“Humanity’s Soul: Life or Growth?”
Nate Hagens’ — The Great Simplification ongoing series brings together transdisciplinary perspectives with many overlapping threads that unpack the meta-poly-perma-omni crises we face as humanity — looking through a retrospective historical lens and a forward facing future lens — as we consider our choices and the implications.
Appreciated looping back to this video conversation with Gaya Herrington as she tracks the trajectory from The Club of Rome Limits to Growth findings spearheaded by Donella Meadows over 50 years ago, to the current and ongoing climate crisis — the real and predictable effects of unlimited [material] growth on a finite planet.
Rang true then. Rings true now. Heading for trouble 50 years ago, this trajectory must change course…
Gaya articulates the human system barriers* (fear, bias, denial etc.) that have impeded the transformative shifts necessary to embrace life-affirming pathways for people and planet.
She stipulates,
“Growth in itself is not ‘bad.’ Making it the ultimate goal to always pursue growth at the expense of everything else is wrong. We all know, in nature, that unlimited growth is dangerous; its either cancer or explosion and it cannot last. We already know this. The [planetary] overshoot date comes earlier every year.”
The S curve of growth, declining carrying capacity and escalating collapse, as Gaya illustrates, are somewhat akin to the pattern portrayed in the not-so-scientific, yet powerful apologue of boiled frog syndrome.
Gaya asks and answers,
“Do we love life more than growth? Yes, I think we do.”
We wholeheartedly agree, Gaya! Though we gotta find better ways to bring that love to the foreground…
She speaks to social inequality, reduced trust and conspicuous consumption patterns that can shift with new living and working mindsets, choices and habits. She describes planetary limits as sacred — a journey, connecting personal and planetary boundaries — and we cannot put a price on these. This calls for a shift from myopic financialization to new healthy value creation and value exchange models.
Bingo!
Referencing advice from the close of her book, Gaya cautions, “We should all be comfortable being hypocrites.”
This also rings true, touching on the humbling balancing act and realities of paradox — the inherent tension of living during this liminal time of deep shift, while trying to make a positive difference. One hundred percent congruence is not feasible when we are also individually and collectively influenced and impacted by the deeply flawed societal systems, constructs, policies and practices that we are trying to change.
This work can be unrelentingly demanding and exhausting…
“This systems work is never done and we need to take some breaks along the way.”
Gaya discusses and connects five key leverage points that particularly stand out given the time urgency — two are environmental and three are social:
🔹 Energy
🔹 Agriculture
🔹 Reducing income and wealth inequality
🔹 Alleviating inequality beween countries
🔹 Increasing gender equality/partnership (versus domination hierarchies)
When Nate asked about other women taking on these challenges, Gaya pointed to the pioneering work of Kate Raworth, Mariana Mazzucato and Riane Eisler, who are also referenced in her book. Indeed, we also draw from their outstanding efforts spanning many years.
Gaya also empathizes with the younger generations who are unfairly inheriting these problems and feeling justifiably anxious about their futures. While they will rise to the job — this is everyone’s work.
Gaya’s concluding highlights:
🔹 Everything is interconnected
🔹 Change from our pursuit of [material] growth at all costs [to human services growth]
🔹 Shift to enough for each
🔹 Governments need to take an active role
🔹 More citizen activation toward circularity
We wholeheartedly resonate.
Together, we can live into regenerative ways of being, widening accessible pathways to learning, agency, mindful activation and purposeful collaboration among people anywhere. Whoever we are and wherever we work and live — we are all citizens! Perhaps this is the greatest commoning force that can create unity.
We’re all challenged to understand, do [and stop doing] what we can at every level — macro, micro and meso — fuelled by personal and collective passion and responsibility.
There are so many ways to build and nurture meaningful initiatives and valued services, context-based and place-sourced sense of belonging, community, learning, and creative entrepreneurial spirit — rooted within nested, interdependent ecosystems.
The word growth can be used in many ways.
Its intended meaning depends on the context.
The context is influenced by many factors.
Us humans leave our sticky fingerprints everywhere…
Our messy humanness can wind its way into any context.
Even as many more of us reject extractive reductionist Industrial Age patterns that are driving our civilization to collapse…we can be blind to the ways we are insidiously ensnared into binary debates that keep us stuck in the same old left brain leaning grooves — widening the divides.
Another battle? Fighting fire with fire? Justified?
Can we make clear choices guided by a moral compass and our moral imaginations without conflating, drawing more artificial lines of separation, weaponizing with words and inflicting yet more moral and planetary injury?
Certain kinds of growth (myopically) driven by economic expansion with little or no regard for externalities, suffering and damaging consequences to people and planet — are bad. This western colonizing idealized growth has been proliferating unchecked and ignored for a very long time…
Certain kinds of growth that (truly) stem from life-affirming forces including learning, creativity and development towards individual and collective mutual interest and the greater (than human) good — are good.
Taking a very hard look at the kinds of innovation that are truly potentially life-enhancing…discerning what will maintain and accelerate the current degenerative trajectory — critical.
Taking a hard look at scale also matters.
Acknowledging what is known and irrefutable and what is unknown and unknowable — critical.
Navigating forward, learning…with eyes wide and deep humility — critical. The negative downstream consequences/impacts of decisions and actions are too often overlooked, ignored or unseeable.
Much to learn and lots of resources are available that speak to the substantive issues. Our article, Holding the Tension of Less is More, drills down exploring dilemmas that underlie debates and positions on growth, abundance and degrowth.
Context matters!
Taken out of contexts, growth is not the all-encompassing problem and degrowth is not the all-encompassing solution.
They are just words…very important words…
When we excavate beneath the surface labels, we can bring more transparency into real relational contexts. We can learn how to navigate and transcontextualize — more wisely.
Some of us might describe this as the kind of growth (combined with lots of context-based work) that might help steer us in the roughly right direction.
There is no single how. Maybe if we stop narrowing our lens with either-or binaries…a plethora of hows will (continue to) take shape and gather momentum, making space for billions of people to find sources of inspiration living into a more life-affirming future…while we face what must be faced…
Can we reframe and appropriately channel the desire for abundance and growth?
Abundance = the mattering of life + living meaningfully.
Our greatest challenges, some of them lurking beneath the surface facts of science and technology, seem to be human system related. Paradoxically it’s the human stuff, that has hastened our decline on a runaway consumer-driven trajectory AND our greatest potential for human and planetary flourishing rests with our humanness capacity for learning, collaboration and adaptation. ~Unstitution
NOT a COP-out.
Isn’t it high time to reframe our sense of belonging beyond like-mindedness and tribal homogeneity and affinity, embracing wider diversity and leadership of all kinds as we find the common[s] ground toward grounded mission-critical common purpose?
However we frame and name the challenges and opportunities we collectively face…we gotta excavate beneath the labels that keep systems and people stuck, polarized, chunked down and boxed into linear dysfunctional ways of relating, living and being.
What is humanity’s soul, if not a life-giving, love-of-life force? The spirited energy that infuses lives with meaning-full-ness, creative spark and possibility are surely rooted in our interconnectedness.
Love has gotta find its way into this harrowing unfolding story of civilization.
Wanna [r]evolution? With every passing day, month and year…the stakes are climbing.
We honour the many excellent initiatives underway around the world, especially the ones that are cultivating new stories that go beyond preaching to the choir. Holding the tension, facing serious irreversible harms having exceeded the carrying capacity of a livable planet, and not becoming paralyzed — challenges us all.
Link to the full video episode. Well worth watching: Gaya Herrington: “Humanity’s Soul: Life or Growth?” | The Great Simplification
For a deeper dive on tipping points, implications and insights, Gaya’s book is available online: Five Insights for Avoiding Global Collapse — What a 50-Year-Old Model of the World Taught Me About a Way Forward for Us Today
Nate Hagens has now produced over100 episodes of the Great Simplification series. With appreciation for this ongoing expansive odyssey that Nate invites us to explore with fellow travellers who share this quest, here are a few other episodes:
Our article building from Nate’s conversation with Dr. Robert Lustig, Beyond Connecting Dots…Nonlinear Ebbs and Flows. Additional perspectives on diet and health entered the frame of pervasive dysfunctional and addictive patterns that contribute to micro and macro human, local, cultural and global planetary imbalance in this episode: The Great Simplification l Processed Food, Metabolism and The Ills of Society.
This later episode connects agricultural practices, soil health and declining human health. Anne Biklé and David Montgomery: “Nourishing The Land and Ourselves” | The Great Simplification
Nate’s interview with Kate Raworth: “The Superorganism V. The Doughnut” | The Great Simplification, illuminated her “oh no!” and “aha” moments that led to integrative living system Doughnut Economics and the ongoing unfolding of Doughnut Economics Action Lab — D.E.A.L.
Nate’s interview with Nora Bateson: “Complexity Between the Lines” | The Great Simplification, unpacks the meaning of living systems, the relationships between parts and interconnectedness to wholes, exploring how and why we must “discontinue in order to continue.” Our work feels like a living realization and demonstration of the things that Nora describes. We reference her in a few of our articles, especially building on her transcontextual framing.
Nate’s interview with Dr. Iain McGilchrist: “Wisdom, Nature, and the Brain.” Our article building on McGilchrist’s work, Left…Right…Whole, reflects on the logical, linear reductionist reasoning and hard data emphasized throughout the Industrial Age that appeals more to our left brain orientation. Stories, intuition, narrative and warm data reflect more of our nonlinear creative right brain ways of making meaning. More than ever, given the complexity of interconnected systemic issues, we need our full human intelligences and capacities to navigate wisely with more balance and heartfelt spirit.
Touching on some overlapping themes, our article: Musing on Mariana Mazzucato’s Challenge to Consultants, Governments and Business
*This article was updated March 2024, with additional links and reflecting ongoing action research, as we continue to observe, listen, assimilate, curate and adapt — a learning journey for us all.
Unstitution was birthed as a collective creative commons and nested ecosystem. We (co-)catalyze collaborative communities, initiatives and coalitions where people from across sectors, disciplines, cultures, generations and walks-of-life work together on mission critical issues. Navigating from patterned stages of readiness through to regenerative progress — moving beyond polarization — is how we roll. Our work with human system barriers is affectionately referenced as messyhumanness and dancing with monsters. The links embedded throughout this article are a warm invitation to go a bit deeper, at any time. For more insights reflecting our ongoing journey, our suite of Unstitution articles are published on Medium. They portray a small sample of the ways we are adapting and contributing among ever-expanding commons-based communities and initiatives inspired and fuelled by citizens — perhaps better described as denizens — anywhere in the world — living into the principles and spirit that govern our collaborative work.
You can follow Unstitution and engage with us on LinkedIn.
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