Reflections Lost in knowledge – yearning for change

by James Taylor

After attending the dialogue hosted by HIVOS on the theme of ‘Knowledge and Change’ I was left impressed and informed by the content, insights and conclusions presented. But the greatest thought-prompting tension that I have taken away with me came more from the theme than the content. Michael Edwards’ opening address focused our attention on the relationship between knowledge and change. Perhaps my train of thought was triggered by the question raised at this early point around the possibility that feelings play a more significant role in changing behaviour than knowledge and thinking do.

My colleagues and I work a lot with the relationship between thinking, feeling and the triggering of human will that results in changed action. But the new question that was prompted in me is – “what is the relationship between knowledge, consciousness, and change?”

 

Before I try and engage with the role of consciousness let me clarify and justify why these thoughts are focused on one particular type of change. In a paper written by my colleague Doug Reeler[1] he suggests that it is helpful to consider that there are three essential types of change. They are: projectable change; emergent change; and transformative change. He further suggests that projectable change is supported by good planning, monitoring and evaluation. Emergent change requires ongoing learning in order to adapt to ever-varying emergent complexity. Transformative change (i.e. the change that results in systems and organisations adopting fundamentally new forms) requires un-learning. To me it is relatively clear how knowledge can contribute to improving planning, monitoring and evaluation, and also how knowledge can elevate and improve the quality of ongoing learning from own experience. It is my contention that a lot of the knowledge industry is most suited to, and contributes most to, the first two types of change.

 

It is the third (transformative) type of change that I find most important and challenging at this juncture, where it is becoming increasingly clear that our sector is falling far short of its purpose. It is my contention that the present dominant organisational forms that shape society are innately incapable of addressing the greatest systemic challenges of our time. I believe that the systematic impoverishment of human and ecological systems emanates from the foundational operating systems that shape the organisations that shape our world. I understand the dominant organisational forms to be hierarchies of control that have evolved through managerial capitalism. So I arrived at the new thought (or question!) of “what is the relationship between knowledge and ‘un-learning’?” This thought led me to a key premise that informs our practice. It comes from our understanding of organisations and how they develop, and from our experience in facilitating attempts at organisational transformation. It makes sense to us that to transform from one organisational form to a really new form demands new consciousness. So my question evolved into “what is the relationship between knowledge and changed consciousness?”

 

And this is where I am now – I am left mulling the following thoughts and questions:

• I am re-connected to the teachings from the Black Consciousness Movement in my country and the contribution it made to change. Central to the Black Consciousness thinking was a very acute sensitivity and understanding of ‘the system’ (in our country made very visible and tangible by the apartheid regime) and how it distorts one’s sense of self and relationships to the world. And how inner personal work at the level of consciousness is an essential part of what is required to change the system (along with collective forms of resistance).
• I remember our slogan “conscientise, mobilise, organise” that reminded us of what our work was during the struggle.
• What knowledge helps shift consciousness (the work of Paulo Freire floods back to me).
• I wonder what progress we have made over the past thirty or forty years in our understanding of what it takes to change dysfunctional systems. And how the immense amount of knowledge we have generated has contributed.
• I wonder how much of the knowledge industry is shaped by the consciousness of the dominant paradigm and how it reinforces present organisational forms in return.
• I ask myself what I understand consciousness to be. I wonder what the link is between consciousness and our fundamental sense-making of how the world works. And how this understanding (knowledge?) is reflected in practice in how we relate to the complex interdependent systems that constitute and sustain life.

At a practical level I am left with the challenging thought of how to go about the work of changing consciousness amongst those who are lost in the power-filled world of creating, brokering and managing knowledge.

 

James Taylor

 

CDRA

 

October 2010

 

 

 

 

[1] “A Threefold Theory of Social Change” by Doug Reeler; CDRA; 2007. Available on www.cdra.org.za