Sam Rose on plausible change strategies

From an interesting discussion about the realism of social change, on our p2p research list, we select the contribution of Sam Rose. It is followed by an interesting excerpt from the theorist of change theory (adaptive cycles, panarchy), C. Hollings.

1. Sam Rose:

“Plausible” comes to me as a language construct from Richard Slaughter of Swinburne Foresight Institute. Slaughter recommended that when we talk about alternative futures, that we (eventually) narrow down to what is plausible.

See: http://www.amazon.com/Futures-Beyond-Dystopia-Foresight-Education/dp/0415302706

Plausible meaning likely to happen based on everything we know about what is happening now, plus what we can reasonably project is emerging or will emerge. An implausible future is one that is envisioned and worked towards while ignoring the fact that billions of other people are already working towards a different envisioned future.

If you are interested in actually seeing change happen, (as opposed to just talking about what theoretical changes to systems would work theoretically work best) then I propose that what is most important is not having the strongest theoretical argument. Instead, what is most important is to work towards the future that is plausible for you to actually turn into reality.”

For example,

“What I am really talking about is creating the conditions for emergence. There are conditions that you can foment, implement and nurture that will create transition, and increase the likelihood of transformation. This is not coercive, and does require social negotiation, relationship and network building, and choosing where to spend energies and time based on what you think is most likely to succeed first, next etc

So, you can “seed” transitional entities, and nurture them in conjunction with people who are genuinely interested. And/or you can find and align with like-minded entities that are emerging around the world, and think about how to work together in useful ways. This is political, but there are processes which people may agree to use, to create commons, collaborative, and cooperation based systems that can sustain themselves over time. Have a look at everything we’ve synthesized from different areas of human thinking at http://cooperationcommons.com/summaries

One of those areas of thinking is complex systems, a science which shows that most transformation/change tends to begin on local scales. So, if you think about human driven processes, which are partly political, and resepective of environment, respective of the flow of energy on many scales, you can see that there are processes which people as individuals can apply to begin to change how they exist on local scales. There are many, many, many examples of this. I would say that it is easier to change locally *without* politics. However, it is more difficult to sustain such a change without a system of voluntary co-governance of commons that are created by way of the changes that I am suggesting.

One empty acre within the city of Cleveland could be a great example. You can quickly clear out and begin to produce food on that acre, and create technologies from discarded materials that capture rainwater, re-use plant refuse as fertilizer, etc etc. You can gain more by involving more people, and inviting them to contribute to the development of the acre. Maybe you would invite schools in to teach students how to start their own businesses, etc. But as you involve more people, you run the risk of exceeding the carrying capacity of the commons you have started. You have to create rules, and people have to be willing to live by those rules. You need a system of co-governance. Plus, you need a way to meet existing laws in regards to food safety, quality, etc. On top of all of that, as Ryan suggests, you can get far by pressuring for real political change (as the people of Cleveland have done, by pressuring government to allow them to have bees and chikens within the city, which increases the options for people involved in small scale food production).

There is a real life example of this here: That is a farm on one acre of land in Cleveland, that produces a sizeable income, and offers resources to multiple people in the local community (schools, research universities, etc)”

2. C.S. “Buzz” Holling

“People have two distinct ways of perceiving change. Some see the world evolving in a regular, continuous way. Others, like me, see the world evolving in a spasmodic way – sudden change and slow, sometimes erratic responses after such changes. Both viewpoints are, in some sense true. They each give a different perception of changes and its causes. But their differences generate arguments. The same arguments are seen in other issues. For example, some argue that biological evolutionary change is not gradual but is “punctuated.” There is strong evidence supporting that view, but because the fossil record is incomplete, the evidence is incomplete. As a consequence, one’s philosophy can sometimes dictate belief, so there is not a lot of consensus. There is a similar argument about the evolution of scientific knowledge between the gradualists like Karl Popper, and the revolutionists like Thomas Kuhn.

It is useful to have these different views appearing in a way that permits some considered conversation. Now, at this time of great and extensive turbulence, is the time.

The aspect of resilience and panarchy that is most novel and significant concerns the “back-loop” phase when resisting structures and institutions start to break down or transform, releasing the chance for a renewed system to emerge. The many ecosystem examples are matched by many business examples where technology shapes products from sneakers, to automobiles, to electrical appliances. At that moment, novelty that had been simmering in the background can emerge and be stimulated. And new associations begin to develop among previously separate innovations. The big influence comes from discoveries that, at that time, emerge from people’s local experiments at small scales, discoveries that can emerge at times of big change, to trigger bigger changes at large scales. That process highlights the keys for the future.

The world is now faced with unstable food prices, oil dependencies, financial disruption, and climate change. There is need now, to get rid of the rigidities that block innovation, to try to stabilize the extreme structures, and to encourage a plethora of experiments that link people and processes in unexpected ways. Some, and perhaps many of those experiments will fail. But some will succeed and set ingredients for another swing of the adaptive cycle.

One key is maybe best captured by the word “hope.” I see hope might be emerging from the confusing flow of events of the recent US Presidential election process in 2008, and of the confused responses to the present financial crisis. These are important because they have international ramifications. Certainly the results have triggered a sudden storm of new, but confused discussion. That is just what panarchy predicts, and it certainly makes me suddenly a little more hopeful about our mid-term future.

The second key has to recognize that the small, that is the individual human or small groups, can at times transform the big, that is, transform the politics and institutions of governance. That is what led me to form the Resilience Alliance, an organization that exists nowhere and everywhere. It is maintained by the Internet, has launched and expanded a novel Internet journal, Ecology and Society, and has nurtured integrative studies that provide deeper and broader foundations of understanding upon which to form policies.

It is formed by 17 groups from around the world, each of whom provides modest dues to provide a sustaining foundation. It draws its strengths from the energy, resources and imaginations of people who love integrative enquiry, and have individual experiences of life in different places. Over its nine years of life it has spawned additions to known institutions like the Australian Coral Reef Center, South Africa Regional Parks, and a Global Change Center in the UK. It has led to the establishment of new resilience centers such as the Social Innovation Center of Frances Westley, in Canada, and, preeminently, a remarkable new center, the Stockholm Resilience Center, that Carl Folke and Johann Rostrom so wisely designed and run. All these organizational changes emerged from the Resilience Alliance perspective and people, and the opportunities for interchange that evolved. There was little central planning – perhaps three people, part time, particularly Brian Walker from Australia and Steve Carpenter and Lance Gunderson from the U.S. There was maximum-bottom up opportunity from many people of different ages. People, ideas and policy now move in a global setting, to affect local enterprise.

And now those lessons need to be recognized again. I have commented on the sudden appearance in 2008 of apparently independent events that in fact are interconnected – oil, food, climate, financial and economic signals of sudden change or of anticipated collapse. Financial collapse is the only one remembered at the moment, but all are interrelated. It is classic panarchy theory with events unrolling. A long front loop of increasingly efficient and expanded growth, has accumulated excessive opaqueness and rigidities, has added transient solutions that hide problems as they try to correct them, to finally create an accident waiting to happen.

Of course there are rapid responses to attempt to correct and sustain the systems. Of course the resistors of social innovation have been sidelined: all good. But, since there is no way to predict the path out, there is a need for something else. When resources and capital collapse the world becomes not only uncertain it also becomes unknown. That is the time when a plethora of experiments are needed. Many will fail, but some will succeed to synergize each other and to spawn a new adaptive cycle – or a new trap.

It is a time for a new global alliance of global and regional experiments, with the same flexibility and inexpensive nature of the Resilience Alliance, but with expanded partners from science, business and the public. The Resilience Alliance has been terrific in experiments for innovative study. Now we need a new effort to launch novel integrative actions as experiments to open paths for the future.

Change that is important is not gradual but is sudden and transformative. There is a common base cycle of change in individuals, in ecosystems, in business, in society. Increasing rigidity halts a long, slow period of growth and increasing efficiency. That begins a period of creative destruction and a fast period where uncertainty is great, where novelty emerges, and where new foundations are formed for a new cycle to begin. That is where we are now heading internationally.

In the United States, it is a time when the power of the state has achieved rigidity unseen since the triumphs of the falling of the Berlin Wall. Politicians have reacted to extreme disturbances, like the appalling terrorist attacks of 9/11, with powerful military response, a blind view of history and cultures, and a greedy desire for narrow benefit. Global economic expansion and dependence on peaking oil supplies, particularly in the Middle East, lock geopolitics into a self-destructive state from which transformation is extraordinarily difficult.

That is the time when change is most uncertain. We are living in it now. In this year we have simultaneously faced the sudden appearance of now reinforcing flips – sudden increases in the price of oil, increases in the costs of food, a financial collapse and the start of a recession, the retreat of Arctic ice sheets with climate warming, and accelerating loss of biodiversity. That is a lot to swallow and it reflects a process of human development and expansion since WWII.

But it is also the time when the individual has the greatest influence: when experiments determine the future; when the Internet opens opportunities for collaboration within and across nations; and when low cost mistakes are glorious because they trigger learning.”

1 Comment Sam Rose on plausible change strategies

  1. AvatarSam Rose

    Thanks, Michel.

    I like the CS Holling reference above, and I like that he is talking about the Popper vs. Kuhn (slow changes vs revolutions) because it gets me thinking that real change in human systems seems to be slow change, with interspersed cascades of larger change, where local cascades to “global”.

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