'The sense of connected-ness with all beings is politically subversive in the extreme'

Joanna Macy

Worldview & Culture has been called 'the stories we live by.' These stories influence all aspects of both our individual and collective experience. From the way we relate, conceptualize the self, the way we treat the world around us and make sense of the data of our perception. These cultural narratives or discourses are ubiquitous, they are assumed and exist within the language we use to reify and make meaning from our experience. They are often so close to us, so hidden and unseen that they unconsciously drive our thoughts feelings and behaviours in every aspect of our lives. They are often assumed as truth; seen as 'just the way things are.'

In Narrative practice, it is understood that these types of stories either held by an individual, a family or larger collective will stay essentially unseen or implicit until they are no longer functional in the entities life. A man’s construct of masculinity will only start to be explored and examined once his relationship starts to fall apart, or a family’s rules about behaviour will only come to the surface when a family member starts to buck the system.

At this stage in our collective game it seems the traditional worldviews of western culture, the taken for granted assumptions that inform the way we see our world, are presenting themselves for examination. It is only now that we see the damage that particular world views are doing, to the point of threatening our very existence, that we begin to recognize that somethings not quite right...

From a postmodern and narrative position, all cultures are seen to have dominant worldviews, out of the many possible and equally valid ways of relating and understanding our experience. These dominate worldviews or discourses emerge in specific historical contexts and are often maintained by particular power structures from which emerge societal institutions such as the legal, economic & educational systems. As a result of these power structures, alternative worldviews and discourses often become subjugated, disavowed and are stripped of their value within that particular social structure. From a postmodern position these subjugated worldviews are seen as not any less or more valid but are understood to be based on fundamentally different assumptions regarding the nature of reality(Ontology) and our knowledge of this reality(Epistemology).

Commonly in psychotherapy, I am not interested so much in the truth of a story that a client uses to understand the world, as I take the position that there are multiple perceptions of truth, all partial. Rather I am interested in the function of the story in this person’s life. Is it helping them, is it assisting them to create the life they want to live. Does it move them towards where they want to go, or is it something that is constraining them or hindering them in reaching their potential as beings. Stories are not seen as right or wrong they are by their very nature reductionist, they are always partial, fundamentally containing errors or omissions. If there some transcendent truth out there we can only know in through our particular and limited constructs. As such what I am interested in is their utility, their function in informing experience, thoughts, feelings and behaviors. How do they influence how this client is engaged in and with the world?

As such one may take a similar position when looking at our broader culture and the impact of dominate worldviews. What are the effects of this dominate worldview? How does it invite us to think about our experience, relate to each other and experience our selves? What stories is this particular discourse subjugating and what alternatives are there that allow different cultural action, behavior, thought & feeling that are sustainable, inclusive and provide hope for the species itself?

It could be easily argued that one of the primary worldviews that inform much of our present discourse is that of a rationalist materialism, a positivist reductionist positioning which is the calling card of Modernism. This epistemological position draws strong distinctions between a subject in here and an object out there and assumes that we can act as an independent observer of a reality 'out there' which can be understood and quantified. This separative or dualistic position has allowed the development of the scientific method, it has allowed much progress in the development of solutions to complex human problems, and the creation of amazing technological advances. It has championed the rights of the individual, the notion of individual empowerment, personal responsibility & freedom. Yet like most world views, stories or perspectives it often comes with unintended consequences....

Ian McGilchrist in his book, the Divided self, man and his search for meaning explains that our western worldview can been understood to strongly correlate with brain lateralisation and specifically with a left brain hemispheric dominance in the individual, and, as we will explore later in this post what happens in the individual is deeply connected, with the structure & nature of the whole and visa-versa. The crux of McGilchrist's work around brain lateralisation explores the idea that the human brain is divided into two halves connected by a bundle of nerve fibers that join the two hemispheres called the corpus collosum. These two hemispheres are often understood to correlate with very different ways of engaging and attending to the world, both which provide evolutionary advantages and both of which will directly influence our experience of the world and the stories we develop about it.

This left brain hemispheric dominance is understood to correlate to a way of attending to the world that at its core tends to narrow things down towards certainty and control, creating fixations rather than flow so a thing can be grasp, understood, dissected and comprehended. It moves us away from an embodied and pre-conceptual experience , it creates representations of experience rather than engaging in experience itself and as such constructs an experience of self that is fundamentally isolated from others, and its environment. If one is primarily 'left shifted' i.e. attends primarily from this hemisphere this subtle sense of isolation can become a low level but continual activation of the fight or flight system, which leaves one in a state of constant autonomic arousal i.e. fear.

It can be understood then that these qualities or patterns when expanded and crystallized into social and political institutions, can have far reaching consequences across our social environmental, political, relational and humanitarian landscape, influencing every level of our cultural system. A critical Mass of individual minds, brains & beings creating the system as a whole, while at the same time the system itself perpetuating and maintaining this imbalance on the individual level. So, to think and experience something outside of this construct which perpetuates a sense of an isolated self and instead to see all beings as deeply connected is, at the most fundamental level, politically subversive. This is because it is at this level, within our own minds, that the power structures that we exist within exert their most profound influence, in our unseen beliefs, assumptions and interpretation of sensory data.

This brings us to the quote at the beginning of this essay, to reiterate:

'The sense of connected-ness with all beings is politically subversive in the extreme'

Joanna Macy

Returning to McGilchrists work, this sense of connected-ness, a relational focus and openness to paradox & uncertainty is a way of attending that it primarily correlated with the right brain. With it emerges a way of engaging the world that see's whole's, that is present in moment to moment experience and I would argue is closely connected with a movement towards a sense of non-duality or as others have called it Inter-being. This experience or idea of non-duality is difficult to describe in written word as it is something that is experienced not understood per se, it is non-conceptual. However, with that said the term non-duality is a translation of a Sanskrit word 'Advaita' which essentially means 'not two', and points us in the direction of the wholeness, completeness & unity of all life which exists right here and now breaking down the construct of a separate subject & object, and experiences the separate Self as essentially empty, an illusion.

This experience of inter-being or Non-duality is at the foundation of many spiritual and mystical traditions and from it tends to emerge a philosophical position that emphasizes compassion and the importance of the other, of the 'in between' as Buber expressed it. This inevitably extends to not only our relationships to each other, but also to our relationship with all beings in our environment and the potential to develop Cultural and social structures that embody and express this direct experience of connected-ness. Importantly it is not being argued that this position is somehow more correct and that there doesn't exist an experience of a separate individualized center of consciousness. Rather what is being argued is that this is an alternative experience available to us that can bring a profoundly important counterbalance to the dominant cultural and social constructs of the day.

So then the question arises 'what difference does it make even if one enters into this sense of inter-being or non-dual experience of the world and begins to live a life embodying and enacting these ideals?' Yes, I might change and effect the world around me in a small sense, my relationships will be better, I may see clearer but really how can this impact the system at a higher logical level, won't this only ever be first order change, i.e. change of the parts not of the system itself?

This may be a true statement if it was only one person, however any system with enough parts relating and behaving differently to the norm will in time bring the system to a tipping point, towards a bifurcation, the system must change to maintain is function, to deal with this information. This is called morphogenesis and happens in all natural systems, it is the harbinger of transformation and it is presently waiting at our collective doorstep.

This idea that what happens at a micro or individual level of a system can impact the larger context is supported by the work of Pravir Malik a well-known organizational change consultant who speaks about the idea that if we address dysfunction at a micro level, larger patterns at a higher level in the system will be impacted positively. This idea is based on the notion of what is called fractal dynamics or Fractal systems, which essentially says that throughout nature systems are self-similar in that that they replicate similar patterns across different scales. As such Malik states:

'that by changing Base Patterns (at the individual level) the subsequent levels of an organization, and its entire interaction & approach to the Market, environment & society are also fundamentally changed.'

Hence systems can be seen to emerge from the interaction between individual parts on differing levels. A problem can develop however when we begin to think that we are subject to a system rather than the creators of it. to unpack this a little. Human systems and culture can be seen to be maintained through the individuals/parts subjugation to systems forces, i.e. the parts must continue to relate in a particular way to maintain the system as it is. As such populations and cultures internalize and act from discourses and systems forces that are outside of their awareness or we feel powerless against. it is through this unconscious response to our context and the resulting action that the larger system is maintained.

So what this could mean is that we are not helpless victims in a system, but rather we as a collective have the power to shape and transform our world. Power is not only top down, but can also function bottom up. This starts within the individual; however, it cannot end there, it is only through our collective individual transformations that these broader changes become inevitable therefore we must support each other in strengthening pragmatic and sustainable worldviews and approaches to our experience. This is where an inter-being or non-dual informed social action begins to emerge based in the premise that what we as individuals do, think, feel & experience, how we perceive the world, our place within it and our relationship to other beings matters deeply. This is the beginning and the foundation of a compassionate and deep activism without which nothing can change.

As stated above the first step in this type of social action is becoming aware of the implicit assumptions and Narratives that inform and drive our experience of the world. how do we become aware and awake to the system forces and discourses within which we live and move daily?

This first step according Mark Horowtiz the author of The Dance of we, is mindfulness & self-awareness. This is the first step out of unconscious enactment in any system. We must begin to see narratives, discourse and assumptions that we have internalized for what they are, by holding them in awareness and then asking is this true, who does it serve, where does this idea come from and does this align with my true and highest ideal...the position is not one of knowing a truth, but one of continual inquiry & questioning of our taken for granted assumptions about all things from the way we live our lives to the nature of our very perceptions. These types of awareness and inquiry practices form the foundation of a non-dual informed social action based not on force or conflict with an externalized other but instead a social action grounded in compassion, dialogue and Inquiry.

References

Anderson, H.(1997) Conversation Language, and Possibilities: A Post Modern Approach to Therapy. Basic Books, New York.

Horowitz, M.(2014) The Dance of We: The Mindful Use of Love & Power in Human systems. Synthesis Center Inc.

Malik, P. (2009) Connecting Inner Power with Global Change: The Fractal Ladder. Sage Publications. New Delhi.

McGilchrist, I. (2012) The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning: Why are we so unhappy. Yale University Press.

Prendergast, J., Fenner, P., Krystal, S. Eds. (2003) The Sacred Mirror: Non-dual Wisdom & Psychotherapy. Paragon House, Minnesota.

Quirk, L. (2016) The Non-sense of Non-dual. One Moon Press, Trenton, NJ.