Future Sense

Malcolm Parlett

Description

Future Sense offers an interweaving of global and personal themes, which are often kept apart: a far-reaching synthesis of ideas in tune with emerging global developments. It points to how greater whole intelligence can strengthen us in transforming the world and our lives at the same time.Faced with today's enormous global challenges, humanity often seems ineffective, distracted, or powerless. Many are pessimistic about their descendants' future chances. In Future Sense however, Malcolm Parlett shows us that tackling global problems can begin in the microcosm of our own lives. Our interconnectedness means that changes in the small worlds we inhabit have ripple effects in the big world. Each of us can help create humanity's future. Based on the author's experience as a psychological practitioner, the book is structured around five explorations. Each describes a key dimension of whole intelligence, revealed through observations, stories and insights related to individual lives, applications in human systems and to world issues.Future Sense is a highly original book, written in an approachable and easy to read style that provides the reader with a positive outlook on the future world. Future Sense explores whole intelligence - as demonstrated when an individual, community, or organisation functions in ways that are instantly recognisable as creative, and that reflect the best human values. This is a book of big ideas, psychological insights, and a different form of grassroots activism.

Sujets

• Droit et juridique

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 11 décembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785894596
• Langue: English

Extrait

Copyright © 2015 Malcolm Parlett
The moral right of the author has been asserted.


Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.


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ISBN 978 1785894 596

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

This book is dedicated to the memory of Bjørg Tofte (1943–2011), whose spirit, style, love, and courage have inspired me throughout its journey to completion.

I offer the book in fulfilment of my promise, shortly before she died, that I would write what was inside me to write.


Table of Contents
Context

Chapter 1 Points Of Departure
Chapter 2 The Five Explorations Map
Chapter 3 Responding To The Situation
Chapter 4 Interrelating
Chapter 5 Embodying
Chapter 6 Self-Recognising
Chapter 7 Experimenting
Chapter 8 Returning To Base

Postscript and Appreciations

‘… the idea of the future being different from the present is so repugnant to our conventional modes of thought and behavior that we, most of us, offer a great resistance to acting on it in practice.’

John Maynard Keynes, 1937


Context
Being alive today , we realise that revolutions are underway – if not everywhere on the streets , at least across the field of human thought . In this book , we shall recognise what we deeply know already – as we say , ‘ in our bones ’ or ‘ through our own experience ’ or ‘ from time immemorial ’. We shall also throw light on what passes as ‘ normal ’ – the usual thinking of society and the assumptions people live by , often unaware that they are doing so . These matters are also subject to change , in a revolutionary direction .
In Britain , as in a number of other countries , with economic advantages and no war on our actual doorstep , a settled narrative for decades was one of material development , economic growth , and expansion of possibilities . But this narrative has faltered – some will say shattered . A sustainable but expanding economy while meeting carbon-reduction targets is unlikely . We know that climate change is serious , is already happening , and is set to worsen . Prospects of violent conflict re-stimulate past collective traumas in ways too horrific to contemplate . Political upheavals add to a sense of confusion and uncertainty . Not surprisingly , statistics show increases in depression , suicide , and severe mental illness . And the question for many becomes ‘ Will the centre hold? ’.
Staying sane , holding our own centre , and expanding the possibilities of our own lives become high priorities . They are central themes for the book: our own ‘ future sense ’, woven into the fabric of a bigger tapestry .
We need to remember that , despite the gloom , upward and hopeful trends also multiply: public campaigns are forcing change and greater transparency , extreme poverty has declined globally , and climate imperatives are finally becoming urgent . Huge , once-unaccountable companies and institutions are under pressure . Corruption is identified more assiduously . Multiple issues of social and international injustice are receiving more attention . Social enterprises are expanding . There is also creative energy right across the arts . Most hopeful of all , perhaps , is the ever-growing understanding of the intimate connections between things , a grand joining of the dots – between agriculture and food , food and health , physical health and emotional well-being , adult emotions and child development , childcare and the social pressures on young parents , work stress and the dominant economic model , economics and politics … the list could go on indefinitely .
So while the unsettlement is deep , there are also indications of a growing , highly creative , expanding global consciousness – a collective reaching for deeper understanding . The world is waking up .
Future Sense starts from an awareness of these new currents in human thought , and seeks to contribute to them , indeed to move them in a particular direction . Human beings live in the middle of what is happening around them . We always have , of course , but now the village is global; being neighbours can mean living in the same continent; ‘ neighbours on line ’ are scattered worldwide . Inescapably , the distances between global issues , local events , and personal lives are shrinking . Moreover , it is dawning on nearly all of us that the most central and relevant factor in determining the future is the human dimension . In every global problem , every policy dilemma , every disputed boundary , or every climate conference the capacity of human beings to act tellingly and cooperatively is acutely relevant .
Thus , rather than spotlighting the world ’ s issues as if they stand apart from people ’ s lives , Future Sense focuses on human beings themselves – or our selves (I shall use both forms) . As members of Homo sapiens alive today , we – along with our predecessors – have created and perpetuated our various global problems . Now , with our predecessors gone , it is left to the generations of us alive today to find solutions . It is an awesome realisation – and some would-be readers will put the book down at the thought of it .
In Future Sense, however , the emphasis is not on what we cannot do , but on what we can – beginning not from a desperate or panicked state , but from a place of clarity and self-confidence . We explore in this book five directions we can take – not just for the future of our species , or the state of the planet , though these are important enough – but also for our own benefit and development . Maintaining our sanity in a crazy-seeming world is often a challenge; living a ‘ good life ’ is a difficult balancing act; and the complexity of the world reflects the complexities of our own lives – on- and off-line . Our own state of existence is the necessary starting point: if we are to be a resource for humanity , we need to discover our own resources , many of which may be hidden away in cupboards long unopened .
The argument here is that the greater fulfilment of our talents , potentialities , and unique gifts is a direct way of changing the world at the ultimate grassroots . The quality of our own being-in-the-world is relevant as never before in human history .

*

Like any book , Future Sense has roots in its author ’ s own history – and in this case , these are entangled with its contents .
I began post-graduate life as an experimental psychologist in the Psychological Laboratory at Cambridge . I was studying hearing and short-term memory , devising experiments , and conducting them with student volunteers in a soundproof room . I gave it my all , but I was increasingly unhappy – at odds with the whole model of working , and also encountering my own insecurities . Focusing on specific hypotheses , working in isolated conditions , and wearing the symbolic attire of a white lab coat , I had to exclude from view a whole range of ‘ outside ’ influences on people ’ s behaviour , despite my conviction that these were significant . Straying off-piste was impossible: research occurred on the ski run of experimental orthodoxy . I knew I had to change the direction of my life .
At this point , I was lucky in my choice of colleagues and in the way doors opened for me . I realised that human development and learning lay at the heart of my interests , and over an eight-year period , alternating between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Edinburgh University , I was able to pursue studies along ‘ natural history ’ lines , following inquiries wherever they needed to go , and building connections between research in applied social psychology and policy-making . I taught myself a form of mainly qualitative research , wrestling with the complexities of human systems . The focus of my attention was the ‘ teaching and learning milieu ’ in higher education – the point at which the academic system meets the lives of students , transmits knowledge , develops intellectual skills , and immerses bright young people in departmental and college life . The rigour of the work was different from research life in the laboratory , but no less demanding . Like an anthropologist or historian , I needed to make sense of a mass of information , extract meaning , harness evidence , and present what I discovered to those most critically involved – including university teachers , senior administrators , and students themselves .
My second career move – sideways but still within the broad field of psychology – began nearly a decade later . I encountered , by chance more than choice , the ‘ gestalt ’ discipline , 1 and , participating with curiosity and having discovered its thoroughbred nature , I realised it was what I had long been seeking . I saw the way it revealed human experience and went to the deep centre of things , sometimes in a matter of minutes . It opened me to an entirely new way of thinking and of relating to other people .
The German word Gestalt doesn ’ t translate