Over 7.6 million people went on strike asking for climate action in September 2019. Movements like Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion are openly showing how the present efforts of governments are not sufficient. People care about our common future and ask for “System Change, Not Climate Change”.
What does it mean to change “the system”?
To move to a net-zero greenhouse gas emission society within the next 10 years we need to change all aspects of how our society works and how we live. We need to change how our agriculture, energy, resource management, mobility, economy, in some cases government, education, and especially financial systems function. And we need to do it fast.
We need a “systemic change”, a simultaneous change over multiple complex systems, towards the common goal of developing a society regenerating the capacity of humans and the Earth to provide the conditions for life to thrive.
Changing individual behaviours, by stopping using plastic bags, reducing meat consumption or reducing flights is not enough. Rearranging the tables on the deck of the Titanic is not going to change its course, from hitting the iceberg at full speed. We need enough passengers on the Earth “cruise” to join forces and together focus on moving the steering wheel towards a new direction.
There is no recipe for changing complex systems. If we try to change something in the system, we quickly realize that we also need to change something else and that that thing depends on e.g. three other factors that we can’t influence. Additionally, as we look closer we realize that there are several vicious circles, loops maintaining systems in the present (undesirable) state.
We can spend many hours analysing where to start making change happen, ending up with no clear starting point and feeling totally overwhelmed by the amount of information and its complexity. Two notions helped me to move beyond the system analysis lens and inspired me with new ways of taking action for system change:
- Change and transformation are not the same
- Transformation happens when a critical tension is reached in 4 domains
Change and transformation are not the same
1. There is no way back from transformations
Change and transformation are not the same. When a transformation happens, there is no way back. A butterfly cannot get back to a larva. A teenager cannot become a child again. The industrial society cannot go back to the pre-industrial times.
2. A transformed system has a broader perception
A teenager can express the ingenuity and playfulness of a child. However her ability to perceive the world and her self in it, have a higher degree of complexity. When thinking of how to take action she can think of more possibilities and more sophisticated options. The teenager has included and integrated the qualities of the child into something new and broader. She has more “depth”.
The same is true for transformations happening on a societal level: the industrial society integrated the history, norms, beliefs of the agriculture society, into a broader more complex frame with new meanings, customs and options to take action.
3. A transformed system includes and integrates the system it originates from
A transformed system results into one that has included and integrated the old one (as illustrated by Ken Wilber in “A brief history of everything”). Which is very different from the idea of starting a new and better society from scratch or of “turning the page”.
4. Using only force doesn’t transform systems
Another characteristic of transformations is that we cannot force them to happen. We need several changes to happen simultaneously in different areas.
The “system change” people are asking for to address our global ecological and climate crisis is actually a transformation of the whole system. Using force on one aspect of the system is not enough.
If we for example in Poland focus on decarbonizing our energy production and provide subsidies for solar panels, we may be able to increase the share of renewable energy by a few percentage points. But the majority of the energy will still be coming from coal.
Can we force the people owning coal plants to simply discard their assets? Their industry has plenty of financial and political power, much more than what the pro-environment parties and activists currently have. Changing the coal industry requires something other than force. C
5. Transformation happens when the time is right
When the time is right, transformations are unstoppable and unpredictable. You cannot force a child to become a teenager. But when the first pimple appears a teenager can tell that it’s impossible to stop them. And a parent having a screaming teenager angry at the whole world really doesn’t know in which direction her life as an adult may turn.
When do transformations start?
A child becomes a teenager because of her age, the hormones, the influences of friends, the debates at school, a growing understanding of the diversity and complexity of the world. Where does the change start from? We don’t know. But we can witness that the change happens in 4 interrelated spheres.
- Individual – physical/behavioural : you can observe that a child has become a teenager because of their pimples, appearing adult reproductive organs, fancy clothing and unexpected behaviours
- Individual – consciousness : once you talk with a teenager you realise that they have plenty of aliveness, energy, impulses and also existential questions: Am I good enough? Who am I? Who do I want to be? What is my place in society? To whom do I belong?
- Collective behaviour : when looking at a group of teenagers you will see how they all wear the same odd cloth style, listen to the same music, watch the same videos, drink, smoke or rebel against the status quo.
- Collective consciousness : when talking to a group of teenagers you can start understanding how their specific appearance and behaviour are expressions of their micro-culture, showing belonging to the group, expression of values and differentiation from societal norms.
Transformation on a collective societal level also manifests in these four “quadrants” developed used by the Integral Theory developed by Ken Wilber. The quadrants are delimited by the individual-collective axis and by the internal-exterior one. The external expressions of a system can be observed by everyone and measured with a scientific approach. The corresponding internal aspects can only be accessed by entering in communication and require an interpretation.
The whole system transforms when several changes start happening in all of the four quadrants, they influence and reinforce each other during a disruptive phase in which what has been is not anymore, but the new has not yet manifested.
Is the time ripe for our global society to transform?
The many malfunctionings of our global society are like cracks in which new ideas, projects and models are emerging. They are glimpses of a different, more beautiful world. The cracks are becoming larger as the severity of our ecological crisis increases. The crisis makes us aware that they will soon open up and our society may fall into self-destruction.
This perspective is frightening. We can try to avoid the pain by ignoring facts and focus on doing more and more of the same. We can though also pay attention to what is growing out of the cracks, nurture these ideas and projects that resonate and nurture the kind of world we like to live in. By nurturing these ideas and connecting them we can create a momentum that reinforces changes across all quadrants.
How do you find out which ideas and projects resonate with you and others?
If we dream of a more beautiful world in which all life thrives, these questions can help to identify the seedlings of change to nurture:
- Individual – consciousness : How would I think and perceive the world from a new story in which the earth is alive?
- Individual – behaviour : How would I behave, based on a worldview in which earth is alive?
- Collective – consciousness : How would our collective understanding change if nature would not be a resource to be exploited but a living system we are part of?
- Collective – behaviour: Which projects, actions and organisational systems would serve such a world view?
The art of transformation is then to dare living these questions towards jointly finding answers. Taking collective action from a place of deep resonance and connection to ourselves lies at the core of transformation. Once we can dream a new dream we can work on its manifestation. Our power thus does not lie into a technocratic reductionist view of seeing ourselves as consumer – or even prosumer – but in going from personal transformation to community engagement and civic action. Our real power lies in being an active member of civil society and being able to organise ourselves and bring about the kind of change which will lead to transformation.