When the status quo shifts, as it always does, uncertainty follows. Come what may, we’ll all be better off if society sustains high levels of trust, good leadership and cooperation.
Rocking the boat
Given the inertia of the status quo, is it any wonder that agents of change (protests, emerging research on environmental decline, weather extremes and so forth) usually don’t shift it. It’s not just the government dragging its boots, it’s pretty much anyone who has benefitted from the status quo (like me and most of the readers of this blog). We’re all loathe to upset the order of things when the status quo has benefited us so much. (And those that haven’t benefited, those locked in poverty for example, have little influence to affect the status quo.)
However, as discussed in the last blog, in complex systems change is the only constant. And trying to hold a complex system in the same state, to keep the status quo from changing, is not possible over longer time frames. You can achieve it for a period, decades and even multiple generations, but the longer you force it to stay the same, the more rigid it becomes, the more vulnerable to shocks and disturbances. At some point that status quo will break giving way to a new order. This is the lesson of history and the rise and fall of empires.
Governments ‘decay’ over time, as do most human endeavors, and this is often accelerated when we try to hold things constant because no one is in control; that’s one of the keys to understanding complex adaptive systems.
So, change is coming whether we want it or not, and by continually propping up the status quo, preventing change, exerting ever more effort to hold things the same, we’re actually making it more brittle to disturbances. What we need to ask ourselves is what do we hope for from the system when the status quo shifts. Will it be a system that continues to provide the goods and services we depend upon in a rapidly changing world, a system with adaptability and flexibility to change while still nurturing us?
Or will it be a world with few options.
Prioritising privilege
Consider if the super-rich (and most influential) use their power to keep things the same as long as they can. They prioritize a strong economy (powered by ‘cheap’ fossil fuels) over a faltering environment, suppress protest, spread disinformation and even prevent the gathering of information that interferes with their activities. It’s not a difficult world to imagine because we’re seeing its rise around us today.
The US, as one example, is cutting back climate science and weather observations because of concerns about climate disruption interfering with the economics of the fossil fuel industry. At the same time, it’s stamping on the renewable energy market and promising an expansion of the fossil fuel sector – drill baby drill. The evidence suggests this approach is not sustainable but in pursuing it we’re seeing greater efforts at controlling the system and greater suppression of rising dissent.
The status quo is privileging the economic elites who are doing more and more to control the system to preserve the status quo. And this is fueling a growing and unsustainable imbalance. Economic capital is on the rise for some, while natural capital (species, ecosystems and ecosystem goods and services) is in steep decline everywhere. Social capital (trust, cooperation, open societies and so forth) is also in decline as economic elites apply increasingly draconian measures to protect their wealth. The world is becoming a more brutal and dog-eat-dog place as resources become scarce, the earth system begins degrading and governments and people turn away from common interest to self-interest.
A society that protects us from disturbance
Whether we want change or not, change is coming. Our current trajectory is simply unsustainable though a powerful status quo is working against deep change to the system. At some point the status quo will shift, possibly collapse, and it’s well beyond time that society start asking how it might function once this shift takes place.
Now I’m not talking about specifics here – what’s our target for carbon emissions, plastic pollution or crop efficiency (this is the language of status quo thinking) – I’m more interested in the general properties of a society that will possibly be quite different to the society we recognize today existing in a world dealing with widespread and frequent disruption, a world of high uncertainty. This post-change society needs to have a strong capacity to deal with a wide range of disturbances. In resilience thinking this is often referred to as general resilience.
General resilience is a system’s general coping capacity. Studies of a variety of social-ecological systems suggest diversity, openness, reserves, tightness of feedbacks, modularity and redundancy are all important characteristics of systems with high levels of general resilience. Another way of thinking about this is that a loss of diversity (eg, declines in natural, social and economic diversity), constraints on openness (eg, the closing of borders), and the running down of reserves (eg, going into deep debt, draining agricultural aquifers), can lead to a country (as one example of a social-ecological system) losing its ability to cope with disturbance. This would be a world of fewer options, and it’s the world that the current status quo is pushing us towards. (I will discuss all these characteristics in greater detail in future blog posts.)
Underpinning these systems attributes are high levels of social capital – trust, cooperative spirit, and good leadership; a range of capacities to look beyond our own self-interest and help those around us.
So what is the change we want?
There’s a growing chorus for change, and many change agents at work across society. As listed a few blogs ago, there are many calls for change because…
… a majority of the population want change
… the evidence suggests we need to change
… the economics provide an overwhelming case for reform
… environmental advocates (people and groups) are trying to galvanize us into action
…we’re experiencing many more environmental shocks shaking us out of complacency
The future is uncertain but change is inevitable. If I could add to the chorus of demands for change, I would ask that we make society’s capacity to cope with disturbance – its general resilience – a higher priority. Sure plastic pollution and the price of energy are important, and the status quo is not dealing with these challenges in a sustainable or just manner, but we can’t afford to forget the deeper system characteristics that will buffer us from the disturbances that are coming at us down the line.
In this and the previous three blogs I have presented a range of ideas that have fed into my own personal ‘theory of change’. It’s a framing based on my engagement with resilience thinkers and complex systems science, and it helps me understand why the world is in the state that it is.
Given the parlous state of the world and the trajectory it’s on, everyone should be trying to make sense of change and what catalyses or prevents it. In my next blog I’ll spell out my theory of change, and maybe you’ll share yours with me.
Image: Old Blotchy, a huge ancient spotted gum on the NSW south coast is believed to be well over 500 years old. In that time it would have experienced many conditions and seen many disturbances of all types. It has survived them all – including the historic wildfires of the Black Summer of 2020. Does our society have the qualities that will enable it to cope through changing conditions over the coming decades (let alone centuries)? (Image by David Salt)
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