Changing the story of our future   

Tikkun Magazine, March/April 2008

Changing the Story of Our Future

by Matthew Gilbert

For anyone who reads the papers, scans the internet, listens to the radio, or kibitzes with a neighbor, the stories you hear seem relentlessly hopeless and complex. Economic uncertainty, ecological collapse, ethnic conflicts, religious extremism—the list goes on, an endless tickertape of frustration and despair. They depict a world filled with conflict, fear, and pain while reinforcing a belief that there is little we can do about it. We are locked in competition for scarce resources, disconnected from the natural world, at the mercy of political, religious, and economic power blocs, and spiraling ever deeper into greater disparity between the haves and have-nots. Look no further than the new documentary, What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire, for an immersion experience of worst-case scenario dénouement.

The tendency in times like these is to look to science or religion for answers, but both have fallen on hard times as sources of hope. Traditional religions have been challenged to remain relevant while struggling to deal with their more zealous factions, while science—more specifically materialistic-reductionist science—has been denounced as one of the reasons we're in this mess to begin with. And in many ways that's true, for the story of who we are as portrayed by the dominant scientific narratives of the last few centuries is bleak indeed.

As scientific materialism extended its reach into the social sciences and ever closer to our interiors, it presented one challenge after another to our elevated perception of ourselves and our sense of purpose. From biology we learned that life in all its diversity is a big accident, and that all human behavior, including our higher social and moral instincts, could be explained by the random mutation and natural selection of our "selfish genes." From economic theory we learned that at heart all humans are "economic rationalists" programmed to pursue their self-interest in every situation. From behavioral psychology we learned that we are machines that can be conditioned by a simple regiment of reward and punishment to do almost anything. And from neuroscience we learned that, in the words of the late Nobel laureate Sir Francis Crick, "You, your joys and sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.... You are nothing but a pack of neurons." And spirituality? An evolutionary adaptation to keep us interested in staying alive, the result of complex chemical interactions.

The Story of Our Potential

This is how "The 2008 Shift Report: Changing the Story of Our Future" begins. It was produced by the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) to connect the dots of both worldview breakdown and worldview emergence, because it's vitally important to distinguish between the two. Yes, the evidence is compelling that the are of the human species is one of self-destructive decline, and the report, as well as its predecessor, "The 2007 Shift Report: Evidence of a World Transforming," does not shy away from recognizing that. And yet, once the pieces are put together, there is no denying that another reality is fighting through the cracks of the dominant narrative. Braving the currents of post-modern malaise, the Institute, founded in 1973 by Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell, believes that we are just beginning to tap into our potential as human beings despite, or perhaps because of, the multiple crises that we are facing.

This new story remains largely unreported—it's one of people and institutions worldwide that are proactively moving ahead with initiative, daring, and collaborative spirit. It reflects not an evolutionary model of randomness and survival but a revolution of human potential that may alter the course of history, and a growing body of data that psychologists, paleontologists, neuroscientists, and quantum physicists are beginning to acknowledge.

Over the past several decades, new scientific discoveries along with a surge in grassroots initiatives addressing social and economic injustices have begun calling into question the modern view of the universe—and essentially of ourselves—as ultimately cold and mechanistic. Revealing both the mysterious directionality of the evolving cosmos and the irrepressible humanity within our own natures, new evidence is emerging that we are innately capable of far more than we realize. On the scientific front, credible studies are finding that we're as hardwired to connect and collaborate as to compete; that genes—as well as the brain—are malleable; that altruistic behavior enhances our immune system; and that at a subatomic level, everything is connected—literally. On the field of daily human endeavor, thousands of groups and millions of people are saying "No" to the madness of our time—a tacit acknowledgement that we have been sold a bill of goods about our potential and who we are. The story being told of a conniving, selfish, survival-driven species is in fact a small part, perhaps even a footnote, of a larger story.

Empirical science itself is a relatively new approach to understanding reality. And of the collection of disciplines that fall under its domain, the human sciences represent the newest of the bunch. So it's perhaps not surprising that as the biological, behavioral, and social sciences move out of their infancy, the picture they are uncovering turns out to be far more complex than it initially seemed. Much as the quantum mechanical revolution overturned the field of physics in the early twentieth century, we may be seeing the beginnings of a revolution in the human and life sciences destined to transform our understanding of ourselves and our place in the universe.

A Convergence of Science and Spirit

A new story may indeed be rising up from the ashes of the old, but the old one still has us in its tenacious and potentially fatal grip. The natural response to both the obvious and insidious influences of reductionist science, economic dogma, and religious fundamentalism is to fight back, to reject all three in a spasm of righteous anger. If most of us take a moment to reflect, this rage is close to the surface of our daily experiences, and there aren't many places it can constructively be expressed. Yet, underneath the rage are mountains of grief. What to do?

At this point the wisdom of our spiritual traditions and the findings of new science are converging to suggest a way out. And rather than convert the ideological loyalists of reductionist science or argue with religious fundamentalists until you're hoarse, it may be time to just keep building a different paradigm, one that starts in the center of our own hearts and minds. This doesn't mean that we cast our fate to divine providence or ignore the injustice of specific acts or policies, but rather that we begin to redirect some of our energy to co-creating the new story, a process that is already, inexorably, underway. For the ultimate change, the one having the most lasting impact, will be a change in consciousness, in our assumptions about reality and in the taproot of our relationships to the world around us.

A decade-long research program at IONS has been studying the phenomenon of personal transformation. It began in 1997 with a collection of narrative descriptions of what people from all walks of life felt were transformative moments or experiences. The accounts had much in common and often used the same words. What followed was a series of focus groups consisting of teachers and leaders in the human potential movement. This led, in 2002, to in-depth interviews with more than forty scholars and religious leaders representing a wide range of philosophies, spiritual traditions, and transformative practices. All of this information was analyzed, and the results published in a new book, Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life (Noetic Books/New Harbinger Publications, 2008).

Most notable in this research, and germane to the discussion in this article, is both the commonality of experience and practice uncovered across traditions--though each has its own unique perspective--and that such experiences lead to life-affirming shifts in world-view. And because we have internalized the dominant story inside us, we will need to consciously identify it in order to transcend it. One of the findings of the research is that the various practices and teachings agreed on how to facilitate deep change: you start with an intention to change, pay attention to old repetitive patterns that are keeping you from changing, and then keep repeating new patterns to sustain the desired positive change. As stated in the book, "Learning how people can change their consciousness to become more balanced, compassionate, altruistic, tolerant of difference, able to hold complexity, and motivated to promote peace and sustainability, is one of the most fundamental tasks before us." It's a daunting challenge indeed, but blessed by both contemporary science and ancient spiritual teachings it suggests there is no place else to go because the responsibility for preserving the future of this planet still rests in our hands.

Worldview Matters

As science and human progress are inextricably linked, the twenty-first century must find a way to bring the highest potential of both back together, and shifting paradigms is never easy. As the late environmental scientist Donella Meadows wrote in a paper entitled "Leverage Points: Place to Intervene in a System," "[P]aradigms are harder to change than anything else about a system." And how do you change them? Paraphrasing the late science philosopher Thomas Kuhn, he writes, "... you keep pointing at the anomalies and failures of the old paradigm, you keep speaking louder and with assurance from the new one, you insert people with the new paradigm in places of public visibility and power. You don't waste time with reactionaries; rather you work with active change agents and with the vast middle ground of people who are open-minded." And once a paradigm shifts, the impact is exponential.

This reorientation of our grand perspective is vitally important, because worldview matters: It shapes how we see the world, how we evolve our institutions, and how we find meaning in what we do and where we're going, individually as well as collectively. The influence of modern science on our worldview—the assumptions we make about how the universe works and the means we use to test those assumptions—is significant. How we've internalized this paradigm into our own being is also significant, perhaps even more so. And so while marching on the World Trade Organization and confronting misuse of power remain necessary acts of defiance, marching against the dominant paradigms that live in our own hearts may have even more far-reaching effects.

A metaphor often used to describe where we are as a species is that we are struggling through adolescence, transitioning between stories. In drawing the lines between new scientific research, social action initiatives, and spiritual exploration, we may just be uncovering the nascent signs of a collective maturing, perhaps foretelling a coming Age of Re-enlightenment.

Matthew Gilbert is director of communications at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (www.noetic.org), editor-in-chief of Shift magazine (www.shiftreport.org), and editorial director of Noetic Books.

Source Citation

Gilbert, Matthew. 2008. Changing the story of our future. Tikkun 23(2):27.