Transforming Their Future

Teaching young people amidst the politics of irresponsibility is not getting easier. Would a sharper focus on quantum coherence and solidarity help? I believe so!

The future

Finally! This newsletter has taken me more than two weeks to write. It started as a reflection on my last “Environment and Society” lecture to undergraduates. It left me lamenting the world we are leaving them — and reflecting on our untapped potential for quantum social change.

The topic of my lecture was “transforming the future,” and it’s usually my favorite part of the course. Focusing on the practical, political, and personal spheres of transformation, we explore the potential for change and discuss where it is happening. It’s always good to end on a positive note.

Still, it was tough to face students this year without feeling remorseful about the future they face. After all, we are transforming their futures, but in an unethical and dystopian way.

Anxiety

No matter what they hear or read about, most young people today are keenly aware that their future is being shaped by a politics of irresponsibility.

Irresponsibility is widespread, but nowhere is it more visible and dangerous than in the United States, where the current regime is actively undermining or eliminating vital social policies, research, education, and democratic institutions. Not to mention all efforts to address climate change.

Erika Spanger of the Union of Concerned Scientists captured this succinctly in her recent “Dear Climate Movement” blog:

Our political crises are a lot to hold. But as part of the climate movement, you also know that climate change is the context in which all of these crises are unfolding. You know that if we are successful in slowing down or stopping the Trump administration’s authoritarian roll and restoring democracy, we still have this colossal global climate problem to contend with. What you may not know—what is just now becoming clear through leaked documents covered in the press—is that the administration is preparing to bring climate science in the United States to its knees.

The implications of this irresponsibility for people and the planet are mind-blowing. Recognizing that climate policies, social policies, economic policies, migration policies, and conservation policies are interrelated, it’s not surprising that climate anxiety is widespread.

In fact, a study published in 2021 by Caroline Hickman and colleagues showed that more than half of the 10,000 young people surveyed in ten countries felt sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, and guilty about climate change — and at least 84% were moderately worried. This psychological distress has been associated with what Zhiwa Woodbury describes as climate trauma — the result of pervasive, ongoing assaults on the biosphere combined with inadequate responses.

The odds

The message conveyed to young people today makes me think of The Hunger Games, the dystopian trilogy by Suzanne Collins that describes life in post-apocalyptic North America. The novels are about social inequality, oppression, and rebellion. They focus on a violent game of sacrifice designed to remind people of the dangers of dissent and rebellion.

In this fictitious world, sacrificing young people is entertainment for an elite that is committed to maintaining its excess and opulence. As the fictional President Snow tells the young participants:

We salute your courage and your sacrifice... and we wish you... Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor.

Reading these books or watching the films, one can’t help but see parallels to how we are sacrificing the futures of young people today. My students know that the odds are currently not in their favor.

If we continue along current pathways, the odds are stacked against all of us.

Quantum Perspectives

It wasn’t until the very end of my last lecture that I introduced my class to the idea of quantum social change, or “a conscious, nonlinear, and non-local approach to transformations that is grounded in our inherent oneness.”

What if I had started with quantum social change and linked it to everything else we covered in the course, including the social drivers, the equity and justice dimensions, and relational approaches to environmental problems?

I could have, but there is still a 'woo woo' stigma around quantum perspectives on the social world, particularly in academia. Yet self-censoring is not the answer — especially now. Alexander Wendt makes the importance of taking a strong stand clear in Quantum Mind and Social Science:

In this book I explore the possibility that this foundational assumption of social science is a mistake, by re-reading social science “through the quantum.” More specifically, I argue that human beings and therefore social life exhibit quantum coherence – in effect, that we are walking wave functions. I intend the argument not as an analogy or metaphor, but as a realist claim about what people really are.

He recognizes that his realist claim comes at great risk:

This realist stance will take me into controversial, speculative and frankly dangerous territory that could be avoided by an analogical road to “quantum social science.” However, it would also come at a cost, which is that it would make quantum theory just another tool for social scientists to pick up – or not – as they see fit, and bracket some of the theory’s most profound potential implications. In contrast, if human beings really are quantum, then classical social science is essentially founded on a mistake, and social life will therefore require a quantum framework for its proper understanding.

Coherence

At a time when we are already in dangerous territory, our understanding has to be linked to collective coherence. If we are walking wave functions, how do we realize our shared potential for an equitable and thriving world in practice?

We stay in practice. This means shifting unhealthy patterns in ourselves and our society. To be fractals of coherent change in a fragmenting world, I/we need to pattern it based on values that apply to the whole, like equity, integrity, and compassion. Consciously generating a flourishing world for all involves recognizing that individuals and collectives are not separate. Mwe* are an entangled whole.

Solidarity

Acting coherently in troubling times calls for solidarity. For example, in The Hunger Games, a three-finger protest gesture was used to signify solidarity in ”a dystopian world where rebels fought for freedom against an all-powerful tyrant.” This gesture was adopted by activists in Myanmar as a symbol of protest against the military coup of February 2021.

However activists in Myanmar have made it clear that solidarity involves more than gestures. Can we take action now and organize ourselves in ways that transcend the atomistic, deterministic, and reductionist paradigms that separate mind and body, subject and object, us and others, and humans and nature? Can we do so with courage and compassion, recognizing that our very lives depend on it? It is time to raise three fingers in support of 1) democracy; 2) social justice; and 3) climate action.

Mattering

It was a pleasure to teach students who are committed and care deeply about people, nature, and the future. They may remember me as the bearer of bad news, but if I emphasized one thing to my students, it’s that they matter more than they think.

At the end of the class, I shared one of my favorite quotes from R. Buckminster Fuller.
In retrospect, I would have shared a quantum version of the quote to emphasize our entanglement. How Mwe show up each day matters. Transforming the future involves taking one courageous, compassionate, and coherent step at a time — in solidarity with past, present, and future generations.

“If success or failure of this planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do... HOW WOULD I BE? WHAT WOULD I DO?”
― R. Buckminster Fuller

PS: I will be running a 2-day workshop in Oslo with Dr. Daniel Siegel on “Wholeness in a Fragmented World: Cultivating Connection, Coherence, and Resilience” on May 21 and 22. We are still looking for sponsors to make it accessible for all (especially students), so please contact me if you are interested in joining or supporting it!

*Mwe = me + we (a new pronoun introduced by Daniel Siegel in Intraconnected

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