How to hold a metacrisis mapping session? [sensemaking 101]

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Hello,

I’m co-leading a men’s initiative The Resonant Man which moves through monthly themes. We’re currently doing month of the metacrisis. During week 1 and 2 we focused on how to approach the metacrisis, and what new forms of leadership can mean in this context.

For week 3 I want to hold a session on m’apping the metacrisis’. The idea is to bring some basic sensemaking and systemic complexity thinking skills into the space.

My idea presently is:
Identify by consensus and interest a key theme of the metacrisis to focus on collectively eg. AI, Ecological, Meaning crisis.
After introducing the theme further and the value of mapping, we would each individually journal and map different dimensions of the issue (with mind maps).
Then the individuals come together in two breakout groups to dialogue about our maps.
Then those two groups come together into the full group to try and further synthesise.

This is my working sketch and I’d love to get any and all advice on effective ways to design this session.

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Hi. Thanks for doing this! My response will be partly theoretical reflection on themes that are frequently discussed in this forum and partly pragmatic educational design.

First, if your participants focus on any given crisis (AI, Ecological, Meaning crisis, etc), it will be a lot, but it’s not quite the metacrisis. Likewise, if they just all take a different crises and then share out about each one of them, that would be more the “polycrisis”. The idea of the “metacrisis” really comes from a meta-analysis of multiple systemic shifts coming together all at once, with some implication of a unifying root cause or other large scale commonalities.

The program design question is - are your participants ready to go “meta”? Grasping the idea of the metacrisis requires a certain amount of background in all the component crises that make up the polycrisis. Then beyond that, there is the additional question of systemic interaction between different processes in which different crises can feed and fuel each other (or in some cases, cancel each other out). That can get very abstract very quickly. Will that meet your program goals? Or do you want people more focused on ideas that are more tangible and easier to grasp on an action level?

My own leanings are towards situated and situational learning. I like the idea that groups might pick a single crisis and deep dive it. Ideally, it should be a crisis that speaks to them personally and experientially. From that base, if they then explore the context, and the context of the context, and the context of the context of the context … eventually something like a metacrisis view should emerge. But if a group wished to limit attention to something focused like AI or the environment and did not get all the way to a comprehensive metacrisis discusssion, personally, I’d be OK with it. If the metacrisis itself needs to be on the agenda in all it’s many-headed manifestations however, then a different sort of design may be required.

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Big welcome @culturepilgrim :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Practically i’d recommend walking them through one example that “we prepared earlier” to orient folks.

I also think encouraging them to pick a single issue/area e.g. AI risk, climate crisis etc and then work through that to the root causes would be good. This helps focus people and avoids them getting lost horizontally in the polycrisis (i.e. how different crises interact with each other) and instead focus vertically and get to root causes – which tends to help with insight and action.

What we sometimes term “going from the cracks in the walls to the rot in the foundations” (using metaphor from the paper).

Below are a few examples we create back at the start that could inspire you.

To summarize:

  • Focus on vertical analysis (going meta) rather than horizontal. You can share metaphor of cracks in wall.
  • Show a worked through example for a specific issue to start with. e.g. pick climate crisis or AI risk or whatever.
  • Then ask people to pick an issue and work on this.
    • “Reflect for a moment on what big issues you see coming up”
    • Collect suggestions from room and get a distilled list
    • “I want you to pick a topic from this list. Then try and produce an analysis like the above”
  • Then you can do 1-2-4 all i.e. share with another, then with 4 then with everyone

We’ve worked on this a bit for the Second Renaissance Explorer course Second Renaissance (something we’d like to teach others to lead btw)

Here are some “cracks in the wall”

Climate crisis (and ecological crisis more broadly)

What: obvious i think! Dangerous climate change and ecological degradation are accelerating. We continue to pump c02 into the atmosphere at a growing rate despite half a century of knowledge of the issue. Major vested interests actively oppose intervention and obscure the facts etc.

Superficial analysis: we just need more green energy … let’s get more solar.

Foundational issue: focus on endless material growth is core to capitalism and all major modern societies. Behind that materialism. tech obsession. Left brain delusions of control and simplified thinking (e.g. difficulty to grasp ecological dynamics and complexity etc).

"Wellbeing gap (or decline)

Despite great material wealth (in “west”) people not that happy and in many sectors wellbeing seems to be declining e.g. greater levels of suicide, depression.

Superficial analysis: a) dismiss issue (people actually are getting happier b) we just need more stuff c) (slightly deeper) we need to spend more on psychotherapy etc.

Foundational issue: (hyper versions of …) materialism, individualism, secularism. Materialism: a dead end in terms of long-term growth in wellbeing. Hyper Individualism = atomization and loneliness. Secuarlism = no spirituality and no access to waking up which is best opportunity for profound wellbeing (see A Scientific Approach to Awakening and Fundamental Wellbeing: The Work of Dr. Jeffrey Martin)

Polarization especially politically

Superficial “it’s just social media” etc.

Fundamentally: clash of world-historical cultural values systems as part of major paradigmatic transition from modernity to what comes after it (or in some cases still just from pre-modernity to modernity)

Concretely: (using Integral/spiral color metaphors) amber is clashing with orange/green. Orange is clashing with green. And teal is only just getting on the scene. See this book review for a more detailed analysis inspired by the Trump election Ken Wilber's Trump and a Post-Truth World - Review and Notes

Taking analogy of last great transition of medieval to modern: you had the great clash of catholicism with protestantism (major wars e.g. french wars of religion, 30 years war, spanish war in the low countries; massacres during all of these etc etc). You had the english civil war, the french revolution, the american revolution. These weren’t easy transitions - there were bitter disagreements and extreme polarization.

Growing inequality

What: inequality seems to growing systematically across a broad range of countries over the last half century.

Superficially just need a bit more redistribution.

Fundamentally related to the nature of the information economy and digital capitalism (or even capitalism in general!) - see https://openrevolution.net/book/ and e.g. Can digital businesses thrive and have a mindful culture?

Runaway tech

What: current AI development. clear risks but little ability to do much about it - in fact race to bottom (race to accelerate) seem to be getting worse.

Superficial analysis: need a bit more regulation.

Foundational analysis: we are tech obsessed (left-brain dominated, materialist), lack patience and ability to coordinate collective action problems (individualism etc).

Wellbeing / mental health crisis

What: ongoing rise in suicide and depression in the materially wealthier countries.

…

Meaning crisis

This a more ontological one - and hence more debatable.

What: loss of purpose, anomie, growth of nihilism.

Superficial analysis: always been this way … or inevitable result of seeing our true nature (selfish genes, purposeless atoms) and (lack of) true purpose.

Foundation analysis: cancer of modernity that removed the magic from the world (mistakenly and erroneously).

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This is phenomenal Rufus, thank you. I’m sitting with it and will follow up as/when further questions arise.

Thank you!

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Thanks again Rufus, just revisiting this and synthesising with some Grok supported guidance. I would definetely be interested to learn more about your SR version and facilitating it. The limited scope of our circle being 90m and also including check-ins means I’ll only be able to offer a ‘shotgun’ version of the exercise’ but I think it will still be nutritive. I’ll be introducing it with a slide and example work through. The idea rn is to break the men into pairs so they have a little time to dialogue before sketching responses. I’ll be running timed prompts on the breakouts to keep it going, so it will be a live action exercise. Here’s a basic outline:
Intent:

We are playing with developing our capacity for independent, collaborative sensemaking.

Eg. Not just consuming through passive media but working to understand it together & glean insight

This is part of The Resonant Man developing our capacity to address the times and collaboratively sensemake—beyond the limited scope of a ‘mens work’ paradigm focused only on personal process and goal attainment.

Exercise:

Collaboratively make sense of one of the key crises facing us in the metacrisis. One man volunteers as scribe to write or mindmap through these 4 level Insight Process to understand the depth of the crisis. Then we will come together any seek to integrate key insights, notice the difference in our mapping and any opportunities for transformation and action.

19:35 Breakouts (groups of x2) with timers for each section

5m Name it: Write an initial frame

4 Level Insight Process

5m Symptomatic: Identify immediate manifestations, challenges & threats. (2-3)

5m Systemic: Structural drivers and incentives (2-3)

5m Inter-connective: Naming other crisis that are supporting this one (2-3)

5m Paradigmatic: Consciousness Level Causes of this crisis (2-3)

20:00 Re-convene and share maps

Group 1 share their map & key insights

Group 2 share their map and key insights

20:15 Open dialogue

20:25 Close

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