We: Our Declaration of Interdependence
Chapter Six — Our Wicked Challenges
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Zeitgeist is a word that comes straight from German — Zeit means time, Geist means spirit, and the “spirit of the time” is what is going on culturally, religiously, or intellectually during a specific period. It represents the values, beliefs, and priorities shared within a specific culture at a given time. Our dominant paradigms create our zeitgeist.
The zeitgeist of our current age is Paradox, a paradigm of contradiction, conflict, ambiguity, confusion, and division.
We have bigger houses but smaller families, more conveniences but less time.
We have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge but less judgment; more experts but more problems.
More medicines but less healthiness.
We’ve been all the way to the moon and back but have trouble crossing the street to meet our new neighbor.
We built more computers to hold more copies than ever but have less real communication;
We have become long on quantity but short on quality.
These are times of fast foods but slow digestion;
Tall men but short characters;
Steep profits but shallow relationships.
It’s a time when there is much in the window but nothing in the room.
— Rev. Dr. Bob Morehead
No wonder we feel divided. The paradox of our times explains why we cannot resolve our wicked challenges. Wicked challenges are complex and ambiguous. Our intense conflicts and divisions make it difficult to agree on solutions. Our confusion makes it difficult to define the nature of the wicked challenges. Our tendency to think about right and wrong, good and evil, and true and false prevents us from discovering what is possible.
Wicked challenges can be difficult to define. In previous Chapters, we have presented a short list of potential wicked challenges to consider.
- Climate chaos, environmental crisis, and human migration
- Rising totalitarianism
- Violence and mass shootings
- Battles over control of public education and book-banning
- Religious extremism and violence
- Scapegoating
- Extreme economic inequality, homelessness, hunger
Wicked challenges are viewed differently by various stakeholders. Experimentation and “trial and error” approaches to address wicked challenges involve irreversible and possibly devastating effects. There is no end to the number of possible solutions to a wicked challenge.
Just because wicked challenges are intimidating does not mean they cannot be resolved. We begin by avoiding the problem/solution paradox. Much of what has been written about wicked challenges is ineffective because it starts by describing the wicked challenge as a problem. The problem-solution paradox states that we cannot think about solutions until we understand the problem, and we cannot understand a problem until we think about solutions.
Wicked problems always involve paradox. To resolve the paradox, we need to think at a meta-level. When we avoid problems, our creativity is restricted. If we seek solutions, we are focused on problems, not possibilities. Problem-solution thinking is always cyclical.
How are we supposed to address wicked challenges? We begin by discovering the Wicked Questions underlying the challenge. The purpose of our Wicked Questions is not to find a single answer but to open a conversation about seemingly paradoxical realities that exist side-by-side.
We gather diverse minds and ask, how can we…?
We gather diverse perspectives, knowledge, and experience and identify a paradoxical challenge for the group to confront. When we have identified a complex challenge, the next step is to list everything we know is true or believe to be true about our chosen topic. Then, we generate pairs of opposites or pairs with creative tension between two or more perspectives. Then, the group wrestles with the opposition or creative tension to develop powerful questions like:
- How can both side one and side two be true?
- How is it that we are side one and side two simultaneously?
- How can we (try this)… while also allowing (another idea)…?
Conversation Cafes (https://conversationcafe.org/) are a powerful tool that brings larger groups together for small round-table conversations. Sitting in circles with a simple set of conversation agreements and a talking object, small groups (between 5–7 people) engage in consecutive rounds of dialogue. These small group conversations invite people to listen to one another and reflect on a wicked challenge. This process can also be done virtually using facilitated breakout rooms instead of tables and virtual whiteboards instead of large poster-size paper.
After several rounds of these conversations (with people rotating to new small groups), the larger group debriefs the process with a series of questions:
- What have you seen, heard, and observed that stood out?
- Why is that important?
- What patterns or conclusions are emerging?
- Now what? What actions make sense?
The Conversation Cafe concludes with a process that defines “fifteen percent solutions,” a structure that intends to trigger significant change by starting small. Frequently, a 15% solution involves changes that we (as individuals or small groups) can make, which may be able to contribute to a more significant change. We can take these incremental steps without approval or resources from others. “Fifteen percent solutions” work best when groups work together to identify contributions to shared purposes or challenges.
Wicked challenges cannot be addressed within a hierarchical conversation. The more power a leader has over others, the weaker their decision-making ability. The wicked challenge of the Zeitgeist of Paradox is hierarchical power. Centralized decision-making will never resolve our divisions and conflicts. We need an Intersectional Zeitgeist.
Instead, we are caught in a collection of “isms.” Our toxic isms include racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, heterosexism, classism, antisemitism, cronyism, cynicism, imperialism, terrorism, and nationalism. We also deal with arguments about capitalism, socialism, and communism — three competing market ideologies. Our competing “isms” fuel our culture wars and most of our divisions.
The language of oppression and injustice is filled with paradox. The inherent paradox of the anti-woke movement is absurd; we cannot be intolerant of tolerance without being intolerant. The word anti-racism suggests we are fighting racist people (us versus them). Dismantling racism suggests all of us, victims of racism and people who are complicit in racist systems, have to work first to dismantle the aspects of our shadow that benefit from or support racism. Our “isms” often create and sustain our divisions and our “us versus them” perspectives.
When we have group conversations including diverse people with different backgrounds and education, there is power and creativity that is not available in a homogeneous group with a manager or boss controlling the conversation. The solutions to our wicked challenges will not be discovered using Roberts Rules of Order or Parliamentary Procedures.
We may not have any experience with this type of open, collaborative conversation. We may even think we do not have enough time for these kinds of events. If what we have been doing has not worked, we must do things we have not done before.
What we need is consilience. Consilience is a jumping together of knowledge or linking together of principles from different perspectives or disciplines. Conversation Cafe’s are consilience events.
Consilience is not the same as consensus. Consilience is challenging because it is outside of traditional academic disciplines. It undermines deeply held biases or presumptions. Consilience moves us out of our neatly categorized and divided worldviews. Consilience requires a transformation of our educational paradigms. Consilience is necessary to support a culture of We, not Us versus Them.
Author’s note: Writing about the forces underlying our current deeply divided world is challenging. If you are offended, we apologize.
If you are interested in responding or contributing to the conversation, please consider responding to this chapter or submitting a story to this publication.
Please do not attack the messenger. Critique the ideas and content instead. We plan to publish this book (paper and eBooks) in late April, and your comments or suggestions will be taken into consideration.
