Question: If multiple groups (countries, states, cities, political groups, etc.) each have their own ideas of a preferred future, how do we find unity and avoid conflict to find a preferred vision that we all can live with?
By Thays Prado and Dr. Catherine Wilkins
This question holds several assumptions which are foundational to an effective answer – (i) as humanity, we have multiple options of futures ahead of us; (ii) we get to choose our preferred future; (iii) conflict will emerge as we all have different preferred futures and only one version gets to be materialised; (iv) we must avoid conflict, and (v) a satisfactory version of the future to all of us will be found through unity.
Exploration of these assumptions is essential to co-create a truly transformative future.
EXPLORING PLURAL FUTURES AND PRESENTS
The concept of futures – plural – is very much mainstreamed across the futures-thinking community. As futurists, we usually engage with different possibilities for the future and build multiple scenarios for which our clients should be prepared.
The ‘futures cone’, developed by Hancock and Bezold in 1994, is a helpful image of the future as a spectrum of possibilities, of which, based on the present, some seem more plausible and even more probable than others. Interestingly enough, the range of preferable futures is presented in this framework within the limits of possible futures, conveying that one (individual, group, organisation, or humanity as a whole) would have limited options to analyse and pick from as their preferred ones.
However wide we think about the scope of possibilities, there seems to be a consensus in our modern world that, at least as a potential, the future is indeed plural. So, the first assumption appears to be sound. Yet if this were effectively the case, there would be no conflict about the future as everyone would realise their preferred version.
Two questions emerge from this consensus about futures plurality: (i) Is the present also plural? Out of the vast possibilities for the future, will only one be materialised as a living reality, or do we also get to live different presents? and (ii) Do we get to choose whether a preferred future is turned into a living reality in the present? If so, who are we?The answers lie in an entangled paradox. On the one hand, it is impossible to look at the world and disagree that the present is plural. The levels of inequality experienced on this planet are obscene.
An Oxfam report published in early 2023 revealed that since the COVID-19 pandemic, the richest 1% have acquired almost twice as much wealth in new money as the other 99% of the world’s population. Now add to socioeconomic status other factors such as gender, race, sexuality, age, ability, geography, and migration status, to name a few, and you have a wide and uneven set of presents – and pasts.
However, that does not mean that all these presents are manifestations of individuals’ and groups’ preferred futures. By adopting an intersectional perspective, which acknowledges that the interconnectedness of social categorisations creates overlapping systems of discrimination and disadvantage for certain groups, it becomes clear that certain presents emerge out of individuals’ lack of agency rather than their preferences. They face a very narrow cone of possibilities, out of which none seem like something one could prefer for themselves and their communities.
Therefore, the vastness of futures reveals itself as a purely theoretical illusion in the face of a reality that often ends up being a linear replication of the past. The disparity between the theoretical ideal and the practical reality is the source of most conflict over the co-created future.Additionally, while the presents seem very diverse at the individual and group levels, they are all part of one collective reality. If we are to believe that we get to choose which preferred future will become our collective present, then William Gibson’s famous quote, “The future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed,” helps us explain whose preferred futures get to be materialised as a living reality and who gets to enjoy them. Those in positions of power and privilege would be the ones dictating the collective future, while those without power and privilege have no option but to protest the chosen future.
Although there is a lot of truth in it, this is not the whole story. Otherwise, we would not have seen the work of social movements leading to humanity’s transformations over history. In that regard, Riel Miller’s concept of the anticipation for emergence and the current eagerness of so many futurists to “democratise the future” point us to another dimension worth considering when it comes to understanding what becomes a living reality. In fact, what emerges in the present is the result of a combination of forces interacting with each other, and the ways we, individually and collectively, envision and engage with the futures – preferred and otherwise – are significant forces that play a role in this co-creative dance. Thus, conflict could be seen as an intrinsic aspect of how we currently co-create the future.
AVOIDING CONFLICT?
However, if such interaction of forces has created the level of chaos we currently live in, an assumption that avoiding conflicting views would be the way towards a better future for all is understandable. Yet, Ilya Prigogine’s concept of Dissipative Structures suggests a different approach to achieving systemic transformation. Prigogine demonstrated that organic structures have the ability to dissipate stress in order to maintain optimal functioning.
Nevertheless, there is a limit to that. If more stress is applied to a system than the level it can cope with, that structure will break down. Three scenarios can emerge from this:
The structure goes back to its original form,
Completely collapses out of pressure, or
Reorganises itself into a different, more complex, and sophisticated system with a higher stress tolerance.
Managing the optimal amount of pressure determines whether we achieve the latter rather than the former outcomes. Likewise, in our social system, the conflict of ideas, interests, and preferences can work as a stress component, putting pressure on our collective present in the hope that it will be positively transformed.As the feminist philosopher Audre Lorde alerts us, “The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.” In other words, a system is self-correcting. Our current system functions based on a particular purpose – patriarchy, white supremacy, coloniality, inequalities, exploitation – and in the face of the slightest attempt at change, it keeps dissipating the stress and self-correcting back to its original purpose. In that sense, the rise of conflicting views and desires for other, more life-affirming, loving, peaceful, and equal futures that break up with the continuous repetition of the past, although never welcomed by those invested in the current system, should be perceived as the stress component that potentially can lead us to positive transformation.
Hence, a system’s breakdown will likely not be produced from within it, but by those at the margins of the current system who, as explains feminist author bell hooks, usually have a more expansive vision and a more radical imagination – sometimes operating way beyond the given possibilities within the futures cone.
Therefore, their views, perspectives, and dreams should be considered and centred by anyone seriously committed to positive systemic transformation. The challenge would be to do it with enabling conditions for the emergence of Prigogine’s third outcome – sophisticated restructuring instead of collapse.
For that, maybe the final assumption of the question we are grappling with is correct: a satisfactory version of the future for all of us will be found through unity. It would be very efficient to influence the emergence of the present by having a clear, common template for our preferred future, a clear focus on what the new, more complex, and sophisticated system would look like once it reorganised itself.
However, for this to work, all conflicting visions about the future would need to be resolved before this common vision could be agreed upon. Hence, conflict should be embraced and re-framed as the precursor to realising this vision.
MANIFESTING COLLECTIVE UNITY
In the current state of our world, though, that seems as theoretical as the idea of the realisation of multiple preferred futures. Besides, the diversity of genuine desires and dreams about the future can be seen as an opportunity for expansion and increased richness to the kind of future we can collectively manifest.
The concept of harmonics in sound theory might give us an idea of how we could simultaneously embrace difference and unity. Any sound in nature is produced through a complex system of waves, each operating at a different frequency, speed, and amplitude. However, what we hear is one beautiful and coherent sound. The unity perceived in it is not enabled by unanimity nor achieved through the right vs. wrong framework, where one preferred version of the wave (the right one) wins over the others (all wrong), and all the wrong waves comply with or surrender to the winner.
Unity in nature is created through alignment across harmonic scales, or simply put, through respect. Every individual wave gets to be who they are and maintain their integrity and drive as they participate in co-creation. In fact, the more diverse the waves are, the richer and more beautiful the sound is. The difference between chaotic noise (conflicting notes) and the most wonderful piece produced by a philharmonic orchestra is the ability to achieve alignment between all the different musicians, instruments, and notes through a clear, common vision of what they all want to achieve together.
As they play, a trombone will not follow the same pathway as a clarinet – and they shouldn’t. But the collective vision of the orchestra for that music is expansive and complex enough to embrace the very nature and desire of the trombone and of the clarinet as they are.
In her book, The Soul’s Brain, Dr. Catherine Wilkins suggests that systemic alignment is achieved through mutually expansive exchanges, where “everyone receives what they need or want for the next step in their path” in such a way that instead of depleting the system, it actually exponentially increments the level of energy available to all.
Therefore, if we at least could agree that, whichever preferred future each of us might have, we find unity at the root level of our guiding principles – whatever we co-create, this should generate mutually expansive exchanges for all – then the richness of different viewpoints would certainly generate an ongoing widening of our futures cone for the benefit of all.
SCARCITY VS. ABUNDANCE
All in all, it would be fair to say that conflict is only inappropriate within a scarcity-based right vs. wrong framework, where one vision needs to win over the others, often through multiple forms of violence and exclusion.
In an abundance-based systemic framework, where we embrace everyone’s integrity and diverse visions for the future, conflict can only be seen as an opportunity to make our system even better, richer, and more sophisticated as we navigate uncertainty towards the eternal unknown by evolving from one system to the next. In doing so, we know that the system will go through various breakdowns, but we hold up together in our determination to create a better system for all, united by our guiding principles of mutual support and mutual expansion – the optimal condition that prevents collapse and enables expansive systemic transformations.
Thays Prado is the founder of Feminist Futures and co-founder of Women Who Future(s). She has conducted feminist foresight journeys with international NGOs serving women and girls, especially from the Global Majority. She is also Foresight Senior Project Lead at the Centre for Sport and Human Rights. An NGFP fellow and SOIF alumni, Thays leads both a Storytelling and a Gender group for members of the NGFP Network. As a gender expert, she has worked for organisations such as UN Women, Women Win, the BBC Media Action, and the Centre for Sport and Human Rights. Thays has a BA in Communications/Journalism from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil, an MSc in Gender, Media, and Culture from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Professional Screenwriting Degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Dr. Catherine Wilkins’s commitment to finding a sure path from the pressures of everyday life to the expansive joy of living our greatest potential took her through veterinary and chiropractic degrees into a deep exploration of functional neurology with its links to our energetic systems. For nearly thirty years, she has been developing and teaching her unique system, called Fractology, transforming the lives of clients and students. Renowned as a medical intuitive and holistic therapist, she’s guided thousands to develop their conscious intuitive logic and balance the left and right brain sides of their brain. Witnessing the resulting expansion of their lives is a testament to her work.
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