Exploring Common Ground To Preserve And Enhance Our Quality Of Life

People can no longer leave sociocultural, as well as economic, decisions to a few controllers, while themselves concentrating on a range of personal problems from the search for shelter to a good vacation spot. Whatever our standard of living or our habitual associations, we now need to admit that each of us must be concerned with the total situation of our society. Our prime requirement for working in this way is the development of a new set of conceptual tools.

Effective decision-making

I want at this point to concentrate on the central issue which I see as shaping our future. This is whether we can, in fact, create radical changes in the way we make decisions so we learn how to work together on the truly critical questions of our time. It is essential that we move beyond the current policy debate and come to grips with the real nature of our challenges. We can only do so as we find common ground.

When things go wrong, the easiest response is to blame others for problems as they arise. We argue that if only some other individual or group would behave differently, then everything would go smoothly. In a homogeneous society, some people are allocated a large share of the blame because of their unpopular personalities. In an ethnically, racially, or religiously mixed society, there is a tendency to put the blame on those unlike ourselves. We develop derogatory terms for groups other than our own, and come to believe that there are certain pervasive negative behaviors in groups which differ from ourselves by color, race, or creed.

Efforts to bring about systemic change are most effective when they move beyond seeing one person or clique as the cause of trouble. It is often the system itself, as it is presently constructed or conceptualized, which is dysfunctional. Modern psychiatric practice recognizes this phenomenon. In the past, one person was commonly seen as "the problem" and efforts were made to change their behavior. Now it is believed that the difficulties can be traced to relationships between family members or friends, and unless work is done to correct interpersonal dysfunctions, a new set of difficulties will emerge even if the existing ones are resolved. This system analysis approach is by no means perfect, but it does represent a progression beyond treating patients as the sole source of their own problems.

Altering the behavior of a single individual, or even a class of individuals, will not change the way a whole system works. The difficulty with trying to change the success criteria of systems is, of course, that there are always some people who benefit from present patterns and are loath to abandon them.

Self-healing

The idea of self-healing, rather than imposed change, is at the heart of the shift from the industrial era to the compassionate era. It assumes that all healthy organisms have the capacity to recover if abuse is stopped. It is exemplified by the really central clash between medical methods which are intrusive and aggressive, and health strategies which assume that human beings need to encourage natural systems both to heal themselves and to keep themselves healthy. Like all dichotomies, both extremes are wrong. There are times when it is essential to intervene; there are others when it is best to leave individuals, families, communities, and organizations to heal themselves. Today, the only certainty is that the balance is too far toward aggressive intervention.


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Unfortunately, the process of self-healing raises tough challenges. When one deals aggressively with symptoms, health may improve in the short run, but worsen in the long. If we tackle the underlying causes, there will be unpleasant consequences before improvement occurs. The difficulties of dealing with addiction are one example of this reality, which does not apply only at the personal, but also at the system, level. Decision-makers who tackle today's real challenges therefore need time before the results of their initiatives are evaluated. In today's super-critical world, this luxury is rarely available. It is hardly surprising therefore, that most leaders deal with the trivial.

We can only make the tough choices if we involve the best leadership we can find, who will then join together to enable new thinking to take place. I'm describing with extreme brevity some potentially relevant groups from which such leadership may emerge. My descriptions can easily be challenged. I am aiming only to remind us of a few salient facts; I am not trying to describe the full potential of each group, nor have I aimed to list every relevant one. I hope you will listen to the "music" behind my thinking rather than to the individual words.

None of the following groups has the knowledge or wisdom to resolve the crises that societies face by themselves. Indeed, if they were in sole charge of our destiny, each of them would probably worsen problems. Together, however, they may be able to find a way forward.

Religious and Spiritual Thinkers 

These groups remind us that life is not to be evaluated solely on the material level. They insist that we must follow certain standards, if societies are to achieve any decent quality of life. One short list of some necessary virtues consists of honesty, responsibility, humility, love, and a respect for mystery. These groups aim to force us to look beyond the certainties of nineteenth-century science and the material world on which we have concentrated in the twentieth; they want us to look at a world without certainties. One of the most surprising aspects of our time is the convergence of the perennial wisdom which lies behind all religions and the new sciences of chaos and complexity.

There is continuing controversy about whether values should anchor us in the past, or provide a compass which enables us to discover behaviors suitable for the future. Fundamentalists, in particular, tend to assume that challenges to past standards are inappropriate. But if religious groups try to maintain old standards after conditions have changed, they make the development of new positive directions more difficult. Too often, their inflexibility has the tragic result of undercutting their own commitment to values, as well as that of the larger society.

Business Management 

Management has pioneered in developing an understanding of the need for new ways of organizing work. Many companies have recognized that it is essential for everybody to have access to relevant information. They are providing evidence that trusting people is an effective management tool which now needs to be adopted in government and academia.

Unfortunately, management has not yet come to grips with the need to reexamine maximum-growth orthodoxies. Companies are also increasingly committed to maximizing profits, even though this means reducing the labor force. The idea that workers should do well when companies prosper is increasingly being abandoned, as is the idea that the gap between the wages of workers and salaries of management should be kept down to a reasonable multiple.

Labor Unions 

Labor unions have been one of the primary forces which have struggled toward social justice. In the full employment economy of the 40 years after World War II, their efforts, coupled with progressive legislation, ensured that growing wealth was widely shared. Unfortunately, labor unions have not fully faced up to the dramatic changes in conditions, which ensure that they can only be effective if they change their strategies fundamentally.

Unions are still aiming to increase wages when their goals could be better achieved by recognizing the necessity of a reduction in working hours and a change in the way the life cycle is structured. They are often still relying on strikes, which are increasingly unpopular with the general public because of their coercive nature, rather than on educational programs.

Government 

Those who work in government aim to serve citizens. Unfortunately, the systems in which they work, and the legislation which they must enforce, do not meet the needs of our times. It is very difficult to create collaborative decision-making with parliamentary or congressional structures. A recent news report in England showed that the children of politicians no longer saw this career as a positive challenge and were choosing other directions.

In addition, today's governments still primarily use coercion to affect patterns of behavior, rather than encouraging individual responsibility. Governments also spend too much time dealing with problem cases, rather than assisting those who are working to keep communities running successfully.

Social Justice Activists  

People who struggle to maintain social cohesion by working toward social justice have always had an uphill battle because reforms such as the abolition of child labor, or the creation of the eight-hour work day, are always fought on the grounds that they will be ruinous to the established order. Today, this group seems more besieged than ever.

The basic reason for the loss of energy in social justice circles is that many people with this orientation are unwilling to recognize the need to abandon sixties' and seventies' tactics and strategies which have proved ineffective. The need for measures to ensure social cohesion is in reality more urgent than ever; the approaches that will be effective have yet to be invented. Polls show that people still believe in social justice, but they no longer believe in the way we are aiming to achieve it.

The Artistic Community 

The arts community has always been in a state of tension with the mainstream, holding up a mirror to our foibles and enabling us to see what needs changing by depicting alternative visions of reality and the future. It is often easier to see an alternative vision of reality through the arts than through intellectual argument. Unfortunately, it is the safe and the tested that most often gets public and private support. The challenging and experimental have a much harder time finding resources. As a result, many artists have been co-opted to support the norms of the dying industrial era.

Women's Movement

The growing challenge to male organizational forms is one of the most welcome developments of the last quarter century. It is leading to a quiet revolution as new management and relationship styles develop. There can be no doubt that the values which have been ascribed to women in industrialized countries are more relevant to a new vision of societal relations than those which are ascribed to men.

Unfortunately, much of the women's movement has been co-opted by those who believed that its primary goal should be to provide women with a fair share of industrial-era advantages. In those cases where the movement has adopted this goal, it has ceased to be transformative, and became part of a struggle for comparative advantage, rather than a catalyst for fundamental change.

Ecologists 

The primary challenge to maximum growth strategies has come from the ecological movement, which is now supported by high percentages of citizens around the world. But the clash between economic growth and ecological principles means that the ecologists' challenge will fail unless profound changes are made to socioeconomic systems. Jobs will necessarily take priority over ecological balance until alternative economic structures are put in place.

Many environmentalists and ecologists have accepted the idea that it is possible for maximum growth strategies to continue. From my perspective, this concession makes their work irrelevant, for one primary issue of our time is to understand fully that maximum economic growth strategies are now infeasible.

Technologists  

As knowledge increases, we are discovering that material production is possible using fewer materials and creating far less waste. This happy understanding permits us to do more with less, and thus increases the effective carrying capacity of the earth. Many of those most concerned about carrying capacity issues underestimate just how much technology can do. Unfortunately, many technologists seem to believe that there are no limits to the increase in technological efficiency. They thus make it difficult to discuss what long-run levels of production and population are feasible for the future.

I would like to emphasize, finally, that social structures are under increasing stress today because of rapid rates of technological change. It is time we recognized the dangers which could result from a breakdown in cultural systems. We need to draw a parallel between societal damage and the risks which emerge as ecological systems are overloaded and threaten to collapse. Social systems can also fail for the same reason.

It is this reality that will force business to be increasingly involved with the support of societal structures. The view of the Chicago School of Economics, that the business of business is business, does not hold up given today's realities. Business requires certain basic predictable systems and structures if it is to be able to function at all. In current circumstances, there is clearly a risk that the preconditions for successful operation can be destroyed as social cohesion declines. The dangers ahead are visible in Russia and many developing countries, where businessmen have to be guarded against kidnap and murder. The more threatening trend, however, may emerge from the growing anger which is now developing against the corporate sector.

A kaleidoscope provides a useful analogy which can help us to grasp the need for maintaining the underlying self-healing structures. Providing the internal mechanism remains intact, each time the kaleidoscope is turned a new and beautiful pattern emerges. If the mechanism breaks, all that remains are a few pieces of colored glass. So long as societies are healthy, positive patterns can be expected to emerge after changes take place. If societies lose their adaptive capability, then progressive breakdowns are inevitable. 

Today's crises require that all groups commit to adapting old self-healing structures and creating new ones. It is now in our self-interest to work together to preserve and enhance our quality of life. The primary challenge that confronts us is to discover the skills we need to think and act collaboratively.

Reprinted with permission of the publisher,
New Society Publishers. The book can be ordered
from the publisher at 800-567-6772,
or at www.newsociety.com

Article Source

Reworking Success: New Communities at the Millennium
by Robert Theobald.

 Reworking Success: New Communities at the Millennium by Robert Theobald.Well-known futurist Robert Theobald argues that we must adopt new goals for the 21st century if humankind is to continue to inhabit the planet. Challenging the current dogma of maximum economic growth, globalization and international competitiveness, Theobald maintains that our whole notion of "success" requires a complete overhaul: that the required criteria of success for the next phase of human social evolution are ecological integrity and a respect for all of nature, effective participatory decision-making, and social cohesion based on profoundly changed concepts of justice.

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About the Author

Robert TheobaldRobert Theobald is a speaker, consultant and writer who has been on the leading edge of fundamental change issues throughout his forty-year career. He has worked with business and labor, education and health, government and local communities. Widely published, he is the author of over 25 books that deal with change, economics, and related issues, recent titles including Turning the Century (1993) and The Rapids of Change (1987). A British citizen, he currently resides in New Orleans.

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