 The Idea:
It's going to take a new, more expansive kind of thinking, by many
people with different points of view working in collaboration, to solve
the world's most intractable problems. Here are some thoughts how we
could achieve that kind of 'synthetic' thinking.
This morning, as I
slowly awoke, I had an 'aha!' moment. I will tell you about it soon. I
think I finally know what I was meant to do. Even more than writing,
though writing is a small part of it. It came to me when I was combining things -- goals, ideas,
and perceptions. And then I suddenly saw the big picture, how all the
pieces fit. It's an amazing experience, and one that we should all have
more often, and learn how to make happen.
Let's take an example. On Monday I posted a
conversation with myself about how to save the world, showing two
very different approaches. It was genuine, not written for effect -- I
have these arguments with myself all the time, which is why this blog
sometimes comes across a bit schizophrenic. What was interesting was
that quite a few readers, in the comments thread, via e-mail and even
over at Grist, seemed anxious to take
sides -- which argument, the green or the beige, made more
sense, and what was wrong
with the other side? Which side was the real Dave's view? The debate was
not a rhetorical device. It was an example of our constant struggle to
decide between, or reconcile, different goals, choices, conceptions or
perceptions. But it seems to be a proclivity of Western thinking that
we always try first to decide, to dismiss, to discount one of two
dissonant ideas as inferior, and accept the other as the right one, the better one, the
lesser of two evils. The result is polarized thinking, and in the West
it has become something of a cultural disease. Most of Lakoff's work on
frames is about trying to reframe debate, change the perspective of the
opposing side, so that the right
(or more accurately left)
point of view comes out on top, looks
better. Why is there no effort instead to understand the 'opposing'
view, not as a means of capitulating to it or becoming vulnerable to it
or defeating it, but rather as a basis for finding a third point of
view that encompasses both.
The words we use for this process betray our distaste for it:
accommodation, compromise, reconciliation. There is a latent
aggressiveness and intolerance in our disinterest in finding more
holistic answers: "Those guys aren't looking for a win-win answer so
why should we?"
To the Eastern mind this must appear bizarre, militaristic, even
self-defeating. As citizens and as consumers we are inundated with
alternatives and choices, and forced to 'choose one': Coke or Pepsi,
Toyota or Ford, Windows or Mac or Linux, Democrat or Republican, public
or private, Red or Blue or Green, Black or White. Your choice
determines which community you belong to, whether you're with us or
against us, good or evil, winner or loser, patriot or traitor, friend
or foe. Even those who talk about peace want it on their terms: No peace without
justice, no peace without security, no peace without freedom. No
surprise that there is no peace.
Synthesis is the outcome
of the merging of two or more things: in Hegelian philosophy it is the
emergence of the combination
of thesis and antithesis. Synthesis is not compromise, it is transcendence, a higher conception
than either the thought or its contradiction. "The combining of
separate elements to form a coherent
whole". The great discoveries of human history and science have often
come from synthesis of previous ideas, conceptions and points of view
thought by lesser thinkers to be irreconcilable. What made Einstein
such a brilliant thinker was his ability to synthesize, transcend, come
up with unified theories. Yet in common parlance, the terms synthesis and synthetic are most often used to mean artificial, not real.
Synergy is "the
interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their
combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects,
cooperative interaction among groups that creates an enhanced
combined effect." It is used to describe the supposed positive effects
of the merger of two corporations, two corporate cultures -- yet 85% of
all such mergers actually destroy value rather than creating it,
leaving morale and productivity worse off than before, and usually
resulting in the 'acquirer' involuntarily imposing their culture on the
'losing' one. So the prevailing response to calls for, or assertions of, synergy has become one of cynicism and raised eyebrows.
Integration
is "combining into a complete and harmonious whole". But for those that
aren't in mathematics or semiconductor construction, we most often
think of the term as the forced desegregation of US school-children, or
the absorption (and disappearance) of one thing into another.
Holistic
means considering the inseparable nature and interrelationship of all
of the elements of a system. In the West, our normal approach to
dealing with systems is the opposite: Piecemeal --
the doctor specialist treating just one symptom or part of the body,
the traffic and planning departments deciding what roads to build in
isolation from impact on other communities, and corporations completely
disregarding 'external' costs (degradation and reduction of the
commons, social and environmental damage, non-renewability of their
assets) and long-term impacts to focus narrowly on only the costs that
appear on the income statement and the impacts in the next fiscal
quarter. Holistic approaches are openly ridiculed by specialists and
self-styled pragmatists as impractical, idealistic, and unscientific.
Not surprisingly, we tend to use these four terms incorrectly or
disparagingly when we use them at all. And our adulation for
specialists and the way we teach our children reinforce this
narrowness, this denigration of and antipathy towards the big picture
and the long view.
Why do we do this? And more importantly, what can we do to rectify it?
How can we teach ourselves, and our children, how and why to think
synergistically and holistically, and to synthesize and integrate ideas
and information?
My guess as to why we do this is that Western 'scientific' man has come
to loathe uncertainty, mystery and imprecision. The whole notion of
complexity and chaos theory triggers revulsion in many people: "What do
you mean we can only use systems thinking in complicated systems, not in complex
ones?" "Who says most of our systems are complex and therefore largely
unknowable, and the best we can do is look for meaningful patterns
that, at best, modestly improve the probability that our predictions
for the future will be accurate?" The whole Gaia theory, which
perceives the world to be a single, complex, self-managing organism was
scorned for a generation until more and more evidence emerged that it
was a better model of reality than the parochial theories it
synthesized. We hate not knowing, and we love simple answers and simple
choices -- from political leaders, from the hawkers of commercial
brands, from preachers in the pulpits, and from the education system
(when we are young) and the media (as we get older) that lay out those
answers and choices for us.
| How can we learn, and teach, our children and ourselves to see the big
picture, to synthesize and synergize and integrate ideas and
conceptions and perceptions and beliefs, to transcend parochial and
overly simplistic and antagonistic and dyadic us-versus-them thinking
and evolve new answers and options and ideas that are holistic and
higher, above parochialism and dogmatism and narrow self-serving
ideology, and more unified, more profound, and ultimately more useful in solving the world's problems? |
My sense is that there is no easy answer to this, as much as we might
want one, and as much as some advocates of various theologies and
ideologies will push them forward as answers, as holy grails to ascend
to a "higher level of consciousness". Programmer Dale Asberry has
pointed me to the intriguing but opaque Reciprocality site which suggests most of us have been indoctrinated to unlearn
how to see the big picture, because living in an artificial and limited
world is easier and keeps us in line. It says some people are just
naturally able to see the bigger picture. I'm neither that optimistic
(I don't know anyone that sees synergistic solutions easily) nor
pessimistic (I believe anyone should be able to learn or re-learn how
to do it).
I believe we will probably have to teach, and learn from, each other
to become better at this. True collaboration is a synergistic process,
so it makes sense to me that holistic, synergistic thinking is probably
best learned by collaboration with others. I am sure that there is a
synthesis of the two opposing views in my conversation with myself
Monday on how to save the world, for example, but I am skeptical that
any one person (other than perhaps an Einstein) is likely to be able to
come up with that synthesis. If we're going to learn how to do this,
we're going to have to learn together. That means lots of practice.
I also believe state of mind is important in this process. My 'aha'
synthesis this morning was a semi-conscious application of the 7-step
mantra that Cyndy at MouseMusings and I developed, though I wouldn't presume to believe it would work for others:
Sense:
|
Observe, listen,
pay attention, focus, open up your senses, perceive everything that has
a bearing on the issue at hand. Connect.
|
| Self-control: |
Don't prejudge or jump to conclusions. Don't lose your cool. Focus. |
| Understand: |
Make sure you have
the facts and appreciate the context. Things are the way they are for a
reason. Know what that reason is. Sympathize. |
| Question: |
Ask, don't tell. Challenge. Think critically. |
| Imagine: |
Picture, hear, feel what could be. Be visionary. Every problem is an opportunity. Anything is possible. |
| Offer: |
Consider. Give something away. Create options, new avenues to explore. Suggest possibilities. Lend a hand. Help. |
| Collaborate: |
Create something
together. Solve a problem with a collective answer better than any set
of individual answers. Learn to yield, to build on, to bridge, to adapt
your thinking. |
What do you think? If we're going to save the world and stuff we're
going to have to follow Einstein's advice: "We can't solve problems by
using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." I sense
that thinking that bridges, unifies, synthesizes conflicting points of
view might be the kind of thinking that Einstein used to solve
problems. If it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me.
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
