Journal of Futures Studies, June 2020, 24(4): 83–94
Solving the Wickedest Problem: Reconciling Differing Worldviews
Tim Morgan, North Texas Foresight Institute, 2015 Briarcliff Rd, Lewisville, TX 75067, USA. tmorgan@ntxforesight.com
* Web Text version of each JFS paper here is for easy reading purpose only, for the valid and published context of each article, please refer to the PDF version.
Abstract
Values and worldviews arise as a side effect of society’s attempts to improve life. Each set of interventions changes the structure of society, dominant technologies, and dominant values. Today we find ourselves with multiple deeply conflicted worldviews, each protecting their solutions to prior problems. Emergent sets of values are trying to solve the wicked problems of today but are blocked by older worldviews. This values deadlock is our wickedest problem. Conflicts and deadlocks will persist until we apply new social organization tools which incorporate new values and organization forms while preserving the role and place of older worldviews and their structures.
Keywords: Values, Worldviews, Organization Forms, Deadlock, Wicked Problems
The Inherent Wickedness of Worldviews
“Worldview” is a fuzzy concept. We know someone’s worldview involves deep values, personal experience, and culture operating within a social and physical context. We see commonality among worldviews in different cultures and eras. Two different religious traditions may differ greatly in beliefs, but how those beliefs structure thinking is similar. The same goes for businesses, governments, and other formal social entities. Worldviews seem to conform to abstract archetypal forms which shape perceptions and judgements in similar ways across cultures and contexts. It is easy to see hierarchical worldviews throughout history that tend toward strict roles and rules, no matter the culture. Achievement-oriented worldviews tend towards competitive egalitarianism and materialism, be they brokers or buccaneers. Trust-based cooperation in a kinship worldview is the hallmark of close family and friend relationships, along with suspicion of outsiders.
These recurring archetypal worldviews argues that there is a common pattern to how sets of values interact to establish what is and is not right in different contexts. Worldviews are our perceptual and cognitive maps of the world. Something feels “right” if it matches our worldview and “wrong” if it does not. We use these values-based heuristics to evaluate information, situations, options, and decisions. Worldviews are our subconscious mental model of how the world should work.
Our current mix of archetypal worldviews has resulted in societal structures, technologies, and theories which have reshaped the world. That transformation has been a boon to the health and material prosperity for many. The modern era took us from about 800 million people in the mid-1700s to about 7.7 billion today. That same period has seen tremendous advances in literacy, health, science, technology, mobility, individual rights, and democratic self-rule. It also created seemingly intractable systemic problems like climate change, socioeconomic inequality, geopolitical conflicts, and species collapse. The cures for prior problems became the causes of current intractable issues. Designers Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber formally described the characteristics of these “wicked” systemic problems in the journal Policy Sciences.
The timing of their paper is no accident. Our prior progress was giving rise to powerful, accelerating changes worldwide. We started developing new tools to manage that increasing complexity about midway through the 20th century. Tools emerged like operations research, systems thinking, and even strategic foresight. We began describing problems and solutions in ways which forced us to look beyond the narrow vision of existing worldviews. Simultaneously, philosophies like Post-Modernism and Post-Structuralism were questioning the very foundations of Modernist society. Ecological movements started challenging industrial excesses and civil rights leaders pushed hard for long overdue changes.
Rittel and Webber (1973) characterized a new class of problems as Wicked in the early 1970s because it was obvious that existing systems were creating problems those same systems could not solve. The supporting abstract worldviews energizing those systems had trouble acknowledging the existence of these self-created wicked problems. New sets of values started emerging to address them in response. That process is still playing itself out. These new worldviews are locked in an epic multi-decade struggle with the prior worldviews, ones which solved the problems of earlier eras.
The emergence of new values means that a new social governance layer is trying to form. New forms of social organization powered by these new values are challenging the prior balance. This decades-long struggle between existing and emergent worldviews and co-emergent social forms is our wickedest problem.
We will continue to struggle until a new balance is achieved between existing and newer worldviews. Our systemic problems will remain unaddressable until new worldviews and their co-emerging social forms establish new social structures, and balance with older ones. Conflict between worldviews is our wickedest problem because it prevents us from acting to manage ever-worsening wicked problems.
Archetypal Worldviews and Social Complexity
It is easy to see that groups share broad worldviews based on the commonalities of human existence. Differences in worldviews can drive conflict between them. Similarities in worldviews ease cooperation. This dynamic tension between worldviews can drive everything from the success of a marriage to the devastation of war. What makes the problem of disparate worldviews even more difficult is that they are not fixed. Worldviews and their component values shift based on changes to our physical and social environments. New situations, new experiences, new problems, and exposure to other worldviews can all shift our current worldview.
Worldviews drive decisions and reactions to other’s actions. They define acceptable bounds of societal cooperation within and between social structures. We enshrine them as cultural norms, laws, institutions, and even physical infrastructure. Building the Berlin Wall was a physical enforcement of a worldview. So was tearing it down. An oil rig can simultaneously be a symbol of prosperity for one worldview, and a symbol of deep ecological damage to another. A worldview wants the world to work a certain way matching its core values. They struggle to shape the world to match their inner map of what they feel is right.
New archetypal worldviews appear to form as overall social complexity increases. New challenges and capabilities prompt the emergence of new values. These new values are a combination of contextual behavioral patterns emerging from what sociologist and physician Nicolas Christakis (2019) calls our “social suite” of human traits: individual identity, love of close family, friendship, social networks, cooperation, preference for our group, mild hierarchies, and social learning. These traits are found in all human societies. Most societies emphasize some of the traits over others. That creates a common set of values which biases the general worldview, culture, and behavior of those societies towards some behaviors and away from others. Social suite traits are like functions which create low level behaviors, values are contextual beliefs activating clusters of behaviors, and worldviews are common thinking frameworks relating contextual values to each other. A worldview is then the emergent accumulation of beliefs about successful social suite traits which have been proven over time.
Values and worldviews emerge within a physical and social context. As such, they do not change easily even when conditions change. Culture encodes those beliefs and protects them to maintain successful strategies over the long term.
Archetypal worldviews and their matching social forms
The emergence of sets of values as abstract worldviews is not a new idea. We see similar values emergence patterns in models like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development, Grave’s ECLET (extended by Beck & Cowan into Spiral Dynamics), Ayala’s Evolution of Ethics, and others. Andy Hines (2011) researched a number of these theories and found a common pattern of emergent values, identified in his book Consumershift: How Changing Values are Reshaping the Consumer Landscape. Each of these archetypal worldviews is centered on a core organizing value. They can be reframed as:
- Traditional – Kinship & Hierarchy
- Modern – Materialism & Achievement
- Postmodern – Postmaterialism & Meaning
- Integral – Situational Pragmatism & Systemic Effectiveness
Hines shows in Consumershift: How Changing Values are Reshaping the Consumer Landscape how individual values transform across the four worldviews. One example is Duty → Achievement → Enjoyment → Contentment. This values progression is consistent with Christakis’s idea that emphasis of certain social-suite traits over others produces different social values and behaviors. What it does not explain is how archetypal worldviews create social organization responses to problems and opportunities encountered by a society. This is key to understanding how a society with diverse and conflicting worldviews can address wicked problems.
What is needed is way to tie the emergence of these or similar worldview archetypes to social organization forms. We need a framework which can characterize both archetypal social forms and the worldviews which co-evolve with them.
Fortunately, political scientist David Ronfeldt created a social forms framework which can be used to link social organization forms with values. His 1996 paper Tribes, Institutions, Markets, Networks: A Framework About Societal Evolution lays out a consistent emergence pattern of four cardinal forms which underlie organization of all societies.3 He lists four identifiable forms: Kinship-based Tribes, Hierarchical Institutions, Competitive Markets, and Collaborative Networks.
Ronfeldt notes that each cardinal form is an easily recognized node along a continuum. For example, a “chiefdom” would likely lay between Tribes and Institutions as an intermediate form combining aspects of both. Mercantilism would similarly be an intermediate form between the Institutions and Markets forms. This lines up nicely with values emergence theories which treat values as a continuum with discretely recognizable stages or levels, Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy or Grave’s ECLET/Spiral Dynamics. Ronfeldt refers to his emergent social forms framework as the TIMN Quadriform.
Ronfeldt asserts that incipient versions of each TIMN form were present in ancient times, but that each matured in different epochs over the past several thousand years. Kinship Tribes developed as the first organizational form, Hierarchical Institutions next, then Competitive Markets, and now Collaborative Networks. Each form emerged as a governance response to historical evolution and increasing social complexity.
A key TIMN concept is that new forms do not supersede older ones. The old forms still function to organize certain aspects of society. Each new form thus requires the active presence of older forms to function properly. Societies organized around Hierarchical Institutions are built upon Kinship-like in-group (tribal) dynamics. Ones organized around Competitive Markets are built atop both Tribal and Institutional forms. Newly emerging Collaborative Networks are built on all three prior organizational forms. Each form represents a system the incorporates both the new form and the prior forms in a working system. If the old system does not allow enough space for the new form to develop, that new form will fail to function well, or emerge at all. All the forms must work together to create a functioning social system.
Ronfeldt’s forms progression is:
- Tribes (T) → T
- Institutions (+I) → T+I
- Markets (+M) → T+I+M
- Networks (+N) → T+I+M+N
If we try to match Ronfeldt’s forms with Hine’s worldviews, we get the following:
- Tribes (T) – Traditional (Kinship)
- Institutions (T+I) – Traditional (Hierarchical)
- Markets (T+I+M) – Modern (Materialism & Achievement)
- Networks (T+I+M+N) – Postmodern (Postmaterialism & Meaning)
This shows good alignment between Ronfeldt’s forms and Hine’s worldviews. Hines merges Ronfeldt’s Tribes and Institutions into a single Traditional worldview, and Ronfeldt omits a form matching Hine’s Integral values. This is understandable since Ronfeldt claims that the +N form is still emerging, and Hines says the same for Integral values. It seems convenient to use Ronfeldt’s TIMN nomenclature going forward to indicate both an archetypal worldview and its preferred organizing form. Synthesizing the two we get a combined forms-worldview framework:
- T – Trust-based social form with a narrative-driven worldview that values group unity and mutual support. (Tribes/Kinship form with Narrative worldview)
- +I – Top-down hierarchical form with a rigid, purposeful worldview that values social order and stability. (Institutions/Hierarchies form with Authoritarian worldview)
- +M – Competitive form that values objective measures of achievement and status. (Markets/Exchanges form with Modernist/Materialist worldview)
- +N – Collaborative egalitarian form that values shared meaning and purpose within a connected community. (Networks/Nexus form with Communitarian/Postmaterialist worldview)
Ronfeldt noted that the ability of these forms to work together as a system was crucial to their evolution. Tying archetypal worldviews to each form makes it easy to see why. Each new complexity-driven worldview emergence disrupts the existing system because it calls into question the assumptions and values of earlier worldviews. A new social form will be similarly disruptive of the working balance between the existing forms in that society until a new balance between the forms is achieved. New complexity begets new worldviews, which begets new social forms, which begets disruption and adjustment. That is the essence of the social forms evolutionary path.
The Epistemology of Worldviews
Ronfeldt (1996, p. 2) writes that each form “… writ large, ultimately represents a distinctive system of beliefs, structures, and dynamics about how a society should be organized – about who gets to achieve what, why, and how”. Each TIMN form seeks to structure social organization according to its core values. A TIMN worldview applies its values to judge what is or is not a correct response to a situation. This gives each form an implicit set of epistemological heuristics for determining “Truth” for that form’s matching worldview.
These heuristics appear to work very well within the context of their social form. T’s values of mutual give-and-take and casual trust-based interactions work well in families, small teams, or with close friends. However, those same values might be exploited within a competitive +M business exchange or violate the propriety of a +I courtroom. When the truth of one form wanders into the realm of another, it violates the values assumptions of that form.
People generally favor one worldview but can employ values from subsidiary worldviews in different contexts (ex. following +I health rules in a +M restaurant). If we did not, then no society would be able to function with any combination of the TIMN forms. Our values would be constantly in conflict in contexts dominated by other TIMN forms.
Values mismatch is likely a primary cause of social conflict when a new form emerges in a society. People exercising new worldview values almost certainly will cause disruptions to the functioning of established forms. People who do not share the values of a newly emerging worldview will likely resist it as strange, illogical, or a violation of their sense of what is right. They likely will view attempts to incorporate the new form as highly disruptive to the established order and resist it.
What complicates this is that individuals and groups appear to have a preferred worldview. A member of the clergy with a strong +M worldview may be motivated to work their way up their religion’s hierarchy, while a T worldview businessperson’s primary motivation is to provide a legacy for their family. The worldviews of both people and organizations are composites of TIMN worldviews. They may emphasize one over the others, but all are present to some degree. Much like handed-ness we prefer to use one set of values over others, applying it as a default even when not appropriate to the context.
A new worldview will cause strong reactions from established worldviews. We can see numerous examples of this type of conflict when cultures with different TIMN configurations interact with each other. Indigenous peoples still suffer from the disruption created when European nations forced their strong +I and emerging +M values on the Americas starting in the 15th century.
Ronfeldt notes that each TIMN form has both “bright” and “dark” sides. These are healthy or unhealthy expressions of a social form’s worldview. The in-group clannishness of the T form can slip into destructive narratives used to justify hate, discrimination, persecution, and violence against those who do not share their group identity. The unhealthy dictatorial mode of +I is easily seen in the persecution of “immoral” individuals who do not conform to strict cultural norms, the arbitrary enforcement of laws in corrupt governments, and abuses of power by leaders. Unhealthy competition in the +M form can lead to everything from forging scientific data, to drug smuggling, to economy-crashing housing bubbles. We already see indications that the unhealthy side of +N connected communities can amplify negative behaviors like bullying people online and threatening them with stochastic terrorism via “doxing” their identifying data on the internet.
TIMN worldview Truths
What “Truth” looks like to each TIMN form is driven by what it values. The T form is humanity’s most basic social organizing form. We see similar organizing dynamics in both our fellow primates and other social mammals. It most values group cohesiveness transmitted through social learning. T unity values are learned via stories and group culture. This means that narratives are likely the most compelling learning and organizing mechanism used by human societies.
Since the T form operates on trust-based mutual support, its narratives function as both information repositories and reinforcement of cohesive group identity. This implies that “Truth” is consistent with both the narrative identity and group culture. Truth for the T form embodies shared wisdom and sensibilities. Truth for T is similitude.
Truth for the +I form promotes orderliness and stability. It is transmitted along clear lines from the top of the governing hierarchy to the bottom. Truth for +I is clear and creates purpose. Truth for +I is order.
Truth for the +M form is discoverable, objective, quantifiable, and universal. It is refined through observation, reason, and competitive conflict. It is founded in the material world. Truth for +M is empirical.
Truth for the +N form is personal, qualitative, and authentic. It connects self-knowledge with social engagement. Truth for +N is meaning.
Worldviews in Collision
Each TIMN form represents a mix of worldview-driven truths since each form relies on the social infrastructure of earlier values and forms. A problem might resonate with one form’s sense of truth, but a possible solution may be rejected by conflicts with another form’s imperatives.
Ronfeldt’s TIMN progression implies that the social systems our current era are being disturbed by both rapidly increasing social complexity and the resulting strong emergence of the +N worldview over the last century. The +N worldview is attempting to address problems created by the increasing social complicatedness of a T+I+M world. Self-organizing +N groups are creating new meaning-based collaborative social governance systems that are unlike prior forms.
Ronfeldt states that the +N form is in its infancy and is difficult to discern. Ronfeldt may be mistaken on this point. The past several decades has seen an explosion of people with +N worldviews using information technologies to create +N nexus-like social forms. Examples include the Free/Open Source movement, Creative Commons licenses, Wikipedia, and social media-driven “Hashtag” movements like #BlackLivesMatter or #MeToo. They are all variations of a general +N nexus form where individuals collaboratively self-organize via a shared information commons.
It is easy to see how aspects of the +N worldview disrupts the balance between older archetypal forms. Each +N nexus relies on a shared information commons as a source of both organizational knowledge and communication. They leverage free flow of information for use by anyone that shares the goals of that +N nexus. That creates an adaptive form of collaborative social governance which can react and spread quickly. It is one that short-circuits +I hierarchical control and calls into question the worth of +M empiricism and competition.
The impact on T similitude is indirect, but powerful. Cultural narratives that create larger groupings of “us” have allowed T clannishness dynamics to extend a form of abstract kinship affiliation to larger groups like nations, ethnic groups, religious or political affiliations, and others. When the +N worldview challenges T identity narratives, it activates unhealthy “Us vs Them” clannishness. This creates identity-driven conflicts between people who may share an abstract identity at one level, like nationality and religion, but different identities at another level, like conservative or liberal. These identity-based conflicts are further aggravated by +I and +M forms which are always trying to advance or protect their own worldview.
Assessing Current Issues Via TIMN Values-Forms
The Values-Forms framework can be used to gain social dynamics insights into larger issues plaguing our current era. Take for example a qualitative assessment table below showing the influences and reactions of each TIMN values-form to four current socially disruptive issues. The arrows in the Net Effect column indicate if it amplifies the issue (↑), attenuates it (↓), or has mixed effect (↓↑)
Table 1: Values-Forms assessment of four issues
| SOCIO-POLITICAL POLARIZATION | |||
| Values-Form | Reaction (Values) | Influence (Form) | Net Effect |
| T
Tribes-Kinship form with Narrative worldview |
Accepts socially based governance narratives from others within identity group and rejects those from outside.
Resists efforts to compromise |
Group narratives reinforces consensus about which social values that rules/laws should enact & enforce | ↑
Hardens ideological identities around social policy goals |
| +I
Institutions-Hierarchies form with Authoritarian worldview |
Seeks to identify clear, enforceable governance rules or laws on polarizing issues
Attempts to ignore or defer action on issue(s) which cannot easily be addressed via rules or laws |
Establishes and enforces rules or laws based on minimizing social disruption to existing order | ↑
Maintains or increases polarization |
| +M
Markets-Exchanges form with Modernist/Materialist worldview |
Tacitly or actively support polarizing issue(s) position which advantage strategic goals, and against ones which hinder goals.
Maintains neutrality on issue(s) which do not affect goals. |
Privileges exchanges which support aligned side on polarizing issue(s) | ↑
Increases power of supported side |
| +N
Networks-Nexus form with Communitarian/Postmaterialist worldview |
Supports side of polarizing issue(s) if enhances meaning-based equality & self-actualization
Opposes issue(s) which work against democratizing equality & self-actualization. Is neutral to issues which do not impact communitarian values |
Networked communities coordinate to promote governance changes to enhance equality & self-actualization.
Work against changes which undermine those goals |
↑Short term:
increases polarization by pushing for goals others oppose ↓Long term: Decreases polarization as equality & self-actualization increases |
| CONSPIRACY THINKING | |||
| Values-Form | Reaction (Values) | Influence (Form) | Net Effect |
| T
Tribes-Kinship form with Narrative worldview |
Emotionally accepts “truth” of conspiracy theories which reinforce group identity-linked beliefs and hostility towards out-groups regardless of provability | Spreads conspiracy narratives as in-group cultural identity touchstones | ↑
increases distrust & “othering” of conspiracy theory subjects |
| +I
Institutions-Hierarchies form with Authoritarian worldview |
Accepts or tolerates conspiracy thinking which does not challenge accepted truth or current order
Rejects conspiracy thinking which undermines power & authority of current order |
Enforces formal & informal rules against conspiracy theory subjects | ↑
Normalizes conspiracy-based distrust of enemies and others identified as disruptors |
| +M
Markets-Exchanges form with Modernist/Materialist worldview |
Assesses facts of conspiracy theory.
Is neutral or ignores if does not impact strategic objectives, & facts cannot be framed to support strategic objectives Supports if positively influences strategic objectives & facts can be framed to support Rejects if negatively influences strategic objectives & facts can be framed to debunk |
Presents known facts about conspiracy theory framed to support strategic goals | ↓↑
Either amplifies or attenuates conspiracy thinking based on individual or organizational strategic objectives |
| +N
Networks-Nexus form with Communitarian/Postmaterialist worldview |
Achieves meaning-based consensus based on known facts, observed behavior, & perceived intent of conspiracy subject. | Amplifies facts & consensus-driven theory about why conspiracy is being spread.
Frames in terms that support communitarian values. |
↓
Decreases conspiracy thinking among those sympathetic to fact-based arguments & communitarian values framing |
| ELECTORAL MANIPULATION | |||
| Values-Form | Reaction (Values) | Influence (Form) | Net Effect |
|
T Tribes-Kinship form with Narrative worldview |
Is understandable or forgivable if “we” do it.
Is outrageous & should be punished if “others” do it. |
Spread narratives of how “others” manipulate voting.
Minimize or deny stories of “our” electoral manipulation |
↑
Normalizes electoral manipulation for “us” |
|
+I Institutions-Hierarchies form with Authoritarian worldview |
Accepts if allowed under current rules.
Rejects & addresses if not allowed under current rules. |
Determines what is & is not acceptable electoral manipulation in a way that supports current order | ↓↑
Attempts to maintain status quo of governance system |
|
+M Markets-Exchanges form with Modernist/Materialist worldview |
Accepts & uses manipulation if in strategic interest
Evaluates candidates as pro or anti-strategic interest. Works to promote pro candidates & undermine anti candidates |
Works to legalize manipulation which supports strategic interests
Lobbies for manipulation rules which promote pro strategic interest candidates |
↑
Biases legal electoral manipulation toward party supporting strategic interests |
| +N
Networks-Nexus form with Communitarian/Postmaterialist worldview |
Rejects all attempts at manipulation which disempower individuals, & undermine equality | Identifies manipulation & communicates the situation as quickly as possible.
Coordinates communitarian anti-manipulation responses (flash-crowds, protests, mass-contact of representatives, etc.) |
↓
Decreases effects of electoral manipulation via increased engagement |
We see that each values-form addresses situations based on the core values of their worldview. T wants group identity and unity, +I wants absolute truth and order, +M wants to achieve material goals or to further strategic interests, +N wants to promote individual meaning via self-actualization and equality. All their reactions tend towards three modes: Accept, Reject, or Ignore. Their influence targets ways to strengthen their values imperatives via their native organizational form: T narrative circles, +I authoritarian hierarchies, +M materialist exchanges, and +N communitarian nexuses. Each uses their form to influence the other three.
One conclusion we can reach from the table above is that +N is struggling against the other three values-forms. This makes sense if +N values arose in response to unresolved problems created by a T+I+M dominated world. It implies that the increasing ideological conflicts we have seen over the past several decades are a response by the old T+I+M balance to the new +N layer. The emphasis on meaning over materialism alienates +M, the rejection of hierarchy threatens +I, and the dissolving of social norms threatens older T identity narratives. The challenge for +N is to achieve a working balance with the others and they with it. Looking back through history it is easy to see eras of conflict when the existing values-form balance was disturbed by a new values-form layer gaining influence. The emergence of +N seems likely to have accelerated short-term discord. It should in the long run decrease persistent systemic issues by creating a new governance layer. Once the other layers learn to value +N’s contribution, the discord should lessen.
Another thing to note is that individuals and organizations have responses that are far less discrete than the table indicates. Worldviews are miscible with each other. Each of us hold multiple worldviews of varying strengths which respond in different contexts. The modal response of a single values-form can be difficult to untangle from the overlapping responses. We see unhealthy “us vs them” dynamics arise in +N dominant organizations, just as we see strong +I “truth & order” values in +M achievement-based exchanges like science or sports. We need to keep this blending in mind when identifying the systems dynamics of interacting social forms and worldviews.
Tools like the table above can help. It is easy however to misattribute a worldview’s reaction or a social organization’s attempts to influence to a particular TIMN value-form. The US Federal Government for example is nominally a +I “truth & order” institution. Yet integral to it are +M competitively elected officials, parties with clear T group identities, and +N extended networks that cut across the organizational boundaries. Context can help us determine which TIMN values and organizational forms are dominant in each situation.
Post-Truth Internet Blues
None of the archetypal TIMN worldviews agree on the heuristic basis for judging truth. All of them are currently in conflict with the others to varying degrees and convinced that their worldview represents the path to truth. Each is reacting to disruptions caused by both increasing social complexity and the disruptive emergence of the +N worldview and its nexus form. Each worldview is energized to both protect itself and try to advance towards its ideals. All are jockeying for supremacy in the new balance that is forming.
This conflict has forced us into the unhealthy “Us vs Them” identity mode of the T worldview. Post-Truth is merely a relabeling of one of the oldest human social dynamics: truth as group narrative. Complexity and abundant information have created the perfect environment for rationalizing any of the archetypal worldviews. The TIMN worldviews are arguing past each other in favor of their truth. Each of those truths emerged to deal with a new layer of complexity in the world. Each is true within a certain scope, and untrue in others. The problem is that we have not settled into a stable dynamic between them yet. Each is trying to claim truth as its own.
We are overwhelmed with a sense that we have entered a Post-Truth era where emotions rule over facts, and facts are in dispute. However, we have always disputed what truth is when archetypal worldviews conflict with each other, Faith versus Science being just one example. The compromise between the +I and +M worldviews which created the Modernist sense of truth promoted the notion that truth was discoverable (+M) and consistent (+I). Now +N is forcing a re-evaluation of that compromise. Meaning (+N) is being joined to communal narrative (T) to force redress of both old languishing problems and new ones. Information technologies and the internet are amplifying this clash of truths. Each side acknowledges that +I+M facts exist and are necessary but reject any facts which do not match their worldview. Information technologies have made shopping for narrative-supporting facts easy and automatic. Google and social media feed us a steady diet of confirmation bias. We are suffering from the Post-Truth Internet Blues.
We do not know yet what balance we will achieve between the differing TIMN truths. We do know that it will fluidly incorporate the healthy aspects of each form and worldview. We know that information networks are amplifying both the healthy and unhealthy aspects of each quadriform worldview. Our challenge is to creatively use our knowledge of worldviews and forms to create a new system of truth where each worldview functions with the others to create a healthy quadriform system.
Wicked Problems Versus Wicked Potentials
Wicked problems cannot be solved, only managed. That is also true for our wickedest problem of conflicting worldviews. Our first step is to recognize that no worldview is superior to any other. All are necessary to address the problems we face. All see a necessary truth. All are functional expressions of our social suite. Any solutions we create must give space to each archetypal worldview. None can be walled off, devalued, or excluded. Doing so would force them into their unhealthy form and create more problems. We will never achieve a perfect balance, but we can create a manageable balance.
Any solutions must be framed and architected in terms that each worldview comprehends. We will need to engage T’s narratives to create a common identity. We will need to specify an orderly purpose so that +I can maintain necessary structure, roles, and rules. Objective and competitive forces will be required so that +M can adapt to measurable change. We must empower +N qualitative free-flowing collaborations to continuously assess and respond to unhealthy behaviors in the solution.
Most of all we need to recognize that we cannot just work toward managing Wicked Problems. Instead we must also look to Wicked Potentials, those solutions that unlock new vistas for us and the natural world.
References
Christakis, N. A. (2019). Blueprint: The evolutionary origins of a good society. New York: Little, Brown Spark.
Hines, A. (2011). Consumershift: How changing values are reshaping the consumer landscape. Tucson, AZ: No Limit Publishing.
Rittel, H. W., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4, 155-169. doi:10.1007/BF01405730
Ronfeldt, D. (1996). Tribes, institutions, markets, networks: A Framework about societal evolution. Santa Monica, CA: Rand.