Are we at a tipping point of undercurrents?

For several years now I’ve been perceiving an undercurrent in every day life. I thought at first it was because I was suffering from depression. I thought I was imagining things because I was coming from a place of a fixed mindset instead of a growth mindset. I thought it was my own negativity.

The undercurrent I kept feeling was unspoken fear. Almost as if a cloud of darkness was just following each individual person and touching gently at the edges of their personality. And just surreptitiously causing a contraction — little by little. Away from a ‘we’ based world to a ‘me’ based world.

I would see it manifest in unexpected fierce arguments between a bystander and someone who had accidentally parked in the wrong place. An angry burst of words that was disproportionate to what happened. A young neighour wanting to crenellate and build higher walls and compounds in his garden to keep the world out and his family in under the guise of good design. An increasing desire to find something — anything that people could feel they have a sense of ‘control’ over.

In client companies I would see a palpable increase in the breakdown of teams, where individuals could simply not bring themselves to abandon self-promotion above their team members collective wellbeing because of a strong inner urge to ‘protect’ their own interests and future first.

There’s been a sense that the potential for violence and anarchy is just hidden under the surface, lurking and ready to break out under a polite veneer of business as usual. A superficial film of cultural nicety that could shatter in to a thousand fragments at any slight provocation.

And of course you would have to have been under a rock to have missed the contraction into polarities that’s manifesting in the politics of division and hate around the world. I’ve often mused to myself over the last few years that the world felt something like Rome must have been under Caligula.

When Trump and Brexit happened, I realised for the first time that what I was feeling wasn’t my imagination. That it was something that really was happening. That something new was in the equation that was triggered after the 2008 financial crisis and that has been brewing and bubbling every since. But I still didn’t understand it. More importantly, I didn’t feel I had any tools to deal with it, especially when confronted with it in my work which I was almost every day.

What is the invisible cloud? Where’s it coming from?

It’s complex but I think it has roots in our reaction to inequality, the current reality of increased inequality plus our added perception of increased inequality. We know from many studies that people are more motivated by the degree of inequality they feel than the level of wellbeing that they have. If you go to Google Scholar and search for ‘inequality aversion’ you find over 10,000 papers on the topic. In 2017 The Guardian ran a whole series of articles examining the effects of inequality across global society.

What do all these studies tell us? Very clearly, across age groups, gender and culture that we have a marked preference for equality. So much so that in tests people will even show a preference for all people having less than some people having more than others. People see equal distribution as a moral good; and they express anger at people who benefit from unequal distribution — even expressing a desire to punish unequal distributors.

They also tell us that these clear human desires don’t manifest in the ‘real world’ outside laboratory conditions in the way the research would lead you to expect. A study by experts Norton & Ariely showed that while participants in these studies did prefer more equality than the current situation, they were also not particularly worried about large inequalities. The people in their studies had an equation for ‘reasonable inequality’ in the perfect society, which was one where individuals in the top 20% should have more than three times as much money as individuals in the bottom 20%. Of course we’re way off that equation in the real world.

When they were given a forced choice between equal and unequal distributions of wealth, and told to assume that they would be randomly assigned to be anyone from the richest to the poorest person, over half of the subjects rejected the option of an equal distribution of wealth, preferring inequality. So their study suggests that when it comes to real-world distributions of wealth, people have a preference for a certain amount of inequality.

As Norton put it: “People exhibit a desire for inequality — not too equal, but not too unequal.”

There is a good biologicial or evolutionary reason for the tension between research and reality. In early civilisations, if you were working on a piece of land nextdoor to your neighbour who has the adjacent piece of land and you saw that they were doing better than you, you focused on what they were doing. They clearly knew something you didn’t and you needed to find out what that was. It’s a rational thing to spend your time on because it will increase your ability to provide food for yourself and your family or tribe.

It is this driver to do better than others as a basis for a greater change at survival and thriving that is at the root of competition and the market — and most advertising and marketing you’ve ever seen.

Why do we believe inequality is greater today?

The answer is I don’t know. But I can make a few educated guesses as to where it might take us.

After many decades of plenty and consistent market ‘growth’, 2008 was perhaps the biggest wake-up call Western society has ever had that the economic and financial system we have so carefully constructed might not, after all, be invincible. We came as close as possible to sinking — going to the cash point and finding it wasn’t going to give you a penny —as it’s possible to get, and managed to claw our way back from the brink mainly by stitching together coalitions that meant the general public would be paying for the excesses of a few bankers for generations. If eyes had not been opened before to how very much the economic system was able to be manupulated by a few powerful organisations, awareness started to dawn on average folk like you and me. First seed of discontent planted.

Alongside the first seed of discontent grew the first green shoots of dissatisfaction with the level of perceived ‘unfairness’ — the actual size of what people could ‘get away with’. Similarly to inequality, there are many studies on how we respond to ‘unfairness’. In laboratory conditions, we will likely choose fairness over equality. We can easily accept one person winning a pot of £20 if it’s on the random flip of a coin. Both have equal chances so the end result is perceived as fair even though it results in an unequal allocation of resources.

People it seems, can tolerate what they perceive as necessary inequality — i.e. the kind of inequality that motivates us to strive to improve our state, but not if the ‘game’ is fixed. After 2008 what seemed apparent was that the rich benefitted disproportionately from the destablisation of the system which they caused. The fact that it had become more obvious that the game is fixed, increased the power of the seed of discontent.

If we think about who our ‘neighbours’ are today, our neighbours are in the box on the wall, the screen on your desk and the phone in your hand. These devices paint a totally artificial portrait of other people and are broadcasting in to you as if you’re looking right at their ‘field’. You’re triggered every minute of every day if you’re not careful to think you’re doing something wrong you might fix and so get a better field. Firstly they’re not real stories, the people you see and the stories you are exposed to are not living in the same environment as you, but they significantly increase the perception of massive inequality and the sense of missing out and being left behind. Second seed of discontent planted and being reinforced every single day and moment you switch on your phone.

What is of even more concern is the potential for the big players like Google or Facebook have for designing algorithms that decide what we see and what we talk about. Because then we are unable to use the essential tools that diffuse discontent which are open communication, debate and objective analysis. The sociopsychologial impact of not having a single source of information we can trust to be true, is massively destabilising.

Added to that we do have massive inequality. Austerity measures employed by governments just after a time when the population has witnessed the very wealthy effectively ‘getting away’ with causing near collapse, are concurrent with increasing polarity in society.

At two different ends of the world spectrum there is inequality. In the developed world, in the UK for example, The Trussell Trust reports that 1st April 2016 and 31st March 2017, its Foodbank Network provided 1,182,954 three day emergency food supplies to people in crisis. At the very threatened end of the global spectrum, by the end of 2015 UNHCR reported that the number of displaced people worldwide had passed 65million for the first time. This is still increasing year on year.

The ‘American Dream’ for example, is predicated on the idea that anyone can make it. But the chances of something starting from zero getting ‘more’ of anything is decreasing disproportionately to previous generations. One of the key drivers of this is advancing technology. To get off the ground at all — even if you’re starting a micro business — you need a pretty good grasp of computers, e-marketing, data manipulation — to even begin. In the UK we’re still seeing statistics like 43% of young people leaving school without 5 GCSEs. Across the Western world — but particularly in the UK and the USA — we’re seeing established underclasses with little or no hope of a different future. Third seed sewn.

There are many other seeds that are sprouting. Suppression of free speech on University campuses in the US. Proliferation of fake news and media channels controlled by divisive political interests. Rise of instantaneous labelling of people who disagree with you with indefensible iconography and terminology — like racist, Nazi. Those things that all human beings have agreed are essentially inhuman and wrong, have become immediate and useful tools to suppress opinions we don’t like. Just call someone a Nazi or a racist and they are automatically in the wrong — whether or not they have behaved in a manner which might be characterised as having genocidal tendencies.

Where might these seeds of discontent and undercurrents take us?

I’m going to have to go a bit evolutionary on you now. The danger lies in the pattern that is emerging; the feeling I was sensing. The contraction away from the centre to the polarities of binary positions has happened before. Many times in the history of human evolution.

What happens as civilisations expand is that there is a period of plenty and constant growth. This period can last a long time. Decades. Centuries. At some point that constant growth and prosperity slows. The population discovers that constant prosperity and improvement is not going to continue. At which point the latent potential for aggression — which has always been there — re-emerges. They turn and look at those people who can’t defend their position, and take what they’ve got, triggered by the instinct to survive.

This is the pattern of contraction you may see or sense around you.

Additionally our biology allows us to gang up on other groups of humans for very simple evolutionary reasons. Historically when one group of isolated humans met another group of isolated humans — take the Spanish conquistadores and the Native Indians — each are exposed to new pathogens and there is a strong possibility that up to 90% of one group will die. We are genetically programmed to be fearful of anything that is different to us.

The only difference with the human species is that we can cognitively choose to ignore our genetic biologial inheritance. We can work at personal self determination and consciousness and be better.

But. Under conditions where latent threats to comfortability, security and prosperity begin to emerge, we biologically revert and contract to a tribal mindset and begin to demonise groups we perceive as weaker or who have something we feel we need to survive. This is the classic mantra of war; de-humanise the opposition and it becomes acceptable to eradicte them. Pioneers and Native American Indians. Jews & Nazis. Druids and The Romans.

This is the underlying fear. The pattern we can sense re-emerging. It doesn’t have to show up as an increase in racism. It can show up in the simple contraction of open-mindedness, fairness and reasonableness in your neighbour. It can show up in a determination no matter what the consequences, to get what you want and need as an individual. It can show up as a ‘what can I get from you’ mindset instead of a ‘how can I help you’ mindset. It’s insidious and powerful.

What can we do to re-design this pattern?

Again, I don’t have concrete answers, just my own thoughts.

The first is just simply about awareness and your own actions. Awareness — the real gift that comes from mindfulness meditation for me rather than a reduction in stress — gives you a window of opportunity to choose how to act as an individual. If you’re even a tiny bit aware of the contraction going on around you, you can at least be sure to check yourself when you feel it happening to you.

Yesterday it happened to me on Twitter. I inadvertently engaged in a discussion called #Februdairy — the dairy industry’s answer to a very successful Veganuary. You can immediately see two sides with very fixed views line up to throw rocks at each other. Even when both sides are being reasonable, there are no openings for discussion. One tweet is strongly pro dairy, one is pro vegan. No-one moves. The tweets get more hostile on both sides. I found myself falling into passive aggressive commentary so I posted a concilliatory comment. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t get a response. I stepped away from the natural reaction to harden and entrench a position.

You can get better at what Margaret Wheatley calls being a Warrior for The Human Spirit. You can not only choose to ignore your biological calling when you feel it activating, you can actively choose to do the opposite — get involved in any project that supports a kinder or more compassionate world.

We need leaders who recognize the harm being done
to people and planet through the dominant practices that
control, ignore, abuse, and oppress the human spirit.
We need leaders who put service over self,
stand steadfast in crises and failures, and
who display unshakable faith that
people can be generous, creative, and kind.

Margaret Wheatley

Companies can activate empathetic communications programmes. They can promote cultural understanding and inter-connectivity by ensuring everyone can recognise the sources of different behaviour — especially across leadership, giving feedback, making decisions, giving trust. Different cultures do these things very differently.

They can actively support their employees on their path to developmental consciousness. They can make it a pillar of their learning and development culture — that it’s not just about acquiring more skills, but helping employees to be better humans. Providing developmental coaching to everyone in your organisation could be one of the strongest steps towards a resilient organisation you could make.

They can redesign employee interaction from annual pain to daily gain, but embedding instant and daily feedback programmes that are open and transparent. From simple practices like Talking Partners to Atlassian’s Health Monitors for Teams, organisations can encourage courage by shining an uncomfortable light on fear -based behaviours and weaknesses and making them normal. Companies like Bridgwater, Atlassian and even Google are creating space for psychological safety.

They can help individuals explore a different kind of leadership which encourages each person to explore their own possibility to become a divine individual. Rather than the heroic leader in the Hercules tradition, more the qualities and character of Ghandi or Nelson Mandela to become a person who can acknowledge the catastrophe of human being, and nevertheless transcend that catastrophe with the courage to step out of the safe zone and endure the challenge of self development. As much as we have tribal biological imperatives within us, I believe we have an inherent possibility of transcendent soul.

Perhaps most importantly is the need to find a conscious way to respond to our tribal needs. We need belonging and to be part of a group. We need the support of others who can see these patterns and who choose to act but we need to be acutely conscious that by joining any group we run the risk of contracting into a position once a group is formed. I’ve seen that happen in even the most conscious of groups in the integral community. Perhaps only when you have found your own rooted stability and your own true North can you join again without the risk of being subsumed by an emergent positional culture.

One of the most remarkable things I noticed from my interviews of changemakers in the past 2 years was that all, without exception, had an unusual relationship with death. A life-threatening illness. A loss of someone unexpectedly at a young age. A psychic experience of power. All these people who strove for a brighter tomorrow and the best of human nature, had this thread running through their lives. We know that human nature can be at its finest when its back is against a wall. Or its worst. Perhaps what we need to do is find a way to activate this reaction within us without the confrontation with death. It’s a quest of

We are in dangerous times. I sometimes feel quite frozen and rooted to the spot by it and don’t know what to do or how to take action. And then I am momentarily distracted by the survival needs of earning a living which is a welcome distraction.