Charles M Johnston / MD Cultural Maturity

A Guidebook for the Future (With an Introduction to the Ideas of Creative Systems Theory)
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9747154-8-3
Verlag: ICD Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 624 Seiten

'Cultural Maturity: A Guidebook for the Future' is the most detailed of three new future- related works by the author. It looks deeply at how the most important challenges ahead for the species will require not just better ideas, but new human capacities; in the end, an essential 'growing up' as a species-a new Cultural Maturity. It is written for those interested in acquiring the newly sophisticated leadership abilities that we will more and more need in all parts of our lives in times ahead. The concept of Cultural Maturity makes understandable how institutional structures and beliefs that in modern times have served us well can't be the ideals and end points that we have assumed them to be. It goes on to articulate a new guiding story for our time, one able to take us equally beyond denial, cynicism, and naïve wishful thinking. This book looks deeply at the changes the concept of Cultural Maturity describes-both how they make needed new capacities possible, and how we see their beginnings in many parts of our personal and collective lives. The concept of Cultural Maturity is based on the ideas of Creative Systems Theory, a comprehensive framework for understanding change, purpose, and interrelationship in human systems. Creative Systems Theory describes how Cultural Maturity's changes are as, or more, significant than those that brought us modern democratic governance 250 years ago. It also argues that if the concept of Cultural Maturity is not basically correct, it is hard to imagine a healthy and vital human future. In addition to introducing the concept of Cultural Maturity, Cultural Maturity: A Guidebook for the Future presents important related ideas from Creative Systems Theory. Creative Systems Theory represents an example of culturally mature conception and offers a rich array of conceptual tools able to guide us in making the future's increasingly complex choices.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Charles M Johnston, MD

MD,

Leseproben

INTRODUCTION Where We Stand: A Time of Great Risk—and Great Possibility The future is ever a misted landscape
No man foreknows it, but at cyclical turns
there is a change felt in the rhythm of events. ROBINSON JEFFERS I’M A PSYCHIATRIST BY TRAINING, but the larger part of my life’s work concerns how we can best make sense of the times in which we live and what lies ahead for us as a species. People often refer to me as a futurist. A better term, given where I put my attention, might be “cultural psychiatrist.”1 Most futurists focus primarily on technological advances. My greater interest lies with the psychological, social, and leadership capacities that humanity will need to effectively address the questions that most define our time and that will most determine our future. One conclusion stands out in my efforts. The future will require from us not just fresh ideas, but a fundamentally greater sophistication in how we think and act. To put it simply—but I think quite precisely—the critical questions ahead demand of our species an essential “growing up,” what I call a new Cultural Maturity. The concept of Cultural Maturity is a formal notion within Creative Systems Theory, a comprehensive framework for understanding how human systems work that was developed by myself and colleagues over the last forty years.2 Cultural Maturity: A Guidebook for the Future closely examines the concept of Cultural Maturity and its implications for addressing the critical challenges before us. It also introduces the thinking of Creative Systems Theory. This book’s goal is to help readers think differently, and deeply, about today’s critical challenges, both to appreciate the greater human maturity required by the tasks before us and to understand how to make that maturity manifest in our personal and collective choices. It is written for people wanting a deep understanding of the changing times we live in, and in particular, for people who wish to develop the capacities needed to provide effective and wise leadership as we look ahead. The Basic Notion The concept of Cultural Maturity starts with the essential question of how best to understand current times. But it quickly confronts a more specifically provocative question. It asks if it is correct to assume, as is our tendency, that the profound advances that have given us modern age institutions and ways of thinking mark some final achievement, whether further new chapters in our human story may lie ahead. The concept of Cultural Maturity argues that further chapters are not just possible; they are necessary, if our human future is to be bright. Most of us recognize—whether consciously or not—that a kind of cultural “growing up” is needed today. We grasp that dealing with nuclear proliferation in an ever more technologically complex and globally interconnected world will require us to relate in more mature ways. Similarly, people recognize that addressing the overwhelming array of environmental concerns before us will demand a newly mature acceptance of responsibility for the planet’s well-being. People’s more immediate frustrations also show a beginning appreciation of this need for greater maturity. With growing frequency, people today respond with disgust—appropriately—at the common childishness of political debate, and at how rarely the media presents information that appeals to more than adolescent impulses. At the very least, we appreciate that a sane and healthy future will require us to be more intelligent in our choices. Most of us also recognize something further. We get that it is essential, given the magnitude of the challenges we face and the potential consequences of our decisions, that our choices be not just intelligent, but wise. Cultural Maturity is about realizing the greater nuance and depth of understanding—one could say “wisdom”—that human concerns of every sort today demand of us.3 The concept of Cultural Maturity helps us in three important ways: First, it provides an overarching, guiding story for our time, a way of understanding the kinds of choices that will most serve us going forward. Second, it delineates new human capacities that will be needed if we are to effectively address the essential challenges before us as a species. And third, it describes how the future will require that we understand in some fundamentally new, more complete4 and sophisticated ways, and at least points toward the characteristics of such new thinking. Shortly, I will expand on each of these ways in which the concept benefits us and make clear how each of them is essential. In one sense the concept of Cultural Maturity is simple. Indeed we need not even think of it as a concept, rather just an observation. In using words like “childhood,” “adolescence,” or “adulthoodÆ to describe stages in individual personal development, people may quibble about details as far as just what specific stages involve, but the fact of general development stages is not something we question. In a similar way, Cultural Maturity is a developmental notion. I will argue that when we examine it closely, it similarly becomes obvious. That it is not now obvious is a product only of the fact that we are just now making entry into the new realities that it describes. At the same time, and for related reasons, the concept of Cultural Maturity does not let us off lightly. New developmental chapters necessarily stretch us, and as you shall see, Cultural Maturity’s changes do so in some particularly fundamental ways. I will describe how culturally mature perspective challenges familiar assumptions of every sort—political, religious, philosophical, aesthetic, and scientific. It requires a willingness to expand how we understand—and how we engage the world—in every part of our lives, and in ways we can only begin to grasp. How I Got Here A bit about how I arrived at the decision to write this book helps put what I hope to achieve in these pages in context. When I was in my twenties, I stumbled upon an intriguing way of thinking about how human systems grow and evolve—human systems of all sorts: individuals, relationships, organizations, and societies.5 I wrote about these ideas in my 1984 book, The Creative Imperative. They later filled out to become Creative Systems Theory. In developing Creative Systems Theory, I found particular fascination with the perspective its ideas provided for understanding cultural change—for making sense of how cultural systems grow and evolve. At first it was the way these cultural change concepts helped me better appreciate the past that I found most striking—how they provided insight into why our human story has progressed in the ways that it has. But I soon recognized that these ideas also had more immediate and practical implications. They could help us understand the often-confusing times in which we live. Creative Systems Theory’s big-picture vantage predicts that challenges we face today should be requiring us to turn first pages in an important next chapter in the human endeavor. I saw that understanding what those challenges ask of us clarifies much about current human circumstances. I also saw that the next chapter in culture’s developmental story is not just predicted, but happening. I coined the term “Cultural Maturity” to have a readily graspable way to talk about it. The recognition that the concept of Cultural Maturity provides perspective for understanding today’s essential tasks dramatically altered my life’s direction. I realized that a major portion of my life’s work needed to focus directly on today’s challenges. And I saw that it needed to focus specifically on Cultural Maturity and the necessary changes it entails. I found myself struck increasingly by how, if there is a single, core “mental health” crisis in our time, it is a crisis of story—ultimately, a crisis of human purpose. Familiar cultural narratives have today stopped serving us as they once did—be this the American Dream, opposing political ideologies, the beliefs of our various religious traditions, or progress’s promise of ever onward-and-upward scientific discovery and technological advancement. Because people lack compelling pictures of what our times are about, and also what may be possible, all too frequently they wander aimlessly, or confuse the superficial excitement of the next big thing with real meaning and direction. Individually and collectively, we also often make dangerously shortsighted decisions. The concept of Cultural Maturity offers an antidote to this crisis of purpose. I saw that it not only provides a new guiding narrative, it helps us make sense of the more sophisticated ways of understanding and acting that will be necessary if we are to effectively address the challenges ahead. Acknowledging this significance, I joined together with colleagues to start a nonprofit think tank and center for leadership training—the Institute for Creative...