Más allá de Darwin: Recorrido de la evolución hasta la gestión integral

From within our field, we might entertain the thought that conservation evolves according to actions of our own thinkers and programs, independent of trajectories by which other fields such as forestry, sociology, or even hair design might follow. But a momentary step outside our box might reveal that all society evolves in a larger sweep, a giant historical track that guides the future. Understanding this track helps us to see many barriers to implementation and organizational performance that otherwise we could not see.

To glimpse this requires that we become conscious of the universal dimension of evolution, way beyond that of Darwin. Then, we can understand from where management has come and to where it marches. And, hopefully, we can help it arrive as soon as possible.

For much of human history, cultures had creation stories that were static, non-evolutionary with the consequent belief that things didn’t evolve, especially the dominant Biblical creationist view that begins with Eden, the world’s first protected area.

Evolutionary theory has arisen to challenge creationist and static worldviews. Evolution, however and despite the wishes of many biologists, did not start with Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

Evolution actually began with a bang, a really Big Bang. Fourteen million years ago, then, galactic evolution began.

At first only sub-atomic particles populated infant space, but as the universe cooled, these particles fused to form hydrogen and then helium, lithium, beryllium, and so on to the heavier elements. Atoms clumped into molecules which coalesced into clouds then stars then solar systems and galaxies, each time more complex than the time before.

Evolution is a process of increasing complexification. The Periodic Table is a map of how inanimate matter increased in complexity from simple H, the first element created after the Big Bang, to the heaviest, most complex elements. There are 118 known elements, 94 occur naturally.

After billions of years on our planet, rocks cooled, sedimented, heated, metamorphosed into tectonic plates, digging canyons, building mountain ranges, and ever more species of minerals. This is the on-going scale of geologic evolution which takes place much faster than galactic evolution.

After millions of years, the first prokaryotic unicellular organisms bubbled into existence among organic chemical soups. Then came eukaryotic cells, then multicellular organisms, which grew larger, more complex, able to react to more stimuli in more interesting ways. Then proto-hominids evolved to the first self-conscious organisms on the planet. This biological or Darwinian evolution occurs much faster than geologic evolution of the planet.

After hundreds of thousands of years, many different cultures emerged around the world.

From these cultures, after the invention of intensive agriculture 10,000 years ago, civilizations appeared on the face of the planet. Today our highly interconnected, highly complex civilization has swept the globe. In any case, cultural evolution takes place much faster than biological evolution, the evolutionary scale from which culture emerged.

As with previous scales, evolution transcends and includes less complex forms, never discards, whether elemental particles like Hydrogen, ancient rocks, or early cultures.

Over hundreds of years to years, technological evolution, a component of cultural evolution, speeds along even more rapidly than culture in general. This was a car at the beginning of the 20th century.

This is a car at the end of the 20th Century. Compared to the 100 years of technological evolution we experienced last century, this century we will see the equivalent 20,000 20th Century years in terms of the amount of technological evolution to come, according to futurist and inventor, Ray Kurzweil. See http://www.kurzweilai.net/index.html?flash=1

Another aspect of cultural evolution aside from technology is consciousness evolution. If we define consciousness as an organism’s ability to perceive and react to stimuli and phenomena in the environment, we can see that from the earliest archaic bacteria to humans today, a lot of consciousness has evolved. That is, bacteria perceive stimuli in their environment (temperature, chemicals, light), but humans perceive many more stimuli (physical, psychological, social) and react in many ways to them.

Today our egocentric consciousness asks if evolution has stopped with us, people? If the natural driving forces that drove speciation for a couple billion years no longer apply to the top species which can stop disease, hunger, and live under any conditions. It’s a tempting thought since in the 10,000 years of human civilization, our bodies, even our brain mass, have not physically evolved in any substantial way.

Yet our brain power, processing speed, ability to conceptualize and identify (perceive) patterns and categories have increased by orders of magnitude. Powers beyond our ancestors’ imagination have emerged from within our skulls without any material change in brain or skull.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest and paleontologist, saw the unfolding of complexity and consciousness of the cosmos. He concluded that evolution had direction and therefore must have purpose. His law of complexity-consciousness holds that consciousness develops in direct proportion to an organism’s organizational complexity. More complex cultures and societies were capable of greater consciousness. He said that the greatest moment in the evolution of life was when humanity developed consciousness of its own consciousness.

Desarrollo cognicitivo:

James Mark Baldwin & Jean Piaget

Motivacion humana: Abraham Maslow

Moralidad: Lawrence Kohlberg

Ego: Jane Loevinger

Madurez social: Robert Keegan

Desarrollo cognicitivo:

James Mark Baldwin & Jean Piaget

Motivacion humana: Abraham Maslow

Moralidad: Lawrence Kohlberg

Ego: Jane Loevinger

Madurez social: Robert Keegan

Psychologists have been studying human development for the better part of two centuries. Their research indicates that people pass through stages in many categories: physical, moral, cognitive, needs, maturity, etc. If we were to combine their conclusions into some general lessons, we might say that all people must develop through hierarchical stages, without skipping any, although at different rates and different end points. Some people get stuck at lower levels of morality, for instance, but very high levels of cognition.

Thus we develop interior capacities without any corresponding changes in the physical brain (once we reach physical maturity, of course). People can continue to evolve throughout their entire lives.

Some developmental psychologist now study evolution of consciousness in individuals – adults are more conscious than infants for instance – as well as cultures and societies. Consciousness like everything else in the universe evolves, grows more complex and increases awareness of more stimuli and phenomena in the universe. And after many years, researchers and philosophers like Steve McIntosh (pictured here) have mapped levels of consciousness that humanity has experienced.

See his book Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution for an excellent description of this evolution and its implications.

Let’s very briefly summarize the different levels of consciousness that humanity has experienced.

Archaic consciousness

Early pre-culture humans exhibited archaic consciousness which is enough consciousness for the survival instinct to operate. We now only see this level in infants or those who have regressed through illness or injury.

The vast majority of hominid history is characterized by this level of consciousness, hundreds of thousands of years.

Tribal consciousness

Around 200,000 years ago, humanity first invented culture and the arrival of a new level of consciousness. Consciousness depends very much on the perceived life conditions of people. Those of tribal consciousness perceived the world as mysterious, threatening, and spirit-controlled where spirits must be placated. In this world fear drives many decisions. The best strategy to survive in this animistic world was to sacrifice self for kin and tribe. Tribes were tightly bound, coherent groups of extended families that closely obeyed the tribe’s rituals, taboos, and rules, mediated by chiefs and shamans. Tribal consciousness contributed a closeness to nature and strong family bonds to the legacy of human history. This strategy has been in existence for thousands of years.

But as life conditions changed and the tribes proved a successful coping strategy, the social energy once directed to placating spirits in cohesive family units, eventually turned into a pathology which became the life conditions for the next level of consciousness. The pathology was a perceived slavery to the group, high levels of superstition, and complete submission of the self for the good of the community.

Warrior consciousness

Thus some people on a cultural level perceived the oppressive tribal control and craved honor, feared shame, and saw the world as a jungle full of threats and predators (perceived life conditions). This was a dog eat dog world. The answer was to express self and individuality. Power came through individual strength and personal initiative. People followed charismatic and powerful leaders who demonstrated their powers through gratification of impulses and taking what they could. This consciousness can be seen today in gangs and terrorists. It contributed individual initiative and action to the legacy of human culture, but also eventually became a pathology setting the stage for the next level of consciousness.

Remember that levels of consciousness are held at individual and cultural levels.

Traditional consciousness

Some people began to perceive the warrior consciousness as ruthless, morally bankrupt, always at war, violent, bloody, now-mentality, and highly dependent on the individual. The traditional consciousness then felt the need for law and order in this evil world. God’s or gods’ law shall reign supreme among the suffering and bring salvation. Once again consciousness swung like a pendulum from an individual emphasis on warriors to a community emphasis of traditionalists (and tribalists). The traditionalists created a divine absolute law that clearly defined right and wrong, good and bad. It was a strict, mythic order revealed from above, supported by the faithful, and communicated by religious hierarchies that could commune with the gods. The strong faith and emphasis on coming together allowed the traditionalists to organize, create divisions of labor, and defeat the warriors. It also created civilization and supported sophisticated expressions of art. Think the Holy Roman Empire or any of the salvation religions (Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, etc.). They contributed organization, art, and law to human history, but their emphasis on one right way to live also turned into their pathology that unleashed the next level of consciousness.

Modernist consciousness

Around the 17th Century people began to perceive that traditionalist cultures were highly intolerant of anyone not part of their group, ethnocentric, highly dogmatic, and demanded faith to continue in the group. These new people, the modernists, aspired to a better standard of living and improved social position based on individual merit (the pendulum swings back to an individual emphasis). They want to escape oppressive, dogmatic systems and demystify the world. They believe that wealth and status should be based on individual capacity, rationality and science, technology, and finding the best possible solutions. Although ancient Greeks exhibited modernist traits, their culture did not survive. It took modernism another 1,000 years to reappear as the Enlightenment in Europe, some three hundred years ago. Modernists invented many of our modern systems based on competition, individual autonomy, upward mobility, and individual liberty, such as modern science, academia, democracy, globalism, capitalism, industrialism, macroeconomics, intentional technological development and innovation, professional sports and bureaucracies, the middle class.

The modernists today control most power and resources. They conflict with traditionalist cultures in the Middle East and elsewhere. They contributed many great aspects to human legacy, but they came at a cost and a pathology.

You can also see how the evolution of consciousness speeds up. Each level generates its own pathology and sets the stage for the next level in shorter and shorter time, consistent with the acceleration of evolution across time scales.

Post-modern consciousness

Modernism also required other related beliefs in order to succeed, such as materialism, individualism, scientism, selfishness, professionalized corruption, and exploitation of all those minorities and the natural world with less power.

In the 1960s discontent with the damages caused by modernism gave rise to the postmodernists who rejected shallow materialism, anti-spiritualism, suffering and excluded minorities, environmental destruction, and corrupt hierarchies. Postmodernists responded with a renewed emphasis on community, equity, fairness, inclusion of excluded points of view, interior and spiritual development, egalitarianism, consensus decision-making, participation, multi-culturalism, compassion, and a worldcentric morality based on human potential rather than the anthropomorphism exhibited by modernism. The postmodernists seeded most of the “left” or “liberal” causes we see today such as environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, voting rights, minority rights, intentional communities, organic agriculture, and so many different kinds of spiritual paths and developments, especially imported from the East.

Postmodernists are prominent in developed countries and have widened human consciousness and politics in ways never before seen in history. But in their forty some years of existence, already their well-intentioned and humane ways have generated a pathology that sets the stage for the next level of consciousness.

But let’s first review the levels once again.

Arcaico

Tribal

Guerrero

Tradicional

Modernista

Modernista

Posmodernista

1a Etapa

Integral2a Etapa

3a Etapa

Modernista

Posmodernista

1a Etapa

Integral2a Etapa

3a Etapa

Integral consciousness

The postmodernists exhibit a number of characteristics that contribute to their pathology. First they support value relativism. Because modernism excluded so many voices, postmodernists in their attempt to include everyone argue that all voices, all perspectives, all truths are equally valid. In supporting all perspectives equally, they sacrifice their capacity to distinguish between ideas and perspectives that can help humanity move forward. They also deny hierarchy even though hierarchy is an inherent part of evolution and nature. They confuse human power hierarchies that oppress with hierarchies in general which nest systems within greater systems. Though they focus on communities, they suffer from narcissism trying to constantly improve themselves though healthier and more sustainable living. Also, even though postmodernists advocate for tolerance, they have high contempt for modernist and traditionalist values. Thus the three consciousnesses are engaged in a worldwide value war.

More than anything those of the upcoming integral consciousness see that the conditions in the world are only getting worse, that for all the good intentions and efforts of postmodernists, they are unable to solve the world’s problems. These are the life conditions that give rise to the Integral Consciousness.

The integralists then are the first level of the second stage (etapa). In the first stage all preceding levels of consciousness still think their way of thinking is the correct way. The Integralists are the first to recognize that there are different, evolving levels of consciousness in the spiral of consciousness evolution. Each level has something important to contribute to human legacy and each also generates a pathology that allows the next level to evolve. In fact, evolution and its potential to move us forward becomes the single most important value for integralists. Integralists feel a personal responsibility for the world’s problems, aspire to harmonize science and religion, seek to drive their own personal consciousness evolution. They identify with the universe, both physical and non-physical, expanding consciousness beyond the worldcentric view of postmodernists. Integralists are holistic, systemic, and interior in their orientation. They are also individual and according to their own theory, are aware that other levels of consciousness will follow as a result of their pathology which might be based in elitism. They take note of exceptional individuals who already push the frontier of consciousness into new levels and a third stage.

Paradigms

Each worldview consists of a forest of paradigms or models that define the rules for how every field and technology works. One example is astronomy. For 1,000 years people lived by the Roman astronomer Ptolemy’s calculations of how sun and stars revolved around Earth. There were discrepancies between his numbers and his predictions but no one questioned them for more than a millennium. That is, not until an amateur Polish astronomer, Copernicus, showed that to explain Ptolemy’s anomalies, we had to change the assumptions and rules about how celestial bodies move. He proposed that the planets revolved around the sun. This new cosmological paradigm eventually changed how people viewed their place in the universe.

Similar to science, technological paradigms explain the rules about how technologies work. These rules also dictate what we perceive as possible and impossible.

The Swiss were unrivaled champions in precision watch manufacture using gears and springs, holding at one point most of the world market. They were so confident in their paradigm that when their own scientists came up with a new paradigm, industry leaders rejected it and even let those scientists share it at a trade show. Japanese participants promptly grabbed the idea and demonstrated that the new technology was not only possible, but the future.

Seiko later produced the first quartz digital watch that had no moving parts and used a battery instead of wind up gears. A short time thereafter, Swiss watchmakers lost most of the world market to the new paradigm.

Under modernists, a variety of resource management paradigms emerged. They focused on managing natural resources to produce raw materials and goods. They created protected areas that separated people from wildlife, maximum sustainable yield, carrying capacity, and other scientific models to maximize production and protection. In the process they excluded people who lived alongside wildlife, stripped spiritual and moral value from non-human existence, and seriously underestimated the complexity of systems that made it impossible to accurately predict and manage resources in a strictly scientific way.

Also natural resource education focused on science and scientific management of resources.

But with the destruction caused by these paradigms, even many modernists became alarmed. In response, environmental education, interpretation, ecosystem management, and conservation as a field emerged out of modernism. At first these new fields were peopled by modernists using modernists tools. Education and interpretation focused on teaching students about nature with the hope that greater appreciation would lead to greater consciousness and less destruction. There was a lot of tree planting. Ecosystem management was still a wholly scientific approach to better understanding and managing natural systems.

But with the rise of postmodernism, social issues entered environmentalism, conservation, environmental education, interpretation, and protected area management. Now these fields were free to address political, cultural, and social aspects of over exploitation. They could now reintroduce ethics and morality into natural resource management and our relationship with other organisms. These fields could now consider other kinds of knowledge besides just scientific-empirical, the only legitimate source of knowing in a modernist world.

They introduced new techniques that involved people such as stakeholder participation, community strengthening, rescuing cultural expressions, non-economic valuations, consensus, and systems thinking to name just a few.

But all these paradigms and practitioners are caught between worldviews: Modernism and traditionalism on one side and postmodernism on the other. In protected areas, for instance, managers try to integrate the postmodern idea of stakeholder participation into park planning, but are held back by modernist scientific planning where science demands that we minimize biases and subjectivity to obtain objective results. Unfortunately the largest source of subjectivity in planning are the political interests, personal conflicts, subjective biases of diverse stakeholders. Thus, parks offer a token participation where they invite people to express views, but ultimately do not share power.

Environmental education too suffers criticisms by modernists of being too preachy, of brainwashing students, of diluting science with ethics and morality, of trying to integrate across all courses (postmodernist) rather than keep environmental education as a single course (modernist). This occurs even while American traditionalists battle modernists over teaching evolution in public schools.

In terms of managing protected areas, the worldview battle continues. On one hand, managers try to empower stakeholders, be more participatory, use adaptive management, but modernism still radiates through their organizations. They are often strongly hierarchical, with controls over employees to keep them obedient. They suppress negative news, use independently operating specialists within the organization, and in general function as science-based bureaucracies.

In the preceding picture, we see a room designed to emphasize hierarchy and power, rather than participation and power-sharing. Can you name 3-4 techniques for this purpose?

This ELAP master’s course then mixes postmodern and integral perspectives to envision a new protected area management. Where modernist bureaucracies prevent learning by suppressing participation, ignoring different forms of knowledge, punishing mistakes, discouraging experimentation, denying uncertainty, slowing innovation, and others, and postmodernist institutions regard all perspectives as equally valid, deny hierarchy, fear offending, we understand the contributions and pathologies of both worldviews (in an integral perspective).

Técnicas de aprendizaje organizativo• Experimentar• Prototipos• Redes de aprendizaje• Investigar nuevas técnicas• Invertir en nuevas tecnologías• Promover innovación• Actualizar planes continuamente• Seguir capacitando a su gente• Muchas otras

Técnicas de aprendizaje organizativo• Experimentar• Prototipos• Redes de aprendizaje• Investigar nuevas técnicas• Invertir en nuevas tecnologías• Promover innovación• Actualizar planes continuamente• Seguir capacitando a su gente• Muchas otras

Instead we combine the modernist use of rationality, logic, and scientific process, the postmodernist ideas of community strengthening, power sharing, and participation, and an integral emphasis on both interior development and systems thinking to envision a learning organization that rapidly adjusts to accelerating change.

While we remain within the modernist framework of protected areas, we expand the notion of community well beyond its geographic proximity of a protected area to include distant ideas, people, and processes into protected area planning, learning, and managing.

We break down barriers in our discussion. We can talk about feelings, morality, fears, spirituality, hierarchy, (dis)advantages of science, paranormal phenomena, collective intelligence, indigenous wisdom, creationism, and other ideas excluded or hated by traditionalists, modernists, or postmodernists.

We share our concerns, worries, and conflicts and see how those can be turned into strengths.

Jon Kohl, jkohl@uci.ac.crwww.jonkohl.com

With climate change, pandemics, peak oil, food shortages, the life conditions especially of Westerners in the 2010s grow increasingly urgent. We need protected area managers to look beyond the 20th-Century modernist concept of environment and identify with a larger consciousness, at least worldcentric, if not beyond. Managers, to be truly relevant in this century, can’t simply hide in local issues and technologies, but must participate in solving problems based in consciousness.

You, protected area managers, are entering a new world that requires a new worldview and of course new academic courses that evolve along with them. To transition to a new world though, first we must evolve beyond Darwin.

Jon Kohl, jkohl@uci.ac.crwww.jonkohl.com