The feasibility of a biosensitive society

roba — Thu, 24 May 2012 17:20:00 +1000

Doug Cocks

Ideas in good currency - Donald Schon
The vision splendid
Keeping Biosensitive Futures current
Anticipating disruptive events
Enlisting challenging dissenters and powerful champions
Building alliances
Enhancing the appeal of Biosensitive Futures
Understanding paradigm shifts and complexity

The Biosensitive Futures project is building up a vision of the sort of society - a ‘biosensitive’ society - which, if it eventuated, might be expected to be able to offer its members ‘quality survival,’ meaning high quality of life into the indefinite future. At the heart of the project lies a set of largely biophysical principles which would guide decision-making in a biosensitive society, eg maintain the stratospheric ozone layer.

On the question of the feasibility of a biosensitive society, ie could the suite of identified guiding principles actually be implemented, the project documentation has this to say:

We contend that all these human and ecological requirements for a biosensitive society can theoretically be met, but not without profound changes in the economic and institutional arrangements of our society. Nor can they be met without strong action on the part of government.

However, appropriate governmental intervention will not come about unless there is support for such action from an informed and concerned electorate that understands the absolute necessity for, and the desirability of, this radical societal transformation.

The transition will also demand enlightened action on the part of businesses, NGOs, educational authorities and local communities.

To make this a manageable discussion, let us agree that the Biosesitive Futures project has done a good job in identifying the main issues affecting quality survival and how they should be dealt with. Call this the Biosensitive Futures program. That said, my question here is, Could it all happen or is the Biosensitive Futures project the dreaming of utopian idealists, advocating impractically ideal social and political schemes? The quote from the project documentation suggests that implementation of the Biosensitive Futures program, while demanding profound social changes, would nevertheless come about if the program were an ‘idea in good currency,’ meaning actively approved by the bulk of an informed and concerned electorate. In that situation, government and others would respond strongly and the Biosensitive Futures program would get implemented. Let us tease this out.

Top

Ideas in good currency

The concept of a culture being a set of shared ideas is one I find illuminating. Shared ideas are not the same thing as agreed ideas of course. For example, I am aware of the idea that Australia needs more people even though I think it foolish. Social analyst Donald Schon has built up his thinking around the implications of the perception that such shared ideas experience rising and falling levels of public support (shared agreement). He sees well-supported ideas, what he calls ideas in good currency, as being primary determinants of public policy, ie of what governments do. Ideas in good currency change over time, are relatively few in number and frequently lag well behind changing events.

The essence of Schon's thinking is succinctly caught in the following quotation from Beyond the Stable State (1971).

Taken at any time, a social system is dynamically conservative in its structural, technological and conceptual dimensions. his last represents the 'system' of ideas in good currency (IIGC). Characteristically, what precipitates a change in that system of powerful ideas is a disruptive event or sequence of events, which set up a demand for new ideas in good currency. At that point, ideas already present in free or marginal areas of the society begin to surface in the mainstream ... The broad diffusion of these ideas depends upon interpersonal networks and upon media of communication, all of which exert their influence on the ideas themselves. The ideas become powerful as centres of policy debate and political conflict. They gain widespread acceptance through the efforts of those who push or ride them through the fields of force created by the interplay of interests and commitments ... When the ideas are taken up by people already powerful in society this gives them a kind of legitimacy and completes their power to change public policy. After this, the ideas become an integral part of the conceptual dimension of the social system and appear, in retrospect, obvious.

Note the point that, at any time, society has room for only a limited number of ideas 'whose time has come'. It is as though society has limited attention capacity and when new disruptions appear, ideas for addressing some existing problem are displaced, especially if their prospects of success are limited. The most striking display of Schon's process at work in Australia is the annual budget allocations of the Federal Government, e.g. the changing funding for scientific research, the environment, defence etc.

I was much taken with Schon’s model when I first encountered it but he was writing 35 years ago and I am not sure if it is as relevant in today’s less-open societies. Still, let us press ahead and see what we can conclude by thinking about biosensitivity as a potential idea in good currency.

Top

The vision splendid

Most importantly, I think that the basic Biosenstivie Futures vision is likely to be appealing, at least momentarily, to most people exposed to it, although it may suit some to deny this because of vested short-term interests. At a series of CSIRO workshops in 1995 on the topic of environmental futures, a wide range of participants from many professions and backgrounds were asked to say something about their greatest hopes and fears for the state of Australian society in 2050. Much of what was said had a strong common thread. Thus, many participants' hopes centred on the achievement of a future where liberal humanist values would hold sway in a sustainable, prosperous, cohesive, culturally and environmentally rich society; that societal and individual options would be conserved and that the value shifts seen as necessary to achieving such a future would occur.

Strategic advice

Staying with Donald Schon’s model, what strategic advice can be extracted from it for biosensitivity supporters who want to see their vision being implemented sooner rather than later?

It is probably not always true that institutions persist unless they become problematic. With an effort, one can imagine a reformist proactive government willing and able to renew or replace institutions before they have become severely degraded. Nevertheless, Biosensitive Futures supporters should probably take it as their central working assumption that their vision is an ‘idea in waiting’ and that their strategic challenge is to maximize the likelihood that, as soon as possible, it will become an idea in good currency. Or, second best, that parts of it will become small ideas in good currency.

This means being willing to work, and keep working, on many fronts.

1. Work on keeping the Biosensitive Futures program current

The Biosensitive Futures program is, at heart, science-based and needs to remain scientifically respectable. In line with the continuous upgrading of scientific knowledge, the program team has to find the resources to ensure their program is based on contemporary scientific perspectives.

Another way in which the Biosensitive Futures program needs to be kept up to date is to keep rewriting it to bring out its relevance to the issues of the moment. This may not be as onerous as it sounds. I liken the program to a diamond and we are talking about which facet to turn towards the light.

2. Work on anticipating disruptive events

Specifically, what sort of disruptive events might open the door to wide acceptance of the Biosensitive Futures program? Conversely, given that windows of opportunity are likely to be brief, can the program be rebundled in advance so that, depending on the particular disruption, an appropriate version of the program can be quickly retrieved from the bottom drawer. Once again, lots of work is required, particularly to build informed prescient scenarios of lurking disruptions.

3. Work on enlisting challenging dissenters and powerful champions

Perhaps the world should not be so, but having high profile supporters in government and public life will, as Schon says, smooth the acceptance and implementation of the program. In a world characterised by information overload, most people (including scientists) rely on authority figures to simplify the task of choosing their working assumptions.

Vested interests are particularly difficult to combat because such interests are usually also narrow and can therefore be served by large resources. Think of the Gunns campaigns. Without resorting to ad hominem arguments, every expression of vested interests needs to be challenged, firstly on its arguments (usually substantively weak) and secondly by highlighting the self-interest involved. At an even higher level, the Biosensitive Futures program should not be frightened to play its part in bringing about a fundamental redistribution of power in Australian society.

4. Work on building alliances

While it is true that political movements need to present diverse faces to appeal to diverse constituencies, the movement which, most broadly, can be thought of as ‘post-materialism’ does seem unduly fragmented. Working with those pursuing related initiatives is never easy but can spread the work load and multiply the impact of one’s message. The public is easily confused by what appears to be a cacophony of messages and grouping those messages under broader banners makes them more digestible. Help from allies in reworking the PAN Program should be encouraged.

5. Work on making the Biosensitive Futures vision even more appealing

Widespread re-prioritising of values will have to occur if the Biosensitive Futures program is to succeed. While disruptive events might be particularly important for triggering such changes, so, over the longer term, is education. If you are not knowledgeable about a subject you tend not to care about it. Biosensitive Futures must seek ways of bringing its perspectives into both formal and informal education systems. Yes, there is a place for the Reader’s Digest version of the program.

Can biosensitivity be woven into a mythic narrative? A story to live by? Our need for meaning (how things really are) matches our needs for bonding and autonomy and when we find a story that explains who we are and how we should live and where we are going, we will cling to it. Such shared stories, protected by strong emotions, are basic to group coherence and collective action.

6. Work on understanding paradigm shifts and complexity

It has suited me to use Donald Schon’s insightful ideas to give structure to this short contribution. But a richer and deeper perspective on the nature of social change and paradigm shifts lies in understanding societies like ours to be complex dissipative (energy-processing) systems. That is the hope anyway. In diverse fields of study, the realisation is growing that ‘one way’ cause-effect models are inadequate for understanding and managing systems which are replete with extended feedback loops, ie which are complex. But progress in this difficult area is, so far, slow. Nevertheless, Biosensitive Futures has a responsibility to keep abreast of developments in the science of complex systems, to contribute to that development if it can and to incorporate its incremental advances as they occur.

So much to do. I am reminded of the octogenarian complaining that he would not be able to complete his twenty year prison sentence. ‘Don’t worry' said the judge, ‘Just do as much of it as you can.’

Top

Biosensitivity

The feasibility of a biosensitive society

Ideas in good currency

The vision splendid

Strategic advice