Now we get an idea of what’s wrong, what can be done? Go with the flow – like a good taoist, or Be the change you want to see in the world – like Mahatma Gandhi used to say?
You might say: I can change, but the others won’t so why should I? It’s a classic collective action problem. The solution is simple: determine your own course of action and then connect, search others who will join or who you can join. That way you can find the flow starting from yourself.
It isn’t simple, where to move from here. The world already was complex, and approaching or meeting boundaries of resources and growth makes things far more complex even. How to deal with this complexity?
Right now, to focus our thoughts, we work with a mindmap that covers directions and dimensions of change. Click to zoom and pan around.
Lyubomirsky, Sonja (2007). The How of Happiness. London: Sphere.
Based on years of research about happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky concludes that:
60% of differences in (personally experienced) happiness are due to external and genetic circumstances
40% of happiness can be explained by specific thinking and behaviour patterns.
So the good thing is: almost half or your well-being can be somehow influenced, and the other half of it just asks for acceptance. It will be useful to teach yourself to think and live in ways that make most people happy. What are these patterns in thinking and behaviour that seem to make people happier?
“Below is a sample of my observations, as well as those of other researchers, of the thinking and behaviour patters of the happiest participants in our studies.
They devote a great amount of time to their family and friends, nurturing and enjoying those relationships.
They are comfortable expressing gratitude for all they have.
They are often the first to offer a helping hand to co-workers and passers-by.
They practice optimism when imagining their futures.
They savour life’s pleasures and try to live in the present moment.
They make physical exercise a weekly – and sometimes daily – habit.
They are deeply committed to life-long goals and ambitions (e.g., fighting fraud, building cabinets, or teaching their children their deeply held values).
And, last but not least, the happiest people do have their share of stress, crises and even tragedies. They may become just as distressed and emotional in such circumstances as you or I, but their secret weapon is the pose and strength they show in coping in the face of challenge.”[1]
PREAMBLE: Man is a social being. Individual development is always dependent on social development. Man is empathetic and able to love. This is the basis of human community.
The image of what a human being actually is has been narrowed down by science. Schumacher argued[1] that man is considered to be a machine more than a living being. The dominant scientific paradigm, what Schumacher calls materialistic scientism, has deaf ears and blind eyes towards non-materialistic qualities of life thereby stripping it of most of its meaning – meaning that seems to be experienced by individuals as crucial.
A consequence is that the social aspects like relationships to peers, ancestors and offspring are neglected; we need both a latitudinal and longitudinal extension of human image.
Maslov’s hierarchy of needs is an example of what happens when human beings are considered to be singular machine-like creatures. The hierarchy, often depicted as a pyramid of needs, implies that the top needs are most important; self-actualisation would be the highest goal of a human being. But is this universally true? For one single individual it might be, but humanity doesn’t function as a collection of individuals. Maslov’s needs in reality are only being met in patterns of collective behaviour and collective growth. As research on well being shows,[2] being connected to others might be at least as important as self-actualisation. As a model for building a society, Maslov is too much focused on the individual. A model of society should have groups of people as building blocks.
So what is a human being? To what extent is his or her context part of the individual? What does latitudinal and longitudinal extension of the human image look like?
Latitudinal (peers) and longitudinal (ancestors and offspring) extension of human image
A consequence of increasing specialization in science is that categories and descriptions of singularities are abundant but relationships between objects go largely unseen. Our theoretic lenses of science do not put relationships in focus, while relationships are defining what and who we are to a large extent.
Research into subjective well being shows that happy people have in common that they spend a lot of time with others and cherishing relationships.[3] Research into innovation and trade shows that prosperity and wealth only come from trust based exchange with other people.[4].
Not only we literally do not exist without others; we need others to be happy, to prosper and to thrive.
Survival in times of turbulence requires adaptation; living requires a radical rethinking of the world as we see it, and doing the things we do in life quite differently. Where are we flawed and what should we be doing?
When did a bee actually send you an invoice? Pavan Suhkdev asks whether evaluating the economic value of natural resources help averting crisis. He argues how for the coral reefs it’s too late – and how this will influence millions of people dependent on these ecosystems for their food. How to deal with rapidly declining biodiversity, threatening livelihoods worldwide? Economics is the language of politics; perhaps we should move the ecosystems’ value into the equation. I think this will help but only in addition to strengthening a core-value based discourse.
Why did complex systems theory become important? Because complex systems like changing climate and financial economy are increasingly influencing our dayly lives. What are complex systems, and how to deal with them?
To make things simple, let’s break the world apart in two. The Simple and the Complex. In the simple world, the position of the sun in twenty and two thousand years can be predicted. If we can do that, then predicting the weather is a matter of making better models, right?
Slavoj Zizek touches his nose exactly 365 times during this 76 minute lecture. Once for each day of the year. I discovered it totally accidentally. Is he so boring that I am so easily distracted? Still it was gripping; from a psychological point of view he has a point, claiming that people in our globalised world might be needing more borders and boundaries, in stead of less. He makes the argument at nose-touch 188. The title of the video work: Distraction 188 (Sven Jense, 2011).
Touching the nose is a classic gesture of untruth, or hiding. And it’s never a bad idea to distrust a self-acclaimed communist. Turning towards his latest book though, Living in the End Times (Zizek, 2011), it makes more sense.
And wouldn’t you think that the nationalistic movements in many Western-European countries can be related to open borders and resulting feelings of insecurity? In terms of job-insecurity, these feelings are not at all unjustified.
This is why we argue for a healthy and partially closed nation state as basis for national governance and international cooperation; vision 10 of our Declaration of Human Direction.
What can we know? Let’s look at a well-known position of a well-known practical philosoper.
Donald Rumsfeld, when talking about the probability of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, only left out one category: the category of unknown knowns; those relate to either denial or lies. In the case of Rumsfeld you may have your own opinion.
Let’s see… when in recent history did the shit really hit the fan? Viktor Frankl has seen it all. As a psychiatrist – and prisoner - in Auschwitz he learned to see when a man would break. So what was the psychological difference between life and death? It is in the story of one man Frankl new, who believed war would end on a certain date: 30 March, less than a month into the future. When the 30st day came, he fell into a coma. One day after learning that his believe was wrong, he died.
