A few weeks
ago I participated in an amazing 4 day gathering of about 100 people from all
over the world in Svalbard – way up North.
I was
invited by The Aurora Borealis Foundation, a Swedish-Chinese organization,
which works to explore ways in which human civilization can adapt to the
rapidly changing conditions we live in.
It was one
of those occasions where you run out of superlatives. It was very intense,
touching, inspiring, scary and beautiful.
I have
tried to assemble my reflections in the following page, starting from the
in-adequacy of our words to express and capture the challenges we face.
The
Svalbard gathering was very much about words. Listening, discussing, and searching
for words to create a new narrative from which we can understand our situation
and act to pursue a better world.
Given how
acute it seems to create change, and how complex the challenges we face are,
the words we can come up with may seem inadequate, even banal. Clearly, words
alone are not enough to convey the depths of what we are trying to express – it
takes music, images, dancing… and action, of course.
Never the
less, the language we use is important. Words and categorizations define and
delimit our thinking. An important part of the change we need is to move beyond
old categories and to re-define some central terms.
Words like ”growth”,
”productivity” and ”development” are losing their usual meaning, changing from
positive to negative as more conventional growth increasingly seems like less
real growth.
Likewise, in
our new narrative, we need to acknowledge that ”value” and ”money” are not the
same. Certainly, there is overlap, but much of what it most valuable to us has
very little monetary value - like love, community, harmony, joy, trust, or the
beauty of nature.
The economy
is an immensely powerful engine of creation – but there’s a bug in the operating
system: Money is the only value it can measure. The economy is set up to
maximize the production of money, and that is what it single-mindedly delivers,
even if it means neglecting and destroying other values that give our lives meaning.
Now, we must fix the algorithm to make the system create values beyond money.
We must demand that, which we really want the economy to produce.
The split
between rationality and mystery is another core issue that we lack words to
reconcile. Science can wrestle solid facts from the fog of mystery, gradually
turning what used to reside in the metaphysical realm into laws of nature,
which can be predictably calculated and operationalized. Still, there is always
another layer below, which we simply don’t understand.
Compartmentalizing
our worldviews into either being atheist or religious seems to prevents us from
addressing and seeing the world as it is. Can’t we insist on scientific
reasoning and demand hard facts as the basis for thinking and decision making –
while remaining in awe of the mystery and beauty of it all? Can’t we have
agency and assume our responsibility to act to improve the world around us –
yet realize that, ultimately, we are completely at the mercy of much greater
powers beyond humans?
The
narrative of our future is about co-existing with paradoxes and opposites. We
are becoming ever more connected and interdependent. We should see diversity
and increased complexity as an enrichment, rather than a threat to our
conventions.
Yet, how do
we then insist on preserving that, which we will not compromise on? Are all values
relative and negotiable – or are there absolutes; values which we know are right and which we will defend
without compromise? What is so sacred that you cannot question it? And what shall
we do if we find that others do not agree?
The
yin/yang symbol beautifully shows how every element carries its opposite
within. There is no renewal without destruction, no life without death, no
victory without the seeds of future loss. Up and down, round and around. Inching
our way up the evolutionary ladder.
Scary, but
hopeful, too.
