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Cultural Butterfly

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Enough I.T., already! We need more “T.T.”!

We’re awash in information. Information is not transformation.

 

People often feel like they’re overwhelmed and drowning in information, and for good reason. We have more than enough “I.T.”, because information is not transformation.

 

I see people hungering for more authentic human connection, for heartful meaning, for what’s real, for experiences of awe, wonder, and beauty that come from the right brain being engaged. We need more “T.T.”—Transformation Technology.

 

Our culture is so oriented toward functioning with our left-brain that our usual response to anything is to perceive it as a problem to be solved or a situation to be described and analyzed with information. However, what I experience people longing for can’t delivered or “solved” by information.

 

In his two books, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World and The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, Iain McGilchrist says that the left brain makes a wonderful servant but a terrible master, and our culture has made the left brain into the master:

“Our talent for division, for seeing the parts, is of staggering importance—second only

to our capacity to transcend it, in order to see the whole. . . . Our dominant value –

sometimes I fear our only value – has, very clearly, become that of power. This aligns

us with a brain system, that of the left hemisphere, the raison d’etre of which is to

control and manipulate the world. But not to understand it: that . . . has come to be

more the raison d’etre of our – more intelligent, in every sense – right hemisphere.

Unfortunately, the left hemisphere, knowing less, thinks it knows more. It is a good

servant, but a ruinous – a peremptory – master. And the predictable outcome of

assuming the role of master is the devastation of all that is important to

us.” (Emphasis mine.)

 

That’s why I say “enough I.T., already! We need more “T.T.” -- that is “Transformation Technology” -- to support real transformation in our culture with inner shifts in perception and world view, not external changes based on our current cultural mindset of “more, bigger, better, faster.”

 

Here are examples of socio-cultural “T.T.” (transformation technology) of which I’m currently aware:

  • Jeff Goebel  uses a unique approach to achieve 100% agreement so that groups co-create their “Best Possible Outcomes”. It is an exquisitely, radically, and powerfully effective way to resolve conflicts and stuckness by building consensus. There are various approaches to consensus building that don’t all have the same effect because, as I have experienced and understand them, they don’t necessarily involve or integrate the right brain. Those approaches produce results that are left-brain driven for external outcomes and don’t create a deep cultural shift. I have personally experienced how Jeff’s process consciously integrates the right brain and is a transformational whole-brain culture shift beyond the external accomplishment of 100% agreement. For more information, see: o   “Beyond the Impossible: Conflict and Consensus in New Mexico”, Chapter 3 in The Reindeer Chronicles

 

  • World Peace and Other Fourth Grade Achievements describes John Hunter’s innovative, transformative World Peace Game  in which 4th graders consistently accomplish world peace. The Game’s goal is to extricate each country from dangerous circumstances and achieve global prosperity, with “winning” defined as “good conditions for everybody”. He says, “As the Game nears its end, there is always this spontaneous, informal assessment to find out who in the world is not okay and what everybody has to do about it.” (Emphasis mine.)

The Game is a hands-on political simulation that gives players the opportunity to

explore the connectedness of the global community through the lens of economic,

social, and environmental crises and the imminent threat of war. To do this, the players

take on roles of presidents, tribal leaders, standoffs, and summits in a sequence of

many-layered, interconnected scenarios, from nuclear proliferation to tribal warfare. It

seems clear to me that this Game fully integrates the right brain and creates a

transformational whole-brain culture shift in the players beyond the external

accomplishment of 100% agreement. (Maybe we all need to become 4th graders again

in John Hunter’s class!?!)

 

  • The u-school for Transformation at MIT is a global capacity-building and action research platform that offers programs, certifications, space holding and innovation labs using Theory U and Social Arts to activate a shift in individuals and collectives from ego- to eco-system consciousness, for the healing and regeneration of self, society and planet. They are activating and supporting a global movement for planetary healing and civilization regeneration. Otto Scharmer, a Senior Lecturer at MIT and Founding Chair of the Presencing Institute, says, "In order to create real change in the world we need to shift the inner place from where we operate, not just as individuals, but also in our collective actions, as groups, as organisations, and as larger systems." 

 

  • The Regenerators Collective is a community of thought leaders within regenerative development dedicated to working together to re-design a world built on regenerative principles, a world where organizations, leadership, design, architecture, cities - and your lifestyle - is inspired by the intelligence and wisdom of nature. The Regenerators Academy is part of that Collective. Regenerators is dedicated to help aid the emergence of a world where purpose, people, planet and profit collectively thrive.

 

  • For thousands of years, indigenous peoples have used ceremonies as transformational “technologies” to create and sustain cultures based on their worldview that everything is connected. I know from experience how necessary, potent, and transformative those ceremonies are as a cultural container because they facilitate the flow of real energy and Substance between people, the earth, all other beings, and Source/Spirit/Life Itself.

 

My passion and commitment is co-creating cultures where real life thrives. From my perspective, that requires much more socio-cultural “T.T.” than what our Western culture has now.

 

To paraphrase Paul Hawken, “The way to transform a dysfunctional system is to connect it with more of itself,” which is what transformational technologies do.

 

I’m aware of many individually-focused transformational technologies, which are also very needed and important. Do you know of socio-cultural transformation technologies other than what I’ve listed here? If so, please email me. I’d love to hear about them!  

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