No abstract

No abstract

In his recent book 'Learning to Die in the Anthropocene. Reflections on the End ofCivilization ' Roy Scranton (2015) concludes with the observation 'we [humans] can practice and cultivate understanding the intimate, necessary connection of all things to each other ' (p. 117). This reflection speaks to a systemic sensibility that is available to all humans, but which unfortunately seems absent in the understandings and actions of many ( Figure 1). The extent of this absence and the degree to which it is cultural is an open question. The good news, based on over 40 years of experience in offering systems education at The Open University (UK), is that despite our culture and institutions (norms, or rules of the 'human game') a certain percentage of us retain a systemic sensibility -something which we may have been born with, or which developed in childhood. What is missing, however, are the contexts for a systemic sensibility to flourish, to be recovered and/or fostered. Investment in building systems literacy and then system thinking in practice capability (Figure 1) is missing in education as well as organisational life. The shift from sensibility to capability is needed if purposeful action is to be pursued with some prospect of altering the current and anticipated human condition, our co-evolutionary trajectory with the biophysical world, with other species and with each other. This is the challenge of 'Governing in the Anthropocene' which, as a profoundly existential crisis, is also the greatest challenge for systems thinking in practice, or those who would argue that part of the trajectory altering action is greater investment in thinking and acting systemically.

No abstract

No abstract