First annual Symposium on Societal Transition Pathways
November 2020
Mini-narratives of a future society
Mini-narratives of transitions
Anima was excited to visit the itinerant exhibition of the Museum of the Materialistic Era with her grand-mother Dominique.
It was the second time for Anima. The pictures of the Big Sales Days were very striking: why would people run to get discounts?
Anima had been debating this a lot with her friends at school, but they could really not figure it out. So, they decided they would go back and spend more time looking at the pictures.
Since the exhibition was trendy, Anima knew that there would be a long queue outside the building. She was looking forward to it: queues were so fun. You could meet new people, spend time discussing with them. There were always many children: each coming with new ideas for games or great stories to tell. Anima had thought of a race based on a new way to run she had started to practice: one step ahead, one step aside. Not very easy. A great thing to try with others.
Anima did not like everything she saw at the exhibition. The rooms with the clothes made of pieces of animals were frightening and a little disgusting. Yet, they were a great way to understand the long path since the days of the materialistic era.
Anima made sure she had the golden rings and necklaces she borrowed from the big container outside the exhibition. The museum shared those tokenized objects with all the visitors to pack a little message in them for the next borrower. They wanted to show that sharing makes you richer. Anima had loved a note she found in a particularly shining bracelet: "Smiling faces are behind the screens." She would make sure to visit the author if the visit was at biking distance.
David Claivaz
A future better society is a society in which global common principles and values, ensuring the equal respect of nature and all beings, will be shared and respected at a local level.
The transition to a future better society is our collective responsibility as human beings.
This transition needs new narratives.
Social entrepreneurs, education at a systemic level, as well as we, as individuals, are all in a good position to move fast and to initiate change, where we are, with the resources at hand, to start creating and sharing those new narratives, as well as taking action for a better future.
Narrative - year 2101
Shamanic journeying has become a common practice.
After years of religious wars, humanity has managed to peacefully live together, sharing, cultivating and cherishing its differences, while at the same time practicing the common knowledge of its first ancestors. People are connected again to mother earth and to all beings, knowing that everything is alive.
In the purest tradition of first men, and following the core principles of shamanism, a group of friends meet by a river. After asking the river for permission, they start cleaning it.
Dominique Bourqui
It is the year 2050. We’re seeing the last ripples of the efforts that went into transforming the social entrepreneurial ecosystem that have contributed to a safe operating space for humanity. Better value for societies living in extreme poverty has been created in which governance is hailed for institutional structures that promote substantive outcomes and public legitimacy in terms of policy, operations and legal structures.
Policy has narrowed its focus from quantity to quality, allowing for social entrepreneurship to flourish. Operations facilitate the eradication of extreme poverty through the transformation of social business models and governance practices while generating income. Legal structures provide for sustainable economic growth by recognising social entrepreneurship to have pattern-breaking solutions.
Alas. It is the year 2020. The average social entrepreneurial activity rate measured in 49 countries is 1.9%. Solving societies’ issues is complex, requires challenging the status quo - and we are running out of time.
Corlea Human
Our future society
The society of the future after the Grand Transition will have a deep temporal horizon. Being a good ancestor will be the reference point for decisions made on behalf of the society. Mindless mass consumption will be perceived as the illegitimate lifestyle of the past. Rivers and mountains, forests and animals will become legitimate stakeholders, represented in political decision making. Societies will be organized glocally: Locally embedded but with a global horizon.
How do we get there?
We will have to change the narrative that guides and legitimizes current habits, practices and power relations. While we might also have technological innovations to achieve such a future, we should not underestimate the soft power of storytelling as the major driving force of the Grand Transition.
Guido Palazzo
The question is not whether or not we will change our ways as individuals and as society. It is when will we do it. Because the more we wait, the more unnecessary suffering we will cause. To ourselves and our children, to our environment, to animals. The key word here being “unnecessary”.
Yet I remain optimistic that our collective intelligence will help us find a way to reconcile the legitimate will of people to live a pleasant life, and the respect of our environment. It is a challenge to our imagination. Let us collectively rise to this challenge.
Christian Nils Schwab
A better world is the world where everyone feels empowered by contributing as an individual or as a member of an organization of any size, when the objectives and end goals of business enterprise are supported by all stakeholders and success is shared by all. How to get there? Developing a long-term vision with a meaningful execution strategy which takes responsibility for externalities is the key.
Valeria Makarova
A good society would truly care for all its members, making meeting fundamental human needs a universal human right. Respecting all life, it would adapt its energy and material use to preserve ecosystem resilience.
Empowered by being cared for by society, more and more people would become mindful of how they relate to all life, and contribute by helping locally shape political and economic institutions to serve societal goals.
Arts and sciences would flourish, guided by such a clear purpose of society.
The transition itself must start with a broad awakening from consumerist, individualistic illusions, helped by a societal dialog on values and goals, of which this symposium is one of the seeds.
Sascha Nick
My vision for an ideal society is pretty simple: basic needs are met, there are plenty of exchanges between humans and non humans, in respect for each other, within the limits of our planet.
We forgot about the unsustainable infinite growth paradigm and we use happiness and well-being as our metrics instead of GDP.
To go from where we are now to our common vision, we should be honest to all citizens about the current environmental crisis and the seriousness of it and implicate seriously all stakeholders in society to drive the change and define the path to transition together.
Sara Gnoni
Future society: I imagine the future society to be based on the principles of social justice and ecological boundaries. Our democratic decision-making processes are not anymore defined by ideology but by the eagerness of creating solutions for social and ecological challenges. To go beyond ideology the need for a diverse set of perspectives is recognized.
Transition: A more socially just and ecological society needs more critical and engaged citizens. Therefore, more participatory methods are needed to activate citizens so they can shape decision-making processes directly. The power lies within the people.
Lea Trogrlic
Future better society:
A future better society is one in which personal and common fictions coexist to protect every form of life.
Transition to such society:
Building such a society is made possible by the appreciation of a systemic vision of equality, understanding the importance of shared limits and boundaries over private technological myths.
Louis Delannoy
A future better society is one which is grounded with respect of core human values, respect of others, ensuring integrity, responsibility etc. in everyday dealings to the best way possible. A society with enforceable unbiased corrective measures to those not respective those core values (identified contextually). A society where everybody can have access to basic amenities (if they want to) but more practical skills (education wise) needed in the context where they respectively live. A society where systems in place (contextually) are set up for continuous growth, development and welfare of its population and a better happy human society is one that I idealistically envision. And happiness, growth, development or welfare should be contextually defined.
Nadege Yoko
First of all, people’s relation to work would be very different and we would have more free time to care about the others, public concerns… This would go in hand with a more sober way of living which would be more local, thus allowing us to better connect with what surrounds us and in the end being happier.
How to get there is a much more difficult question but I would say that new narratives and more democracy (people need to be better integrated in the decision processes) are prerequisites.
Louis Rouquette
A better society is a more rational, more equal and more collaborative society. We are trained from a very early age on how to spot and resist archetypal narratives based on our cognitive biases. We are taught how to control our emotional impulses and how previous society has weaponized the humanities to trigger them for commercial and propaganda purposes. We have changed our definition of economic success towards a more sustainable and circular economy. We approach screens trained in statistics, UX and data protection. We are attention literate.
Lazar Dzamic
The society I wish for in the future is organized in small communities, based on inclusion and collaboration. I wish for cities in the future to be organized according to what has recently been defined as the "15-minute city", where every service or product is reachable at a short distance, to reduce pollution and transaction costs. In the society I imagine, there are no multinationals, monopolies, lobbies, and criminal organizations. Also, the market-based and money-first mechanisms and ideology cease to have prominence, in order to redistribute wealth and avoid excessive accumulations of it. In the future, I wish for people to have more time off from work to take care of their mental and physical health, their hobbies and passions. I wish for all people to have access to sufficient food, to have the possibility to reconnect with nature and know what they eat. I see the transition towards this kind of society happening through and thanks to education, learning, and mutual exchange. In this transition, the support of strong policies, institutions and effective rule of law will be fundamental.
Valentina Guido
A better society is something that we all can strive for; the most pressing question for me is - better according to whom? It has often been the case throughout history that “better” was defined by narrow groups or by self-elected leaders, whether it meant “better for themselves” or “better for the general public”. I, for one, hope that we can set up a framework and institutions for transitioning towards a better society in a way where the society itself, the individuals, are free to choose as to what “better” constitutes for them.
Armen Danielyan
I expect societies to engage with the energy transition, to adopt some technical fixes, resist others but not to question the way people in affluent countries live, i.e. some efficiency, fuel switching but no sufficiency. My better transition is that described by Gebé in l'An 01.
Vincent Moreau
A better and more prosperous future society is one where sustainability, equal opportunity, and innovation are prevalent and available to all members. These pillars go beyond an economic lens, and also extend to developmental aspects of our everyday lives including social, environmental, and human development.
Education is the bedrock of stability and opportunity. With education at the heart of our society’s vision for our future, we can build a sustainable economy and prosperous society based on innovation and knowledge, leading to a long-lasting flourishing future. It is thus imperative that access to quality education should be available to all rather than the few.
Omar Sheikh
Guidelines for a better society:
Social status is commensurate with the person's contribution to the society (in skills, intellectual or artistic contribution, paid taxes and/or donations, help to others).
Everybody (individuals and organizations) proudly pays their share of contribution (taxes, labour) to society.
Wealth and power are not centralized into the top 0,5% of the population.
Exorbitant wasteful/irresponsible behavior (»because I can«) is not admired and celebrated.
Access to unbiased information and professional skills training (education) are available within normal reach of all (not necessarily 100% free, but normally reachable).
True meritocracy and empathy.
Marko Majer
A future better society: a society where people are empathetic towards each other and respectful of all sentient beings and a world where people can achieve their highest potential without harming others.
Devendra Rana
A better future society for me is a society with less human footprint and more space for other species and nature.
In that future world we align growth of happiness, economic growth and environmental prosperity and will keep them in balance.
Maurik de Groot
The promise of a future better society is to take everyone serious for who they are. Its ideals are respectful and generous relations. The actors who will carry that future are mediators and intermediaries, the language will be feedback-stories, the behavior will be empathetic service and the energy that fuels this future will be solar.
Ulrich Goluke
I believe a future better society will be one which is more equal - if climate change and environmental degradation weren't externalities, they wouldn't be that big of an issue, everyone would be free to do as she/he wishes and assume the costs of their own actions. It seems inevitable that, in order to transition towards a more equal society, we will have to drastically change our behavior towards a simpler and healthier way of living.
Anonymous
Since society emerged, it has been shaped by the main paradigms dominating at a given point in time: science, politics, economy. Most people consider their paradigms as absolute, irremovable, truth, until a revolution of minds creates a natural, though often painful, paradigm shift. We are the dissident voices who sense that we are at the verge of the next shift. Just there. What’s behind? We don’t know, but we can hope for a world where all living beings are considered respectfully, where human arrogance over Nature will be replaced by a bright humility with a sense of partnership. We are the actors of change, we, with the 30 billion bacteria we host in our digestive system and that keep us alive.
Xavier Bengoa
A better society would look like a society where the education sector fully helps individuals find their own professional path. Helping people measure their success and find their place in society will lead to higher professional fulfillment and sustainable professional objectives. By having professionals in the right place, we would create more engagement and commitment at individual and collective level.
Daniele Ticli
A future better society will adopt the Servant Leadership style.
Agnieszka Kapalka
I see a future better society as somewhere we stop being selfish; not only amongst ourselves, but towards our environment. Where we become truly conscious about our role in the planet and its state.
I see us getting there by not only understanding the damage we have done, but by understanding how to take action against it. With our leaders being spokespeople, where everyone has a common agreement that we need to start acting.
Joel Villalobos
I am inspired in my vision of a new society by Kate Raworth’s “Doughnut Economy” and Jason Hickel’s “Less is More.” We wrote a paper inspired by these: “Providing Decent Living For All Within Planetary Boundaries” which lays out the physical (energy) requirements of a good life for all. I encourage you to think about how we lay out the infrastructure and institutions (businesses included) which build to this technically, humanly and economic possible future, which faces steep political opposition from the most powerful forces ever to walk the earth: extractive industries and their economic & political allies. It’s work worth doing - the only work.
Julia Steinberger
According to Simon Sinek and Sadhguru, we are part of the endless “infinite” game. Not many people realize this, everyone is welcome to play in this game, but not in the way we have learned or we are teached (finite), therefore we have to learn to become such a player and enjoy playing it.
Beat Fahrni
Excerpt from a letter to the parents of first graders, on the first day of school, somewhere..., on September 1, 2050.
“Dear Parents,
We are deeply honored that you have chosen our school to help your children learn how to make the best of the most precious gift you have given them: their life.
It will be a privilege to teach them and with that privilege comes our great responsibility.
It will be a privilege to learn from them and with that privilege comes our great gratitude.
There are seven core courses your children will be attending, grade 1 through 10:
Life and Death
Health and Disease
The Past and the Future
The Mind and the Soul
Matter and Energy
Stories and Evidence
Love and Cruelty
In addition, when they feel ready, your children will be able to choose their individual Dream mentors to help them discover their professional dreams and make them come true.
We strongly encourage you to join our Dream mentor certification program. It may not be an easy program to complete but practicing dream mentorship is one of the most rewarding experiences in life.
…”
Vanya Loroch
Starting with education, let’s teach all children how to lead more successful lives, not just those in elite/private schools in select regions. This includes practical learning of personal finance and nutrition and reproductive and mental health. Let’s connect recent research with key education topics, instead of re-iterating theoretical concepts which students don’t know how to use in real life (unless they are very lucky with their primary carers).
Let’s connect the needs of people and society with the needs of the equally important elements of this planet, through a shift in perspective away from human-centric prioritisation into planet-centric. We are all made of the same matter, so does it make sense to perpetuate separatism? Whether its gender, race, religion, origin or sexual orientation - we are all on a journey on the same planet - we can achieve so much more with collaboration.
Let’s systematically seek commonalities in religious and spiritual contexts in the culture (education, media, etc) because there are many, and these commonalities - the natural human principles - say a lot about us.
Let's start reporting good and bad news on the media. Why do we constantly show humanity in such a negative light? We have created a fall-back view of humanity, which is not only unrealistic, but helps to perpetuate negative behaviour in the populus because it is normalised from over exposure to human atrocities.
Let’s encourage maximum empathy and compassion in all areas of society, instead of holding onto the false notion that they have no place in successful businesses.
Anna Chilton
A better society would be we respect all existence not only humans in different races, animals in different forms, plants in different states, objects in different forms, but also opinions, values, emotions, spirits in her own forms.
Lin Xu
Questions to participants
Using the MIT interactive Climate Change Simulation it is apparent that transitioning to renewables alone will not get us to 1.5 degrees C above pre industrial levels. It will be necessary to go to a zero growth economy. Our economic history is based on continual economic growth. Do you think that man, government, or culture can adapt to a zero growth economy?
Steven Yamshon
Which one will be reached first: limits or boundaries?
Louis Delannoy
How to foster new narratives and more democracy would actually be my (very) non-trivial question :)
Louis Rouquette
What is one thing that we can stop, one thing that we can start, and one thing we should continue to do to create more equal educational opportunities for the world?
Omar Sheikh
What is the growth point of economic power in the circular economy and how is economic prosperity in the circular economy?
Jingxian Ye
Doesn’t it all start with a clear vision? A vision of where we would like to go? Because then you can think of narratives to mobilize, federate, energize people behind this shared vision. But my question is not what this vision should be. My question is why is it so difficult to articulate one? Or if individuals have done so, why are they not audible? Is society resisting such a new vision, and is so, why?
Christian Schwab
As soon we are showing our kids that we try to steer towards a new society, they will be able to adapt. They like to follow their nearest people like we normally are as parents or relatives. We all already know how to do small changes, go ahead and do it, then this will raise and become bigger as our kids take it as normal. Create for them this environment in which they can develop themselves and let them make the important experience then they will take the right decisions out of it, believe that they will do. Live your vision and then the kids will smell it and explore it, so they have the choice to compare, they will choose the right thing, I’m pretty sure they are born with that wisdom.
Beat Fahrni