Robert Theobald andThe Healing Century. Radio National Transc...

Into this supercharged atmosphere came a report from a new group called The Club of Rome. Entitled, The Limits to Growth, it set out the reasons why growth could not continue for an unlimited time.

I was at the press conference and meeting which launched this document. Indeed, I knew the person who worked on its release in Washington, DC. We had a major disagreement. I argued that the message which people would take from the book was a deeply pessimistic one. He hoped that the ending would cause people to recognize that the predictions of the volume could be altered. My experience over the decade convinced me that I was right.

Human beings cannot live with pessimism. They inevitably look for potentials. The inevitable reaction to the challenge to the growth model was to reinforce it and to come up with rationales for continuing the current system. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan were prime movers in reestablishing the faith in current systems. By the nineties, those who challenged the current belief patterns were told firmly that there were "no choices" and that we needed to stay the course in order to be successful, and indeed even to survive in an increasingly competitive world.

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it is still necessary to face a massive dilemma that has developed at both the community and the theoretical level. If each group in a community is entitled to its own views, how then can decisions be taken? What are the patterns of judgement which enable cloture to be achieved? Failure to answer this question in any satisfactory way is one of the primary reasons for the current decline in citizenship activities. There is a sense that processes go on for ever and that nothing final is ever achieved.

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Today's decision-making processes are based on the assumption that we are conducting an argument in which all the players accept the same basic view of reality.

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David Bell, who keeps up with the direction and pace of technological change argues that "Bizarre changes are happening today in our cultures. Many of the shifts are "seismic" - that is to say "subsurface" - the surface icons are still in place. Macro theorists have done an absolutely brilliant job of disguising - and providing dismissive language for these subsurface changes - to avoid freaking out the customer and the electorate."

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In the middle ages, we learned that the earth was not the center of the universe. This understanding was traumatic and widely resisted. However, human beings maintained their sense that their role was central by placing their species outside the web of nature. We continued to assume that we were in charge and that the world would adjust itself to our wishes. It is this hubris which is now recognized by science as being dangerously wrong.

We are now learning, slowly and painfully, that the underlying dynamics of the universe cannot be understood in mechanical cause and effect terms. We live within a far more complex web of interactions which defy analysis. Sometimes, systems shift rapidly as a result of a minimal impact: for example, an avalanche can be set off by a loud noise if the conditions are right. On the other hand, systems can be so stable that huge efforts will be absorbed without any impact at all. Understanding which leverage points are most effective is one of the higher-level skills.

One of the primary results of this shift in our fundamental thinking is to necessarily destroy our current faith in the ability of technology to lead us out of our current crises. Jacques Ellul, a remarkable French thinker of the twentieth century, illuminated the result of our current technological emphases. He showed that it resulted in a belief that there was "one best way" to deal with challenges. His book "La Technique" was one of those that demonstrated how our thought patterns gave us no space for alternative ideas.

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We need to use technology intelligently for it can buy us time to make the overall changes in direction which are necessary - but the core processes which will enable us to live well on planet earth are not to be found at this level.

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The most remarkable result of the first three acts of our twentieth century drama is that they have loosened the ability of these powerful groups to force agreement with their views. Act one has led people to make up their own minds about the realities they confront. This is one extraordinary and still little understood shift that is driving our culture today. Coercive power of all sorts is being increasingly resisted. People are demanding the right to make up their own minds. Neighborhoods and communities challenge the current power of governments to impose their vision on them while denying the perceived needs of citizens.

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If coercive power is not appropriate, how do decisions get made at all? This issue shows itself at both the practical and the theoretical level. At the practical level, it is all too often impossible to reach cloture. Decisions are hashed and rehashed endlessly. Even after a decision is apparently taken, those who were unhappy feel the right to continue to challenge its legitimacy. It is this frustration with the current processes which is leading many to withdraw from citizen activities - or to long for the good old days when decisions were made in smoky rooms and could be imposed on the community and society!

There is a theoretical basis which supports this failure to create effective decisions. There is a quite powerful school of thought which argues that there are no realities or standards which should constrain behavior. If this is true then there is no way to argue that one response is better or worse than another. Each group then can feel justified in pushing for its own agenda and, if it is denied, becoming more and more vociferous - and eventually violent - if its demands are not met.

The clash between coercive power tactics and the denial of any ability to set standards has led to massive confusion within institutions and the culture in general. This had led to high, and growing levels of stress.

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The broader the framework, the more difficult the arguments necessarily become. While a few people are able to deal with this level of explanation, most people do not have the skills or the energy to do so. In addition, the fact that there are more and more competing theories means that no one set of ideas can be expected to become the way in which we think in the future.

This pattern which leads to ever-greater complexity has occurred frequently in the development of ideas. A model becomes more and more difficult, with more and more exceptions, until it clearly becomes unmanageable. At that time a new, and simpler, explanation is postulated which enables reality to be explained more fully and successfully.

Current theoretical models are an extension, although a profoundly useful one, of current industrial era patterns. They assume that there is a right way to look at the world and are thus part of the expert/professional dynamic which is currently dying.

Are we at the point that we can state a simpler view which enables us to see reality more clearly? I am convinced that we are. The alternative view is that reality is strictly situational. Each of us necessarily struggles, individually and within the groups of which we are a part, to find our own understanding of the patterns which surround us. Each of us has to choose our own unique view that will evolve as conditions change around us.

Each of us necessarily chooses those behaviors which seem to serve us best. While our views are necessarily subjective, the choices we make will only be satisfactory if they are informed and constrained by our knowledge of the feedback loops in which our lives are embedded. The better we are at sorting out the essential from the trivial, the more likely it is that our choices will lead to our satisfaction and that of others.

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This concept of people making sense of their own lives seems highly unrealistic to those who still accept industrial-era beliefs. The industrial era saw people as machines which could be honed to serve as factors of production. In return for giving over their lives to the productive system, they would be rewarded with goods and services. More critically, we assumed that most people most of the time would behave badly if they were not constrained by the law.

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