Religion turned inside out

I realized while going back over my posts on this blog that I never did publish the chapter of my book manuscript that dealt with religion, and that without it the comments regarding Bishop Spong's book and thoughts lack context - they discuss a comparison while the "other half" of the comparison has not been laid out for public perusal. In the interests of allowing this to occur, I here reproduce the main elements of my 2006 chapter, even though were I to write it today I would incorporate some of Bishop Spong's concepts and update the text based on more recent experiences.

My 2006 text begins with the following quotation from Charles Handy's book "The Age of Paradox" :

“Living with paradox is not comfortable nor easy. It can be like walking in a dark wood on a moonless night. It is an eerie, and, at times, a frightening experience. All sense of direction is lost; trees and bushes crowd in on you; wherever you step, you bump into another obstacle; every noise and rustle is magnified; there is whiff of danger; it seems safer to stand still than to move.” – Charles Handy

In preceding sections, we have developed a global view of the changes underway and focused on particular changes that will occur but also that need to be guided into appropriate paths in the development of new learning environments and new business arrangements. Here, we are concerned with another major aspect of daily life beyond School and Work, that of Church. Some may question the importance given to this topic so early in the unveiling of the changes in progress – others may wonder why this hasn’t been given top billing. In fact, religion remains, one of the major motive forces in our current world society and is intimately tied to daily life throughout the world, although the nature of the religious practices vary. Later on, we shall be dealing with other aspects of our spiritual lives, and the importance this has in the development of new living arrangements, but here, we lay the groundwork for these more nuanced discussions by engaging in a critical study of religion.

Our discussion of religion follows the broad plan laid out in this blog – from orthodoxy to paradoxy. Religion has been, since its beginnings, the foundational model for orthodoxy. On the other hand, some have argued that the spiritual figures on which religions are based, Jesus, John the Baptist, Mohammed, Buddha, and so on, are not, themselves orthodox – rather, orthodoxy is the set of codified beliefs and practices that are built up over time based on their usually more spontaneous teachings.

From whence comes this apparently universal tendency to create coherent systems of thought around inspirational individuals, and then require people to follow these systems? This is an important question for those such as ourselves, who have at the least named a counter-tendency, the modern drive to move away from orthodoxy, and who propose to strengthen this counter-tendency.

The Origins of Orthodoxy

In an earlier posting, I noted that the word “orthodoxy” derives etymologically from the roots “ortho” and “doxa”, Greek words meaning “right” or “correct”, and “thought”, “teaching” or “Glorification”71. Its formal definition is given as “correct theological or doctrinal observance of religion as determined by some overseeing body”. A common definition is, on the other hand, “a belief or orientation agreeing with conventional standards”. The notion of “right thought”, however, is actually a part of the teachings of many of the spiritual figures within religion, including Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed.

In other writings (actually, my published scientific writings!), I discuss the idea of Presence. Interestingly, although Presence is a current pre-occupation with regards to the design of effective virtual reality environments, it also has its roots in religious experience. Presence, in particular, appears to result from a kind of CONTACT with the Other. In religious experience, the Other is God (or the Buddha, or the Tao, and so on). Furthermore, Presence is not about CENTRE, but rather concerns PERIPHERY. The whole idea of the Other is a form of PERIPHERY. Finally, Presence is an experience that occurs in the Now. It is a CONTACT with the Other in the Now. Prayer is a way of attaining a form of Presence, as is Meditation (N.B. This is, indeed, if my reading is correct, how Bishop Spong situates the role of prayer). Right thinking may also be a way of achieving Presence. Enlightened individuals are concerned to bring about a greater contact between other individuals and this Presence, for the greater good of our being. Furthermore, we all have experiences of Presence in one form or another, indeed, the moment we stop and listen, even to ourselves. These moments are not attainable without a sense of awareness, a paying attention to ourselves. Right thinking among most spiritual leaders incorporates this idea of self-awareness.

Given that we all have experiences where we associate what we are thinking and how we are thinking, with the experience of Presence, it is perhaps not so large a step to want to systematize these associations within the goal of achieving a greater, ongoing sense of Presence, that is, a spiritual Enlightenment. Hence the emergence of a doctrine of “right thinking”, that becomes an orthodoxy. The tendency may be a result of what it is to be human, and what it is to experience Presence.

However, once an orthodoxy has been formed, it tends to become both fixed and invasive. Rather than remaining a guide for choice for the individual, it often becomes a straightjacket imposed by the community upon its members. Furthermore, different religions define their orthodoxies differently, and seem to get locked into a given belief system based on their particular doctrines. This has resulted in the dividing up of the world into different groups and beliefs. Finally, this is often where tolerance is paradoxically least felt. Why is that?

The Relationship between Identity and Belief

Modern research in cognition(*) is slowly revealing a fundamental truth about human nature – our very identities are built on our beliefs about ourselves and the world. Therapy and psychoanalysis are largely activities designed to bring us to question our beliefs about ourselves and to allow the reorganization that may spontaneously follow when these change. In the post-sustainable world, identity is a continual reconstruction that occurs by questioning who one is every single day (i.e. a focus on process), while in the old world, identity was a cumulative construction with a fortress-like defensive system aimed at “preserving” identity (a focus on structure). Identity was viewed as a means to ensure survival of the individual (or the group) through defensive action. In the new world, it is achieved through a more stable, but fundamentally more challenging method, by re-questioning one’s beliefs and allowing oneself to be redefined with each new contact. The fear is that we shall lose ourselves, that we shall lose our way by acting in such a paradoxical manner. The truth is, based on more than a century of experience with psychotherapy and analysis, the self is much more robust than that – the self thrives on paradoxes and contradictions, and grows as a result of dealing with them.

The shift in identity from a focus on structure to a focus on process follows the paradigm shift from a world struggling towards sustainability to a post-sustainable world. In the first world, the world of expansion, identity as a cumulative central structure makes sense. It is only in the new world that identity as a continual re-construction process comes into play. This suggests a second reason for the universal tendency towards the creation of closed orthodoxies. We begin with the need to develop a “right thinking” guide, and then we naturally build upon this within our understanding of what it means to have an identity, and hence accumulate doctrines and defend them.

Within the new paradigm, our identity needs to be constantly under re-construction, because our boundaries must be open, to function effectively in a world characterized by circularity and periphery. This will lead us away from orthodoxies that are cumulative and defended, whether these be religious, scientific, historic, or some other form. Instead, we shall be focusing on the co-existence within our systems of thought of often contradictory ideas. Right thinking to achieve Presence will still be a necessity, but it will be found by exposing ourselves to controversy and paradox. Ultimately, this will be closer to the original thoughts behind the need for “right thinking”, where such thinking arises not from a community-based doctrine, but from the necessities of remaining open in a world where paradox is primordial.

This, of course, heralds a profound change that will occur, eventually, in the way our religious experiences and lives are organized. Even the notion of “organized religion” will have to be rethought, since it is based, at least partially, on the idea of cumulative knowledge. However, to be fair, most religions today are struggling with the emergence within them of critical and questioning voices that are driving the very kind of identity re-thinking we are discussing here.

We are suggesting, rather, that such change from within will become ever stronger over the coming years, and that religions will be called upon, at some point, to rethink their entire organizational structure. The more centralized they are, the harder this will be.

Towards Paradoxy Within Organized Religion

In order to survive in the post-sustainable world, religions will have to give up their vice-like grip on orthodoxy, and on the idea that one can be “wholly” within one belief system. The single most important aspect of the post-sustainable world to grasp is that it is based on “paradoxy”, not orthodoxy. All the rest follows.

When I go to church (every Sunday – I sing in the choir), I hear sermons that assume that I have an absolute belief in God and Christ, and that tell me what I should do to better live the life of a Christian. But I carry within myself a deep contradiction. While one part of my being finds the sermons interesting, the symbolism fascinating and, on some level, true, even in terms of its call to action, another part of my being rejects the whole exercise as being far too focused on a single idea about the world, a single belief system. I have long said to myself that “one’s first right as a human being is to be inconsistent”. There is no outside authority that requires one to believe in any given system. I flirt with astrology, and there are times I accept what it tells me, and others when I consider it all to be nonsense. For a scientist, the first is considered unpardonable (science is another orthodoxy, another system of beliefs, that needs to move towards paradoxy).

I am not alone in this. While there are still many, perhaps even a majority, of people who “buy into” our orthodoxies, most are also struggling with doubts and other beliefs that are not allowed to surface (orthodoxy is very much about what is allowed, or not). But once one makes the switch to paradoxy, it is hard to go back. It is a harder road to follow, more uncomfortable at a personal level, because with it goes an acceptance of the contradictions within the self and the uncertainties that may result in our choices. However, the paradoxical road is, ultimately, the one that leaves us with a more robust identity, more open to growth and change, more equipped to survive.

Religions (and other orthodoxies, such as science, political parties, nations, and, even, to some extent, certain parts of the artistic community), will have to give up the idea that one can be “wholly for” or “in” their particular belief system. In fact, we may be both Buddhist and Christian, scientist and artist, spiritual and atheist.

A Practical Guide for Change

What does this mean in practical terms? What kinds of changes need to take place? One of the recent struggles experienced by many churches was the adaptation of their doctrines towards a more inclusive language. This was what has been termed the “Politically Correct” or PC movement. One of the down sides of this movement was that it was a highly orthodox movement. It was a revival of the idea of “right thinking, right action”, but within a context that permitted no inconsistencies. The results, in some cases, have been changes in hymn books and doctrinal texts that have taken much of the paradoxical life out of these documents. We are due for a sensitive counter-movement, one that allows some inconsistencies and contradictions to creep back in, provided there is an overall focus on “right thought, right action” within a paradoxical flavor.

The struggle over women ministers or priests, and over gay marriage are also recent issues that have brought many religious communities to question themselves and their basic tenets. These debates have often brought home the realization that real life communities do include contradictions and paradoxes, and that even the doctrines of religion incorporate some of these within them.

However, religious communities are still, for the most part, focused on the idea of an “exclusive belief”, even thought they often act more inclusively. Hence, for example, in recent years I have taken part in communion at several different churches, Protestant, Anglican and Catholic. However, I have also been exposed to doctrine-based affirmations such as “all those who are baptized are invited to take part” or “all Christians are invited to take communion”. As inclusive as these may sound to many members of these communities, I am neither baptized, nor, strictly speaking, Christian. Hence, although from a practical point of view, I may partake in
these activities, in fact I have been formally excluded from a doctrinal point of view.

Furthermore, I have found that I am frequently not alone – I know several individuals in these different communities who have likewise not been baptized, or have other beliefs than those shared by Christians.

The first major step towards paradoxy, therefore, is to be more inclusive in doctrine, not just in practice, with regard to other religious beliefs, including non-Christian ones and even atheistic beliefs. There is a general feeling that this would be going too far, but it is a crucial step if religions are to survive over the long term. Furthermore, despite fears to the contrary, this does not mean giving up a belief in the Numinous, nor giving up a practice of “right thinking and right action”. It simply means making these more part of our personal doctrines, and more a result of a
struggle and less a part of the organized doctrines that make up a religious community.

As discussed elsewhere in this blog, the new world will be profoundly structured around the idea of PERIPHERY rather than CENTRE, as the world we are leaving was organized. Organized religion needs to recognize and understand this change. It is a matter of shifting the focus of attention. Religions, like many complex structures and organizations, contain many different elements and may adapt to changing circumstances. Shifting to a PERIPHERAL focus is another vital step. Many churches and religious groups are still clinging to the idea that they should struggle to play a
more “CENTRAL role” in society, and undertake extensive, costly, and, ultimately futile activities aimed at achieving this. Instead, churches and religious organizations should embrace their role as being important to the PERIPHERY of society. Since society is a whole is moving to become more PERIPHERAL, this is actually a focus that favors survival, even a new kind of flourishing.

Since Presence itself is PERIPHERAL, and hence human individuals are also PERIPHERAL, this should be no great hardship. But moving towards a more peripheral focus also means giving up the importance of Place. Place is a central notion that will become less important in the coming years and decades. Hence the notion of the Church or the Meeting House or the Temple will become less important. Organized religion needs to let go of this idea, and start to develop a more malleable notion of contacting the Numinous. This won’t happen overnight, but it will need to happen over a longer period of time. We won’t completely let go of Place, instead we shall create many Places, none of which has dominance over the others.

Organized religion also needs to network more strongly with other faiths. With the move away from doctrinal orthodoxy, this should become easier than it is today. Although some cooperation occurs today, it is often based on joint outreach or socially engaged action, because these do not require doctrinal modifications.

Already, the four practical actions we have outlined (changes in doctrine to accommodate other religious beliefs, acceptance of the shift to a Peripheral role in society as a positive value, movement away from a centralized Place of worship, and networking with other faiths at the doctrinal level) represent major changes in thinking and understanding for most religious communities in existence today.

The Recognition of Shadow

In other postings, I've gone to some pains to discuss the importance of allowing a shadow culture and economy a more accepted place in our societies. Likely actions include creating public forums for discussing our own personal shadow behavior as well as those of others. Organized religion offers a significant forum for doing just that, if there were an openness within these communities to do so. The discussion around gay marriage is certainly an example. Gay relationships were long relegated to our society’s shadow, and because they challenge us in heart of our own contradictions, they are still a touchstone for strong, not always understood, feelings.

Religion provides a very interesting environment for opening up a discussion about the shadow. It has always provided a forum for discussing demons, albeit within an orthodox environment – demons were always to be condemned. To open the doors to a more paradoxical debate about the nature of good and evil, a necessary step is to open the religious environment to discussions of belief and doubt. This is quite different from orthodox discussions of belief, that see doubt as something to be found within a box “over there”, a source of challenge towards orthodoxy and hence something to be acknowledged so as to keep it out. Instead, I am talking about paradoxical discussions about belief and doubt, about the idea that God might not exist, a doubt that is allowed to challenge one’s religious identity, rather than kept on the wrong side of a wall of orthodox doctrine.

All of the great religious orthodoxies act in this way (Christianity, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhism, Shintoism, Judaism, etc.), with the possible exception of Taoism. However, each does so with a different flavor. Hence, while the demons of Moslems are not the same as the demons of Buddhists or Christians, they all discuss these demons within doctrine. The possibility of opening up the world’s religions, “from the inside”, offers fabulous cultural enrichment to the peoples of the world, if we can only let go of this persistent clinging to orthodoxy, to exclusiveness, to shutting parts of ourselves out, and with this, shutting other people out.

Conclusion – the Means for Change

What I have laid out is a roadmap for change. I recognize that it is unlikely that these changes shall be realized over a short period of time. However, although the significance of this work may be that we have named the demon to be tamed, over the longer term there will be growing pressure for the changes outlined to occur, not just for Christian churches but also for Moslems, Buddhists and other religious groups.

Religion is rooted in the essence of being human. Despite all the arguments over the years, from Marxists and communists, from science and psychoanalysis, from feminists and anarchists, popular interest in religion persists. There is something compelling about religion and religious practice, even when one does not, fully, believe. Instead of struggling to return religion to its central role in human culture – a struggle that it will lose – a more intelligent response would be to open itself up “from the inside”, to turn itself “inside out”, so that all the paradox of human spiritual growth is still given a place to reside, but not an exclusive central place, rather a set of intermingling peripheries. This is the future of organized religion, sooner or later.

One of the abiding qualities of religious communities is their longevity. It would be a shame to lose this quality in our communities, because of an inability or an unwillingness to change. Furthermore, the changes need not always occur in the midst of controversy and struggle. Oftentimes the solution to a paradox is to sit quietly, perhaps years at a time, until movement emerges, until change comes as a form of necessity, within a third way.

*Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, as developed by Albert Ellis and Aaron T. Beck, is based on the idea that our emotions are determined by our thoughts and core beliefs. However, there are recent indications of a merging between cognitive therapy and classical Freudian and Jungian analysis, and these hybrid approaches focus more specifically on the role of beliefs (see Mark Solms and J. Allan Hobson, Freud Returns, Scientific American Mind, April/May 2006 edition.

Final note

Interestingly, although this text was written completely independently of knowledge of Bishop Spong's writings, the two visions are very closely allied. In some ways Bishop Spong is far more radical in his vision of the changes that need to occur within the Christian Church than I was (although I was discussing all religions more generally than only the Christian Churches), in other areas I was more specifically radical (for example, in questioning the central role of Place) but we both agree that change is not only possible, it is necessary, not just for the survival of Christianity, but also for the survival of humanity. As I indicate in my text, I am not strictly speaking a Christian. I spent much of my life as a self-defined atheist, but always as one who recognizes that we humans have an inner spiritual life, even if we may have trouble articulating it. I have recently come to recognize that my understand of "God" (not a word I am comfortable with, fundamentally) is of an immanent presence, not a transcendent presence (following distinctions that Gregory Bateson discusses in his books - see, especially, his "Where Angels Fear to Tread - Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred"). This notion of an immanent God is very close to the non-theistic God as the "Ground-of-Being" discussed by Bishop Spong. Also, Bishop Spong presents a very cogent and articulate argument about the need to accommodate shadow. I focused in my text on the role of doubt as part of a religion's shadow (and also the issues of gay marriage and women ministers), but the whole notion of shadow is much more extensive than this and Bishop Spong gives it more place in his writings. In fact, the whole notion of shadow in a communal sense needs to be extended and explored in much greater depth.

The Missing Piece

The past three years have seen a maturing of my vision of the world of the 21st century. As reported in my last post, none of my earlier conclusions seem to be contradicted by current trends, but several refinements in understanding have occurred.

The world is now entering its second global financial crisis in three years. I suggested in an earlier post that the transformation towards a "peripheralized world community" requires/required a series of economic crises across a period of twenty-five to thirty years. At the time I wrote this, there was not a cloud in the sky. However, within 18 months of the first discussion of this issue, the United States economy passed through a major crisis with enormous consequences world-wide... we are still recovering from this context. And now, this year, the Greek economy is in collapse and the ripple effect may carry a good chunk of the European Economic Union with it. We are not quite yet in a global crisis, but there are signs it may evolve into that. In any case, two major shocks to the global economy result in a weakened system which is susceptable to additional crises. It seems likely, now, even to the most naive pundit, that we are in the middle of a series of crises. If my "predictions" play out, we are not "in the middle" of a series of crises... we are at the beginning of a long cascade of crises that will result in the transformation of the world as we know it!

In addition, the move towards a social economy is growing. The social economy, almost invisible until the final years of the 20th century, is growing by leaps and bounds, driven at least in part by the still changing internet. Internet businesses such as Google operate on a different basis than businesses of the past. Yes, they make money, but their "bottom line" is as much about improving the state of being of humanity than about making money. The new business model is, to paraphrase David Meerman Scott (in his fascinating book "The New Rules of Marketing and PR"), to link a money making model to the information-sharing modes of operation of what is often called the Web Two Point Oh so that people are drawn to the paying service via the information sharing. They are given the option of paying for additional, targeted services or just sticking to the freely offered basic services. Basic services are free, only the value added elements cost money. This model is transforming businesses in the internet era - what was considered a marginal and untried business model only a few years ago has now become main-stream! In addition, the internet, including Web Two Point Oh services, is enabling the emergence of mega-organisations of like-minded individuals focused on humanitarian goals. Often these goals are environmental in focus, but a growing number of organisations with other goals are emerging (think of Avaaz.org, for example, for pursuing humanitarian aid goals as well as environmental ones).

Despite these increasingly important changes, many people and organizations continue to function as if the world were the same as it always was - what I call the "business as usual" model. Remember, as laid out in my early postings here, the business-as-usual model cannot be right! In today's world, for the first time in human history, the rate of growth of the world population is declining. The world is connected, for the first time in history, by a vast computer network to which almost everyone has access (there are, however, economic factors which limit access by some, but there are also efforts underway to overcome even these barriers). For the first time in human history, we have reached (well, surpassed) the resource limitations of the planet we live in. Under such conditions, business-as-usual is impossible. What we do today has IMMEDIATE consequences on what happens tomorrow - there are no decade long delayed reactions as was the norm before! The "business-as-usual" models suggests that one may act as an indivual (person or organization) with no regard for the feedback effects ("what goes around, comes around") of one's actions. This is NOT the world we live in - today, what I do today bites me in my rear end tomorrow, and the time between action and consequence is shortening all the time!

However, one of the challenges I faced in my earlier postings was the following : what difference does it make to know these things? These changes are not directly under our control - they are part of a large "systems" movement that has been in operation for years, decades, even centuries. How does my understanding that we no longer live in a "business-as-usual" world affect my ability/interest in acting in the present? How do my actions count?

This is not a banal question. Despite the growing focus on the "individual" in our media culture, in some ways the individual seems to have less power to change things than was apparent earlier. If you are a "viral" internet figure, perhaps you have the ability to "be heard", but there is no obvious way to engineer a "viral response" to what one has to say! Viral internet response seems to be pretty haphazard, and also a bit too heavily doped towards media "hype" than dealing with real-life issues in their complexity! But if you have no "viral audience", how can you be heard, never alone have a sustained effect on the world?

The answer I have to offer is multi-level. First of all, one needs to go back to the nature of a paradox. In earlier postings, I described a paradox as "contradictions within being that can be resolved", noting also that the word's roots are found in the idea of being "beyond thought" - so "contradictions within being that can be resolved, but in a process that is beyond thought". We don't "think ourselves" out of paradoxes - we must maintain contact with a paradox until it resolves. The difficulty of being heard or having an impact on the world as an individual, in a society that is increasingly driven by large groups of people, is a paradox. The way forward is to maintain a clear focus on what one has to contribute and to "stay there", taking opportunities to speak to it, to act from this place, and so forth, until, eventually, the world begins to change as a result. It sounds crazy, but it does work! This blog follows this philosophy... if you are reading it, then you are already part of the "give" in the world!

The second part of my answer, however, draws on some reading I've been doing with regard to religion. In an earlier posting I've already talked about the "problem of religion" and the challenges faced by religions today. I've been reading an interesting albeit contraversial writer concerned with Christian theology - John Shelby Spong. I skipped his provocatively-titled book "Why Christianity Must Change or Die", not because I disagree but because the book was largely a critique and offered little information concerning where the Christian church needs to go. Instead, I went straight to the sequel, "A New Christianity for a New World", a fascinating book by anyone's standards.

Spong's argument is not that far from my own, albeit focused towards the issue of religious thought and perhaps without the more scientific or systems thinking elements of my analysis of the root causes of the current tendencies (he is not, after all, a scientist, although his explanation of evolution is one of the most coherent and well-articulated accounts I have ever encountered!). Spong argues that humankind is in the process of attaining a kind of emotional maturity very different to what was the case in the past. He reaches this conclusion based on an array of readings, including Jung, religious scholars of the past hundred years or so, scientists and others. As I also presented, he doesn't discount the presence of religious "fundamentalism", its popularity and its apparent attempt to "turn back the clock", but like in my own analysis, he views this as a "last bastion" of those who are still resisting changes that have become massive and inevitable. In the face of scientific perspectives that leave no room for a "heaven just beyond the clouds", for God as an "immaterial being" who can "intervene directly in human lives" and "perform physical miracles that defy the laws of physics", that leave no room for the "miracle of virgin birth", etc., Spong claims that Christian doctrine needs to be radically rethought. He "deconstructs" standard Christian doctrine within an attempt to find the "essential core", the part of Christianity (that is to say, the part of the Christ story) that existed before the layers of interpretation were added. His solution is rather subtle, and I won't attempt to describe it in detail here - I'm still thinking about it myself!

However, in an equally fascinating chapter on the nature of evil, he re-situates evil in two places - as a problem of the incompleteness of human beings, on the one hand, and in a kind of corollary, as a problem of the refusal to acknowledge, understand and incorporate one's shadow on the other, following Jung's ideas about the shadow self. Let me quote Spong as he talks about Jung's ideas :

"Carl Jung suggested that a part of every person's humanity was something he called our 'shadow'. This 'shadow' is defined as that aspect of our being which is feared, repressed, denied, coped with, and in some cases even transformed to serve the well-being of the person. However, Jung argued that one's shadow is never healed until it has been brought into the self-consciousness of the person whose dark side it is. Healing, for Jung, comes with the embrace of our shadow, the acceptance of our evil. Evil too is a part of God, Jung suggested, because it too is a part of Being."

Spong calls this a "startling concept" and "one not easily absorbed". He goes on, however, to suggest that 21st century Christianity needs to accept and incorporate this very different idea of evil than the one embedded in current Christian thought. He declares "the primary task of a faith-community is to assist in the creation of wholeness - not goodness, but wholeness". He talks about the "wholeness that comes to us only in community", that "includes our shadow, which is never separate from our being". "Some of us need to be rescued from our goodness to be made whole, while some of us need to be rescued from our evil. But none of us can be made whole until good and evil are bound together inside one being. That... is a community function." Furthermore, "That ... is the work of the church".

I believe that this is the piece I have been missing in my own analysis of the current process of transformation of the world. I agree with Spong that the "shadow work" which needs to be done MUST BE DONE, at least in part, BY THE COMMUNITY. While we must each of us struggle with our own demons, our society also has its own shadow sides, and we must find a way to acknowledge this shadow as a community, so that we can heal ourselves, heal humanity (note that this is related to the argument I spelled out in the post "On Children"). The longer we put this work off, the harder the transition will be. While certain aspects of the transformation (the "convergence") under way are beyond our control to reach and address, this aspect of the transformation is very much our work and very much within our means to act, to be heard and to contribute to the changes underway.

On Higher Education

I was talking with a colleague (Dr Margot Kaszap) last Friday about the upcoming crisis in education. She is a researcher in education science at my home university (Laval University in Quebec City). It was obvious that she sees the crisis coming in education the same way I do, which is reassuring to me. Most colleagues seem to have their heads firmly buried in the sand, convinced that life will go on as it always has, the universities along with it, and their jobs and livelihoods are assured for a career lifetime (i.e. the next thirty years). Those of us who are concerned see change coming down the tracks with the speed of a bullet train, on a collision course with the current organization of most educational institutes, and that our current career positions may not survive the coming decade.

It is not just the reorganization that results from the internet that is at the root of this coming change, the so-called "flattening of the world", to use Thomas Friedman's terminology. Dr. Kaszap points out that the generation of children that grew up with the internet is only a few years shy of entering our universities, and this cohort of students will require radical change in the way education is offered. This is a consequence of the flattening effect Friedman describes, albeit across a twenty-year time span.

Now, it is true that universities are changing. They are increasingly developing on-line curriculae, although there is still much discussion and controversy around this among university teachers. However, the majority of on-line courses are still structured as they were before they went on-line. For students who grew up with traditional classroom organization, this is still acceptable, but this will change over the next few years.

There are two likely sources of competition for university-level training currently emerging within the global community - private businesses that deliver training and what one might call "open source classrooms", that is, freely available learning materials accessible via the web. Sometimes the latter are developed by university-level professors and teachers who are rebellious with regard to the institutional mentality of attempting to control access to pedagogical content. As more sophisticated development tools become available via the web, for example, to build dynamic 3D virtual environments, the ability to "package" learning materials into kinaesthetically engaged interactive experiences will evolve and democratize.

Learning is becoming one of the primary preoccupations of all members of society - whether this learning be technical, social or communal, professional or just for the sheer pleasure of it. Learning opportunities are developing by leaps and bounds, and learning environments and methods are diversifying as the public becomes more engaged in the process. For example, I take part in an "Open Source Sewing" community, ( the Burda Style community), created in 2007 and which recently topped 100 000 members. This community is sharing learning tools for sewing, pattern creation and use, and fashion design. Today, you can sign on for a course in sewing, go to fashion design school... or join an online learning community and figure it out on your own. There are growing numbers of people doing precisely this.

Likewise, an industry is emerging for offering training and education in parallel to the university system. Some of this arises from perceptions that university-trained students may not have the right preparation to enter the highly volatile work environment, others from the need to offer learning materials in more flexible ways than universities provide. Businesses that offer training will mix both on-line materials with hands-on learning. Universities, on the other hand, are struggling to develop training programs targeted towards professional diplomas that serve better the needs of the work environment. However, the nature of work itself is also changing, making the development of stable training programs even more difficult. Universities for the most part are fairly conservative organizations with a great deal of inertia - their ability to offer learning materials that must change, adapt and evolve to a constantly shifting work environment is limited.

Changing demographics is also affecting higher education. As the birth rate drops throughout the world (the change in population dynamics discussed elsewhere in this blog), newcomers to the education system shift from young people to the elderly and to the immigrant populations, which are both on the rise.

The Crisis... A Year Closer

In the year since I last posted to this blog, a whole slew of changes have occurred, both worldwide and locally. However, none of these contradict what I have been saying, all of them further reinforce the strength of the arguments I have laid out. People are more aware that "something is going on" today than they were a year ago. Also, many doomsayers are predicting a massive, global economic crisis within five years, an even more draconian time frame than the prediction of 20 years I had read about before.

I got stuck writing more, not because I had little to say, but because I had so much to say and it was so complex, I found the blog format difficult to "fence it in". Since then, I have had a number of opportunities to speak in public to these issues and to evolve my own understanding of how to talk about them, so I'm going to make another try to get down some of the impacts and issues that the process of "peripheralization", the term my colleagues and I have started to use to refer to the shift from orthodoxy to paradoxy, engenders.

Also, when I wrote up the blogs originally, I had identified a number of key sectors that would need to gain awareness of the changes in progress and learn new ways to function. These included the museum sector, in which I have become professionally active, issues in relation to the aging population, disability and identity, another area in which I have become professionally engaged, and the education sector, about which I have a lot to say that is urgent but have been unable to articulate clearly and neutrally. Because I work at a university, I have found I am emotionally caught up in the issues of education and that this makes it hard for me to step back and talk more neutrally about this area and the crisis that I believe is coming.

Like the doomsayers, I believe a major economic crisis is coming, but I think its scope is as much about social change as it is about economic change. I also believe the crisis is necessary to "get us past the hump" onto a different incline, a different set of dynamics. Crises are the means by which transformation occurs. They are always painful, but they are absolutely necessary to move past a knot. So I don't count myself among the doomsayers, who say crisis is inevitable, it is coming and it will be disastrous. I agree it will be painful, but that is it both useful and necessary.

Developing resiliency as a planetary population

In another posting, I argue that humanity is in the process of drawing on and further developing the resiliency we need to deal with the crises that are emerging on a day by day basis. To use my own words, "Humanity is in a systems interaction with our environment, to the extent that each determines the other, and both have to change together". As the environment changes its behaviour, in response to our presence, so we are changing our behaviour in respect to its presence. This results from the fact that we have no place else to which to turn - there is no hinterland anymore to which we can withdraw when we want to "opt out" of our responsabilities. We either deal with our problems, or we die. And I said in my other posting "dying is a possibility, but not an option".

I see four (or perhaps five) interlocking areas where change has to occur for us to move forward in our dealing with the changes before us :

1) we must change how we govern ourselves;
2) we must connect the different parts of our being we have allowed to become separate, and reclaim the parts we do not acknowledge;
3) we must reconfigure our economy, including industry and business, the so-called social economy, and what might be called the shadow economy; and
4) we must change our living patterns.

I'm not sure any of these take precedence over the others, they are all part of a necessary change that must occur. I shall be going into more detail in each of these areas over the next set of postings, but let us examine each of these briefly now.

On Change, Action and Paradox

It is time to talk a little more about paradox and how to deal with it. As ideas about a major paradigm shift emerge within this blog, about major changes in how we understand ourselves and relate to each other, it becomes important to address the issue of how we may act, and how our actions affect the world unfolding around us.

In an earlier post, I suggested that paradox deals with contradictions that can be resolved. However, this isn't quite right. As a friend and colleague, Dr. Blake Poland, points out, "paradox is not necessarily easily resolved at the level of the contradictions it holds within it, but rather via the lateral shift in thinking it invites when one is prepared to hold the paradox". He goes on to suggest that "things are 'resolved' when we stop fighting them, when we accept them as they are and are thus able to see them anew, and new possibilities, from a qualitatively different vantage point". Hence dealing with paradox does not mean trying to think things through and force a resolution into being through action, but rather it means to hold the opposites within one's being until a path forward comes into being, emerging from its own nature. Dealing with paradox therefore means a kind of "not action".

I have long felt that the notion of choice is also problematical. We appear to be free to choose many things, what we eat for dinner, who we frequent and who our friends are, what job we do, and so forth. One of the most stressful periods of a person's life is often the period in late adolescence and early adulthood when we are asked to choose what kind of work we want to take up. It is assumed that one may examine the characteristics of a range of different activities, perhaps examine our own feelings about these, and then choose to invest in one of these activities. Is that really how we function, as human beings?

I am not so sure. My experience is that, over time, we find the work that "works" for us. Whatever "choice" we make during this "job choosing phase", quickly evolves and changes as we start to engage ourselves within these activities and we may end up in a job environment totally different from what we "expected". What "works for us" may have very little to do with our intellectual capabilities, and more to do with the sets of checks and balances that we need in our lives to function. Hence many people work in jobs that do not necessarily reflect themselves deeply, but that allow them to function within certain constraints (reconciling job and family, for instance).

Do we "choose" our lovers and life partners, in a similar way? Do we "try people out for size"? Again, I have my doubts. We may choose to date, or go to bed, with almost anyone, but that person will not long remain in our lives if they do not "fit" in ways that are invisible but all important. The relationship need not, on the surface, appear to be healthy to be "right" for us. Why we are attracted to certain people and not others is still a mystery, a mystery that has everything to do with the larger picture of who we are. We "choose" certain relationships because these relationships engage us, even though sometimes we may appear to be choosing the same type of person and hence appear to be "stuck".

From the perspective of dealing with paradox, there appears to be only one choice - with what level of commitment to I approach and hold the opposite sides of the paradox within myself, to what level do I allow myself to listen to the endless series of reflections between myself and the world, with what patience do I allow myself to stay steady as a rock until a path opens in front of me, partly of my own making but not forced?

To "force" a paradox into a resolution is to leave the paradox intact, and put off its resolution to another day. If I am not patient enough to stay steady, even though holding a paradox may be painful, until a lateral shift occurs and I can see the way forward, I may shake my head and step away from the paradox, and do something else. But this will mean the paradox will still be there when I come back to it. This is true about my work environments, my relationships, my life choices, and so forth.

Another aspect of this situation is the nature of action with regard to choose. It is often assumed that we intellectually choose and then put this choice into action. However, it may be that we act, and then intellectually justify the action as a "choice". "What I eat for dinner" may have less to do with my intellectual choices, "meat" or "fish", than to do with how I act in the now, rooted in a context that includes knowledge about what is in my fridge, knowledge about my own financial status, predisposition to plan and buy certain foods, and so forth. The idea that we intellectually decide and then implement the decision in action is probably wrong. Intellectually, we are not able to include all the necessary factors into our decision-making process. Instead, when we turn our attention away from our thoughts, that is when we may act.

This underlines the importance of the paradigm shift from identity based on history to identity as actualized in the now. How we act determines who we are. This is the reverse of the commonly held belief that "who we are determines how we act". Actually, of course, both are true. Part of the change underway also concerns our beliefs about ourselves, indeed, about the self. Beliefs are a part of identity, so this should not be surprising. We are becoming more focused on understanding who we are without intellectualizing this understanding. Perhaps attending to who we are would be a better term.

This affects not only personal acts but also social action. We are, increasingly, acting communally. This ability to act as a group has been enhanced by the collective awareness that arises from the internet - the broad circulation of blogs, chat, photos, videos, and so forth. We are "attending" to ourselves as a community. This is focussed not just on the larger issues of socio-economic organisation, the environment, and so forth, but also on the everyday details of our individual and collective lives. This increased self-knowledge, as a community, it part of our enhanced ability to act as a community. These actions, in retrospect, appear to be mysteriously coordinated, but no systematic planning of the whole seems to have been involved (some coordinated planning may be present in parts of the community, however).

As a community, via the diverse communication tools available to us, we are "holding the opposites" in our collective being. This is dealing with paradox in its full sense. Therefore, one of the most important acts we may take as individuals is to assist in the process of "attending to". This is what this particular blog is about... a way of assisting our collective intelligence to attend to issues of its own make-up and functioning.

More and more, how we organize our lives is related to our collective actions about the world. Each act engenders a change in awareness, in consciousness, in identity. And these changes lead in turn to newer possibilities for action. Therefore each act, especially those that we undertake under the auspices of attending to apparent opposites in our lives, carries a weight. It is often asked what we can do to help address a serious social problem. The answers are usually given in concrete terms. But simply attending to the issue and its relationships to our everyday lives, is a form of response that is, in the long term, of critical importance.

"What may I do to decrease child poverty in other parts of the world?" Acknowledge that there is a link between our lives and theirs. Attend to the fact that how I organize my life involves actions that propagate into the economy, and ultimately lead to socio-economic organizations that engender such poverty. Increase my knowledge of how my daily activities affect a child's well-being elsewhere on the planet. Share the results of your newly acquired knowledge.

These actions appear to be frustratingly simple, indirect and limited. But ultimately, paradoxically, they are the ones that are likely to be fruit. As e.e. cummings poem says, "only connect".

On Children

One of the most interesting properties of the changes underway, in our identity and our relationships, and our shift from a focus on orthodoxy and orthodox life situations to more paradoxical ones, is the changing experience of children. Children are at the heart of the change going on, and the current generation of young children will be the lever that shifts us out from under the rule of orthodoxy.

Paradoxically, our relationship to our children remains simultaneously both one of the more taboo subjects, and one of the areas where people have the most to say. Children remain, for the most part, one of the groups of people with the least amount of power over their own lives. It is all too easy to assert that children lack the emotional maturity to take charge of their lives, and to use this blanket argument to keep the status quo. The reality is starkly different - some children develop emotional maturity at an early age, and overall there are shifts and changes in how much and what kinds of maturity emerge over time. The landscape is constantly changing with children, and so a "one size fits all" argument simply does not apply.

Also, the idea that children should be kept "innocent", that is "ignorant" of key factors that affect their growth and development, is a recent idea that emerged in Victorian Britain and spread from there. The need to keep children ignorant was as much a response to their association with the role of women in that era as it was a social movement aimed at their betterment. In fact, most of the ideas we have about children are recent and developed to serve social, political and economic agendas rather than the well-being of children per se. We should be very careful about what we believe to be "natural" about childhood.

A number of studies have begun to emphasize the fact that families are becoming less centrally organized and less structured as a function of duty and authority. "The modern family being classically founded upon duty (central value) and the principle of authority to settle relationships between individuals, its main features are opposed to those of the contemporary family. The latter, which started to emerge over the sixties, is characterized by both the prevalence of parent-child relationships symmetrization and the emergence of the search for immediate pleasure. The change from parental authority to consensus as a principle ruling the relationships within families leads to many consequences later noticed through changes in the construction of the child's psyche along his development and in the relationships dynamics....When consensus is at the center of the family, and according to concrete meetings with the other offered by the thousand and one situations met in the daily life, the aims and satisfaction modalities of the child's impulses will evolve into a relation often based on either strength or seduction." (Lazartigues, Morales & Planche, 2005)

This particular study highlights the fact that parent-child relations have changed to become more symmetrical - the child is increasingly viewed as a "decider" in his or her own right, on a par with adult deciders, or at least with negotiation rights. However, the article also emphasizes the focus on immediate gratification, the characteristic of the children of the baby-boomer generation. The growing importance of the environmental movement and other changes under way suggest that later generations of children will be less focused on immediate pleasure and more focused on a balancing of personal and social need.

Children are still raised within an expectation of orthodoxy, even though the family situations in which they grow are becoming more diversified. Each child believes their family situation to be representative of everyone else's, a kind of prototypical experience of family that is assumed to be valid generally. Ensuring the children recognize the paradoxical uniqueness of their particular family arrangements will be predicated on the cultural paradigm shift to paradox relationships. As the upcoming generations of adults embrace these changes, each in turn, their children will become more attuned to both the differences and the similarities of their own family life to that of others.

It may even be the case that the experience of conformity and difference as experienced by children and adolescents will change as a result of this broader social awareness. Although some of this may be necessary experimentation with social versus personal identity, it is likely that the experience is also fuelled by overly orthodox family attitudes that are felt to be a straightjacket by young people as their sense of identity emerges.

As children and adolescents become aware of their identity, the nature of their surroundings will affect their ability to recognize and work with paradox. When functioning within orthodox social arrangements such as the nuclear family, but also single parents and other situations that are promoted as typical, or within peer groups, young people learn to repress those aspects of themselves that are not recognized within the orthodoxy. This becomes part of their shadow self. Later, as an adult, the shadow self will come to haunt one and a number of ways that are both significant but uncomfortable, and that have large consequences for society as a whole.

Some creation of a shadow self is probably inevitable, but to the extent that a young person remains attuned to the contradictions involved in personal versus social life, and is allowed or encouraged to remain aware of the unconscious repressions that may be in play, it may be possible to avoid some of the worse excesses of a strong but unacknowledged shadow self that plagues our current society.

A strong and unacknowledged shadow self emerges when we are forced to suppress elements of our behaviour that are considered to be inconsistent with current orthodoxy. Acknowledging our shadow self is a characteristic response related to accepting our own inconsistency. The human psyche is a jumble of different, distinct processes - the feeling of unity and integrity is an illusion. Instead, there may be any number of inconsistencies, gaps, contradictions, or exagerations in our ongoing functioning. Furthermore, there are several distinct sub-personalities within each of us. In addition, these distinct processes and personalities mature at different rates when we are young, and hence the inconsistencies and so forth will mutate over time. To the extent that our children learn to accept this about themselves, and that we as adults acknowledge them, our ability to function more effectively and develop social and communal structures that are more holistic and balanced will likewise grow.

The evidence is becoming incontravertable - the social and psychological experience of children is changing. It has already changed significantly over the 20th century. It is now undergoing an even more rapid change, from one generation to the next. Recognition of this is key to understanding the changes in how the world functions that are coming into play. Not only this, there are opportunities to affect the change as it unfolds. There is an urgent need for a broad group of individuals to understand these changes, how they will likely affect our social and institutional structures, and what we may do to steward or guide these developments as they unfold.

Population Growth versus Environmental Activism

After watching Mr. Gore’s important film on global climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, I am struck by the fact that, not only does he mention the fact that the population explosion is braking (this is in the extended DVD addition, perhaps not the original film), he makes little extra mileage out of this fact, except to say that scientists consider this a “success story” and that the huge population in terms of numbers makes our situation unique in human history.

On this latter point, we agree, but not quite for the same reasons. It is my suggestion that, in addition to being unique because the population numbers are close to the sustainable limits of the planet, the dynamics of convergent population growth will have substantial additional impacts that are not yet recognized.

In the extended section, Mr. Gore talks about the “tipping point”, at which moment the environment goes into a self sustaining change that will be much harder to challenge than before the tipping point is achieved. However, others (see, for example, the “universarium project” at http://www.universarium.net/movie.html) use the term “tipping point” to emphasize the moment in time when a new way of thinking and action is achieved, when we humans finally gain the ability to sustain our lives without threatening the environment.

In my earlier blog (“The Demographics of Change”), I noted that humanity has already passed through the critical point in population growth when the dynamics changes. Mr. Gore, and the ecologos institute which is behind the universarium project, believe that the “tipping points”, whether viewed in terms of irreversible loss of control or recovery of a sustainability, are in front of us. I do not disagree with this, but the result is something very interesting. We are currently situated in this rather unique situation between these two moments in time, each of critical importance in the system dynamics unfolding around us. With the crossing of the critical point in population growth, we have entered a new era, but until we also regain a sustainable balance, we are unable to fully realize the potential inherent in that era. We are between the hammer and the anvil, and this unique moment in human history, a kind of moment of suspension, cannot last very long.

I have been careful, in the above paragraph, to avoid saying that the tipping point in front of us corresponds to “recovery of control”. From a systems perspective, the idea that we seek to control the environment is a fallacy. Control is only possible when one is outside the system whose behavior one is attempting to influence, and we are decidedly not outside the planetary ecosystem – trying to control this is part of what has gotten us into trouble in the first place. Seeking sustainability does not mean seeking to recover control, rather it means correcting imbalances that follow from our behavior, to the extent that such correction is possible.

My argument here is not, therefore, that Mr. Gore is wrong, not that correcting the imbalances in climate constituents that we influence must be restricted, on the contrary, we must engage the substantial resources at our disposition to achieve the right kind of “tipping point”. However, it is important to not lose sight of the other dynamics in play, as our actions and the social reorganization we put into play to deal with the one problem, will have consequences for the others. We need to be aware of these issues. If we turn “action against global warming” into a new kind of orthodoxy, and use this orthodoxy to censure people, groups and parts of society, we shall be in serious trouble several years down the line. That is the danger, and just as Mr. Gore makes a compelling case for action on climate change, we must not lose sight of the need to be open to other viewpoints and issues that emerge and may even challenge this movement at times.

Introduction to 21st Century Musings

It is my belief, and in these virtual pages I am planning to present the complex jigsaw puzzle that constitutes this belief, that we, humanity as a whole, are entering a new era which will have substantially different forms that those we have become accustomed to, over many centuries. The fundamental change I propose to explore is a shift from a social, economic and personal preoccupation with orthodoxy and orthodox thinking, towards modes of being, thinking and acting that are much more paradoxical.

This belief is not, however, “pulled from a hat” - it is based on broad exposure to a variety of different disciplines, thinkers … and contexts of everyday life, along with a lifetime effort to bring together disparate modes of being. I am also aware that my position is “radical”. I am going to argue that, unlike the argument that suggests there is “nothing new under the sun”, that on the contrary, the nature of what it is to be human is changing.

Although I am a scientist, my argument is not primarily technological. I am not making any claims that what it means to be human is changing because of the introduction and use of new technologies, whether these be physical, biological, informational, or something else. In this regard, I present an argument that differs from a great many of my colleagues.

Although my arguments are convergent with those of a growing number of key thinkers today, and are rooted in contributions from giants of the past, I believe many of the details within my arguments will surprise many. They have taken me into nooks and crannies I did not expect to go to myself, sometimes highly controversial areas of discourse. Over the course of the adventure, I expect to talk about a great many subjects, many of them taboo in one way or another. Indeed, I expect to get into trouble with some readers because of this. I believe that as part of a “great airing” that needs to take place, of issues, possible actions, dreams and nightmares, we need to take the “kid gloves” off with regard to issues we’re all afraid to talk about openly. We need to name the things that disturb us, call them forth into the open, give ourselves the space to say things, even in writing, that are controversial and, sometimes, counterintuitive.

I know I am being a little mysterious about this right now, but all in due time. First of all, we need to lay down some foundations before we can begin to talk about such things.

A word about writing style. This blog is being developed from an unpublished book manuscript I wrote last year, but I am rewriting and adapting the manuscript to suit a blog format as I go. I believe the blog format is ideally suited to this kind of exposition. Indeed, part of the argument I want to make is that these issues need to be taken up by a much broader community – these issues concern us all. The process of writing a manuscript and publishing this as a book has stood us in good stead for more than 500 years, but the internet today provides a different approach that can be much more effective. I hope to take advantage of what has been called “collective intelligence” to broaden and deepen my own understanding of these issues.

I also expect to include more informal musings about events in the world as they unfold, in relation to these arguments, as well as discussions regarding any responses readers may be prepared to provide, as these become appropriate.

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