Making the World a Better Place
How can we make the world a better place? Many think we are already doing just that. Some might even believe we have reached the pinnacle of human civilisation. I am not one of them. In fact I truly believe that making the world work for everyone will require a momentous leap of consciousness, and possibly take decades to achieve.
According to some pundits, inspiring a quiescent societal revolution over the course of a century is sheer folly. However, that is the purpose of the Centre for the Future. It is based on the conviction that few others, as far as we know, understand the issue and are doing precisely what we are set on doing.
Our century-long mission aims to shine a light on how homo sapiens can develop sufficient wisdom to survive their own success. The complexity we will be striving to disentangle, the context for so many of our problems, will be at the core of our ability to address the various existential crises facing us. Consequently, our philosophy embraces beliefs and associated practices that define what we must do differently to survive the Anthropocene epoch. Our vision is a human family awakening to a deeper impulse for survival and advancement. But in order to achieve that vision we must curate a more conscious coevolution – not only with each other but with the Earth upon which we still rely for our subsistence.
The Betrayal of Future Generations
Planning by governments and corporations is universally short-term, parochial, and lacking in terms of moral foresight. For those in power it is far simpler to continuously patch up the present while leaving the future to take care of itself. This betrayal, for that is what it is, washes over conservative minds and goes unheeded by those whose task it is to lead. Nor is it just individuals who are at fault. At a time when homo sapiens are challenged by any number of existential crises, not one major global institution appears capable of mobilising its resources to address the scale and gravity of our predicament.
Like rabbits in the headlights, those who should be leading are trapped in a cognitive and emotional gridlock preventing any alternative design ontologies taking hold. Should we extricate them from their discomfort, voting them out of office, or try opening their minds to new possibilities? And if we resolve that particular dilemma, how do we then go about generating the synthesis of intelligence and praxis needed to guide our further evolution? More crucially, where can we find the courage to take the collective leap of consciousness that will allow us to transcend our destructive obsessions and noxious habits?
It is in such impervious circumstances that Centre for the Future – part integral knowledge amplifier, part whole-system incubator, part pluriversal think-tank – was established with a mission to inspire, design and curate a world that works for everyone - a world where the truest expressions of what it means to be human can be realised.
Mindful Uprising, a bold, one-hundred-year change agenda, demands continuity across four domains in order to remain viable over such a lengthy timeframe, and at scale:
· The navigation of continuously volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous conditions, at all societal levels and stages of development, and from one generation to the next
· Continuous development of organisational maturity and endurance to allow for the mutual co-existence of organisational discipline and entrepreneurial energy
· Constant upgrading of motives and purposes – especially in terms of potential synergies across the global ecosystem of incubated initiatives
· The sufficient provisioning of resources in order to avoid distraction and collapse.
The first three domains demand entirely novel approaches and skill-sets to organising and leading that are experimental, yet stimulating to implement. But the final domain, that of adequate, assured provisioning, is proving to be the most challenging. It also happens to reveal the mystery of what holds human development poised on the cusp of history.
Two factors were especially critical in helping define the long-term viability of the Centre for the Future enterprise. The first, daunting as reality sank in, was a recognition that we could not rely on other people for money, and would need to explore methods that did not rely on philanthropy, grants, venture capital, private equity, or other traditional forms of funding. That became more and more apparent as we experienced the insecurity which arises from being dependent on the promises and whims of a single wealthy individual. The second factor, relating to how we might be able to self-fund our operations, evolved more slowly and opportunistically.
The initial revelation occurred almost precisely two years into our startup phase. By now we had moderated numerous strategic conversations around the world; presented the concept of “conscious coevolution” and “second order change” at numerous workshops, including in the House of Lords in London; and had met with potential benefactors. We had also incubated our proof-of-concept project: MiVote was an attempt to answer the question of governance adequacy in societies where old power structures dominate, and traditional approaches to democracy are in a shambles. We had also germinated fresh ideas in the minds of many, and were changing conversations that matter into actions that, in due course, could make a huge difference. Or so we thought.
Intimidating Truths
The realisation that most people with whom we spoke, including those in a position to be most persuaded by our arguments, failed to comprehend our unique value proposition, caused a shock wave within our circle. Entrepreneurs, academics, bureaucrats, venture capitalists, and philanthropists alike, and even our founding sponsor, as we were later to discover, found it a challenge to accept six basic propositions:
1. Almost all the emergencies facing humanity arise from a set of norms we use to imagine and express who we are, what matters, and what we believe is possible (or not). These norms define what is rapidly becoming a shared worldview – multifaceted and forever shifting, yet increasingly monochromatic in its foundation on Western cosmology, scientific realism, Cartesian logic, economism, and the objectification of the individual.
2. While the resulting transactional world-system was originally shaped by us, it now shapes us. We are conditioned, and even take comfort in, the most obvious tenets of this world-system. Unfortunately, none of its interior structures were designed to evolve in harmony with dynamic external conditions. Indeed, they remain caught in a time warp. The fact that our most life-critical structures within this world-system were constructed in another era, and were in no way intended to cope with the dreams and demands of 7.6 billion inhabitants, is a major factor in their shortcomings today.
3. In a world-system that fails to serve the entire human family, a conscious redesign of the source worldview and its dominant narratives becomes a necessity. But who has that responsibility?
4. This exposes a central paradox regarding leadership or, rather, the lack of it. For, trapped by and within the current world-system, we seem to have lostthe capacity to imagine any alternative worldview. Yet if we lose that unique capacity we run the risk of forgetting what it means to be human.
5. Any attempt to redesign the worldview must honour the richness of humankind by positioning that redesign within the context of a kaleidoscopic array of experiences, understandings, and beliefs - not solely through the eyes and familiar trappings of the Western cultural ethos, or “brand”. This is precisely why our sixth, final proposition, rankles so many affluent individuals whose wealth has been generated solely from within that current wellspring.
6. Almost every attempt to “change the world for the better” by the global elite, even those with the most noble of intentions, is a pretense wrapped up in a plethora of platitudes aimed at safeguarding present circumstances or mining it for additional assets. By denying or disguising their own complicity in causing the problems they later espouse to solve, and by bolstering a skewed and morally inexcusable socio-economic reality, they make the need for second order change much harder to perceive, let alone tackle.
The last of these statements is highly provocative as it conflicts with almost everything we are told about how private wealth and public funds are both used to eliminate poverty and vagrancy, solve the refugee crisis, put an end to disease and injustice, eliminate war, and increase prosperity for more people. The truth is that many wealthy individuals, even those with good intentions, are making matters far worse. By spending their fortunes on pet projects, and perpetuating upbeat clichés, such as win-win, doing good, and making a difference, alongside the language of big business and its claims for conscious capitalism, market-driven solutions, social impact, and ethical business, the affluent classes are able to deny, resist, and at least delay, real systemic change – change that would undoubtedly result in a massive redistribution of wealth and power, as well as the swift emergence of peer-to-peer and mutual structures, in a more empathic, less extractionist, society.
But let us take a step back...
The Motive for Giving
By and large the individuals we were trying to persuade with these propositions are smart, well connected, highly respected people. But for some or all of the reasons stated above, including the deliberate way we chose to position the Centre’s goals as incompatible with certain key assumptions underpinning the status quo, they were slow to engage with us.
For most, the proposition that the current worldview should be taken apart and recast, to be replaced by fresh, more viable, narratives, and a world-system that works for everyone, was too idealistic to contemplate. The notion that most elitist projects aimed at “changing the world” were at best a farce, in spite of virtuous intentions, was summarily dismissed as heretical nonsense.
This was especially the case when it came to ongoing funding. Entrepreneurs appreciated the start-up energy of our vision. Academics commended our creative disruption. Industry leaders lauded our nerve. Politicians our foresight. But then we ran into vexing misgivings concerning the nature of our mission. Venture capitalists were genuinely confused by the lack of an immediate financial return. Economists had no idea how to respond to the idea of substituting integral well-being for growth, while philanthropists struggled to connect a purpose that was in conflict with the constraints imposed by their various family offices.
Traditionally, philanthropists and social impact investors are familiar with, and prefer, first order incremental change.[i]Habit has led to their preference for donating relatively small amounts of money into building a school in a remote African village, or digging a well to provide fresh drinking water in that same village, for instance. More ambitiously, those with greater wealth might sponsor a university research program to find a cure for cancer or instigate a competition to tackle global risks. Institutions and foundations, right up to the United Nations, follow suit, the only significant difference being their ability to invest at scale.
While I have no reason to doubt the good intentions of these benefactors, the motives for their generosity have been comprehensively documented. By and large they want to look good among their peers, feel good about their charitable works and, where possible, get some kind of tangible benefit, or at least additional leverage, from deploying their assets in this manner. Socially responsible investors also seek guarantees that their contributions are having the kind of impact they intended. They want to be able to view the results from their altruism at first hand - guiding it and, when possible, participating in its deployment.
Of course, first order changes are not inherently unworthy. The world would be a poorer place without such endeavours. But our addiction to incremental improvement has now entirely corralled the practice of giving. There is no energy remaining for transformational change - not even for the most life-critical systems that are on the verge of collapse. In some ways this is not surprising. In a world of speed and instant gratification, a world of vicarious thrills, a world where outcomes are rapidly realised and display an immediacy that is possibly unparalleled, the benefits from second order change, though profound in comparison with first order change, take far longer to gain traction and to see tangible benefits.
For example, reinventing democracy so that politicians are obliged to enact the will of the majority of citizens, unethical and corrupt practices are eliminated, and dualist ideologies are exposed as ineffective mechanisms for framing the subtleties of most policy dynamics, cannot occur through the wave of a magic wand. Nor can lessening the likelihood of war between nations be achieved overnight. Cultivated over centuries, benefitting powerful interests, such deep-seated constraints might take generations to change.
Psychological Impediments
For institutions the perceived existential risks accompanying second order change are invariably high. For example, any not-for-profit public enterprise established to address a specific wicked problem[ii]must inevitably put itself out of business by fulfilling its mission. It is far more innocuous to prolong first order change strategies so as to remain relevant and operational – in spite of the fact that relevance, in this instance, is delusional.
A further, psychological obstacle, is the fact that when attempts are made to reinvent, or even marginally improve, whole systems, performance typically deteriorates before any improvements can be observed. This factor deters whole system change; it is perceived to be too dicey by career politicians wedded to short-term electoral cycles, and neither here nor there to corporate leaders charged with generating short-term profits for their shareholders.
This is also why the whole idea of investing in second order change eludes traditional philanthropists and venture capitalists. Their motives are simply incompatible with the concept and scale of such endeavours.
But there is also a far more insidious, and deeply worrying, explanation for why structural change is not even a consideration these days. Second order change necessitates deep-seated shifts in thinking, and a reframing of prior learning. This then serves as a launchpad for one or more transformations to new levels of comprehension.
At its core is the ability to reframe what we know - to see it from differing perspectives so that we can discover fresh insights and new levels of understanding. This vital evolutionary capability may be under threat as we move into purely digital-based modes of speed learning - trusting more on surface analysis, executive summaries, and scanning the headlines for our interpretation of information.
It is well established that the neurological circuitry that handles behavioural change needs an environment in which to mature and time to adapt to that environment. The dominant digital medium today advantages processes that are speedy, multi-task orientated, and well-suited to large volumes of data. This also means that the brain’s circuitry responds best to that medium.
The consequences are that slower, time-demanding, deep-design processes, including conjecture, relational analysis, curiosity and empathy, all suffer. Such cognitive intolerance means we could lose precisely those levels of critical and systemic analysis needed to grasp the complexity of connections and dynamics inherent in designing for second order change. For those of us brought up preferring digital modes of learning, including most of the young generation, this changes not only what we will choose to design, but also the purposes for why we design, and how we navigate what has become an avalanche of data and information.
Solutions & Resolutions
Research surfacing in many parts of the world, across several fields, all seems to point to a particularly disquieting issue: the longer we avoid structural change, or see no need for it, the more likely we are to lose the capacity for systemic analysis and deep design that is at the heart of transformational change.
Dealing with inequities arising from within socio-economic stratification, the destruction wreaked on the poorest people by arms trafficking, the expansion of autonomous arms, and the impacts from climate change, for example, are all wicked problems. In order to reach any semblance of a resolution of these issues, second order change will be vital. If we lack the capacity for deep design because of cognitive atrophy, or the belief that we are already making sufficient headway, these problems, and many others in the same category, will persist and undoubtedly deteriorate.
We certainly need to review the social impact and public investment landscapes so as to understand what capital could be made available for second order change at scale. We should also undertake a more comprehensive inquiry into the modern world-system, its narratives, relationships and balancing loops, so that we can create the kind of profound knowledge necessary for genuine solutions to emerge. And there is no doubt we should find ways to persuade (or possibly require) affluent individuals, foundations, and family trusts, to collaborate with governments on a small number of global projects that are desperate for second order solutions.
For example, the failure of international aid, mostly used as a cynical bargaining chip in international trade negotiations, is a valid case in point where combined resources, fresh perspectives, and determination is necessary if we are to overcome the prevailing flawed narrative, as well as agreements and practices that do nothing to benefit those in need.[iii]International cooperation involving government funds and private wealth is the only way the real root cause of endemic poverty can be exposed and the real issues of inequity, injustice, and the imposition of disadvantageous conditions by donor nations, resolved.
Besides all of that, though, we need to evolve a more advanced mind – one with biliterate fluency, capable of the deepest forms of reflection and analysis in both traditional and digital mediums. Conscious coevolution of the human species, and the ability to break through the cognitive threshold I have been talking about for some time, depends on this development. The ability of citizens to experiment with various forms of governance, and to discern the truth, hangs on this. The talent of our children and their children to create and appreciate beauty, the collective aptitude to venture beyond today’s information glut, and the acquisition of the intelligence and wisdom necessary to sustain a viable society and make the world a better place, all ultimately depend on this.
Perhaps such advancement will be one of the benefits to come from the singularity – when machine intelligence equals that of human beings and we can experience an ecology of mind that simply does not exist today.
[i]First order change does more or less of something within an existing structure. Fixated on restoring balance to a system, it is generally incremental and linear. Second order change transforms a system from one state to another. Inviting new ways of seeing and understanding, such deeply structural changes are usually disruptive to the status quo.
[ii]A problem whose solution requires a great number of people to change their mindsets and behaviour is likely to be a wicked problem. Solutions will invariably demand second order (structural) change and thus resist being categorically right or wrong. Many wicked problems come from the areas of public planning and policy, taking in global climate change, natural hazards, pandemics, social justice, nuclear weapons, and international drug trafficking, for example.
[iii]The orthodox narrative we have been sold for decades is that the rich nations of the OECD give generously of their wealth to the poorer nations of the global south, to help them eradicate poverty and improve the health and wellbeing of their citizens. In actual fact the flow of money from rich countries to poor countries pales in comparison to the flow that runs in the other direction.Neo-colonisation is alive and well. In 2012, the last year of recorded data, developing countries received a total of $1.3 trillion - including all aid, investment, and income from abroad. But that same year some $3.3 trillion flowed out of them. In other words, developing countries sent $2tn more to the rest of the world than they receive.