32 minute read
Anthroposophy, Complexity, and the Occupy Wall Street Movement
by John Miller
Anthroposophy offers a lens through which to view ourselves and our world. So does modern complexity theory (the more comprehensive field of which chaos theory is a part). Thus, both should be able to cast some light on the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon. I believe they cast much the same light (and work well together to do so), but my preference is to express this insight in the language of complexity. The audience that can be reached through a new, reputable science is much wider and more diverse than that which would give much credence to a rather arcane spiritual philosophy. I believe anthroposophists could benefit from learning about complexity.
The Occupy Wall Street is extraordinarily significant. It also presents a useful case study through which to compare these two complementary lenses. Complexity, like imaginative thinking, looks at dynamic processes first and foremost, regarding the static “things” upon which most science centers as snapshots of processes which are at best useful for simplified conceptualization—and at worst deceptive and illusory. Complexity shares this attitude with other modern scientific streams, such as relativity and quantum theories, but complexity has the advantage of undisputed applicability within the Newtonian framework, whereas quantum deals with phenomena on the very smallest scales, and relativity on the very largest. Modern disciplines such as ecology and sociology are, in essence, complexity sciences, but complexity extends far beyond such disciplines. It finds complex adaptive systems (CAS’s) within all levels of life and all aspects of human interaction, and it tells us that systems as diverse as the weather, the stock market, ant colonies, and families have much in common, and that much of their behavior can be described by a common set of terms and “rules.” Political systems are also CAS’s, and a systemic analysis can shed much light on their behavior. Even more light can be shed by adding an anthroposophical viewpoint.
Correspondences between the ideas of complexity and those of anthroposophy
In many ways, complexity theory simply states in scientific form what a wide variety of spiritual traditions have been saying for millennia. However, many complexity theorists ignore or even scorn a spiritual interpretation of complexity, just as most scientists who work with quantum theory steer clear of its philosophical implications. With regard to quantum, the math works just fine, and that is all that matters. With regard to complexity, most of its applications involve computer modeling, beyond which one needs not go. Your local weather forecaster, who uses (and may even play with) these models, probably never gives a thought to the spiritual aspects of complexity. Nonetheless, a reputable minority of complexity theorists do explore its metaphysical implications, thereby providing a metaphysics firmly situated within a new scientific framework.
The concept of complexity was, I believe, alluded to by Steiner. Addressing the teachers of the first Waldorf school, he spoke of the need to develop a new type of thinking. He used the analogy of gravity to explain. In the old ways of looking at bodies in space, some sort of center was always envisaged. In early times the earth was the center, later the sun. But now we know that our sun is just one of countless stars, that the universe has no center (or it is everywhere), and that the gravitational effects of many bodies act upon our earth, albeit most ever so slightly. Steiner challenged us to think in a non-linear way. Rather than A causing B, he said (e.g. the earth pulling the moon in its orbit), B is presumably involved in an endless creative dance with C, D, and X, Y, Z as well as A. Learning to think in these terms requires us to become far more fluid in our conceptualizing.
Such ideas were in the air when Steiner spoke. Henri Poincaré, in the late 1800’s, had tried to solve the threebody problem. Astronomers could use Newton’s laws of gravity to closely calculate the earth’s orbit around the sun just by knowing “the position, speed, and mass of the earth and sun” (Peat, 119). But the moon also tugs on the earth a bit, and Newton’s equations apply only to two bodies. Using perturbation theory, astronomers applied small corrections to take the moon’s influence into account. For all practical purposes, this worked extremely well, but the process was mathematically untidy. In attempting to find an elegant solution for three bodies, Poincaré showed that in some cases even tiny perturbations could feed back, “...amplifying until the whole system becomes unstable. In this way, Poincaré pointed out that within one of the most basic of all certainties—that the sun will rise each morning—was hidden the potentiality for instability, surprise, uncertainty, even chaos.” (Peat, 122) The seeds of modern chaos theory were sown, though they would take over half a century to sprout and grow. Even now, chaos/complexity is a very young science. One might say it is a science for the consciousness soul era.
Poincaré and Steiner had another common interest, non-Euclidean geometry. Steiner’s ideas on projective geometry have much to do with the relationship between point and periphery. In Steiner’s time, as now, the idea that far distant constellations could have any appreciable influence on the earth and its inhabitants was considered superstitious. Yet as in biodynamics Steiner’s worldview —like that of Hermes Trismegistus: “As above, so below”—saw the influence of macrocosm upon microcosm as critically important. Might not “perturbations” from the periphery, under certain conditions or alignments, exert influences, even in ways other than gravitational, rife with “the potentiality for instability, surprise, uncertainty, and even chaos”? Poincaré had shown that this was so for gravitational effects. Steiner’s use of a gravitational analogy in his invocation of a new way of thinking may be an acknowledgment of Poincaré’s contribution, which Steiner extended beyond the merely physical.
This is important because the relationship of point and periphery corresponds to that between part and whole. And the relationship of part and whole, as in Waldorf education, is a basic and recurrent theme in Steiner’s thought. In this, Steiner draws upon a wide variety of sources, including Novalis, Goethe, and Nicholas of Cusa. The latter held that God, who as the neo-Platonic “One” and “All” can be considered the ultimate macrocosm, “contains all things ‘enfolded’ (complicatio), and is also their source or ‘unfolding’ (explicatio)” (Combs, 4-5). More recently, physicist David Bohm described an implicate and explicate order in terms reminiscent of Cusa, though he was unaware of Cusa’s thinking when he was developing his own concepts and the physics and mathematics to support them.
Unlike the world of matter and energy, but like “God” or “spirit,” Bohm’s implicate order (“implicate” meaning “enfolded,” and corresponding to Cusa’s complicatio) is metaphysical. As a realm of “active information,” however, it both generates and “contains” everything within the explicate order. (The opposite is not the case, and the implicate order—the physical world—only manifests a fraction of its full potential at any given time within the explicate. One is reminded here of the term pleroma, or “fullness,” by which the gnostics denoted the spiritual realm, as a fitting descriptor of the implicate order.) Still, the two orders, with perhaps endless gradations in between, are not separate and distinct, but merely two inherent sides of the same coin, and the implicate not only informs the explicate but is also constantly influenced by feedback from the explicate.
Bohm was also one of the early influences upon modern chaos and complexity theory:
Compare Bohm’s description of the implicate order to Goethe’s description of the ceaselessly dynamic and endlessly generative realm of the Mothers in Faust:
Mephistopheles.
Descend, then! I might also tell you: Soar!
It’s all the same. Escape from the Existent
To phantoms’ unbound realms far distant!
Delight in what long since exists no more!
Like filmy clouds the phantoms glide along.
Brandish the key, hold off the shadowy throng.
Faust [inspired].
Good! Gripping it, I feel new strength arise,
My breast expands. On, to the great emprise.
Mephistopheles.
When you at last a glowing tripod see,
Then in the deepest of all realms you’ll be.
You’ll see the Mothers in the tripod’s glow,
Some of them sitting, others stand and go,
As it may chance. Formation, transformation,
Eternal Mind’s eternal re-creation.
Images of all creatures hover free,
They will not see you, only wraiths they see.
So, then, take courage, for the danger’s great.
Go to that tripod, do not hesitate,
And touch it with the key!
(Goethe, trans. Priest)
Faust descends to the realm of the Mothers and encounters Helen of Troy, in a manner reminiscent of Jaworsky’s paraphrase of Bohm: “Yourself is actually the whole of mankind . . . The entire past is enfolded within each one of us in a very subtle way. If you reach deeply into yourself, you are reaching into the very essence of mankind. When you do this, you will be led into the generating depth of consciousness that has the whole of mankind enfolded in it.”
Here is the mystery of point and periphery, of part and whole. We are reminded both of William Blake’s “To see a World in a Grain of Sand” and the alchemical maxim, “As above, so below,” when we read:
The work of Bortoft to which Senge refers is The Wholeness of Nature; Goethe’s Way toward a Science of Conscious Participation in Nature (Lindisfarne Books, 1996). Bortoft is both an anthroposophist and a physicist. He was a student of Bohm’s, to whose memory he dedicates this book (which I most highly recommend). Bortoft speaks of an intuitive, holistic consciousness, different in quality from the intellectual, analytic consciousness which is the normal mode of our waking mind. Is not this consciousness the key which allows Faust to descend to the realm of the Mothers—and the imaginative thinking which is cultivated through Goethean observation?
And is not the realm of the Mothers also described by Peat’s characterization of Poincaré’s discovery of the “hidden...potentiality for instability, surprise, uncertainty, and even chaos” amidst the seemingly concrete and linear”? Note also that Mephistopheles says, “Descend, then! I might also tell you: Soar! / It’s all the same. Escape from the Existent / To phantoms’ unbound realms far distant!” At the end of Faust, when Faust ascends to spirit worlds, Goethe makes it clear that “the eternal Feminine leads us upward.” All of this points to the metaphysical/spiritual/implicate as the creative and dynamic ground of physical manifestation.
But, though the source of creation can be seen through a neo-Platonic lens (as with Plotinus and Cusa), I believe that Goethe, Steiner, and Bohm all share a more Aristotelian slant. The training which Goethe prescribes for changing one’s consciousness is through immersion in sense phenomena. A verse from Steiner (which we said daily in Dr. Herbert Koepf’s biodynamic training at Emerson College) contains the words, “Hold to the ancient maxim: No spirit without matter, no matter without spirit.” And recall that Bohm’s explicate order feeds back upon the implicate, informing its eternal dance of creation. This is the ancient wisdom—and the new science—of point and periphery, of part and whole.
I believe that the insights of the world’s great spiritual streams, including anthroposophy, and those of complexity theory are intrinsically overlapping and interwoven. I believe that both paths lead to the new way of thinking which Steiner described. Though complexity theory may seem pale and dry in comparison to Steiner’s evocative and far flung anthroposophical teachings, it provides us with a framework and language which is modern, scientific, and universal. In referring to anthroposophy as “spiritual science,” I believe that Steiner was advocating just such a framework. By learning to couch our ideas— whether inspired by anthroposophy or some other spiritual tradition—in the concepts and language of complexity, we can build significantly upon the foundation which Goethe, Steiner, and others have laid.
Some basic understandings of complexity theory
Steiner speaks of the process of infolding or involution, whereby what is outer becomes inner. This is known as gastrulation, and is part of the process of embryonic development.(1)
When we develop as selves or egos—when we separate from the All and become an “I”—we are undergoing this process. Involution is an archetypal process, requisite to the separation of self from other. Only when the self is created can there even be an other. Yet, when we focus too exclusively on the self, we forget that no self can arise without a surrounding context to give it birth. Look at the illustration above and note how what was once outer and peripheral is becoming inner. It is also worth remembering that no self, at least no living self or complex adaptive system (CAS), can exist without continual inflows and corresponding outflows of matter, energy, and information from and to the outer environment. A point needs a periphery. A self needs an All.
So just what is a CAS? First of all, it is complex rather than merely complicated. A machine may be complicated. But a car can’t heal itself after a wreck, nor can a Volkswagen evolve into a Porsche. Of course, there is currently much debate as to whether computers can truly learn. Certainly they can be programmed to reprogram themselves, in response to inputs or experience. This certainly mimics learning as we know it extraordinarily well, but even such highly sophisticated computers must be built and programmed—they don’t just grow. CAS’s, by contrast, arise, adapt, evolve, and learn.
So complexity, as opposed to mere complication, allows for something entirely new to emerge. It is the precondition, one might say, to true creativity. A hammerhead shark is still a shark, but it is a distinctly different kind of one. The key to complexity (as Steiner foresaw) is in the quality of relationship. In a clock (a mechanical system) the components relate to one another in a certain, purposeful way (not the clock’s purpose, but that of the clock’s designer). If those relationships change (perhaps because a part breaks or wears out), the whole system may suffer or even cease functioning. A prokaryotic or eucaryotic cell certainly has a lot of parts, and these parts also have (sometimes many different) specific functions, but the cell’s operation is more of a dance than a predetermined, linear progression. One of the great mysteries (as Dr. Koepf used to stress, and it is still true today) of cellular activity is its exquisite timing. How do the parts know how to do this now and that then, and how much, and in what manner? A machine is like a repeating decimal—it does the same thing over and over. A CAS is like the number pi—it goes on and on, but it will never exactly repeat itself. Moreover, though a machine will react to changes in the environment (your car is harder to start in the cold), a CAS will respond to it (your body will shiver to make you warmer). Of course, the use of feedback loops, as in a furnace connected to a thermostat, can make a machine responsive, which is why our cars are “smarter” than they once were. But feedback loops are the stuff of complexity theory, and understanding complexity allows us to build mechanical systems that mimic self-organizing CAS’s.(2)
John Miller speaks at the conference “Redeeming the Realm of Rights” sponsored by the Section for the Social Sciences in July 2011, in Harlemville, NY.
The parts of a cell (a self-organizing CAS) relate to one another, and the cell’s processes self-regulate for the optimal wellbeing of the cell as a whole. A cell’s parts relate to one another through John Miller speaks at the conference “Redeeming the Realm of Rights” interactions and various means sponsored by the Section for the Social Sciences in July 2011, in Harlemville, NY. (structural, chemical, electrical, etc.) of communication. These signals contribute to the “intelligence” of the whole, and the whole in turn influences the functioning of the various parts. It may do so by means of what in complexity jargon is called an emergent property. For example, “mind” may be said to be an emergent property shared by numerous species, while self aware, rational mind may be an emergent property peculiar to our species. But even bacteria exhibit intelligence. They can “learn” to avoid toxic chemicals which they at first took for food, and they can evolve very quickly, as many have done in becoming immune to the antibiotics we’ve used so freely for the past half century.
Not only does a cell exhibit relationship within its boundaries, it also relates without, to the surrounding environment. One can see this clearly in the process of evolution. Environmental changes require small and large adjustments by individual species. But, as species change and either flourish or decline, the character of the whole ecosystem changes too. So there is a continual dialogue from whole to part and from part to whole.
This dialogue is carried out by means of a membrane, such as that which surrounds a cell, or your skin, or an ethnic, religious, or other social group. Membranes regulate inflows and outflows. Ideally, they let in (the right amounts of) nutrients and keep out toxins. They keep in what the cell needs and excrete its wastes. When we feel that someone is in “our space,” we are experiencing our psychic membranes. The proper functioning of membranes is incredibly important to the wellbeing of CAS’s.
So far we have dwelt on biological examples of CAS’s, but human social systems are CAS’s too. In studying these, we become aware of another quality inherent to CAS’s. If you think of your family, you may think first of the various individuals. But then you will pass on to the qualities of these individuals (which change over time through age and experience) and the qualities of relationships between and amongst individuals (which also change, as relationships form and deepen, grow closer or farther apart). The full complexity of these relationship is impossible to fully fathom.
Contrast this with a group that forms at a concert or in a park on a nice, sunny day. Chances are, most of the people you encounter will be strangers. The relationships amongst them are mostly very weak. This is not a true CAS, though, as in the show Survivor, it will become so if this group of people remains together over time. So a CAS is qualitatively different from a chance collection of fragments—though CAS’s may also devolve into their component parts, as can happen in divorce, or when a friendship fades or breaks off.
The quality of relationship within a CAS influences its wellbeing. Optimal wellbeing is usually characterized by a high degree of diversity and by healthy relationships amongst parts or members. In a healthy CAS, parts never act egotistically. Cancer may be seen as an example of a part acting egotistically, by replicating at the expense of the health of the whole. However, parts do act to maintain their own individual health. It is in your best interests to have all your organs functioning well.
Healthy relationships also require good avenues of communication, amongst parts and between parts and the whole. Healthy relationships and good communication enable systemic intelligence. All CAS’s have come to be because they have managed to adapt and persist over time. Though they may not be in optimal health at present, they still must have an inherent wisdom or archetypal structure, which can be called upon to bring them back to a state of optimal wellbeing.
Yet we must never make the mistake of thinking a system can stay in one ideal and healthy state forever. CAS’s are dynamic. If their processes come to a halt, they die. And if they cease to be responsive—to either internal or external factors—they risk damage and death. Optimal health for a CAS may be described as a state of dynamic equilibrium. A healthy heart speeds up when you exert yourself and slows down when you relax. Its beat is dependable, but never exactly the same. Lack of health in a system takes two basic forms. The first is sluggishness (in the heart, bradycardia), which may ultimately result in stasis. The second is over-activity (in the heart, tachycardia), leading to turbulence or chaos (in the heart, fibrillation). An EKG offers a picture of heart health. A healthy heartbeat has peaks and valleys, alternating in a lively and balanced rhythm. An EKG of ventricular fibrillation (heart attack) shows utter chaos and lack of rhythm. The flat line of death is utter stasis.
Yet, as we seek to keep CAS’s healthy and balanced, it’s important to note that the tendencies to stasis and chaos each have their roles. Keeping things stable is, in systems terminology, the role of negative feedback. Negative feedback curbs extremes, keeping things in a zone of optimal wellbeing. So, as noted, you shiver when you’re cold. You also sweat when you’re hot. You have your own personal climate control system. Keeping within an optimal zone (not too cold, not too hot) is a regulatory function that tend towards stasis (just right), but it is a necessary function.
Positive feedback is commonly known as the snowball effect or a vicious cycle. Things spiral out of control and dissolve into chaos. That’s what happened (and is still happening) with the recent financial meltdown. But positive feedback can also be good. Say you work hard and do something well. Then you get some encouragement. This leads you to work even harder and do even better, etc. In fact, positive feedback is what creates change in a system, allowing for adaptation and creativity. Without it, systems wouldn’t be able to respond to changing environments, leading to death or extinction.
The ancient Indians recognized these three systemic states, associating their qualities or gunas with the Trimurti of Brahma (rajas) Vishnu (sattva), and Shiva (tamas). Without Brahma there would be no creation. Anything new requires rajas. New beings (the young) are full of rajas. But the bringer of life must be balanced by that of death and destruction, the tendency towards tamas. In order for a new phoenix to arise, the old one must first be consumed. In fact, in Parzival Wolfram states,
Thus the Grail, which as a sort of cornucopia has a Brahma aspect, also has a Shiva nature, which is what predominates in the elderly as their forces grow sluggish and diminish. Finally, by its ability to preserve its guardians, staying the aging process, the Grail displays a Vishnu character. For it is by means of the sattva of Vishnu that the forces of rajas and tamas are able to harmoniously intermingle, so that beings and entities can coalesce and hang together while still staying flexible and avoiding sclerosis. Just so, in complexity theory, positive and negative feedback are seen as complementary and essential, the counterbalance between the two leading to the healthy balance of dynamic equilibrium.
One final essential complexity term is holon. Holons are complex systems in their own right, as well as being members of more encompassing systems. Thus, our body’s cells, tissues, organelles, organs, organ systems, and the body as a whole are all holons. As individuals, we are holons who belong to families and a variety of other social communities, as well as ecosystemic holons within our various local biomes—and ultimately within Gaia herself.
The word holon also suggests a particular relation between part and whole. A holograph differs from a common photograph with regard to what is contained in one part of the image. If you clip off a piece of a photograph—say one depicting a view of a mountain lake, with peaks and sky above—you’ll get only part of the picture (a patch of water or snow, a bit of cloud or sky). If you take a piece of a holograph—say one showing the same scene—you’ll see the entire scene, albeit smaller and fuzzier. This is to say, the whole is contained in each of the parts.
This is very much in line with Goethe’s characterization of the realm of the Mothers and with Bohm’s concept of the implicate order. Bohm, in fact, suggested the word holomovement to describe the implicate order, to denote a continually dynamic and creative state. The holon is also implied in Steiner’s social ethic: “The healing social life is found, when, in the mirror of each human soul, the whole community finds its reflection, and when, in the community, the strength of each one is living” (though I believe “impulse” may be a better translational fit than “strength” in conveying the meaning of this verse).
Holons also tend to be hierarchical. Hierarchy seems to be a recurrent strategy in the way nature self-organizes. One can also find “flat” organizational structures in nature, as with the neural nets of simple animals such as sponges. In a sponge, all cells are pretty much the same and no cell or group of cells exerts leadership over the whole organism. In our human social organizations, flat leadership structures are often seen as better, as more fair, in that everyone is equal. And they can indeed work well, as happens among a small group of friends. However, once a social system becomes fairly complex, with numerous members and significant differentiation of roles, flat structures can become extremely cumbersome. If everyone needs to be involved in every decision, and there is only one decision-making body comprised of the whole community, things tend to become difficult. This is why Steiner advocated a “republican, not democratic” governance structure for Waldorf schools.
In complex organisms and organizations, hierarchy can be highly efficient. Higher animals have central nervous systems rather than neural nets. In these, some type of brain serves to collect information from all bodily sub-systems and to coordinate their activities for optimal wellbeing. If only things were so simple in human social systems! Here hierarchy does indeed have a tendency to be abused, as the forces of egotism inherent in human beings (as opposed to nature generally) can lead to those “in charge” making self serving decisions which actually hurt the common good. Ideally, we would strive for nonegotistical hierarchy in our social systems. However, high ideals are no guarantee of success.
Occupy Wall Street as a phenomenal holon within American (and global) society
Let us begin with Steiner’s idea of the threefold social order, with an economic, a cultural, and a rights sphere, each properly exemplifying—respectively—brotherhood, freedom, and equality. It would take a great deal of time to describe each of those realms in contemporary American society and to compare them with Steiner’s ideals. A moment’s reflection, however, will I believe lead most of us to the conclusion that, of the three, our economic system is the most dysfunctional. Occupy Wall Street seems to be a reaction to our current economic paradigm, and a recognition that there lies our primary illness.
Steiner says that we should produce for the good of others and rely upon others for our own sustenance. This seems to be a call for utter (and utterly unrealistic) altruism. I will argue that, from a complex systems perspective, this is not the case. Think of yourself as producer and consumer. In each role you are part of a greater whole (in fact of many interwoven wholes). And, as is glaringly obvious by now (and as Steiner argued eighty-nine years ago), our economic whole is a global one.
Steiner called on us to become conscious of the creativity, effort, and resources that go into making each small thing upon which we rely. Movements such as Fair Trade try to help us do that. In this way, we are asked to be non-egotistically aware in the realm that is perhaps most prone to egotism—the satisfaction of our earthly needs and desires. How can we do this?
Recall that, at each new holonic level, emergent properties unfold. Steiner recognizes this in the imagination given to the College of Teachers at the first Waldorf School. College members strive to be present, not just as “I’s” or egos, but imaginatively (with angels at their backs), inspirationally (linked by the interweaving of the archangels), and intuitively (together receiving a drop of wisdom from the archai). We can also think, with Bohm, of progressively higher levels of implication or enfolding. In any case, we are called to awaken our latent capacities of consciousness on more encompassing levels of wholeness. In so doing, we also become aware that our separation from the “other”—who produces what we use or consumes what we make—is illusory. “We are,” as Martin Luther King Jr. said, “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” (“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”).
Yet this recognition, though non-egoic, is not anti-egoic. It is true that Occupy Wall Street is saying no to an economic order based upon unrestrained egotism of the highest (or lowest) order. But it is also demanding that everyone be given a fair shake and the chance to earn a decent livelihood. In this call, with which we can all resonate, is the inherent recognition (as Steiner also inherently recognized) that the satisfaction of our bodily needs is just and good. Therefore our desires to satisfy those needs must also be just and good. This is not unrealistic altruism. We are not negating our own material needs by striving to fulfill those of others. Rather, we are simply realizing, “No spirit without matter, no matter without spirit.” This is akin to the common-sense understanding alluded to earlier that, in order for us to be healthy, each of our organs also has to be healthy. On the other hand, none of our organs should be trying to “get rich” by making the rest of our organs poorer! In American (and global) society today, we see precisely this happening, and at an ever accelerating rate. Occupy Wall Street is trying to call a nation (and a world) back to sanity. Occupy Wall Street seems to also make the systemic connection that unfettered egoism in the economic sphere has consequences in the other two spheres. In the rights sphere, we are meant to be equal, yet our collective voice has been politically manipulated as the interests of big money have stage managed the political process, even to the point of allocating to themselves the right to spend any amount of money (so-called corporate free speech, affirmed by the Supreme Court in “Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission”) to brainwash us into voting for more of the status quo (or becoming so cynical and apathetic that we cease to vote at all, making it easier for the most hyper-partisan among us to run the show). In such a system, true communication (a necessity for systemic wellbeing) has been replaced by campaign vitriol and political litmus tests. As we root on the activists of the Arab Spring, we should refrain from being smug about the “democracy” of which we are a part. This same vitriol has (not coincidentally) been spread into the cultural sphere, in which we are free to hold various values and opinions.
Activists connected with the North American Youth Section and Think OutWord are engaging the Occupy Wall Street movement with OccupyTheFuture.org
Divisive issues such as abortion and gay marriage are designed to split us into a nation of contesting fragments, rather than a whole composed of neighbors, regardless of our particular beliefs. This cynical ploy belies the words of Lincoln (and the Bible) that, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Certainly such a house can stand in the short term, as did South Africa under apartheid and [fill in any autocratic regime here]. The forces of egotism are content to let a succession of such houses stand for as long as they can, knowing that without radical change they will just replaced by another wolf in sheep’s clothing. The Civil War was followed by Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement “succeeded”—only to produce an America in which African Americans are still vastly poorer, less likely to receive a good education or proper health care, and far more likely to be imprisoned and politically disenfranchised than the population as a whole.
King also realized, towards the end of his life that the struggle for racial equality was inextricably bound up with the struggle for economic justice. (Bobby Kennedy came to a similar realization, towards the end of his own life, later in that same fateful year of 1968.) Ultimately, the forces of division, oppression, and dehumanization work most strongly in the most materialistic social sphere, where egotism is most raw and primordial. Fear and anger are their most powerful tools.
Thus, in a struggle to make our country (and world) whole again, we cannot afford to have enemies, nor can we demonize any “others.” We—and only we—make up the system. We are the cogs in its wheels, and our collective choices, actions, and inactions urge it towards greater or lesser wellbeing. Nor will our choices significantly change without a change in our awareness of self, system, and other.
Occupy Wall Street yearns vaguely for such a change. But, for it to really happen (though Occupy Wall Street is a crucial first step in this process of awakening), we will need to practice “holonic breathing.” This is similar to the process Otto Scharmer describes as “presencing” in Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges (though perhaps it can be described with fewer words and diagrams!). Simply put, we breathe in, to the level of Self or I, and we breathe out, through progressively more encompassing holons of social (and environmental) connectedness. We do this over and over, in all kinds of situations. We make it a habit. At each step we weigh the consequences of our possible actions, and assess the good from a somewhat different perspective. Our ultimate decisions depend on the “center of gravity” which is most applicable to a given case.
For example, to buy a pair of tennis shoes so I can go running and be more healthy is good for my body and my ability to alleviate stress. But, if my high end tennies break the bank, so my children are eating beans and rice for a week, that fails the test at a higher holonic level. And, if I support an exploitative sweatshop, I fail at another holonic level. At each stage, I must weigh my level of influence on events (and the degree of my culpability in injuring others), but I cannot close my eyes to the “inescapable network of mutuality” that is a systemic reality of our complex interconnectedness.
Occupy Wall Street is but one phenomenon, jogging us to look deeper and wider, and to become aware upon higher holonic levels. Yet it is a significant one. I believe it is a symptom—and a harbinger—of the maturation of the Consciousness Soul Age. And I believe that complexity theory offers us the most useful perspective from which to understand, as well as the most universal language with which to spread, this unfolding awareness—an awareness which must underly any real systemic change in the systems we all participate in (and thereby help create) daily.
John Miller is a former Camphill coworker, Emerson College student, and longtime Waldorf teacher, who now works on Whole Systems Healing with the University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality and Healing. He is also involved with the transpartisan movement, seeking ways to bridge social and political divides and create cohesive community.
References
Combs, Allan. “Inner and Outer Realities: Jean Gebser in a Cultural/Historical Perspective.” Journal of Conscious Evolution, vol. 1, 2005.
von Eschenbach, Wolfram. Parzival (translated by Helen M. Mustard and Charles E. Passage). New York: Vintage Books, 1961.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. Faust (translated by George Madison Priest). The Alchemy Web Site ( http://www.levity.com/alchemy/faust25.html ).
Jaworski, Joseph. Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2011.
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