Charlie Hebdo and the Immorality Loop

The Paris massacre was deeply disturbing, but not so much as the response. In the chaos following such emotionally charged and morally ambiguous events, it is helpful to have some heuristics for deciding whether subsequent action inflames, or pacifies, the underlying situation. Hence, this article.

There follows an outline of two conceptual metaphors described by the distinguished cognitive linguist, George Lakoff.

Conceptual metaphors are ways of conceptualising one domain of experience in terms of another. They are fundamental to our understanding of the world and our ability to cope with complexity. We use them routinely and often unconsciously.

The two present metaphors – The Moral Accounting Metaphor and The Well-Being as Wealth Metaphor – are of particular interest because their structure (if not the language) seem universal to Homo Sapiens and, possibly, some primates.

This suggests moral bookkeeping – that is keeping track of who owes what, to whom, and why – may be underpinned by neural hard-wiring, and could have some relationship with the evolution of the prefrontal cortex: a brain region associated with sophisticated social species, and which seems ideally equipped for such a function.

Indeed, there is a strong argument that the success of money is because it maps onto these deeper structures, with the work of sociologists such as Mauss and Diamond showing us intermediate stages in traditional societies, past and present, which blur the boundary between trade and social bonding.

Nevertheless, albeit fascinating, the complications associated with capitalist economics sharing the same conceptual foundations as morality and happiness are beyond the scope of the current article. The point here is that the two metaphors, as follows, are probably fundamental to everyone’s experience of the world.

Well-Being as Wealth Metaphor: Humans universally associate well-being with wealth. Morality is conceptualised in terms of financial transactions. We speak of a moral act as a gain, a benefit, profitable, enriching; and an immoral act as a loss, a cost, worthless, spiritually impoverishing, with the overall objective of balancing the books. Well-Being as Wealth underpins the Moral Accounting Metaphor.

The Moral Accounting Metaphor: The Moral Accounting Metaphor is more complicated and best illustrated by an example. So let’s imagine two “unities”.

Either unity could be any living system that uses Moral Accounting: you, your family, business, community (place or belief based), nation, and the relationships between them.

However, let’s keep things simple for the moment and pretend I’m Unity 1 and you’re Unity 2.

First, our ground rules: the 2 Principles of Moral Accounting:

1. Positive Action (Principle). Moral action is giving something of positive value. Immoral action is giving something of negative value.

2. Debt-Repayment (Principle). It is moral to repay ones debts and immoral not to.

Moral (Positive) Action: So I’ll begin by doing you a favour – a moral act according to Positive Action.

I feel good, but now our books aren’t balanced. You owe me according to Debt Repayment. But that’s OK because the next day you return a favour of a similar value,  satisfying both principles in the act.

Now we both feel good, because the books are balanced. So let’s go round again!

And again…and again…and so the morality cycle turns: the thread by which the fabric of society is held together, with or without love, but better with it.

But what if you renege on your debt? Or it’s an unfair exchange? Or I enjoy holding you in bondage? Then we’ve both transgressed basic principles and our well-being must suffer at some level as a result – resentment, envy, pride –  because balancing the books is the name of the morality game.

Immoral (Negative) Action: OK now let’s imagine that, out of the blue, I do you a disservice. An immoral harm, which violates the Positive Action Principle.

In the heat of the moment, justifiably outraged, you see two options for a response. Both present you with a moral dilemma.

Option 1 is that you turn the other cheek. Whilst this is a moral response, in that it satisfies Positive Action, it also contravenes Debt Repayment because you now owe me a negative act.

Your Option 2 is to strike back. If you’re a legitimate authority, it’s retribution: punishment, prison, a military response, and so forth. If just you, it’s revenge. This time you fulfil Debt Repayment but breach Positive Action by committing a negative, and thus an immoral, act.

Thus both your options leave us having contravened basic moral principles and with our relationship remaining out of balance, all at the expense of our well-being.

What’s worse, is that I’m now faced with the same dilemma. Either I walk away, cheek stinging, breaching Debt Repayment without resolving the situation. Or I retaliate, potentially setting in motion a vicious immorality loop without end, where each turn adds to our shared baggage of immorality and spiritual self-harm.

Psychological Strategies for Coping with Immorality: The consequences of immoral dynamics for the human spirit are so onerous, we’ve developed a host of psychological coping strategies. When we walk away, we often cut off communication, negating the possibility of further transgressions, but also of reconciliation.

If we choose revenge, we frequently dehumanise our enemy, rendering them terminally blameworthy, stupid, insane, broken, rotten or evil, and rewrite our narratives accordingly. Only by doing so, can we come to terms with the moral horror of eradicating them completely – our only hope for release from the immorality loop and, surely, the deep underpinning of such behaviours?

This strategy is often characterised by the disproportionate response which seeks to stamp out the threat of retaliation but, inevitably, adds interest to the debt to be repaid at some point in the future. Harm escalates.

By either route, we frequently seek to recruit allies and, being a social and empathic species, we are usually successful. This tendency of immorality loops to draw others into their fearful vortices is a quality long capitalised upon by the unscrupulous as a fast-track to power.

Lastly, we surrender our moral responsibility to an authority, and hope they are not unscrupulous.

However, nothing can change the fact that, according to fundamental principles, these options and strategies can never heal the problem. Each turn will only ever make things worse for our soul and world.

So can we ever make peace? Happily, yes. Again we have two options.

Peacemaking Actions: 

Option 1 is that I do you a good turn, one which acknowledges my immoral behaviour. According to Moral Accounting, my negative act means I owe you. Thus, my reparation satisfies both Positive Action and Debt Repayment and, providing you receive my gesture, our books are balanced once more.

Restorative justice leverages this dynamic. It is unsurprising that in traditional societies, where immorality loops can mean cultural suicide, this is a popular approach for serious crimes.

Diamond describes a typical case of manslaughter in a Papua New Guinean tribe. The offender goes into hiding till emotions have cooled. Then, at a ritual facilitated by elders, they are brought face-to-face with the victim’s family, to hear of the pain they have caused. The offender then makes an apology (from the Greek “apologia” – “a speech in defence“), helping the victims to understand why the crime was committed. Finally, the offender makes an offering,  an atonement (from the Latin “adunare” – “to unite“) which has been collectively agreed beforehand to be proportionate to the harm – money, goods, work in kind. Almost identical processes can be found in indigenous cultures worldwide, including the weregild of the Viking and early Germanic tribes.

Recent US research has shown that judicial processes which foster such a dialogue show the highest rates of victim satisfaction and offender accountability. The Moral Accounting Metaphor explains why.

Option 2 is that you forgive, or pardon, me.

Interestingly, although both these words stem from the Vulgar Latin “perdonare” – to give, or remit, thoroughly – the root is the Latin expression “per donare” which meant solely to give unconditionally.

This would makes sense in Moral Accounting terms, where forgiveness is conceptualised as a Positive Action that you give wholeheartedly to yourself and, by so doing, redeem my debt to you, and balance our books.

This conception of forgiveness as Positive Action also remedies an unreturned moral act, for by giving the original favour unconditionally to you (and, in effect, to myself), I also leave you without obligation to me and, thus, balance our books.

Considering that forgiveness represents the only option by which a victim can resolve the spiritual cost of immoral acts and loops through personal action alone, it is hardly surprising the concept is central to all the major religions.

But how does all this help with complex tragedies like Hebdo, and their chaotic aftermath?

Because Moral Accounting suggests questions by which we might assess the morality and impacts of our personal responses in such situations, and those of others, to ensure they aren’t fuelling an immorality loop.

Heuristics for Assessing the Moral / Immoral Impact of a Response: 

1. Has an immoral act elicited the offence? Is the response reinforcing that immoral act?  Seeking to understand a crime from the offender’s perspective is not to condone it, but according to restorative justice, it can inform the responsibility of subsequent actions.

For example, vigorously promoting the Hebdo cartoons in the interests of free expression is counter-productive because it adds interest to the eliciting immoral act – that is the publication of content which is deeply sacrilegious and offensive to Muslims – and thus it can only fuel the immorality loop.

A positive restorative response might have been for authorities to acknowledge the indecency of the material (a Positive Action) and distance themselves from it, whilst also articulating clearly why free expression is important.

2. Does the response involve, or is it encouraging, retribution or revenge? Is it disproportionate and in the heat of the moment?  The shock and horror of the Paris massacre goes without question. Nevertheless, it still involved a relatively small group of offenders and victims. In the time since, a wave of anger and fear has driven retaliatory attacks against mosques across France and Europe, expanding the scope of the immorality cycle and the future debt repayments.

3. Is the immorality cycle serving powerful interests? Are either side ‘recruiting allies’ using emotional rhetoric which dehumanises and promotes retribution? Are you surrendering personal responsibility to their interpretation? For a situation which necessitates a cooling off period, powerful interests have been very quick with inflammatory accusations over Hebdo, often with a racist undertone. The official response seems, at best, ambiguous in efforts to draw a clear distinction between Islam, the peaceful religion, and Islamism, the radical ideology. At worst, it is actively encouraging confusion. Why?

The Paris attacks follow a century of brutal Western exploitation of Islamic countries and their fossil fuel resources. The War on Terror in recent decades has resulted in a colossal drain on the public purse in times of austerity and essential service cuts, enormous wealth and power creation for the instigators, and the deaths of over a million civilians. Murder is always an immoral act, regardless of where it occurs.

Inarguably, the chaos and disempowerment resulting from such actions has played a central role in the rise of Islamism. If public outrage surrounding the Paris massacre is used as justification for stepping up overseas looting, and destroying trust and freedom at home, then Moral Accounting indicates more violence on our doorstep will be the inevitable result. Clearly, such responses also play directly into the hands of the Islamist recruiters, and this may very well have been the underlying objective of the Paris massacre.

In short, subscribing to an interpretation of a crime by those profiting from the immorality cycles which elicited it, is to reinforce the horror, their power, and surrender your responsibility for peacemaking. Beware of the emotion and the propaganda, and their motivations.

3. Is there any opportunity for victims and offenders to disclose pain and perspective face-to-face? Restorative justice isn’t an easy process, but it is a Positive Action which can balance the books, and it has a long proven track record.

4. Can I forgive? Remember, to give unconditionally requires no-one but you.

It may be that you can’t. And that’s your prerogative. The aim of this article was not to deliver a sermon, only to show that, essentially, Moral Accounting always boils down to two choices – two futures – and that biology and cognitive linguistics suggest these are universal to all of us. Stated simply, your response should depend on which future you want to build.

In one future, immorality spirals, our relationships remain forever out of synch, and the toll on our society and spirit can be catastrophic. In the other, morality and reciprocity rule, our books are always balanced, and social integrity and well-being result.

As we’ve seen, the latter demands mindful, dispassionate responses which demonstrate personal responsibility, empathy with the enemy, restorative justice and, most of all, forgiveness. In a troubled world, this is the difficult road. It is also the only one that will ever make things better.

Positive Change using Biological Principles, Pt 4: Principles in Action

Welcome to the final part in our series about social change strategy.

In part 1, we proposed a “Campaign Complex” comprised of  four “biological” Principles – Equilibrium, Agency, Equanimity and Energy Conservation – which might account for some common challenges experienced by change agents. We outlined some strategies for successful campaigning suggested by these Principles.

In part 2, we proposed and discussed a “missing” fifth “Community Principle” implied by the other four, and suggested that some technologies – particularly transport and communications – may have facilitated its disintegration, by enabling “Agency” to bypass the constraints of geographical community.

In part 3, we discussed the benefits and costs associated with freedom from the “Community Principle”. We postulated that, ultimately, cultural and personal costs outweigh the benefits, and that resulting vicious circles may underpin and reinforce common campaigning bugbears.

In this final part,  we will outline a Case Study which illustrates some of the positive characteristics of the Campaign Complex, particularly the Community Principle. We also propose the control parameters responsible for the re-emergence of the Principle in this context, and the implications it could have for change-oriented organisations.

Reactivating the Community Principle

In recent years, communities around the world have begun to exhibit a profound collective response to environmental crisis and encroachment by harmful industrial development.

This has frequently been sparked by onshore unconventional gas development (“fracking”, coalbed methane or coal seam gas, and underground coal gasification). Notable exemplars include the Community Bill of Rights Movement in the USA, and the “Lock the Gate” Alliance in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia.

One such case, of which Arkadian has first hand experience, is the Falkirk Against Unconventional Gas campaign. This began in September 2012, when residents of a Scottish community received notification of  a proposal by Dart Energy to extract coal bed methane near their homes – the UK’s first application to commercialise the Dash-for-Gas.

Fragmented information-sharing initiatives by community councils and local residents soon coalesced into a series of  general public meetings. Here, individual concerns about impacts on health and property values evolved into a general concerns about a common threat to community Equilibrium and Equanimity.

Meetings were supported by structured group decision-making and independent third-party facilitation. These processes complemented the Agency Principle by enabling a diverse group of residents to pool individual expertise and share equal ownership of outcomes.

The collective response emerged in the form of two groundbreaking documents.

The first was a pro-forma objection letter – the Community Mandate – which began with the community’s visions of 20yrs in the future – one born from local council policy and residents’ aspirations, and the second, what the area might look like if the industry rolled out.  It also set out residents’ evidence for suspected risk and their own minimum requirements for its assessment and regulation.

3 months later, over 2500 had been signed and submitted, including representation by over 80% of some affected villages.

A group of residents, each with modest door-knocking goals (satisfying the Energy Conservation Principle) in a short time achieved the biggest response to a planning application in the history of the local authority.

The second document – the UK’s first Community Charter – wholly redefined the narrative from “fighting against” to “fighting for”. Drawing from the Mandate’s positive vision, the Charter set out those shared assets, values and aspirations – termed “Cultural Heritage” – which were agreed by consensus to be fundamental to local health and well-being.

Assets, agreed unanimously, included the goal of a clean and safe environment, the healthy development of children, the sanctuary of the home, the diversity and stability of the local ecosystem, the resilience and continuity of the community. and trust in elected representatives.

The Charter also set out the community’s basic right and responsibility to safeguard and improve their “Cultural Heritage”, in order that they could pass it onto future generations in a better state than they inherited it.

This provided a remarkably detailed and concrete definition of that notoriously slippery term: “sustainable development”. It also illustrates that it’s only really meaningful if delineated and maintained by general consent at a local level.

This broadening of “Cultural Heritage” to encompass the fabric of interrelationships that creates community, including both tangible and intangible assets, also finds support in the Council of Europe Framework Convention.

The Charter has since been adopted by 3 local Community Councils,  half of all Local Authority Councilors and an ever-growing number of local farmers and residents. It was also recognised by Scottish Government as requiring a special session in the recent public inquiry to decide the application, the UK’s first in relation to the Dash-for-Gas. Here, and in later Hearing sessions (see below), local residents, farmers and councilors gave evidences about the impact of the development on their aspirations and experience.

Regardless of the outcomes of this public inquiry, nothing seems more likely to succeed, ultimately, than a community thinking and acting together to protect the shared fundaments of its Equilibrium and Equanimity.

And the Control Parameters?

1) A COMMON THREAT (AND PURPOSE) PERCEIVED;

2) A vision of what true Equilibrium and Equanimity look like (set out in the Community Mandate and Charter);

3) A few souls brave enough to cold-call an unknown neighbour;

4) Simple processes which supported collective assessment and decision-making (Agency Principle); and

5) Modest collective goals and successes at the outset (Community and Energy Conservation Principles). 

That’s all!

It didn’t take much for people to feel re-empowered by the wisdom and the scale of what could be achieved together, and why this was important. Negotiating a diversity of perspectives has involved conflict and compromise (neither much appreciated by “Agency”), but the compensations have been more than worth the pain – collective vision and support, social learning, and novel opportunities for individual expression, powerful friendships, and fun.

Moreover, though Part 2 suggested some technologies facilitated the disintegration of Community, the same technologies here have played an invaluable role in maintaining strategic communications among residents, and with other community groups and experts across the globe. The technology itself is neutral and while it may offer “Agency” easy routes to self-satisfaction, in the service of collective purpose it has been a powerful mechanism to support face-to-face activities.

To conclude, in this light perhaps unconventional gas could represent a genuine opportunity for the UK, and not the one espoused by the industry and Government? The Dash-for-Gas represents a clear and immediate threat to thousands of communities. Unquestionably, costs at a local level outweigh the benefits. Two thirds of the UK are earmarked for exploitation.

Thus, key control parameters necessary for re-activating the Community Principle seem present and on an extensive scale. If the response by Falkirk, Canonbie, Balcombe, Fenhurst, Barton Moss, and many many others communities across the UK and the world, are harbingers of what’s to come, then we should be reassured and, indeed, get stuck in.

In the absence of a viable alternative to our current system, the power for transition lies not with the UN, or the EU or National Government, or in a strong brand or campaign, but emergent right on our doorstep. There is no political will without public will, and the Campaign Complex suggests the latter hinges on our participation in, and ownership of, the what, how and why of change.

Arkadian is coming to the view that such processes can only really be concrete, practical and meaningful in a local context, that they require people to get together in the same room, and that due to cultural and technological factors they’re unlikely to happen without certain control parameters in place, most notably a perceived common threat or purpose.

Nevertheless, there’s also no question that acting effectively, in concert, is a biological capacity conferred by evolution, and lies latent just below the surface despite Agency’s best efforts to deny and suppress it. Indeed, the balance conferred by the Community Principle may be the only thing now that can prevent Agency chasing money off the cliff with all in tow. The rewards of reactivation, on the other hand, seem manifold.

Positive Change using Biological Principles Pt 3: Freedom from the Community Principle

Welcome to the third article in our series about social change strategy.

In part 1, we proposed a “Campaign Complex” comprised of  four “biological” Principles – Equilibrium, Agency, Equanimity and Energy Conservation – which might account for some common challenges experienced by change agents. We also outlined some strategies for successful campaigning suggested by these Principles.

In part 2, we proposed a “missing” fifth “Community Principle” implied by the other four. We postulated that its absence is the result of systemic changes, particularly, the advent of technology which has allowed individuals and culture to circumvent and suppress the “constraints” which the Community Principle formerly, and necessarily, exerted on personal freedom.

In this article, we discuss some of the benefits and costs of this freedom, and propose that the costs might underpin some common campaign bugbears.

Freedom: Heaven or Hell?

So what does freedom from the Community Principle look like?

On the one hand, ideologically-speaking, we no longer have to suffer any constraints on our individual expression. This is something which the Agency principle postulates to be a deep biologically-rooted desire we all share, with perhaps the respect and love of our peers as its unspoken goal.

In short, without the Community Principle, there is no need to share credit for our talents and successes, or the material rewards they confer.

On the other hand, without community to share the burden, the individual alone bears the responsibility of building and maintaining an enduring Equilibrium, and all the associated stresses (“Disequanimity”).

We must also do so in a current of relentless cultural transience and novelty. Towering aspirational hierarchies expose us to continual and dynamic self-expectation, social comparison, and pressure to live beyond our means. Increasing job insecurity, work demands, indebtedness and erosion of welfare and family support systems has us haunted by perpetual fear of drowning.

Many of us understand deep down that there are fundamental limits to the way we live. Yet we cling to the reassurance that the culture that has carried us so far will somehow find its own solution, and deny the evidence which demonstrates that each day this culture brings us closer to environmental and economic meltdown.

On the one hand, we’re taught to believe that only individual achievement has value. Yet, on the other, we’re increasingly confronted by power, inequalities and environmental problems so vast they render absurd the idea that one person can make a difference.

The Community Principle still stirs in us a longing for togetherness and collective endeavour. Yet our culture warns us to be wary of the constraints such commitments might impose on our personal ambition, freedom and identity.

Moreover, with the ongoing corruption of customary democratic processes by corporate interests and the power hungry, we’re increasingly losing faith in collective action of any kind because there’s decreasing evidence that it works.

With neither belief in nor experience of the Community Principle, and faced with problems of such scale and intransigence, it is perhaps unsurprising that our default response is to turn away and entrench further in those areas of life where Agency still maintains an illusion of stability and control – our homes, nuclear families, shopping, personal technologies and skills, cuisine, entertainment, sports, leisure and so on.

But in the modern age, such escapism tends to exacerbate the problems we shrink from, feeding vicious cycles of consumerism, addiction and the breakdown of faith in and relationship with our neighbours.

And while our backs are turned, the rich and powerful ramp up the diversionary propaganda, whilst quietly dismantling the neglected remains of our channels of influence. As with the rest of us, the Agency Principle dictates they push as far as the context permits, and yield nothing.

And perhaps these downsides of a missing Community Principle cast those old campaign bugbears in a more sympathetic light?

Not ignorance, but an avoidance of truths that cut too deep. Not gullibility, but an isolation-driven need to believe those that run the show can be trusted or, at least, are as good as we can expect. Not apathy, denial or carelessness, but a rejection of a burden immeasurably greater than nature intended for individuals of our species.

In summary, despite the short-term, tangible individual benefits of a culture built on Agency, which are considerable for the few, it is Arkadian’s view that in the long-term, the absence of the Community Principle can only lead to general feelings of isolation and disempowerment.

These feelings, in turn, underpin resistance to necessary change and reinforce a vicious circle which, without intervention, can only lead to collapse. All this is summarised in the diagram below.

However, as they say, perhaps the darkest hour is just before the dawn? We hope you’ll join us again Friday for the optimistic final part of this series, where we present evidence that a bleary-eyed Community Principle is stirring around the world, and propose some environmental parameters, and practical approaches, that may be responsible for the re-awakening.

Positive Change using Biological Principles Pt 2: The missing Community Principle

Welcome to the second in our 4 part series about social change strategy.

In part 1, it was proposed that common campaigning barriers and successes might be explained in part by a “Campaign Complex” comprised of 4 “biological” Principles – the organism’s drives for equilibrium, agency, equanimity and energy conservation.

For each, we proposed an evolutionary adaptive purpose, how their effects manifest in our lives, their possible consequences for campaigns, and their strategic implications for change agents.

In this article, we shall propose a fifth Principle. This became increasingly conspicuous by its absence during the analysis, when all the strategic implications seem to point to a similar solution.

5) The Community Principle:

Purpose. The purpose of a cooperative species is to construct and maintain a web of social interdependence (a “super-organism”) which enables a more stable, predictable, productive and specialised relationship with the immediate environment, and a more effective response to threat, than would be possible for individuals alone.

Effects. Once such a community has established a workable culture of interrelationship with its everyday environment (capacities / patterns of behaviour / roles / rituals etc.), it will tend towards experiences which build on it and avoid those which might threaten its integrity or interrupt its processes.

Consequences of its absence. Without a web-of-interdependence there is no ongoing concrete experience of shared purpose, identity, culture or action, or of negotiating and expressing Agency in pursuit of the commonwealth. Whilst Agency is freed from community constraints, the individual must also bear the responsibility for achieving stable Equilibrium alone.

The Role of the Community Principle within the Campaign Complex

The effects a Community Principle would have on the other Principles within the Campaign Complex strongly implies that under natural conditions it should be there.

Firstly, it would reinforce Equilibrium and Equanimity – by conferring a strong, stable and resilient social web-of-interdependence.

Secondly, it would address an imbalance in the role of Agency – by constraining selfish needs which threaten the common good, and by providing opportunities to express individuality in pursuit of shared purpose.

Lastly, it would allow greater Energy Conservation –  the efficiencies of having specialisation and workload distributed across many, should mean that individuals need to do less.

Sound like the ingredients of a good campaign?

Below is a hypothetical diagram of these systems dynamics (click the image to open in a new tab).

Where is the Community Principle?

So if, as is suggested, the Community Principle has biological roots and adaptive purpose for Homo Sapiens, where has it gone?

One possible explanation for its absence might be the decoupling of culture from geographical place. In recent centuries, modern technologies – particularly the phone, car, plane and internet – have vastly expanded the range of human individuals.

As a consequence, we no longer live, work and play in our neighbourhood with our neighbours or depend on them for our everyday needs. 

There is neither opportunity nor pressing incentive to participate in those daily transactions and rituals from which common identity, values and purpose emerge. We have become detached from the people and environment that produce the things we consume, and the consequences of our business and purchasing decisions.

This disintegration of a geographically-grounded community has also meant our personal needs and goals are no longer constrained or guided by our neighbours’ needs and goals.

Putting our personal skills in service of our local commonwealth is no longer a natural and obvious idea. Agency is no longer obligated to anything but the self.

Indeed, the loss of the controlling influence of the Community Principle, could be one of the key drivers behind a global culture founded upon individual entitlement. Our everyday lives are now saturated with the message that competitive self-determination, the accumulation of personal property and power, and unbuckled consumption are the only worthwhile channels for Agency.

The supreme expression of this culture, and its ultimate role models, are oligarchs and celebrities who wield wealth and influence unprecedented in the history of civilization, able to steer global government, law and the mass opinion for their own aggrandizement.

And within this cultural context, a vestigial Community Principle is no longer seen as a natural balance for Agency but as its ideological opponent (e.g. capitalism vs socialism / private vs public / liberalism vs environmentalism, and so on), a barrier to individual rights and freedom which must be eradicated once and for all.

In summary, it is Arkadian’s view that Technology has disengaged modern humans from the Community Principle, and an  ‘unleashed’ Agency Principle has fashioned a culture to keep things that way.

We hope you’ll join us again next Friday when we’ll be discussing our new found freedom, and how the downsides may help explain some common campaign bugbears:  ignorance, gullibility, apathy, carelessness and denial.

Positive Change using Biological Principles, Pt 1: The Campaign Complex

This is a 4-part series which proposes a framework – the Campaign Complex – which may explain some common campaigning barriers and successes, and could inform practical strategy for community groups, campaigners and NGOs.

In Part 1, we outline the framework and its 4 component Principles, each of which may have a general adaptive purpose for all animals.

The idea of the Campaign Complex emerged from the analysis of a focus group of seasoned change agents, the loose aim of which was to explore how organisations with similar values, but different foci, might work in a more mutually-supportive way.

The discussion circle was structured around personal responses to the following three questions (written on post-its and stuck on the wall for reference during the conversation):

• 1) What motivates a change agent?
• 2) What are the barriers to a successful campaign?
• 3) What has worked at overcoming these barriers?

Despite the wide diversity of campaigning knowledge and experience in the mix – political party, banking reform, community gardening, social change, national Climate Change, Occupy, community opposition to unconventional gas – there was a surprisingly strong agreement on what had and hadn’t worked.

However, in the analysis, oft-cited barriers to success – ignorance, gullibility, apathy, carelessness and denial – seemed to offer an incomplete and superficial account of the themes.

The framework that emerged was much influenced by Arkadian’s concurrent involvement in local opposition to unconventional gas extraction, which offered first-hand experiences of positive and negative campaign dynamics, and also the author’s PhD Research, which is exploring child development from a biological systems perspective.

There follows an overview of the 4 Principles that make up the Campaign Complex, their proposed evolutionary adaptive purpose, how their effects manifest in our lives and their possible consequences for campaigns.

To close, we shall outline some of the Complex’s strategic implications for positive change.

THE CAMPAIGN COMPLEX

1) The Equilibrium Principle:

Purpose. The primary purpose of the animal nervous system is to construct and maintain a stable and predictable relationship with the immediate environment.

Effects. Once we’ve established a workable pattern of interrelationship with our everyday world – routines / capacities / opinions / property / social relations etc. – we will tend towards experiences which build on it, and avoid those which might threaten its integrity or interrupt its flow.

Consequences. Even when we intellectually or morally appreciate the goals of a campaign, meaningful engagement may be challenging if it entails any implication of change to our ways of life and thinking, or any risk of losing face, identity, property or employment. A perceived, possibly unconscious, threat to stability could be why change agents frequently encounter dismissive, disapproving or defensive responses from their immediate and wider society.

2) The Agency Principle:

Purpose. An individual animal’s primary directive is to negotiate and maintain the resources, territory and freedom necessary for successful survival, reproduction and self-fulfillment.

Effects. We tend towards experiences which confer control over decisions important to our sense of material and social stability, which provide support and appreciation for our individual needs and expression, and avoid those where such agency is absent or at risk.

Consequences. We’re unlikely to commit to a campaign if we’ve no involvement in determining goals and activities, are insecure about the knowledge and skills it may require, or believe our contribution is insignificant or unappreciated. If we do, we may unconsciously undermine leadership and approaches, or overplay our role. On the other hand, when we lead, criticism of our good intentions may leave us feeling frustrated, confused and isolated.

3) The Equanimity Principle:

Purpose. Stress is the animal response to a threat to equilibrium or agency. It motivates flight or fight action with the goal of achieving the equanimity indicative of a stable experience of world and self.

Effects. We will tend to avoid stressful information and experiences, unless they relate to an immediate and unavoidable danger, and seek those which confer individual reassurance and pleasure.

Consequences. By evading distressing truths, we often grow ignorant of the need for change the emotion is supposed to motivate. Without our sponsorship, vital sources of information and action fade or are curbed. By comfort-seeking, we often fuel toxic cycles of consumption – the c21st’s default route to well-being.

4) The Energy Conservation Principle:

Purpose. Animal behaviour largely presumes an erratic energy supply. Available resources are usually stockpiled and used frugally and efficiently to pursue equilibrium, agency and equanimity.

Effects. We tend to avoid non-essential goals and tasks that entail, or might entail, unnecessary cognitive or physical energy or which someone else will tackle if we don’t, and favour those yielding maximum immediate reward for minimum effort.

Consequences. We are unlikely to engage with a campaign which implies long-term commitment, doubtful victory, a taxing work / info load, or which appears to be ticking along fine without us. On any given task, we will seek efficiencies and, given a range of ways of participating, we are likely to elect for the easiest.

STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS OF THE CAMPAIGN COMPLEX:

1) EQUILIBRIUM: Campaigns will have greater likelihood of success if they are perceived to be safeguarding what we collectively value and what is integral to the stability of our everyday lives. We are more likely to engage if we think we stand to lose or change more through our inaction, than our action. We are also likely to need significant practical and moral support for activities which are unfamiliar to us, no matter how basic they seem to others.

2) AGENCY: Campaigns with common purpose, which co-develop goals, roles and actions through facilitated, collective decision-making processes are more likely to work because they give us an opportunity to express agency and feel ownership of outcomes.

3) EQUANIMITY: Campaigns are most likely to motivate us if they address an immediate, common threat to equilibrium or agency, thus provoking a “fight” response. Moreover, visible evidence of support is, in turn, more likely to inspire action because “fighting” together is more likely to succeed (though it can also offer us a cover for inaction – see below).

Collective action will provide further reinforcement if it also offers us opportunities for fun, enjoyment and socializing. Such activities could also mitigate the risk of campaign disintegration as the result of stress causing us to become preoccupied with our own self-preservation, and lose sight of the needs and goals of the group (the dynamics of which will be explored in Pt 2).

4) ENERGY CONSERVATION. Simple first-step experiences, which imply no commitment but deliver rewards that resonate strongly with the other principles, are most likely to facilitate our deepening involvement. Regular “heartbeat” meetings and events can promote habits which override our excuses and inertia.

Lastly, if our engagement tails off, we need carefully-worded unemotional feedback about the potential consequences of our inaction. If we don’t know our non-participation threatens what we value, then this principle predicts we’re unlikely to do anything about it.

So there’s the Campaign Complex in a nutshell. We hope you’ll join us next Friday for Part 2, when we shall be proposing a vital “Missing Principle” inferred from the dynamics and implications discussed here.

Seeding a Viable Economic Alternative. Pt 2: The Principal Themes (Outcomes of a Systems Workshop at Future Connections 2012)

This is the second installment of a 4 part series about a soft systems workshop Arkadian ran with 20 PhD candidates at the Future Connections Conference 2012 in St Andrews, all of whom were conducting PhD Research on the theme of Sustainable Development.

Previously, we outlined the workshop structure, and described the session’s major outcome: an Action Plan for seeding a nationwide Viable Alternative to the current economic system. In the last two installments, Arkadian will be venturing some personal thoughts relating to the session outcomes that emerged during the analysis.

This week, however, we will be exploring four Themes that pervaded the discussion about a Prototype Community that might seed a Viable Alternative. As mentioned previously, some ideas here (and in Part 3 and 4) will be developed beyond the original session content as a result of their transaction (via Arkadian) with an ongoing experiment in developing an socioeconomic alternative (‘Wisdom Economy’) on the Isle of Bute: An Tearman.

1) Stewardship of the Diversity, Integrity and Beauty of the ‘Community-of-Interdependence’ (Nature first). It was generally agreed that, if the Community was to have a single guiding principle it should be the pursuit of a reverent partnership with Mother Nature. This combines active observation and experimentation, to enrich our objective understanding of Her systemic workings, and activities which promote a deeper experiential connection, and appreciation of Her intrinsic value.

Although we place Nature first, as concerns practicing empathy for other and placing systemic needs above our own,  our values are equivalent towards both Her and Our Community. We aim to cultivate individual awareness that the two are not separate but together constitute a single Community-of-Interdependence within which every ‘being’ performs a substantive role.

The fundamental goal of the Viable Alternative is to establish an equilibrium where we receive our material and non-material needs as a byproduct of enlightened care for the Community-of-Interdependence, with Nature taking priority. In pursuit of this, we complement Her strategies of achieving systemic integrity, productivity and beauty through diversity, reciprocity and work excellence in our approaches to the local ecology and our social milieu.

2) Performative Knowledge and Learning (Community-as-Process). How a rag bag of individuals, and hang-ups, might operate together effectively, ethically and enjoyably was probably the main, if subliminal, preoccupation of the session. Ultimately, this led to the group insight that ‘Community’ is a continuous reinforcing process, and not a ‘place’ or ‘entity’ as the concept is more commonly used.

To think and act as a unit (‘togetherness’, ‘belonging’, ‘sharing’), our individual purpose, needs and experiences need to braid and coalesce with each others’. This couldn’t happen without the Structure, Principles and, particularly, the Time that would enable the Community to successfully plan, work, have fun and be together.

Also considered essential to acting as a unit is the ability for all members to have some grasp of the whole ‘blueprint’ of their particular Community project and, thus, an appreciation of the role, value and interdependence of all actors and activities therein. This requirement for inclusive participation in, and understanding of, the whole picture, in turn, implies limitations on the scope, size and organisation of the ‘units’ that comprise the wider Community System.

Moreover, there are no ‘experts’ here. Other, that is, than the Community itself. We consider the only real knowledge and learning is that which arises from, and returns to, our collective performance.

Know-how, erudition, irreverent cross-disciplinary romps, naive childlike experimentation, error and dispassionate collective assessment are all celebrated contributors to our ultimate purpose: a continuous social learning process that calls forth the unknown and unknowable world of the Viable Alternative. In this milieu, articulated knowledge functions as a part of collective activities rather than as an expertise that structures performance from without.

Below is a diagram of a Viable Systems Model (VSM) representing the Community’s organisational structure, which demonstrates the centrality of Community-as-Process’ to its success. A VSM is a systems thinking tool that applies the metaphor of living organism to an organisation, representing its main purposeful transactions with the environment as ‘organs’.

Ordinarily, a VSM presumes an ‘Executive Subsystem’ that monitors and orchestrates the operations of the whole – the equivalent of, say, the ‘The Board’ or the Prefrontal Cortex. However, in the model of the Viable Alternative Learning System, the wisdom of the ‘Director’ has been displaced by that of the ‘Collective’, in the form of the social processes from which our shared self-organising and self-regulating vision emerges.

3) Respect and Empathy for The Experiences of Other. Key to the healthy functioning of ‘Community-as-Process’ is respect for the predispositions and experiential histories of our fellows, even when they give rise to motivations, perspectives and worldviews very different from our own. Necessarily, this also entails developing our aptitude for dispassionate self-examination, so that we may each reflect critically on the roots of our own models, assumptions and prejudices.

To address these inner challenges, our aim is that everyone become adept in the pragmatic application of ‘tools’ that promote mindfulness of self and other – meditation, yoga, mediation, facilitation, discussion circles, non-violent communication, nature connection and systems methodologies such as Rich-Picturing, SODA and SSM.

The practical objective of all this is, to the extent possible, decouple personal experience from its deep cultural (and possibly, natural) entanglements with status, identity and ego, so that it’s performative potential may blossom. Deconstructing our ivory towers to build bridges of consensus. Transforming Knowledge and Experience as immutable personal possessions, into Knowledge and Experience as a dynamic shared property that informs and feeds back from impersonal activities-in-the-moment.

All very well, I hear you say, but what about me? Where do my individual needs fit in and what happens when they diverge from those of the collective? After all, even big happy families stifle personal growth at times, don’t they?

Making space for purely personal development, unsurprisingly, was another central theme of the discussion. As mentioned in the previous installment, a core design objective of the Prototype is to free a third of each week for each of us to pursue our own ‘becoming’ according to our own inclination. Our only constraint is that in exercising this right, we don’t impact negatively on the diversity, integrity and beauty of the Community-of-Interdependence.

The Community may also allocate some of its own ‘activity and decision-making’ time to develop opportunities and environment in response to individuals’ identified or declared needs. This is deemed valuable work because it promotes diversity and redundancy, the magical underpinnings of productivity and stability for both Nature and Community.

In summary, we take the view that a social system where individual variety, creativity and knowledge of the local natural environment flourishes according to its own will, where each node maintains positive interconnections to all others and contains the seed of the self-sufficient whole, and which can decide and mobilise effectively as a single organism, is one of optimal adaptability and resilience, and thus best equipped to face the environmental challenges of the future.

4) The Sanctity of Time for Community and The Individual had, by the end of the session, become a central mantra of the Learning System. Time is not perceived here as an abstraction, or an economic ‘obligation’, but as a resource of inestimable importance: the root source of those experiences most responsible for generating meaning, community and well being.

Thus, the need for the Viable Alternative to produce sufficient Time to satisfy our non-material requirements was a thread that pervaded the discussion. An indicator, possibly, of how overlooked, undervalued and misunderstood its role has become in the current economic system.

Seeding a Viable Economic Alternative. Pt 1: The Action Plan (Outcomes of a Systems Workshop at Future Connections 2012)

This article is the first in a 4 part series relating to a soft-systems workshop Arkadian ran at Futures Connections 2012. The first 2 parts deal primarily with the outcomes of the session, whilst in the latter 2, Arkadian will be setting out some personal thoughts resulting from the analysis.

Participants were 20 PhD candidates from universities across Scotland, representing a  broad variety of disciplines. All were conducting Research on the theme of Sustainable Development.

Since Futures Connections, the outcomes of this workshop have informed the decision-making of another project in which Arkadian is involved: An Tearman, on the Isle of Bute. An Tearman is an experiment in enacting a new socioeconomic model (‘Wisdom Economy’) involving a broad range of stakeholders. A prototype ‘blueprint’ heavily influenced by Permaculture principles is slowly emerging.

As the ideas generated by the workshop have contributed to the An Tearman project, so too have Arkadian’s learnings fed back into the current analysis, impacting on interpretations, and resulting in some development of the original workshop material, particularly in Parts 2, 3 and 4.

Next episode, we shall be discussing 4 Themes that pervaded the discussion, and in the last two installments, we’ll explore some ideas pertaining to the session outcomes. However, to begin we will outline the aims and structure of the workshop and describe its main outcome: An Action Plan for seeding a Viable Alternative.

The session’s Overarching Aim was:

WHAT?: To seed nationwide sustainable development.

HOW?: By building a self-sufficient and sustainable Community which demonstrates an inspiring, working model of a viable alternative to the current economic system.

WHY?: Because if we desire a tolerable future, there is an urgent necessity to begin our transition to a sustainable economy.

Participants were asked to consider 3 questions:

WHAT Personal Project would you bring to this Community?

HOW would it contribute to the Overarching Aim?

WHY is it important?

Responses were written on Post-Its in private and stuck randomly on a wall in What? / How? / Why? groups. The result fueled the group discussion. A Systems Map representing rough categories for the Post-Its and main topics of conversation appears below.

The main outcome of the session, unexpectedly, was an Action Plan for seeding nationwide sustainable development. This was as follows:

1. Set-up a Prototype Not-for-Profit Learning Community, which incorporated all the essential capacities of a nationwide sustainable Viable Alternative to the current economic system (see Systems Map: Essential ‘Capacities’). In other words, a ‘whole-system’ Prototype in miniature.

The original Community is envisioned as a cross-pollination of practical experiment and virtual network. At the outset the burning objective of the practical experiment is to generate zero impact revenue streams and become profitable (see Systems Map: Income / Profit Generation).

The virtual network is comprised of experts representing a wide variety of disciplines and experiential backgrounds who, whilst unable to commit substantial time to the practical experiment, are willing to contribute to decision-making whenever situation-specific expertise is required.

Community Time is split equally three ways:

(i) Collaborative physical transaction with the natural environment.

(ii) Structured time for community activities and decision-making. While this also includes the management of social groups and events, the major proportion of this time involves mindful and transparent group reflection upon both the practical experiment and social dynamics. Models, measures-of-success and next step actions are then co-calibrated in response to what has been learned.

Overarching decision-making and consensus-building are all highly-structured processes. They are third-party facilitated and knowledge is externalised using visual tools so as to depersonalise and depolarise opinion. All members are always involved, irrespective of subject, age or expertise. Thus, judgments and learning are informed by the broadest diversity of experience, and the emerging blueprint for the Viable Alternative is shared by all.

(iii) Unstructured time for personal development according to individual inclination. Spiritual, knowledge and skill development, leisure and recreational activities, time for special relationships, FUN? This is ‘You’ time, however you wish to spend it.

One of the central aims of the physical experiment is to generate a minimum of 4 free days every week for (ii) and (iii). Whilst profitability is undeniably important, it plays, and will always play, second fiddle to the meeting of the Community’s deeper non-material needs.

2. Setting up Community Urban Outpost Units. Now that our Prototype is stable, we use some of our assets to fund the despatch of ‘advocates’ to cities and large towns. As urban areas are where the current economic system is most resistant to change and its inequities are suffered most acutely, we believe it is here that successful exemplars of a Viable Alternative will achieve the most resonance.

3. Engaging the ‘Disenfranchised’. Our advocates seek out and engage those groups that have a vested interest in a Viable Alternative. Perhaps the most obvious are young and disadvantaged peer groups, who have social capital but a bleak, hopeless future under the current system. We share the Prototype ‘blueprint’ with them, and encourage them to think about how they could positively transform their own environment in order to meet local needs.

4. Bringing groups with an Urban Project Idea (UPI) to the Prototype. Groups with strong ideas, a willingness to learn, and a commitment to implement their UPI, are invited to the Prototype for experiential immersion in Community work, principles, values and decision-making. Stepping ‘outside’ of their everyday lives enables the groups to reflect upon their UPI with greater clarity and objectivity, and plan free of those shadowy constraints – models, relationships, habits, cues etc. – that hamper decision-making within context.

The group’s transition into participating in our emergent ‘blueprint’ is facilitated gently and mindfully. It is important we allow time for them to grasp the Prototype’s holistic model and processes,  for their UPI to gestate, and for two fragile social systems (Prototype and group) to adapt to each other and reach the equilibrium necessary for them to operate effectively together.

5. Activating and sourcing capabilities in response to UPI requirements. When the group ‘feels’ sufficiently clear about their UPI, they are given the opportunity to conduct a Pilot within the Prototype.

The Community participates in related decision-making with openness and humility, seeing each UPI as an opportunity to learn and expand our own capacities. Mindful efforts are made to ensure that development is always under the direction of the group, and that our role remains that of a receptive enabler: sourcing and contributing specialism, materials and encouragement in response to the Pilot’s prevailing needs.

6. Helping realise the UPI through ongoing on-the-ground and virtual support. Upon completion of a successful Pilot, the group returns to their city or town to implement their UPI. By this time, they are equipped with ‘blueprint’ and experiences of a working Viable Alternative, and the skills to bring forth their own unique interpretation by transforming their local urban environment.

Throughout the realisation of their UPI, we continue to provide moral, specialist and financial support, and a sanctuary for retreat, review and restoration in the face of setbacks and systemic resistance.

UPIs are never colonies or subsidiaries, but rather lateral extensions of an expanding, highly interdependent Learning System. This emergent ‘Viable Alternative in action’ is held together by mechanisms that reinforce interrelationships: ritual gatherings where intent, principles and values are collectively reviewed, work and insights shared, and fun had. In the interim there are ‘dovetails’ – members whose role it is to  participate in the decision-making processes of two constituent groups, thus facilitating the continuous flow of social learning through the whole system .

Although language may have represented this Action Plan as a linear sequence of stages, it was conceived as something more dynamic, reflective and feedback-driven, better captured visually in the Conceptual Model below.

And so ends our look at a possible ecology for a Prototype Viable Alternative, and an Action Plan for how it might seed nationwide transition bottom>up, inside>out and city>rural by way of an emergent Learning System.

To conclude this installment, possibly the most notable characteristic of the Action Plan on face value (particularly, one designed by a group of stakeholders operating at the leading-edge of sustainable development) is its humility. Perhaps when the scale, complexity and uncertainty of the challenge we face is spread across a wall for all to see, the only reasonable response is to design a system that acknowledges its own ignorance, creates the future one step at a time, and builds collective experience, reflection, experimentation and endeavour into its core DNA?

We hope you’ll join in a fortnight for Part 2, when we shall be exploring the four major themes that pervaded and informed the discussion of the Action Plan.