Bold

Boldness conjures up visions of peaks to be conquered.  Mountains hold a powerful sway over our imaginations.  Until the invention of flight they were the only places to go to get a bird's eye view of the world.  And the ascent to the summit has gripped the western imagination as a move closer to the world of the divine.  The high summits promise both far sight and insight.  Everest exercised a hypnotic influence on George Mallory who attempted the ascent on three occasions, ultimately perishing in the process.  It was Mallory who told a reporter in 1922 that he was returning to the mountain for another attempt simply 'because it's there'. 

But what about climbing the mountain that isn't there?  This is the most enigmatic of IFF prompts and, perhaps for that reason, one of my favourites.  It arose from reflections at the end of our second plenary meeting in autumn 2001. We had become disillusioned with the rhetoric of sustainability.  If this meant nothing more than the survival of the species it seemed a singularly uninspiring goal.  We saw that it is human aspiration itself that needs to be sustained, the will to strive for something better, to listen and respond to the call of the imagination, the spirit, the soul.  It is this capacity that gets dulled and dented in the face of failure, intractable problems, catastrophic world events.  It is easy to lapse into fatalism, cynicism, hedonism or despair. 

We realised that our own journey was not about reaching a specific summit but about sustaining the capacity to conceive of distant goals and to work to attain them even when our conventional models tell us that it is all too difficult.  In subsequent meetings, and ever since, we have been testing and developing these insights in practice in the face of some tough challenges:  climate change and energy security, the safe long term management of radioactive waste, the regeneration of areas that have lost their economic function (to use a Joseph Rowntree Foundation phrase), the evolution of our systems of learning, the global epidemic of mental distress. 

For those who really want to explore the mountains of the mind and their call to the human spirit I recommend René Daumal's beautiful novel Mount Analogue.  Mount Analogue is an invisible mountain.  Or if you would prefer something a little more 'down to earth'  - but no less bold! - try Bill Bowman's excellent parody from the 1950s The Ascent of Rum Doodle. 

To read more about IFF's work visit the IFF website or the IFF blog.

Commonsense

It is characteristic of a powerful insight, a new way of viewing a familiar situation, that it seems blindingly obvious once it is seen.  'How could we have missed that?'  But at the same time such insight has the capacity completely to reframe our understanding of a situation and thus lead to more effective action. 

In a sense all of the IFF prompts are concerned with 'common sense' in this way.  But our experience is that there are often habitual cognitive and other blocks that can prevent us seeing what is in front of our noses.  We tend to see what we believe rather than believe what we see.  In orienteering this phenomenon is known as 'bending the map' – convincing yourself that you are still on course even when the features of the landscape aren't quite what you expected.  Research shows that people who get lost also comfort themselves with the thought that it must be the map that is wrong not the territory – they usually press on in the face of uncertainty and stray further off the trail.  Very few turn back.

But what if we are really in unknown territory?  What if there is no map because nobody has been here before?  What can we rely on then? 

At our plenary meeting in San Francisco at the end of 2004 one of our members, President of the Global Business Network Eamonn Kelly, suggested that there had been a subtle shift in the business community over the past decade.  Previously, through the fast-changing years of the 1990s, the prevailing business metaphor had been white water rafting.  It was a bumpy, demanding and often exhilarating ride – but at least everyone knew where they were going (with the flow).  But following the dot com bust, the hanging chads election of 2000, the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and numerous other confounding events the metaphor had become more challenging still:  lost at sea.  And that was long before the financial system came close to collapse.

Our task now is to rediscover a sense of direction.  We will find that by developing a future consciousness to inform the present (to quote another IFF prompt).  If the present system is failing, we need a vision of a different, viable future system to draw us forward.  We need a compass.  And we will find it not in the surface layers of change but deep in the culture where values live.  Responsible action will come from deepening our knowledge of the present, understanding historical shifts in culture, operating more in tune with nature.

To read more about IFF's work visit the IFF website or the IFF blog.

Mirth

IFF started as a very serious endeavour indeed.  The invitation to prospective members in 2000 read as follows: 

"In the early eighteenth century in Scotland there emerged a cluster of philosophers, social scientists, moralists and others who together helped to shape what came to be known as the enlightenment.  They explored the assumptions, values and underpinning principles of the move from a pre-industrial to an industrial age, the rise of secularism and reason. 

Yet those very assumptions, values and principles of the enlightenment are today under strain...   It seems appropriate then that a second cluster of individuals should emerge in Scotland seeking to reinvent the spirit of the original enlightenment:  to explore the assumptions, values and underpinning principles of the transition beyond the industrial society.  This is the search for a 'second enlightenment'." 

Fortunately we soon discovered that this audacious goal demanded full engagement not only of our rational analytic selves, but also our capacity for friendship and humanity, and the creative spirit of exploration and play. 

An IFF process works best when there are occasional outbursts of raucous laughter.  When asked at the end of 2002 for feedback on what IFF had provided, one local government director quoted Nietzsche on man reaching maturity:  'to have rediscovered the seriousness he possessed as a child at play'.  And one of our members, Pat Kane, has gone on to develop an impressive ludic theory and practice based on his book The Play Ethic.

We should not have been surprised.  There is a growing literature linking play and creativity.  And also increasing interest in the 'gaming literacies' that provide people with an experiential understanding of the reality of dynamic and complex systems. 

We have enjoyed playing and creating games ourselves in IFF – starting with a 'Game for Life' computer game for Dundee City Council in 2002, and most recently the IFF World Game.  The latter allows an holistic exploration of the world and its powerful trends as a single complex system. 

Treating this as a game has two benefits.  It allows people to play their way into a complexity that they would normally label 'too difficult'.   And the game and its role play sets up a powerful psychological space in which it becomes possible to 'play' with some pretty frightening, indeed world-threatening, trends. 

Once people are able to engage with the full 'terror of the situation' in this way, their level of aspiration, ambition and confidence all increase.  The 'game' makes what previously seemed overwhelming more like a competitive challenge, which the players relish rising to.  Even when dealing with the possible collapse of the global system, laughter is both the best therapy and a potential catalyst for transformation.

To read more about IFF's work visit the IFF website or the IFF blog.