Panarchy is the name that describes this cyclic pattern of development on the biological landscape. The theory outlines how the complexities of dynamic systems scale across space and time by way of predictable patterns. At each scale, such as within a life span of the transitional journey of a species over time we see phases of growth, conservation, release, and reorganization. This model, however, applies to all complex systems such as social organizations like culture, businesses, nation-states, and the planet.
Evolution demands that organisms go through periodic birthing sequences on a number of scales in order to maintain coherence with respect to a changing environment. This is the essence of the development of net new traits that are suited to these environmental variables. As members of the biological economy, we have had to negotiate this sequence of seasonal developmental surges since the dawn of time.
When the former ways of being are no longer relevant, we undergo a type of birthing process. Expelled from a former environmental womb that can no longer sustain us, we are compelled to search for new ways of being. We must pioneer new territory and new ways of being because the old ways no longer serve to nourish and protect our integrity. Our cultural myths capture this as chaotic change events followed by the search for promised lands.
When single-celled creatures left the hydrothermal vents, when biofilms and multicellularity emerged, when fish came to explore the land, and when flowering plants and insects emerged, these were examples of response to environmental necessities. The antagonism of change brings about the necessity of innovation but this is a messy process. Birth can be bloody and painful but it is a necessary part of the developmental cycle when our former environmental womb can no longer carry us. As humans, we once had to leave the safety of the trees and wander the savannah looking for new ways to carve out a sustainable niche. We developed a number of new strategies to survive in different environments.
This birth-type architecture is always present but it pops up on large scales whenever the regular patterns of existence are disrupted to the degree that the former patterns no longer serve. When farming transformed into industrial economies we saw things like the Taiping Rebellion and the rise of Communism and Capitalism as quasi-religious movements with all the trappings of moral superiority and chasing down heretics to destroy them. These things are a response to the widespread angst of birthing new ways of life. To understate the disruptive aspects of these kinds of phases, we could call them cultural growing pains.
This natural protocol of conception and growth establishing an equilibrium followed by saturation and the necessity to leave (or extend past) our former place is archetypal. We see this pattern repeated in our recorded history on many scales and under many causal formats from political and environmental to technological. From a technological perspective, agriculture, writing, the industrial revolution, and the information age are of the same order of disruption as are environmental tipping points. In fact; we are undergoing a technologically induced birthing phase of monumental proportions right now.
As technology tames the means of production, we are increasingly undergoing a post-work type of world. As a species, we are not equipped to entrepreneurially recognize that we are biologically wired to hunger for ways to nourish and protect the community that nourishes and protects us. Our purpose was once defined by necessity. The immediate demands of survival in the local environment informed us of our purpose and the necessary tasks associated with it.
The enormous wealth pouring out of increasing technology also erodes the mechanism by which our former sense of purpose was established. Our confusion and angst are expressed in a number of ways, such as quiet desperation, hyper-attraction to busy distractions, addictions, retreat to virtual worlds, and open unrest. This disquieted social climate is fertile ground for populists and niche movements that market themselves as the way to a new promised land.
Alongside this unsettled undercurrent is a dawning recognition that we share the same environmental womb and that we must nourish and protect it just as it nourishes and protects us. This awareness and its practical application can lead us to the next phase of development. As with any birthing process, it is bloody and painful with a risk of death. We need to learn new skills to survive and thrive in the new environment. I for one hope we embrace the notion that having each other’s backs and that of the extended environment in which we live and on which we depend is a recipe for continuity and reemergent cycles of growth. In short, it is the way to a future that readily returns the continuous dividends waiting to be cultivated if we get our bearings correct.
As far as I can tell, embracing some form of map that lays out the universal principles of where our metaphorical bread is buttered as our shared navigation aid can unlock the available opportunities for a constructive fruitful purpose. In fact, this message has been there in the shadows all along. It is understandable we have not seen it clearly as a species. When in the heat of battle it is hard to see the principles at work in the larger arc of development.
Nature endows us with our current form by necessity. We are stitched together in the womb by these necessities. The continuing integrity of our species depends on a behavioral architecture that pays homage to these demands on many levels. This relationship landscape is a process but it is also a communication. It states that forms that serve as a means of establishing and maintaining coherence are necessary, therefore favored. It also says that coherence value is context dependent on the environment. We breathe air, therefore we need a nourishing atmosphere.
We have to nourish and protect the womb that nourishes and protects us. If we do not get how the relationship economy of nature operates and embrace these necessities, nature will still be “on the job”. If we fail to negotiate, we will be erased, and some other collection of sufficiently mutualistic and protective relationships that can navigate forward through time as a coherent entity will emerge. This natural draw to a mature coherent conclusion is inevitable.
Our current predicament/opportunity is because, at some point in development, as we saturate the carrying capacity of the planet, the discovery and application of this principle of coherence become critical to survival. We will either discover we are part of a singular body of life that extends beyond our species and encompasses the entire body of life and the environment in which it dwells, or we miss the mark on life itself.
The Wisdom Of Life 