if that is the case, perhaps we should abide by the advice of Dr. Seuss: Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened.
But I am not quite at that stage just yet. Human ingenuity is boundless. Although it has its dark side, it has been responsible for creating astounding works of art, constructing massive cities and connective infrastructure, conquering disease, and furthering our understanding of the universe. That same creativity and inventiveness allowed us to survive numerous emergencies in the past. Why should it not serve us now to address this crisis in collective consciousness?
Certainly much can be done to overcome our current cognitive and emotional gridlock. Small steps, benign in appearance, mere nudges in fact, yet vast in their potential impact. But first it is essential that we overcome our hesitancy in speaking truth to power. In demanding a moral response to the circumstances in which we now find ourselves, we must proclaim the reality of the human condition with one voice, conceding our vulnerability should we remain divided.
When it comes to identifying the most critical acupuncture points for transformative change, purely within the context of this initial step, one issue calls out for our immediate attention:
An all-encompassing narrative, a pluriversal worldview offering hope, empathy and inclusion (rather than fear, exclusion and disengagement) must be sought - one that is not dominated by colonialism or an establishment blind to the virtues of others. This 'planetary constitution' must express a revitalized moral purpose for humanity as a whole. Able to resonate across all political, geographical and cultural divides, and generative in nature, this story must be offered to those in power by a world united by hope. Hope for a better future.
Only then, when today's devastating void of extreme egotism, greed and hostility is replaced, or at least offset to some degree, by a unifying, constructive, more equitable and ultimately sustainable purpose for the human family, motivated by intrinsic values rather than hackneyed extrinsic targets (like profitability, growth, economic efficiency - or owning the largest, most destructive, nuclear arsenal on the planet) will a viable alternative to today’s maladaptive world-systems, be free to evolve.
I realize this all sounds ridiculously utopian on paper. Like any global issue it relies on people finding common ground and irresistible reasons to cooperate, so as to help each other lower existential risks. Even that seems a pipedream at a time when the richest nations were frantically buying up all stocks of Covid-19 vaccines, leaving less affluent nations in a desperate plight. The SARS-CoV-2 virus exposed multiple global frailties as a result of our collective failure to consider and act on national weaknesses in the context of a rapidly changing world. Yet it seems we cannot bring ourselves to discard the shackles of competition even when our fate depends on it.
All things considered I know of no other way forward that might yet avoid a collapse of the human project. The first of these tasks, that of evolving a universal tabula rasa, or worldview, is deceptively simple - but possible when viewed from within new design ontologies. It is also a critical step in unifying a species that has become unnecessarily fractured and self-destructive, almost beyond repair. How best to invite meaningful contributions, proclaim and advocate such a narrative, and present it as a draft charter for the future of humanity, is by no means clear - unless commissioned by an organization like the UN and offered to the nations of the world as an endowment of peace.
None of this is easy to imagine or discuss, let alone design and deploy. The burden appears even greater when it is so easy to be overcome by the profound second- and third-order changes that are needed at global and societal levels.
The second task is more easily addressed when the first is in motion. Individual systems that fail to achieve their intentions can be reinvented. More easily when a well-defined framework and design criteria exist to help guide and align any generative activities. There are actions we can take, however, that will put us on the right path.
Most of us work in organizations. These are the engines of society. They are also an innate part of the problems we must tackle. Reinforcing our addiction to compliance or consumption, our corporations are where disruption is most needed, where it can be scaled, and where energy for innovation can be found – albeit in small pockets, often hidden away in an obscure corner of the enterprise. Logically, this is where individuals desiring change can start.
So let us seek out the disruptors and have the courage to become disruptors ourselves. A few minds geared to ethical change, an amenable culture, and an appreciation for stewardship of the organisational ecosystem in alignment with society’s real needs, are all that is required.
Some of the best opportunities are hidden in full view - though often remain invisible to those brought up on the classic reductionist diet of business schools and consulting firms in thrall to the extractionist economic paradigm.
For example, we spend most of our waking hours at work. Recent research suggests a large majority of us feel enraged by the pointless nature of much work. We are twice as likely to hate our work as love it. Only 18 per cent of employees are actively engaged at work. An incredible 24 per cent are actively disengaged – meaning they deliberately hold the organization back. Meanwhile the remaining 58 per cent are on autopilot. With the best will in the world they turn up to work each day, perform adequately the tasks allotted to them, and get paid - for little commitment, other than lip service when required, to their job, company, or profession.
Disrupting this particular pattern by democratizing the workplace it is possible to engage an entire community to focus on mindful innovation. Simply by infusing work with new meaning, providing a degree of autonomy, a chance to propose and implement change, along with opportunities to contribute to the greater good, productivity can skyrocket, while apathy and disengagement simply vanish.
The choice between despair and hope is a political act. By leveraging the power of disruption we can commit to a circular economy, thus breaking the cycle of desire and consumption. The alternative is to submit to the clout of relentless corporate advertising. We can take on the task of treating our pathology, for its infatuation with technological toys and other pointless stuff, or indulge it with ever increasing doses of materialism in an attempt to gloss over our innate sense of loss of what it means to be human.
Together we can accept responsibility for shaping the next chapter of human evolution as an anticipatory store of better futures. Or, as lonely individuals, we can stay on the treadmill of envy and avarice. It is up to each one of us to decide what is best for us now, what is best for our children, and what is best for the planet.
To be honest there are signs that an axial shift is occurring within our political and economic discourse and in the actions we are prepared to take at scale. Scholars like Otto Scharmer, for example, have pointed out that contemporary activism, led mostly by women and students, motivated by a desire to craft a world-system that works for the entire human family, is making ideologically-motivated debate obsolete. Of far more consequence are conversations around social equity, economic justice, and human wellbeing.
The ultimate test of course will be how we choose to deal with those who resist change and those who actively oppose us. How will we be able to find forgiveness for the weaker side of humanity, avoid feeling sorry for those who deny their pain, offer renewed hope for victims of circumstance who yearn nostalgically for what has already passed them by?
In looking beyond current constraints we will need to find alternative paths to enable all of us, no matter our personal circumstances, to escape the gravitational pull of the past, as well as the alluring surface of the present. The challenge will be to retain hope when things get really tough.