It dawned on me just how dull and boring many social change makers are approaching societal change, but its not their fault its just a conditioning of the system we are in. The society in Britain pushes a very left brain highly structured and regulated approach to life, its so boring that its literally taking the life out of people (bureaucracy being a result of a neurotic collective manifesting in this world). I think if we keep turning to intellectuals for hope of change we’re simply turning to something that is missing a spark to light the fires of change. Maybe its the crazy fools, the dancers, the singers, the shouters, the children playing in the mud, the lovers, the experimental artists, those who simply want to party (fight for your right to party), maybe the real change in society will come from that energy and the intellectuals are simply the people left behind working out whats going on and writing up their thesis.
Out of the chaos in a disco, a party, a football crowd, the play ground something “emerges” unforeseen and creates structure on its own natural accord, little thought just the dance and play of life and often in tandem with music, song, chanting, raw sound, cymatic wave. There seems to be something about sound frequency and its effects on societal movements, ever seen sand on a plate vibrating to certain tones forming geometric patterns, these forms I believe are similar to the structures that arise out of society due to what our internal resonance is. Change the tune will change the dance.
I’ll leave two links here one about Emergence phenomena https://youtu.be/16W7c0mb-rE?si=zcuw_BEXYqXYo9is the other a music video called Cymatics https://youtu.be/Q3oItpVa9fs?si=lC0va0d6TEBFRNmt
An important discussion. And one that runs deep, I feel. The Wellbeing Economy movement is very attuned to this thinking. After all, Katherine Trebeck, herself, speaks to five change-makers; scholars, activists, pioneers, policy-makers and, of course, artists. And she is not alone in articulating, either, the challenges and push-backs to getting WE more into society - as you have identified too. In my own small way my paper adds to this discussion (https://wychwood.medium.com). For me, the biggest obstacle lies in human nature. Take, for example Schumacher thinking - ‘small is beautiful’. What’s the first thing that happened when this thinking became canon in the progressive world → it went large. Ironic don’t you think? Same with us. We have heard stories of how we must move outside the ‘bubble of passion’ over and over yet our conditioning leads us down the same merry path - far from creating an economy which navigates to a new paradigm with new tools and perspectives we use the too many of the measures of ‘success’ from the existing paradigm (intellectuals, business leaders, the liberal ‘elite’). Of course, so we should to some extent. We cannot be in two places at once and our need to be in the present requires us to maintain connection with what exists now rather than go all avante-garde and lose people in our new ways. My argument is not an ignorance of that, my argument is that we must do more to embrace the ‘new’. To be the change, rather than just to advocate for it. I feel we need a better sense of balance.
There are so many threads to this discussion and we could explore them over and over. But this is just repeating the same path toward intellectualising the problem. What would be good is to have more ‘pioneering’ - and find ways to actually bring this to life.
James, I think you have hit the nail on the head. There is a staggering lack of understanding of what we achieve by working together. Emergence is a concept that can speak directly to the issue that is so urgently needed. I use the term “Enfusion” rather than “Emergence”. Her is an article I wrote about it a while ago: Enfusions. 04/05/20: Defining in one word when… | by Nigel Cohen | Medium . And here is some artwork I created to try to capture the concept (along with its sister work called “Defusion”): Economy - Nigel Cohen
I just read your write up over at medium, very interesting and a breath of fresh air thank you for sharing that. I’ve never heard of a commons currency and while reading into it I feel its absolutely necessary for a WE (it actually aligns with my philosophy view point of investing in the world instead of monetary banks, think of a gardener holding a watering can and fruit basket while watering a communal tree, as we give to the whole the shall return). I feel so much of society has been created in such a way for every one to be forced into dependency of private income (imagine if the land was abundant with fruit and nut trees, berry plants every where, clean free accessible water, homes that were extremely affordable, little to no rent to pay or mortgages, etc).
I made an art video about a way of being called The Rose Bridge a link to it here https://therosebridge.com/ in it I mention about a holistic contributive network of flow of energy to one another and much more. But I would love to hear more from you about going forward with a WE (I noticed part way down you mentioned about an idea if there were any rich philanthropists, I too have ideas of my own as mentioned in the rose bridge but would like to hear yours. I personally believe raising funds requires the gravity of charisma to attract people to your vision, I guess the more excited and believable someone is the more power they have to attract the energy to manifest).
@James , you say that being ‘boring’ is a conditioning of the system we’re in - how about the perspective that ‘the system’ is self-organising in-line with the tactics that deliver most control over the components? e.g. it is boring to calculate taxes, but this is a foundational activity of civil advancement.
Brief disclaimer - I’m not making value statements about ‘boring’ ‘the system’, or ‘taxes’. Or what a ‘civilisation’ is. I certainly wouldn’t claim to be an authority on any of it.
I see so often that there is a side of a situation that just gets the upper hand because of the nature of how that side operates. My go-to example is that the world is predominantly ‘run’ by people that are motivated by accumulating personal power and wealth - those that are more tolerant and modest in their material aspirations are, by their very nature, precluded from achieving a position of power within ‘the system’ of how society is run.
My point is, maybe ‘boring’ is intrinsic to ‘effective’, just as ‘domineering’ is perhaps intrinsic to ‘changing the world’?
That’s come out far more pro-boring than I intended… which I certainly hadn’t meant to be.
I’ve just read this line in a book (page 269); “natural selection favours mechanisms that lead to winning”. The (very interesting) book is called ‘The Goodness Paradox’ with the sub-title ‘How evolution made us both more, and less violent’. The quote is in a section talking about how military commanders “are vulnerable to self-deception about how easily they will win” because they are “selected to ignore” evidence to the contrary.
If you’re a commander, the chances are that you got there because you won battles (even ones you should have walked away from) - those that lose (or walk away from) battles are precluded from being commanders. The logic of natural selection is to keep doing what worked last time, even if it’s delusional.
Is ‘The System’ the result of natural selection? Is it the accumulation of tactics that are best able to perpetuate themselves..? Many of which are undoubtedly harmful, self-destructive, delusional… and boring!
Thanks for your feedback James. It’s late at night for me catching up with things - rushing around on my hamster wheel. But I had a brief look at your video - really beautiful and I love your idea of the ‘holy gardener’. Not much energy to input right now but in short: my take is that many of the things that need to happen in some respects are happening. Be it; Jon Alexander’s Citizen’s Collective; DEAL; People, Planet, Pint; Climate Action etc etc. People are getting together. I think for WE to move forward in this way we need, instead, specific focus rather than simply be another iteration of a familiar response. I love Trebeck’s five change-makers and I feel that small groupings of each of these, with a focus on WE, can each, in their own way, and if interconnected, drive forward ideas between those groupings out into the wider world. Less think-tank and more seed-bed/societal propagator. I have made steps toward that here in Wales. Would be very happy to share notes. clive@wellbeingeconomy.cymru
Hi Nigel. Reading your medium article about “Enfusion” was interesting and made me think. I wonder if your description of Enfusion is actually pointing at the intentional creation of a larger system using smaller parts ie enfusing everything together like a top down phenomena, where as Emergence (quite a similar phenomena small parts creating larger bodies) is a holistic unforseen phenomena eg what would human society look like 300,000 years into the future if the population was 5 sextillion (10 to the power 21) and spanned across many star systems, I just let my imagination go wild, but right now we are contributing massively with every little action to that point in time but we have no idea what we’re contributing toward. Where as when I think of making a bike or a house for example I have an idea of parts and putting them together (enfusing) to form something bigger.
I like your art you showed in the link, full of meaning. I see the flag of the dove over the other symbols, the flag the color of dawn (a new dawn arises, new world), the 3 people fought hard to reach the light, but it also looks like they’ve pushed a heavy object up that hill and finally made it to the top (I could go on and on, I love reading art and digging into what it is saying).
I guess art is an example of enfusion and emergence coming together, top down the artist gets together their materials, paint brush, canvas, paints, setting etc, to then enfuse those materials together to form an expression that has emerged from their soul (when I do my own art I wait until something just pops in and demands that I express it).
Thanks for commenting on this post Oliver.
I feel from what you’re pointing at is likely a collective neurotic phenomena, calculating and measuring societal values (especially through tax forms and alike) through numbers is super boring. If I asked people to record and measure their experience of joy while making love, seeing a sun set, being in a beautiful garden or going on a roller coaster and they had to break it down into an essay explaining all the details with pros and cons and numbering their experiences between 1 to 10, I’m taking that persons attention away from the worldly now experience and into the abstract world of literacy and numbers (I find British elite society constantly finding new ways of recording and measuring in order to control an unruly population instead of developing wisdom within and without and creating a more trustful, harmonious, healthy, joyous, atmosphere).
It’s interesting you mentioning about military commanders, the army is typical of a machine stuck in stupid mode and often evolves when it breaks down or completely disintegrates (people fought hard to get into the positions they are in and will fight to hold on until the ship completely sinks). The military system becomes so deluded that it becomes psychotic and can project that psychosis into society through it’s propaganda, power getting to the head, and arrogance and cruelty begins to manifest in the collective psyche of the population. Typically in that kind of society its the ones that parrot and nod that climb up and make the decisions, while those who challenge and question the narrative are snubbed and ignored (that is until the ship sinks and people wonder what went wrong).
couldnt agree more - for its those who deal in dreaming by day and imagining new possibilities that have the boldness to go beyond the limits we have created
@James , with respect to the army being typical of a machine stuck in stupid mode, it is human ‘commanders’ (not necessarily formal rank, just the ones in charge) that are in control of this machine - my point is (prompted by reading the book I mentioned) that, from a certain perspective, Stupid Mode can be considered the result of ‘normal human behaviour’. I’m sure we will agree that conventionally intelligent, capable and well-intentioned people (and not just by western standards) can unwittingly set up a system to run in Stupid Mode.
If Humans (and the societies they configure themselves into) validated their actions with respect to ‘normal human behaviour’ - i.e. having considered historical precedent, human psychology, and evolutionary behaviour patterns - then maybe Stupid Mode can be brought under control.
For me, Stupid Mode includes Unsustainable Consumerism, Extreme Wealth Inequality, War, numerous examples of social injustice, and plenty of the global issues we all despair about - including the climate crisis which is arguably the ultimate example of humans setting a system to Stupid Mode. Where there is ‘someone in charge’, surely what ‘they’ should do to get us out of Stupid Mode MUST be guided by our best understanding of the way Humans behave.
Well, it’s only humans that will create that AI! It is just a tool that do what humans have set it up to do (Stupid, or otherwise) - if it does something humans don’t like, that’s another issue
