The Systems Thinker V16N2M

THE SYSTEMS ® VIEWPOINT THINKER BUILDING SHARED UNDERSTANDING

VOL. 16 NO. 4 MAY/JUNE 2005 SYSTEMS THINKERS MUST GO DOWN THE “RABBIT’S HOLE”

BY JON KOHL

ou take the blue pill, the story Others call it “worldview.”Although “Y deeper into the hole, we reach other, ends, you wake up in your bed harder-to-see but more powerful we popularly equate the word “world- and believe whatever you want to leverage points, such as managing view” with “mindset,” scholars define believe.You take the red pill and stay feedback processes, information flows, it as a story that answers the big ques- in Wonderland and I show you how rules, and goals.At the bottom of the tions of existence:Who are we? What deep the rabbit hole goes.” In the hole, in the darkness, lurks the ulti- is our significance? What are the laws Hollywood blockbuster The Matrix, mate payoff—a system’s paradigms. of the universe? How was the universe computers imprison humans in a fic- Meadows wrote,“People who man- created? tional virtual reality designed to keep age to intervene in systems at the At the root of every system, every them placated while energy is sucked level of paradigm hit a leverage point set of paradigms, beats a story so deep from their bodies.As part of an upris- that totally transforms systems.” that most people are born into it and ing, rebel leader Morpheus invites then die without ever knowing that a new recruit Neo to risk the perils of different way of viewing the world a one-way trip out of this world of In a time when the global might exist. Our worldview operates illusion and into the world of truth. system is spiraling toward like a cosmic screenplay that we enact Morpheus’s point is that only by truly each moment of our lives, guiding unprecedented change, those understanding reality can Neo begin our actions and, ultimately, creating to change it for the better. of us who want to make a dif- our reality.When we don’t realize it Likewise, in a time when the ference must jump into a exists, our worldview manipulates us global system is spiraling toward like a disembodied puppeteer, guiding unprecedented change, those of us rabbit’s hole in order to under- our actions and thoughts. who want to make a difference must stand and change our reality. Daniel Quinn traced the origins jump into a rabbit’s hole in order to of civilization’s current worldview in understand and change our reality. his famed book, Ishmael. He writes The other option is to remain stand- In her writing over the years, that, 10,000 years ago, one culture ing at the edge, looking down, and Meadows regularly sought to under- among thousands that populated the endlessly treating the symptoms of mine many conventional paradigms, earth took up intensive agriculture.As much deeper problems, both out of including: a result of food surpluses, its popula- sight and out of control. • One cause produces one effect. tion exploded, requiring more land to • Improvements come through better accommodate its new numbers.With Changing the Paradigm technology, not better humanity. more land, its population grew again The late Donella Meadows, a • Economics is the measure of and annexed still more land. Quinn renowned systems thinker, converted feasibility. calls these people “Takers.”Their cul- the metaphor of the hole into systems • Possession of things is the source of ture spread across the planet, assimilat- language in her essay,“Leverage happiness. ing other cultures, taking land, and Points: Places to Intervene in the Sys- • The rational powers of human converting wild lands to agricultural tem” (Sustainability Institute paper, beings are superior to their intuitive fields. 1999). She described 12 leverage or moral powers. To justify this unprecedented points for effecting change, found • We know what we are doing. activity, the Takers separated human- deeper and deeper in a system, each • Growth at any cost is good. ity, nature, and spirituality. In the new with greater power than the last.At But these paradigms aren’t separate paradigm, nature was merely a the top of this rabbit’s hole, we use and unique, littering the bottom of the resource, not a source of sacredness. linear thinking to tinker with param- hole like autumn leaves lying on the Productivity became the measure of eters, numbers, and constants, such as ground.They fit together into a larger, progress.The Takers believed there taxes and subsidies, as mechanisms of cohesive structure. Some call this was just one right way to live and social change. But as we descend structure “mythology” or “cosmology.” crushed all those who lived differ-

10 Copyright © 2005 Pegasus Communications, Inc. (www.pegasuscom.com). All rights reserved. For permission to distribute copies of this article in any form, please contact us at [email protected]. ently.These deep beliefs survived the paradigm to another, they don’t do so of the universe without significant rise and fall of many civilizations. because they have proven the new experiential shaking. Resistance may Now every country in the world and one to be true; they do so because indicate the labored thinking of 99.9 percent of the human popula- they experience an emotional shift or changing views. tion participates in this system.The awakening. Stories can reach these We don’t yet understand what it few remaining indigenous cultures deeper affective levels and, as such, are takes to change the worldview of the (“Leavers,” according to Quinn) exist an intrinsic part of every systemic earth’s population.Very likely, when on the margins of civilization, often change process. Changing people’s enough individuals set off on their exiled in poverty and isolation. stories re-orders their rela- own change journeys, their numbers Critics often rebut the tionships with others will reach a certain threshold or tip- assertion that there is just and the world ping point, allowing the rest of us to one dominant worldview, around them, and make the transition more quickly. citing the many distinct thus the system Wilber says this positive feedback cultures and worldviews structure in loop creates a structure—a field—that that coexist today— which they live. drives exponential change. He calls it East and West, for Some peo- a “Kosmic habit”:“And the more example. But, in the ple have tar- people [that] have that [spiritual] grand scheme of Tak- geted our experience, the more it becomes a ers and Leavers, the shared world- Kosmic habit available to other difference between view head-on, human beings.” most cultures that par- identifying the I took up non-fiction writing at ticipate in the global assumptions that Dartmouth College, where I studied economy is minor, a anchor people’s environmental journalism under Pro- question of degree rather cosmic story. Physi- fessor Meadows, and have been in the than of basic view of the cists Albert Einstein field for the past 15 years. Now I cosmos.To see a truly different and David Bohm did it; write fiction as well, so I can illustrate paradigm requires studying an philosopher Ken Wilber and system dynamics in action. By doing indigenous culture, looking back many in the spiritual evolution camp so, I hope to help people see their 10,000 years to the birth of civiliza- do it. But suddenly seeking to alter a worldview from the outside and envi- tion, or looking forward to the new worldview can provoke a maelstrom sion a different future through the spiritual stories that are trying to sup- of resistance. Meadows took on the less-threatening medium of stories. plant the dominant mindset. challenge willingly, illuminating hun- In the process, I’ve come to Most social and environmental dreds of murky, deep-seated social believe that, as systems thinkers, we change programs deal only with beliefs.And she memorably experi- must grit our teeth and jump down symptoms: erosion mitigation, alterna- enced the force of resistance after she, the rabbit’s hole, no matter the risk. tive energies, poverty reduction, and Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers, The farther we fall, the more impact pollution control.They never reach and William Behrens published their we are likely to have.As Meadows the level of changing the underlying world-shaking book, Limits to Growth, wrote,“It is in the space of mastery paradigm.At best, these efforts can in 1972. Donella wrote,“We could over paradigms that people throw off only slow the degradation.As Quinn not understand the intensity of the addictions, live in constant joy, bring says,“Vision is the flowing river. Pro- reaction our book provoked. It down empires, get locked up or grams are sticks set in the riverbed to seemed to us far out of proportion to burned at the stake or crucified or impede the flow.” Only a change of our simple statement that the earth is shot, and have impacts that last for vision, a new story, can redirect the finite and cannot support exponential millennia.” • flow away from catastrophe and physical growth for very long.We toward sustainability. wouldn’t have guessed that that idea Jon Kohl is a writer and consultant working to could generate so much surprise, combine systems thinking, spiritual evolution, and An Emotional Shift emotion, complication, and denial.” global change in his projects, prose, and fiction. For As most systems thinkers know, more information about his work or to contact Thus, systems thinkers must go after him, visit www.jonkohl.com. worldviews. Many social change treating symptoms at the mouth of advocates generate data and argu- the rabbit’s hole usually generates pol- Donella Meadows Archive ments about why we need to alter icy resistance because it leads to unin- Donella (Dana) Meadows was a pioneer our global behavior to avoid terrible tended and unforeseen consequences. in the application of system dynamics to consequences. But as Thomas Kuhn Working at the bottom, too, provokes critical issues of human survival— wrote in his classic Structure of Scientific a different kind of visceral reaction, poverty, growth in population and con- sumption, and ecological degradation. Revolutions (from which Meadows one that Meadows herself learned adopted the term “paradigm”), when could actually be seen as a positive For a collection of her writings, go to www.sustainer.org/dhm_archive/. scientists ultimately change from one sign. No one can change their view