What is it we do as humanity in the relationship with each other and all life on this planet? I set a general tone for this question in my previous post and used Bill Sharpe’s three-horizon framework. I will search for an attractor for the third horizon in this post. I ask what is worth keeping when moving to the third horizon and what should we let die (gracefully). What are the factors that could prolong the first horizon? What else is going on in terms of reshaping our story? 

When integrating into Swedish society, one cannot miss ‘lagom’. The word expresses moderation or balance. It is about appropriateness, meaning more than just sufficient but finding an ideal in the imperfect. Lagom as a national value might explain why Swedes are smoother builders of consensus (over fika), equality, and sustainable lifestyles. As a Belgian who also lived for some years in the UK, I can appreciate how ‘lagom’ leads beyond the mediocre compromise yet avoids the excesses of liberal idealism. Over the last few months, I have only gotten a first impression of this value, and to me, more values and skills seem to be clustered around it. Trust that fellow citizens hold a certain level of self-regulation, respect for each other’s autonomy, and share the joy of life, to name a few. I am curious to explore this further in depth through unfolding my civil life here (a job, neighbour interaction, volunteering, sport,…). 

With my current level of Swedish, I can follow the main points of the mainstream news. And I observe how a global context of rising polarisation challenges the skills to keep up ‘lagom’. Some days, the news sounds like Sweden has the potential to be a chosen battleground for geopolitical-, cultural- and/or criminal wars. Being a neutral nation when the diplomatic will is low and an aggressive army is strengthening on the other side of the (sea)border might prove too vulnerable. My home country was in that position twice over the last century and has chosen to actively form political unions and military alliances since. Culturally, the skill to keep up ‘lagom’ might have helped keep extreme viewpoints at bay. And maybe that is why freedom of speech laws have been so liberal. But what do you do if one’s speech, or the burning of others’ words, reaches audiences unfamiliar with your own value, ‘lagom’? And when this speech is repetitive and via a medium where speed and scale hold proliferative characters? Or, to phrase it differently, what if, in the global context of exponential technology, local laws create a safe space for harassers? And what if these harassers could soon be artificial storytellers? We already saw that these harassments provoke a chain of reactions between dogmatists who feel their belief systems (religious or political) are at existential risk. Sadly, it has been proved that reactions can turn physically towards bystanders. Simultaneously, in Sweden, international criminals are leaching life potential out of vulnerable youngsters by remotely initiating them to perform deadly gang retaliations locally. So, I think these regular doses of ‘fear for the other’ make a cocktail where security (and rights) will be a dominating concern of a large part of the Swedish population. And I assume that this will set the top of the political priorities. So, for sustainable business, I don’t see policy sparking imagination on new models for life within planetary boundaries. But we might expect a focus on building technological knowledge, preferably with a dual-purpose potential like nuclear, aerospace and biotech. Safety concerns will probably also translate into increased regulations to address the direct impacts of environmental harm, raising the need for ESG strategies and services. 

To me, it seems like ESG, in the worst case, prolongs the life of the Horizon 1 established economy and, in the most optimistic case, is a master of ceremony to properly let go of Horizon 1. On the objective level, there is more and more consensus that we must let go of a carbon and waste-based economy. But what attracts or slows us down from moving to a Horizon 3 might be more subjective. Is there already any signal for Horizon 3 in Sweden? In the autumn, a few events in Stockholm targeted (English-speaking) sustainability professionals. Impact Week and the IDG summit caught my attention.

I managed to go to a side event of Impact Week. Nora Bateson and Daniel Schmachtenberger held a conversation on “What’s Important“. Daniel’s work has popped up occasionally in my media consumption since 2016. He calls himself a sense maker, and some phrases he formulates sparked creativity and made it into my vocabulary as a DIY philosopher. I was curious to (make more) sense of what it is he is doing. He spoke to a crowd of impact investors a few days earlier. Nora’s work was new to me, although I did know about the family’s history with systems theory. A year earlier, both met at the same venue and shared their experiences of being brought up in unorthodox ways. At the time of the talk, Daniel’s prerequisites, exaggerated statements, and calls created tension in me, making me disengage from listening to the whole conversation. I saw the value only after seeing it a second time in preparation for this blog post. It looks like an early-stage AI chatbot in a discussion with a moral, playful and compassionate being. Daniel’s speech illustrates a quick and creative train of thought that occasionally pours out word salads. While Nora demonstrates a lot of compassion towards a suffering being. 

In scoping the causes of our multiple crises, Daniel assumes a malignant intent of powerful actors while Nora focuses on failures to address needs. Nora focuses on what we can do (building agency), whereas Daniel states that we are doomed (sowing despair and apathy). He calls us to stop doing what we are doing for a living, engage in super serious talk instead, and follow the right information streams. Nora calls to engage in communing and learn to express relationships in refined details. He uses mechanical properties in his speech and describes the problem as a machine needing to be stopped (or to be killed!). Nora points out that the problems have ecological properties and are thus also resilient to any change that tries to stop them, and she asks what has to be continued. Daniel thinks all actions mean braking, so our actions result in exponentially more braking. Nora finds hope in being engaged, careful, rigorous and staying in love with life. She looks at the current structures and peoples’ capacity to effect, and she finds vision in the information right in front of us, in the room. As mammals, we have to be able to feed our babies, the babies of our babies,… Daniel puts his beds on people at the very top. To have them be simultaneously super-productive individuals and uncorrupted servants for life and future life. I wonder what quality checks are done on his work besides social media algorism and friends? Moreover, besides being a public speaker, he is also an entrepreneur who designed drugs intending to increase mental performance and brain health. So there it is. To me, he leaves ambiguity to interpret his long conversations as a pitch for a shady product and ambiguity to see his Swedish visits as an attempt to create a new market. 

The physical IDGs summit came at a premium cost and raised concerns about whether it could provide a proportional ‘return on my investment’. I had to think of a large-scale event in Belgium I went to last year. The Love Tomorrow conference promised to bring imagination from the heart and take an integral perspective. The running up to the event gave me hope that it could spark a shift in the profession, that it is possible to work on sustainability and become more human on the way rather than becoming a burned-out mind from all the strategic thinking or spreadsheet shuffling. The event brought many people on stage to tell something more about their journey (and an anti-stories and a meta-story). The plot usually follows this pattern: “I came to see that what I have been doing for a living was bad for the world, so I decided to change. I went on a lonely journey, fought daemons and found something brilliant that could change the world. And I want you to do the same. Do it for my children.” This was followed by a big applause from thousands and a sound and light show giving vibrations like you are about to be lifted into space. The IDGs got quite some critique, and Jonathan Rawson and Otti Vogt clearly pointed out that they are based on a myth of the heroic (self-centred) individual. Do we have to encourage personal growth when a person’s growth is not automatically linked to holding more morality in a larger context? What if personal growth is a way to speak to people’s pride and creates new elites of those who can afford to invest in things or activities that provide an inflated sense of self? I follow Jonathan Rawson in seeing the IDGs as a Horizon 2- phenomenon pretending to be a Horizon 3, prolonging the status quo while assuming to be a change agent. 

To me, looking to the subjective to find new ways into the future is valid. But there are many dangers in assuming the subjective means we must look inside. From the experience I mentioned above and amongst others, I am wary that a new gold rush is emerging, where we think ceremonies or drugs are gateways to impact. Looking at previous rushes, I think the disappointment and suffering from blinding and unmet entitlement are most often overpowering potential benefits. One thinks of finding something unique that will provide opportunities to exchange with others and build an identity. But what if we see nothing solid inside, no fixed entity, nothing to grasp and hold on to? But as I said, looking at the subjective is very important. We might experiment with objective structures or even new economies, but why? Yes, we want to avoid the consequences our ways of thinking have on the environment and the consequences these will have on us. But why should we do this? Because we are scared, feel guilty, have been wronged, or feel responsible? These feelings can drive you away from Horizon 1, but do they inspire you to go in a particular direction towards Horizon 3? Now that humans have god-like powers, what values should we allow to lead us forward and be an example for AI? What subjective experiences of the individual and collective should we best prioritise? What would be the top three? Love might be leading the list, but it may be too strong of a bond to hold towards everyone all the time. Equality, in terms of all (humans) having the same rights and opportunities, might also make it to the top. But equality can also be understood mathematically and subsequently conflict with diversity. Peace, safety (in Dutch’ geborgenheid’, in Swedish ‘trygghet’) and freedom might follow as they are facilitators for the top three.  

Maybe ‘belonging’ is the key value that can lead us to a viable future for everyone. And in the new story shaping our collaboration, we might only be talking about ‘us and us’ instead of ‘us and them’. Between the heavy news of the unfolding events in the Middle East this autumn, I found myself travelling to Berlin to a conference called ‘Othering and Belonging‘. Two words that didn’t fully resonate with me before but are yet so impactful on (our) lives. Othering is the mechanism behind many phobias and isms (xenophobia, islamophobia, sexism, etc.). When we ‘other’, we set boundaries to exclude life and potentially eradicate it. Life needs change to continue, but it can also deal with a limited speed of change. When change happens too fast, we and many other life forms feel bodily stress in the form of anxiety. And we, as story-making humans, put meaning to this anxiety. Meaning can come as a story of anger, fear or hate towards another and the need to protect ourselves by ‘othering’. The meaning makers in these stories are those who break us from life. Another meaning can come from a story of growing and learning to live together. A story of co-creating and co-owning structures for making earth our home, a story of belonging. And the meaning makers in these stories are those that bridge and bond life. All life, not just human life. john a powell’s introduction speech explains this in detail and is worth watching (see below). At the end of the conference, Bayo Akomolafe reiterated that ‘othering’ is an illusion because we are entangled. But Indy Joar’s intervention puts it sharper and states that we are in a self-terminating scenario and belonging is the only option to continue life. Because in a world with weapons of mass destruction, there is no scenario that a small population will make it through. The only way to survive is if we all survive. 

The question of co-creating and co-owning structures is mainly a question of democracy and taking citizens as key stakeholders in the power dynamics. Asma Mahala pointed out this century’s key question: Who governs Big tech (including digital currencies)? Because they are private companies, often operating in the public sphere and are not value-neural. They have become (geo)political, military, and ideological actors, possessing capital for ‘othering’ individuals, groups and nations. And she sees big tech and big state being both in competition and cooperation, maybe with the final goal of total control. The way out is to include citizens in governance, to change the status from private enterprise to regulated public service providers, and to establish new fundamental human rights like cognitive freedom. But as Indy Joar pointed out, maybe we should not ‘other’ technology. Because if we ‘other’ it, we create fear and allow it to be violence against us. The role of polarisation in democracy also came up as a question during the conference. Is it a threat to democracy because its binaries take any nuances (of life) out of the decisions made, or is it a sign of democracy because citizens actively participate and voice their needs? Is polarisation a flawless tactic to actually shift a system? And what if the other pole uses similar tactics and is potentially more effective? 

I am in for moving toward ‘belonging’; are you too? Because its prevalence could only be achieved by reaching the third horizon, I am curious about where to find imagination in art. I look forward to seeing Head to Head by Herwig Ilegems or The Pleasure of Slowness by Zheng Bo, and taking in the poetics of Perspectiva or the House of Beautiful Business. Do you see more? I am also curious about knowledge to help shape the stories of ‘belonging’. I’ll start with the Othering & Belonging Institute and the archives of the Bateson Institute, but because policymakers need robustly validated knowledge in their stories, I wonder what entities will build this and how? But before heading off, what should we keep from our current structures? Bridges for peace, systems to care for health, and human rights are extraordinary achievements to take with us into the future and reshape and extend to all living beings, isn’t it? A (somewhat)resilient food system is also something to take into the future, but it will need more disruptions and fundamental reshaping to contribute to climate change targets and get to a world where animals are no longer ‘othered’. To see that oat milk has already been normalised here in Sweden gives me hope. 

What can be the disruptors that can tip us to ‘belonging’? So what might we see in Horizon 2+? An option could be to ban banks offering credit with interest to projects that do ‘othering’, and/or to tax investors of ‘othering’ projects at 100% of the dividends. This would demonstrate the collective absence of trust in these investments. I heard that, in Sweden, JAK bank experimented with interest-free loans, but I don’t know if this will be scaled up. A shift in valuing the exchange of gratitude and compassion could also be a disruptor. Because it’s a currency used by many other beings. I am very grateful for the many opportunities offered to me here in Sweden, free of any financial commitment. I can learn the language’s grammar from a high-standard teacher. I can use exceptionally clean, creative co-working spaces (to work on this text). I can find rest (and sleep) in nature thanks to the Allemansrätten. And I can engage in a practice to deal with anxieties in a non-verbal way. Another disruptor will be AI. And maybe we should befriend them. It might be more effective than humans in organising and serving interests or values. So why not play with and teach this infant friend that we value ‘lagom’ and ‘belonging’ and disapprove of ‘othering’? But also set boundaries and expectations before we let it actively contribute to society. And closer to my own field, I don’t see the stories businesses formulate as becoming inclusive as real disruptors. Inclusion is about inviting more to pre-defined and pre-owned structures. I would see a business disruptor in coops. I believe the circular economy can become viable when coops (of companies, people, public service providers, and material banks) drive system innovation and enable all parties to merit equally. And I see the circular economy as a disruptor to a regenerative society. A society where the effects of the ‘othering’ done in the past are reversed, and all beings can feel belonging. Do you see something too?