“Innovation is as much a function of the right kind of relationships as it is of a particular kind of individual vision.”
-Carter Phipps
The following is a slightly edited post from a couple of years ago. In many ways it feels more pertinent to me now …
Among other reads, I’ve been revisiting the book Evolutionariesby Carter Phipps. Phipps is the editor of EnlighteNextmagazine and enthusiastic about what we calls “the evolutionary worldview” and how it is showing up in many different fields, from biology to sociology to philosophy and theology. He sees this perspective as transforming one’s understanding of just about everything.
“The debate about our origins is also a cultural referendum on our future.”
The book is in part retrospective, looking at the history of “the evolutionary perspective” that shook up perceptions of “a fixed world” when it suggested that creation is not static, but ever-changing. This realization is still making waves and sinking in. Phipps writes – “As the fog of fixity lifts, we are finding ourselves much more than observers and witnesses to life’s unfolding drama.” In other words, the view of an evolving world is associated with a sense of movement, possibility, engagement, and response-ability (an ability to respond).Read More
“Innovation is as much a function of the right kind of relationships as it is of a particular kind of individual vision.”
-Carter Phipps
I generally cap off the summer with a post about some of my summer reading. I am still working on something to capture take-aways from one of my favorite reads – The New Science of Sustainability: Building a Foundation for Great Change – and am offering here a revised post from a few years back that focuses on a still very timely book.
I ended my summer reading with what was for me a fascinating book – Evolutionariesby Carter Phipps. Phipps is the editor of EnlighteNextmagazine and enthusiastic about what we calls “the evolutionary worldview” and how it is showing up in many different fields, from biology to sociology to philosophy and theology. He sees this perspective as transforming understandings of just about everything. Evolutionaries does a great service by deepening and broadening as well as bringing much more nuance to what I see as a very important perspective for the work of social change. Read More
I was recently turned on to the work of Louise Diamond by the Plexus Institute. Diamond has been bringing insights from the dynamics of complex systems to peace building work for many years. Her efforts connect to a growing number of practitioners and thinkers who see the need to approach social change with an ecological and evolutionary mindset. In one of her papers, she extracts some of the “simple rules” that yield core practices for working in this way. Here I have adapted and adjusted some of them in application to network building for food systems change. Read More
|Image from Anders Sandberg|http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenamontanus/273180669|
Yesterday I posted a bit of a summary of Carter Phipps’ provocative new book, Evolutionaries, which included the suggested trajectories from a variety of evolutionary thinkers and observers, including greater (and increasing rates of) external and internal complexity, convergence, creativity and change. The implications I left off with included a call for a stronger embrace of our creative self-starting (entrepreneurial) potential and also the necessity of engaging in more intentional and skillful collective (cooperative or collaborative) effort.
To take this another step, there is much in the evolutionary (biological/physical and philosophical/spiritual) literature that validates and extends our thinking about how to work with life and dynamic systems to steward change in broadly desirable, just, and life-affirming directions.
“Innovation is as much a function of the right kind of relationships as it is of a particular kind of individual vision.”
-Carter Phipps
I capped off my summer reading with what was for me a fascinating and important book – Evolutionaries by Carter Phipps. Phipps is the editor of EnlighteNextmagazine and enthusiastic about the evolutionary worldview and how it is showing up in many different fields, from biology to sociology to philosophy and theology, transforming our very understanding not simply of the cosmos, but of ourselves. Over the past few years, readers of this blog have probably picked up on the interest that my colleague Gibran Rivera and I share with Phipps when it comes to the evolutionary worldview. Evolutionaries does a wonderful service in deepening and broadening as well as bringing much more nuance to this perspective, rendering it more timely, accessible and applicable to the work of social change. Read More
There is some exciting work happening through the Institute of Noetic Sciences called the Worldview Literacy Project. This initiative seeks to help students understand from a relatively young age what a worldview is, where worldviews come from, and the potential for switching and/or holding multiple views. Given that fundamental change is rooted in our mindsets and preconceived notions about what is and can be, this project would seem to hold great promise. Judge for yourself by listening to these remarkable young people and future (or perhaps current) change agents.
The following is a slightly edited post from a couple of years ago. In many ways it feels more pertinent to me now …
