Woo Woo or Wu Wei?

The power of actionless action in addressing climate change

“We want climate action. NOW!” The calls get louder and louder, but what does it really mean? I know so many people who are working so hard to promote sustainability solutions. Still, there is so much to do, so little time, so much resistance, and so little progress.  No wonder many of us feel exhausted. What do we do now?

Quotes spuriously attributed to Einstein are everywhere these days. One of them states that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. This hits a chord with me. Maybe I/we are taking the wrong approach to climate action? There has to be a better way!

A better way

That’s why I found Karin Fierke’s book Snapshots from Home: Mind, Action, and Strategy in an Uncertain World so refreshing. In the book, she rigorously explores the parallels between quantum physics and ancient Asian philosophical traditions.

Fierke, a professor at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, is interested in how mind, action and strategy in Buddhism, Daoism, and Hinduism are related to quantum impermanence, complementarity, and entanglement. This is not “woo woo” science, but a serious academic exploration of relationships and similarities between different ways of understanding reality.

I was invited to reflect on her book as part of a Forum on Snapshots from Home published in the Journal of International Political Theory. In reflecting, I found a sentence in the book that intrigued me: “Too much action or intervention may produce opposite outcomes to those which are desired.” Hmm…

This led to a short article on The Role of Actionless Action in Generating Quantum Social Change, where I focused on Fierke’s comparison of wuwei in Daoism and complementarity in quantum physics. Fierke writes that “Opposites do not cancel each other out but are rather engaged in a continuous process of becoming, in a contradictory but non-conflictual relationship.” She emphasizes that “[e]ffective action or strategy works with contradictions rather than attempting to eliminate them.”

Embracing paradox

In relation to climate action, complementarity asks us to embrace paradox and supports a both/and perspective on the nature of reality. Like the wave-particle duality, wuwei - or actionless action - is a complementary state. In contrast to deterministic approaches to social change, Fierke reminds us that at any given moment in time, multiple potentials are available. She argues that a quantum repositioning brings the matter-consciousness relationship into view and offers countless opportunities to reposition the self.   

Fierke’s ideas about actionless action and repositioning the self have implications for how we perceive and relate to ourselves, each other, and nature. As she writes: “The concept of wuwei entangles action in a relational whole in which the human actant is a part of nature rather than separate and standing above.”

Climate action

How does this relate to climate action and the potential for quantum social change? First and foremost, actionless action describes a quality of presence that can be brought to collective action. This is a quality that generates patterns with integrity, or wholeness, but it must be nurtured and embodied. Embodying this quality invites us to move beyond the rational, causal space of a mechanistic world to connect with an acausal, entangled space in our hearts.

Actionless action is significant because it suggests that we stop looking for responses exclusively “outside” of ourselves, and also attune to those responses that are available to us, context by context and moment by moment. As Fierke puts it, this creates “the conditions by which an outcome can come about on its own, effortlessly.”

It should be emphasized that actionless action does not mean passivity or fatalism. Fierke stresses that “[a]ctionless action, far from an absence of action, is a state of mind to be maintained while acting (that is, emptiness). This state of mind works from within the contradictions rather than attempting to resolve them.” Actionless action as a state of mind… That’s wuwei, not woo woo! 

It’s about relationships

Wuwei recognizes that our quality of presence makes a difference, and that how we show up matters. According to wuwei, the most effective responses involve not technologies but relationships. Our actions emerge, or rather we and the world become action as we engage with each other.

An actionless action approach to quantum social change is grounded in our inherent oneness and calls for us to engage with polarization and difference from this space of oneness. This approach recognizes that we are all fundamentally entangled, a perspective that can help us to overcome limiting binaries of ‘global’ vs ‘local’, ‘top-down’ vs ‘bottom-up’ and ‘collective’ vs ‘individual’, and instead learn to act in a way that makes a difference.

Can less be more?

As someone who spends a lot of time in action, wuwei is helping me to understand that doing less may mean doing more. After all, impact is about the quality, not quantity of actions. For me, actionless action involves both acknowledging grief over the losses we are responsible for and feeling deeply moved by a commitment to doing better. It means feeling the sadness and disappointment over the lack of progress, while at the same time showing up fully and with joy. It means spending less time reading the news and complaining, and more time exploring the possibilities and potential for transformative change.

Engaging with actionless action involves a a small, qualitative shift and a continuous practice of “mattering in the moment” by sourcing our action from a place of universal values such as equity, compassion, dignity and love. This shift may be the difference that makes a difference. Isn’t this what quantum social change is all about?

Afterthoughts

This excerpt from the Tao Te Ching is a reminder that the sooner we take action on climate change, the better.

It is easy to preserve when things are stable.
It is easy to plan ahead when things have not yet occurred.
If one waits until the affair has begun,
Then the situation is as brittle as ice that easily cracks and is fragile that easily shatters.
Take actions before things occur.
Manage before things get out of order. 

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (chapter 64)