Alternative Editorial: The Whole Problem
Looking away from the stalled start of the latest UK government, we're turning our attention back to the big picture vision of a future ecocivilisation. If nothing else, that simple shifting of our attention relieves us of the interminable compulsion to take sides in small battles, the winning of which have indeterminate consequences. The mainstream narrative about the public realm remains very fragmented: one side of a two-party politics pulls against the other, never addressing the needs of the whole.
So what might a more wholistic approach to the future look like? For many this indicates a more systemic analysis of our current problems - looking at the deeper causes of our dysfunctionality, from multiple perspectives. It's not enough to emphasise more immediate jobs for people in a time of hardship (eg Freeports), without keeping in mind the needs of the community and the planet.
This is not just an ideological preference, but a sociological one: unless we are thinking through the longer-term impact upon the health and viability of the future at the local and global level simultaneously, we will sabotage ourselves. Climate refugees arriving on our shores every day are evidence of our inability to consider the consequences of our short term, nation-centred desire for growth.
So does “systemic” and “wholistic” more or less correlate? Not always: there is plenty of diversity in how we describe a system. We might almost say the system lies in the eye of the beholder, especially when those deciding to map out the system find themselves homogenous in any way. If those working together on a team are largely same gender, or same geography, they are likely to conjure up images of the system they want to shape in a way that reflects what is true for them. And their designs for the future of that system may be limited in that sense.
However, that doesn't disqualify them (maybe us) from making a meaningful contribution. But we must remind ourselves that their reach is likely to be more contained within their own bubble. In the case of white dominant, Northern hemisphere, mostly male system-definers, for example, their focus on system change can be crucial to wider change in an indirect way. Not because they are addressing the needs of the whole, but because their own self-development as actors in the world might happen, as a result. In other words, even while they imagine they are solving the problems of the world they might, instead, be solving the problem of themselves.
An example might be how the environmental/climate crisis appears as distinct from the social justice crisis, as policy is conducted in American and European countries. Recipes for the improvement of our carbon output focus on the evolutions of energy companies and business outputs. Behavioural change is sought from citizens who are nudged, top down, to 'do better'.
These policy makers and designers rarely talk about how creating better conditions for those with low incomes would directly change their carbon output. In this country, something like a Universal Basic Income would give millions of people the chance to live more balanced and healthier lives. The evidence that UBI reduces consumption of fossil fuels and wasteful consumerism never reaches the media. Meantime, cutting overseas aid has only increased the likelihood of people moving away from their villages where biodiversity is cultivated, and moving to cities where reliance on fossil fuels generally grows. (Although the late Mike Davis saw cities as potentially zero-carbon eco-arks of the future).
However - if the more privileged citizens of those European countries follow their own recipes for addressing the crisis (shifting to a Green economy, electric cars and flying less) they will be doing the rest of the world a favour. After all, we are the biggest carbon emitters historically; our self-improvement would be game-changing.
On the other hand, where ecocivilisation is actively pursued (even in the Northern Hemisphere) some of these narratives are beginning to intertwine, and certainly wholism is invoked. The focus of the 'next economies' - such as Doughnut, Circular, Wellbeing, and Buen Vivir - all assert the importance of more socially just communities as core to the transition towards planetary health.
The communities they describe, which include (amongst others) Ecovillages, Transition Towns, self-organising Bioregions, are doing vital work. They weave together the many new practices that would give rise to a much more nature-oriented, planetary-conscious, flourishing future. Community participation in these solutions is key to their successful outcomes.
Yet there is still another level of wholism that is only rarely invoked in these narratives - and it may yet be the Achilles Heel of that movement, if not given proper attention. That is the needs and potential of the individual human being, in relation to the wider community. By this we don't mean their material needs - widely addressed by the politics of homo economicus (every person needs a job and a roof over their heads). But the emotional and spiritual needs - and potential - of each person.
We are designed - down to our genes - to be social animals, in order that we may thrive. Yet, when we lose our individual capacity to take part in society, we will suffer, and our actions will cause disruption. Our desire to be social drives us but it can also enslave us to the wrong solutions, if our lives are not in balance.
When our green solutions offer us better jobs or energy systems, but no opportunity for self-realisation within our daily lives, we remain vulnerable to the determinations of outside forces, intent on harnessing our emotions minute by minute. This is the growth economy, itself dependent on keeping us enslaved to consumerism, which has been given a turbo-charged boost in the age of algorithms. Our leaders, unable to find alternatives to this system, offer themselves as masters of the chaos they have already presided over: and the blame goes to global forces (“the markets”) for the disruption. The mainstream media passively carries these blame stories, largely unaware of their complicity in keeping us unable to grow our own resources for change.
We have seen the self-development movement grow exponentially, helping people to begin to locate their inner strength. But the agency it offers is regularly kept separate from social development narratives - as if the two belong to different worlds of interest. Self-development advocates are often shamed as over-emphasising the role of the individual; the achievement of a sustainable and healthy ego is conflated with self-aggrandisement. As if self-sovereignty is a kind of selfishness, instead of a vital element for mental health and social capability within a family or community. When individuals give up their personal boundaries for the sake of interaction (with humans, devices or both), they are easily entranced and lose their own response-ability for change.
In real time this omission has allowed the status quo to continue. While good work is being done by those who are long-term committed to system transformation (we, the usual suspects), the majority of citizens are still being manipulated by the interests of the growth economy and all the industries that spin-off from that.
Our social media now plays a huge part in maintaining that old system. Not only through its capitalist ethos (every click makes Zuckerberg rich). But through its method of stealing our time and attention, its false narrative of autonomy, and its actions to discombobulate us. Consider how social media has given rise to exactly those demagogues who champion freedom, while further enslaving people in tightly controlled conspiracy theories from different sides of the political spectrum.
Does that mean that in order to transform our system we all need to put down our smartphones and get closer to nature? Or spend all our time in inwards contemplation? No, on the contrary - every one of the innovations introduced by humans is evidence of our species’ particular form of ingenuity. Technology of all kinds will eventually play a key role in our transformation. In a way, we ourselves are a form of technology that must be better understood in order to interact better with what is now coming.
But do we have to pay more attention our inner development, to our capacity to become observers of the mechanisms of mainstream news, social media and other forms of dominant culture? Yes. For some this involves simply stopping, pausing our usual reactions and contemplating the impact of the media on our thinking. But only very few people have the time and space in their daily lives to create that space for reflection.
Which is why we have to deliberately design those needs for space and time into everything we are initiating. And give it value within our economy - like Riane Eisler described in The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics and more. Time to think and reflect, to rediscover our own energy sources (what makes each of us tick), to relate to each other, to build relationships (which are a connective tissue for our communities), to generate our own personal and collective stories of hurt, frustration, healing and hope. We need time to grasp why most of us are so far from understanding our own needs that we can't even be bothered to think about our survival.
System thinking is only wholistic when it pays attention to the human being in relation to the planet we are trying to save. That's the hole in Doughnut Economics - the emotional, social and spiritual capital that is rarely measured or understood as vital to any viable future (see here for Mike Riddell’s work to make this obvious and measurable).
A physical body returning to health needs each organ, every cell to become interdependent with the others. Fixing the liver alone cannot fix the heart. Our world needs all the elements of a viable ecocivilisation to regain self-awareness and agency. To come fully alive again.
