I’ve been working on a vision for a future worth building together. It’s opinionated and likely somewhat different from your vision - but that’s okay! I’m also inviting you to share yourLetter from the Future so we can converge on a shared vision and move it forward with public promises. Please join in!
My preferred model is holonic. It starts with personal empowerment in a small group context. As the members of the small group become aligned with one another and as the sense of personal empowerment for each of them grows, then that group can expand and/or network with compatible groups.
From that POV, before posting at your URL (for whose eyes, one can only imagine), I’d prefer to vet the relevant issues in a more contained forum, such as this forum here. If, for the sake of argument, you and I took this discussion private offline, or if we interact more publicly in this forum over an extended period of time, I would be more inclined to participate in your online site. (Those who attended my research call last Fri. will recognize the general considerations around trust and relationship building).
Yes, that’s a perfectly reasonable way to approach this - I’d be happy to discuss this privately offline with you, and also to develop/vet a hypothetical approach on this forum. Actually, I think that’s what I was hoping for, i.e. substantive responses where specific approaches to answering the “Letter to the Future” prompt would be discussed. It’s a great thought experiment for ferreting out specific courses of action, or consequences to the positions we hold. My hope is that, following much generative discussions on the kind of future we could unite behind, we would ultimately be insipired to unified action. In my view, which I’ve expressed here before, we must find ways of progressing towards a shared vision in order to maximize our effectiveness as would-be prosocial changemakers.
I also put strong emphasis on empowerment - but what is this empowerment that we’re talking about?
Trust and relationship building are only paths towards empowerment. They are ingredients because we recognise that there’s a huge and untapped potential for power in synergising with others. But, you could have a “functional” group that would only “empower” members and the group itself in a very specific and very limited way. It could also attract ire from the external world and end up being de-powered.
What does empowerment look like? How about growing twice your size and twice the strength, twice the cognitive capacity, twice the empathy, twice the number and strength of connections with well connected people …
Is empowerment a growth process? Does it not need to be always heading in the direction of more?
Empowerment must work internally and externally. Internal empowerment should ideally flow into the world and be connected with your self-realisation or ability to fulfil your ambitions.
In the first instance, “empowerment” in my usage is similar to what Paulo Freire was striving for with the pedagogy of the oppressed - activation of the marginal and the disenfranchised. At its core, I believe that involves spiritual or psychological practices to overcome trauma, learned helplessness, and other sorts of blockages. These sorts of practices involve both personal work, mentoring, and communities of practice, so I’d rather avoid what I consider rather sterile debates about the “individual” vs the “community”. Individuals-in-community is more like it.
Beyond that rather generic formula, of course the social milieu, personal characteristics of the people involved, and historical context will be quite telling. In the 2R context, “empowerment” of forum participants here means something rather different than empowerment would mean for students in my classes or - by way of contrast - youth in a Brazilian favela. What’s generically true in all these cases is that forming peer relationships will increase personal leverage toward whatever practical goals one might have in mind.
In that case, we need to agree what “oppressed, marginal and disenfranchised” mean and how to qualify it. Then we get to argue what’s trauma, who’s got it and how to overcome it - why can’t we simply say that empowering is increasing someone’s potential to be more effective with themselves, others and in the world with view to self-realising?
Since we all have different blockages and specific lack of capacities/capabilities - is it not more meaningful to “empower” towards real goals, that are pretty standard for human beings.
Maybe it’s just a perspective difference, but that orientation moves you directly into - what are capacities/capabilities needed to empower people, rather than what individual problems people have in order to be empowered and towards what.
To bring the topic back to personal motivation vs collective goals - having a paid “administrator” to take care of our legal and administrative chores would be a way to meaningfully empower people and give them more time to focus on creative things or simply thinking more about how to empower further.
A lot of our frustrations and insecurities come from the way that society intentionally de-powered and individualised us.
We really need to think about embodying these social structures and spaces in a way that would maximally “empower” progressive people and improve their lives and outwards reach
One of the reasons I wrote this was to get out of the business of specifying goals for other people. I’m also not that keen on workshopping definitions and conceptual frameworks. But yours above is fine with me.
Honestly, I’ve had the wind at my back my entire life, so I won’t be complaining here about how “society” did me dirty. The main problem I’ve ever faced is lack of clarity about what I ought to be focusing on (the postmodern condition as described very well in Kegan’s In Over Our Heads). There is another thread going on in parallel here involving identity boundaries. Pain and trauma don’t factor in much for me until I start identifying with others who are really experiencing pain and trauma, and until their suffering enters my own sphere of concern. So at wider circles of identity and action orientation, there are metacrisis-level events already well in motion, claiming victims not easy to reach with tangible support. Getting more leverage to improve the lives of those suffering the brunt of the weight of the world is the sort of empowerment I would wish to have. I try a lot of things. Some of them work well, others not so much. The only sort of blockage I seem to have just now is screwing my courage to the sticking-place. But there are plenty of other people in the world who could use a more direct sort of leg up, and if I can do more to be of such assistance, that is the empowerment I would generally wish for.
Would you feel comfortable about the idea of creating empowerment structures that would empower people without “fixing” their internal blockers first? After all, we’re speculating about everyone’s ability to overcome their issues and to be capable of meeting certain obstacles head on. It’s just a different model…
Maybe the empowerment is about delegating certain type of issues to different people who can handle them better - like bees or ants with their specific roles. Sure, internal work is super important, but what comes first? Helping someone to take a breath or teaching them to swim while they are drowning?
Back to effectiveness - what’s more effective given that we’re temporally constrained?
Yes. In fact, that’s largely my “plan A”. However, in many action contexts, people express the need for trauma processing, grief work, unblockage of emotional energies, etc. If that’s what people need, it’s what they need. Some of my students, for example, have had very challenging emotional or mental conditions, and those forces need to be factored in. But if people are feeling generally well-adjusted enough to get straight on to social action, fine with me.
“Back to effectiveness - what’s more effective given that we’re temporally constrained?”
Good question. For me, the answer lies in maximizing leverage (see Donella Meadows for more on leverage). To add some detail to that, to me the most leverage a person can possibly have is to influence a lot of other humans. But let’s also factor in identity, skill sets, social situation, and other constraints. In my case, I’m looking to influence people in the millions, but my highest leverage may not lie in becoming the proverbial star of the show. My influence may be maximized through supporting other personalities who have more direct relationships with popular culture at mass scales. There is a sort of information ecosystem involved. My general strategy is influencing influencers. That’s not the only sort of thing worth doing, but it’s the approach that best addresses all the Ikigai questions in my case. Others will find different pathways more suited to their own particular circumstances.
I think that the only way to meaningfully and sustainably influence others is by promoting an alternative that demonstrably and quantifiably works better. Just offering “goodness” will not cut it - in the world. Because - that’s what the world needs - better, not more left hemisphere or more right.
How do we know what’s better? It’s what better empowers people to fulfil their personal motivations.
That’s why we need new paradigms of co-operation that can prove superiority, otherwise we’re preaching only to the audience who are already believers.
For the prototype - you need experimentation between highly motivated and capable people who are prepared to valorise the experiment with an investment.
Funny you should mention that. In about an hour I’ll be on a call with the WSS group and what you are saying really speaks to their case. I fully agree that “goodness” (or other similarly vague objectives) will not do much. I’m also thinking embodied action says a thousand times more than pure theory, so in my work with WSS (or any similarly aligned organization), I tend to push things into an implementation direction. How will it work? What are the parts and pieces? Who will build what? What does the process look like, specifically? What is the timeline? Where do we begin? Etc.
Gathering ideas from a variety of these 2R threads, it seems the sweet spot for 2R participants in general involves cultural productions aimed at a generally well-educated niche market, with social transformation themes, and aspirations for larger outreach to wider publics. I do think @Gen is spot on that to break out of the well-educated niche we need to put philosophy books back on the shelf and think more like marketeers. In my WSS relationship, I am indeed very much the Mad Men type (although with not quite as much smoking, boozing, and philandering!).
I think it’s important to address both internal and external aspects of whichever problems we are proposing fixes for simultaneously. Take any problem that has been fixed satisfactorily, and there will be an internal dimension or experience of its having been fixed as well as an external - and both have to be components of the foresight that successfully envisions the solution.
I’ve been building software systems for most of my adult life, and discussing the big, wicked problems with folks who are predisposed to view things this way is frustrating, as there’s often a lack of appreciation for the importance of the interior dimensions of change. In my Letter to the Future I refer to the Iceberg Problem, i.e. the fact that most of our lives are lived unconsciously, at both the individual and collective levels, and our conscious goals are not likely to be achieved without appreciating this fact and responding correctly. What does it mean to respond correctly? To get the subconscious on board with the healing process. This is basically just my way of saying we need AQAL solutions.
I agree that the job is unfinished if the internal remains “unfixed”.
However, if we decided to test the co-operation or empowerment part in isolation - I assume that we’d be able to find people who don’t require internal healing. Why don’t we split those 2 tasks - healing and co-operation?
If you predicate the success of (un-researched and untested) co-operation paradigm with the success of (un-researched and untested) healing methods - we could potentially never get to the synergising bit.
I might be wrong, maybe there’s already a methodology for awakening and enabling people to become more powerful versions of themselves that would allow them to become super co-creatives?
Internal empowerment is very subjective, so difficult to quantify. External empowerment can be measured by the existing “world” metrics.
If you want to influence people at large scale you’ll need to be able to prove that your alternative works better.
I don’t think I’m proposing an alternative to anything that is tried and true. I am proposing an integration, rather, between things that are tried and true but incomplete if relied on in isolation. A contrived example of this would be a scientist working on a headset that they believe will alter brainwaves in a such a way that people will begin acting differently, and society will eventually change en masse from the bottom up. This would be to view society’s problems as purely dependent on individual brains. Another example might a technologist who proposes a new form of money that they wholly expect to change the world for the better within 10 years, if it could only be adopted. This is another form of quadrant-blindness. I am not proposing any '“alternatives” - just using what works in an AQAL way.
Regarding your question about methodologies for awakening, I’d suggest there are many such methods, and we don’t need to develop new ones (I’m partial to hypnotherapy as I am a hypnotist, but that’s just me). Instead, we need to clearly communicate to those who are not using them–those biased towards the exterior quadrants–to see their value. Just as those biases towards the interior quadrants would do well to pay more attention to measurements and systems.
When I settled on an Ikagai model in early 2025, the problem I was working on what how to construct an entry level information portal into all things metamodern, liminal web, and so forth. It’s a similar project to the 2R map, but I wanted something quicker, sharper, more portable, and easier to use spontaneously without a lot of prior introductions. One thing I’ve noticed about metamodern and liminal communities is a lot of those involved (A LOT!) want to focus almost entirely on inner work. Personally, I’m more excited about socially-focused work. But there is no way to point people to metamodern or liminal communities without addressing what is effectively the elephant in the room - what is the role of inner work? And what sort of inner work?
Literally up on a mountain top, it struck me that the inner work complex can be aptly symbolized by the Ikigai question “what do I love”? Asking that question gave me a pointer that could be directed at any number of inner work practices. Even better, it’s a question - not an answer! - so I don’t have to advocate for any specific type of inner work. My model just makes space for it. Better yet, the other 3 key Ikigai questions are more socially-focused (“what am i good at?”, “what does the world need"?”, “what can I get paid for?”). I’m especially keen on occupational skills development (“good at”), macro-sociological metatheory (“world needs”), and everything involved with pragmatic implementation (“get paid for”). But it seems like every time any of those topics comes up, someone in the group needs to spiral off into grief work, sense into feelings, launch a silent meditation, or otherwise avoid direct discussions of theory and practice. Fine. There is no fighting such impulses. So my model channels them by supporting extended exploration of “what do I love?”. But the model as a whole is not stuck on just that one point. As a discussion facilitator, I would never let a group get stuck on just that one point either.
Can you give me some examples of integrations that are irrationally ignored despite being proven to work better than alternatives, so that I can have a better understanding?
OK, that makes sense, but don’t you think that “What do I love” is a question that most don’t have a privilege of asking? Ideally, they’d all align like notes in a chord, but you can only bring up Love question if you’re not existentially challenged and the world is not overly fussy.
I think these questions are sequential:
What the World needs → What can I get paid for → What can I do → What I love doing
and I propose criteria for collective goals:
What the World needs → Who I can work with to meet the need → Temporary store of value → My values → Personal ambitions
Sure. Look at a list of conditions treated successfully by hypnotherapists - things like: IBS, tinnitus, phobias, insomnia, social anxiety, and so on. These conditions are difficult to treat, and people tend to try hypnotherapy as a last resort not because there’s less evidence of its efficacy (there’s often more), but because it’s “weird”. In a saner world, hypnosis would be integrated into most health treatment plans, as it is important for the subconscious to support the healing process. In fact, it’s possible for the subconscious to derail healing. The placebo and nocebo effects testify to this. My point is, if there were better understanding between the internal weirdos (healers, hypnotists, etc) and those with more external validity (scientists, policy makers, etc), people wouldn’t suffer for years from such conditions without knowing there’s hope for relief.
Actually, I think “what do I love?” is the most fundamental question - the question one asks oneself in the most extreme and dire situations. I’m thinking of Jesus going up to Jerusalem or Buddha drawn to leave the palace in favor of the forest. I’ve never been placed in quite so stark an existential position personally, but vicariously, my youthful studies involved much reflection on the Gulag, the Holocaust, and profiles in courage like Sir Thomas Moore. The question, fundamentally, was what love is so all encompassing that it shines through utter darkness and weighs heavier in the balance than life itself?
Perhaps because that was my own developmental pathway, I tend to run the Ikigai questions in a different order than you propose. “What do I love?” is always the opening move. The “good at” question comes next, mostly because it’s relatively simple and personal, but beginning to open the door to social reflection. (Namely “how good am I at something compared to everyone else?”) . Then yes, most of the my personal energy lately is directed to “what the world needs” and I’d be delighted to camp out there to the tune of semester-length courses or quite possibly writing a monograph or more. But I find most students or workshop participants need to revisit personal questions on a fairly frequent basis. To explore “what the world needs” in full philosophical depth requires longer attention spans than most people possess. Finally, I like to close with “what can I get paid for?”, because that’s the ultimate theory-into-practice question. How good are your skills, really? Have you really grasped in an actionable way “what the world needs”? And whatever you are planning to do next, do you love it enough to carry through in the face of adversity?
That said, Ikigai is open to other interpretations and other expansions, subtractions, modifications, etc. My style is my style. I’m sure others better than me across all dimensions will find new and different approaches to similar practices.
