Post-formal conversation

Abstract

As we begin the new millennium, a significant question that needs to be asked is, what kind of society do we want to become? Implied in this question is the assurance that the status quo will not be maintained and society will indeed change. In this question, the word "want" implies the possibility that we can design our future society, or at least use design techniques to affect the evolution of society. Obviously, the important question is what can we do to bring about the kind of society that we want? We are not at the mercy of evolutionary forces but have the potential and the opportunity to give direction to societal evolution by design, provided we create an evolutionary vision for the future and develop the will and the competence to fulfill that vision in our own lives, in our families, in the systems in which we live, in our communities and societies, and in the global system of humanity. (Banathy, 1996, p. 313) Banathy's call for a conscious evolution addresses both of these questions. Banathy (1996) sees "a crisis of consciousness" in our current society because "we have yet to create a unity of consciousness" (pp. 315- 316). Banathy maintains that "this is a crisis that we created, and we are responsible for acting upon it" (p. 316). One of the actions that can be taken is to promote the development of evolutionary learning as opposed to "maintenance learning" (Botnik & Maltiza, 1979). Maintenance learning "involves the acquisition of fixed outlooks, methods, and rules of dealing with known events and recurring situations" (Banathy, 1996, p. 318). On the other hand, "evolutionary learning empowers us to anticipate and face unexpected situations. It will help us to progress from unconscious adaptation to our environment to conscious innovation, coevolution, and cocreation with the environment and the development of the ability to direct and manage change" (Banathy, 1996, p. 318). Evolution is characterized by Banathy (1996), as a multidimensional unfolding that has to be designed and implemented in all of our human systems (p. 324). His evolutionary guidance system, which would enable this unfolding, includes dimensions containing social and economic justice; social and ecological ethics; physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wellness; a scientific and technological dimension that serves human and social betterment; aesthetics in relation to beauty, as well as cultural and spiritual values; and a political dimension of self-determination, genuine participation in self governance, peace development, and global cooperation (Banathy, 1996, pp. 324-325). In addition to Banathy, Barbara Marx Hubbard also espouses conscious evolution. Hubbard (1998) presents conscious evolution "as an emerging idea of the nature of reality that can guide us in the ethical and creative use of our power toward the next stage of human evolution" (p. 2). Hubbard feels that the development of a conscious evolution is imperative since "we entered a period of confusion-a loss of vision and direction" (p. 9). She reports that "during the past 30 years, our basic social and economic systems have attempted to maintain the status quo despite the many warnings that the old ways, particularly in the developed world, were no longer sustainable. In many instances our existing systems are not humane; homelessness, hunger, disease, and poverty consume the lives of hundreds of millions of people and the environment continues to degrade" (p. 11). According to Hubbard (1998), the solution is an evolution from the human potential movement, characterized by the humanistic work of Abraham H. Maslow, Victor Frankl, Robert Assogioli, and others, to a "social potential movement that builds on the human potential movement" (p. 17). This movement "identifies peaks of social creativity and works toward social wellness the same way the human potential movement cultivates personal wellness. It seeks out social innovations and designs social systems that work toward a life-enhancing global society" (p. 17). Hubbard's vision is based on many ideals, such as syntony, which is a "spiritual resonance with the patterns of creation" (p. 71). She sees the attainment of conscious evolution through the transformation of our memes-"ideas woven into complex thought systems that organize human activities according to a specific pattern" (p. 77). Through the transformation of these memes, the social potential movement "seeks out innovations now working in health, environment, communication, education, government, economics, technology, and other fields of human endeavor while designing new social systems that lead toward a regenerative and life-enhancing global society" (pp. 97-98). In this way humanity can become cocreators, in which "the most fundamental step on the path of the cocreator is a new spirituality in which we shift our relationship with the creative process from creature to cocreator-from unconscious to conscious evolution. Through resonance with the metapattern that connects us all, we learn to take responsibility for our part in the creation of our own evolution" (p. 99). I share Banathy and Hubbard's evolutionary visions because inherently it is about thinking and feeling differently. It is about the development of a new knowledge base that also includes old knowledge seen in a different more critical context, and it is about language and the politics of communication. New thinking, feeling, knowledge, and language translate into new attitudes and new practice. In the context of education, as we in the United States look at a nation that most see as still being at risk, once again we must decide how we will see this problem. What processes will we use to understand the problem, and to evaluate the action that we will take? What sort of conversation will enable us to make sense of our efforts? The purpose of this chapter is to propose a type of conversation that can be a lens that allows us to see differently, and also can be a pragmatic process that can guide our critical action. Post-formal conversation will be proposed as a process that can facilitate ideas such as Banathy's, and act as an oppositional process to the entrenched dominant culture that resists the development of an evolutionary consciousness. The ensuing explanation of post-formal conversation will be in the context of Banathy and Hubbard's visions of conscious evolution and S. J. Goerner's (1999) thoughts on the emerging science and culture of integral society. These contexts will not only situate the relevance of post-formal conversation to the debates that need to be held and to the actions that need to be taken, but also will provide an opportunity to showcase the nature of post-formal conversation. In her book, After the Clockwork Universe, Goerner (1999) discusses the emerging science and culture of integral society. She extensively critiques the clockwork science and culture of the modern age, and argues that a vision of a web world is taking its place. Understanding her web metaphor requires the acknowledgement that all systems are not just chaotic and complex, but also intricate. "Intricacy refers to the order which arises from interweaving" (Goerner, 1999, p. 135). Goerner (1999) argues that the space between the elements of a system (i. e., the space between people in a human activity system) "is actually filled with intricacy-the patterns, structure and organization produced by interdependence" (p. 136). Her position leads to the conclusion that "most traditional methods are inappropriate for intricacy. If you try to break intricacy down, you miss the point-its organization. If you use statistics, you glimpse order fleetingly but have no idea what caused it or how it works" (Goerner, 1999, p. 137). In addition, a central idea of her thesis is the idea that human systems are self-organizing, and in order to understand and facilitate the evolution of a system requires the ability to affect the selforganizing processes. How then do we discern the intricate patterns, structures, and organization of a human system in order to move the system along a different path? This is a significant question for those who want to realize the greater potential of their society, local community, school, or family. More traditionally, this question can be rephrased as how do we effect and sustain change that is not only just and caring but also change that facilitates the development of a web of relationships that are characterized by an evolutionary consciousness? In this chapter, post-formal conversation will be proposed as a philosophy toward change, as a method to discern the hidden patterns and structures of human organizations, and as an on-going assessment of the self-organizing process. First, post-formal inquiry will be situated in relation to other postpositivistic paradigms such as postmodernism, poststructuralism, and critical theory. This will be followed by an explanation of post-formal conversation that will discuss what it is, where and when its use is appropriate, and how to engage in post-formal conversation. Post-formal conversation will be posed as an intricate process that can help us understand a web world containing hidden patterns and processes that are essential to an understanding of self-organizing human systems. Post-formal conversation will be further proposed as an integral mediating process in the conscious evolution of our thinking, feeling, knowledge, and language. © 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.