TURBULENCE
by Robert Theobald
Polls that I have taken with a broad range of audiences in America and Australia show that there is a widespread expectation that levels of turbulence will increase in coming months. This perception is shared by business people and academics. By people with power and citizens.
I have asked people to assume that the pace of change over the last eighteen months has been a 5 on a scale of0 through 10. I have then asked people to tell me what they think the level will be in the next eighteen months. I have made it clear that this is a subjective judgement and that there is no "right" answer.
I then call out the numbers and people raise their hands when I reach the number that seems right to them. The responses are remarkably consistent across a broad range of audiences. A very small proportion are at 5 or below, the largest cluster is in the 7 through 8 range with a few at 9 or 10. I sometimes couple this first poll with a similar question about Y2K. Frequently, levels of concern about the millennium bug are low. Typically, this is not the reason people feel the world is changing under them.
I then ask why people expect greater turbulence. Part of it comes from a feeling that the standards which have kept old patterns in place are breaking down. Part of it stems from the correct belief that turbulence feeds on itself. Part of it emerges from a recognition that turbulence serves certain types of people. There are, of course many other reasons: too many to list here.
There are two possible responses to this turbulence. One is "natural" to our current culture. It is to increase the level of command and control. The threats from "weapons" of mass destruction are increasingly being advanced to justify the introduction of measures that would destroy the civil liberties and civil society that we have achieved over the course of human history. This danger is often screened from us by the triumphalism of much American thinking.
The other response is to recognize that we have outgrown the norms and models that have worked so well during the industrial era. Our current "story" no longer relates to the realities that our successes have created. If we continue to use it, it will destroy us for the symbols and models we use no longer have the results we so confidently assume. The proofs of this statement are all around us in the Asian crisis, growing gaps between the rich and the poor, global warming, ecological disasters and overpopulation.
Past history provides many parallels to our current moment. In traditional China it was assumed that dynasties fell because the abyss between the named and the real became so large as to swallow up the governing system. The end of Samurai power in Japan came more rapidly than anybody could have anticipated. The pillars had been slowly eaten away and a final series of shocks could not be handled.
Willis Harman, one of our great futurists, asked a haunting question before his death. He pointed out that communism had collapsed far more rapidly than anyone expected. He then inquired: "If capitalism were in the process of dying, would we notice?"
Coping with the ongoing death of current systems requires that wedevelop a "fourth story" which draws from the strengths of the past threehunting and gathering, agriculture and industry. This story has to connect more closely with the emerging realities of our time.
The good news is that we are far further along in the development of this story than most of us realize. Changes are taking place in our thinking about work, politics, health, learning and many other fields. We are seeing the need for very different success criteria: a higher quality of life, social cohesion, ecological integrity and effective decision-making.
The bad news is that the fourth story requires us to abandon beliefs that we have been developing throughout human history. We shall have to abandon our conviction that we can successfully dominate nature or other human beings. We shall have to accept that we cannot afford to exclude any group of human beings without highly destructive consequences.
What then is the first step for each of us? It is to connect with our unique passion. We need to be clear what feeds our souls. For this is inevitably a spiritual journey. We are embarked on a river whose destination cannot be known. We sail by an internal compass rather than a map.
The skills we now need are very different from those many of us have learned as we have aimed to better ourselves and our societies. We need to recognize that we are all therefore on incredibly rapid learning curves. Our challenge is support each other through the rapids of change with honesty, humility and responsibility, grace and love.
More of Theobald's work is available on the Robert
Theobald Home Page
You can contact Robert Theobald at: theobald@iea.com
Article provided by: Resilient
Communities For more information about us, visit
our homepage at http://www.resilientcommunities.org