A R T I C L E

.15Beyond the Mundane - Towards Post-Conventional Futures Practice

Richard SlaughterForesight InternationalAustralia

Journal of Futures Studies, May 2006, 10(4): 15 - 24

Abstract

This essay suggests that the futures field has reached a new stage in its development; one that incorpo-rates powerful new tools, frameworks and options. Within this context the paper considers some of the ways thatfuturists can respond to the global predicament, re-defining what some have called the "resolutique", or arena ofpossible solutions. Futurists can best contribute by deliberately cultivating 'post conventional' futures practice.The underlying theme of the paper is to consider what it may mean to 'wake up' at the cultural level.

1. Responding to the global predicamentUnderstanding the past

As all competent futurists know, understandingthe present is a sine qua non of understanding anythingabout the future. In turn, to understand the presentabsolutely requires an historical perspective of somedepth. Here is one reason why Futures Studies (FS) ingeneral can be genuinely demanding. One necessarilymust be prepared to seek knowledge and insight frommany different fields, not merely one or two of them.Furthermore, history understood as facts about the past(my favourite definition of history is "lies about crimes")is relatively unhelpful. You have to get much further intohistoriography, structuralism, macrohistory and the liketo have any chance of really understanding why we livein this world, this present, rather than all the other mul-titudinous alternatives that once were possible. So"understanding the past" is not a simple proposition. Itis challenging and time-consuming. Better, then, to for-

get the past and just "wing it" from the present, startfrom today? No, not at all.

If we look back very carefully we can draw insightfrom a range of sources to gain depth knowledge of thepresent. I'll briefly mention four. The first is JaredDiamond's attempt to sketch a broad macrohistory ofhumanity's rise from the distant evolutionary past. Hiskey works draw on many diverse fields to sketch thelines of development, the overshoot and collapse thatoccurred where local environmental limits were exceed-ed, the fall and rise of civilisations according to culturaland contingent biological and environmental factors. Asecond is Jean Gebser's account of stages of interior cul-tural development. Gebser draws our attention to theunderlying patterns of shared consciousness and under-standing that make worldviews and cultures possible.He described five broad stages: archaic, magical, mythi-cal, mental and integral. The latter, he stressed, was nei-ther widespread nor certain. He saw it as moving

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beyond the mental (rational, intellectual) stageand possibly foreshadowing a more integratedand holistic modus operandi. A third approach isto map the interior spaces of individual humandevelopment, as has been done by many stagedevelopment theorists over the past century orso. This has been accomplished through suchdisciplines as psycholanalysis, phenomenology,instrospective psychology and meditative prac-tice by people as diverse as Freud, Jung, Piagetand Aurobindo. Finally we can glean yet moreinsight from an understanding of our own indi-vidual evolutionary heritage as mirrored, forexample, by the "triune human brain" with itsinstinctual (or reptilian) stem, its "feeling" limbicsystem and its highly developed cognitive cere-bral hemispheres. Simply put, we'll understandthe very different evolutionary contributionsprovided by instinct, feeling and cognition.

Viewed thus – as a complex many-dimen-sional process – the "waking up" metaphortakes on new meaning. It does not, indeed itcannot, mean a once-only shift from "sleeping"to "waking". In the view taken here, humanity isonly part way through an immensely long his-torical process of slowly "waking up", ie, becom-ing more conscious, more capable, more inte-grated. One immediate implication is that,much as we might wish for it, there is simply noprospect of a decisive "breakthrough" to a newand permanent "state of grace", either individu-ally or socially. It follows that there is no single"shift to sustainability", nor is there likely to bewhat Raskin et al optimistically call a "great tran-sition". Part of our maturing as a species, and asa field of enquiry and action, is to understandour evolutionary background so that our effortsare informed by structural realities, rather thanconvenient, but culturally partial, fictions.

It follows that, in this context, "waking up"can mean something like "moving on to thenext stage". Even that turns out to be no simplematter because there are vital differencesbetween "translation" (re-arranging existing ele-ments) and "transformation" (moving to newlevels).1 At minimum the "waking up" metaphordirects our attention to areas of uneven devel-opment in the world, developmental patholo-gies and processes of integration and growth. I

will comment on each of these very briefly.

Beyond one-sided futures workIn the last fifty or so years FS itself followed

a path of increasing integration and develop-ment. First there were many attempts to per-fect the technique of forecasting. Over time thetechnique was largely abandoned by futurists –in my view because it "fell silent" when confront-ed with the human predicament. It was, howev-er, widely adopted in very many instrumentalcontexts where it remains in wide use. Nextcame the exploration of divergence in the for-ward view, mostly through scenarios (whichthen, as now, were highly successful in idealconditions and greatly over-hyped, over-used,elsewhere). We then saw the rise of critical FSfollowed, as I will suggest below, by otherdevelopments. While there were always dis-senters to this pattern (de Jouvenel, Jungk,Nandy et al.), these earlier stages were preoccu-pied with understanding and tracking changesin the world "out there". In so doing futuresworkers overlooked – as many continue tooverlook - the very means though which theycould know anything at all! That is, the world"in here". This tendency was greatly reinforcedby unregarded cultural commitments that had,over three hundred years, repressed the "inner"and pretended that everything and everyonecould be reduced to the "flatland" exteriorsfavoured by empirical science.

The so-called "critical turn" in FS re-focusedattention upon the hitherto overlooked interi-ors, specifically to vital processes of social con-struction and social legitimation, of the usesand misuses of power, of the underlyingdynamics of the entire social world. Thisarguably lent new strength and forcefulness towell-grounded (ie, critically grounded) futureswork. It meant, for example, that processes ofmeaning making and loss of meaning, of inno-vation and conflict, could be understood andengaged in much more consciously and pur-posefully than hitherto. That, indeed, is partlywhy the T-cycle method was developed. It alsomeant that work that continued to ignore oroverlook the cultural interiors steadily lost cred-ibility.

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It is now clear that we have reached apoint where FS has taken yet another significantstep forward. In the first section above I drewattention to four domains of development:inner individual, inner collective, external indi-vidual and external collective. In turn, each ofthese domains engages the knowledge andinsight of stage development theorists, culturalhistorians, empirical studies of the human beingand empirical accounts of external societaldevelopment. These four perspectives are ofgreat value to Futurists and foresight practition-ers. They map directly onto the Wilberian four-quadrant model that provides a rich metaper-spective that both advances the futures "game"and, at the same time, decisively changes itscharacter. I will shortly illustrate how thisoccurs. But first, a caveat is due. While newmetaperspectives are welcome, they should notbe elevated into new orthodoxies. Since all suchframeworks both reveal and conceal aspects ofthe world at the same time, they should eachbe used for what they reveal and set aside whentheir inevitable limits are reached.

Seeking depth understandingA great deal of well-meaning effort has

been fruitlessly expended in attempts to under-stand and solve global issues on the basis ofpartial understandings and radically limitedapproaches. It has been lost on the directors ofambitious Futures projects, on UN officials andNGOs alike that "world problems" simply cannotbe understood, let alone resolved, on the levelat which they are first presented or understood.Nor can the "exteriors" of development (terror-ism, war, poverty, infrastructure, real living con-ditions) be improved without deep prior under-standing of the human and cultural "interiors"(individual and collective values, ideologies, for-mations of power and capital). Here are a cou-ple of examples.

Scenario building has been seen for sometime as a kind of central "keystone" methodolo-gy in the Futures / Foresight domain. But sce-narios are only as good as the thinking thatgoes into them. Most, in my view, are based oninadequate thinking and superficial knowledge.A case in point is the oft-discussed Mont Fleur

scenarios constructed in South Africa. Amongthose who have written about them is AdamKahane who states that:

"The Mont Fleur project contributed to thebuilding of a common language for talkingacross groups about the opportunities andchallenges facing the country. This sharedunderstanding ... eventually helped lead tothe unprecedented 'miraculous' transitionfrom minority to majority rule in 1994."But, with a background in Spiral Dynamics

Integral (SDI), Don Beck looked at the situationquite differently and also reached different con-clusions. From his perspective the participantsin the scenario process were operating out of"different worlds of reference". The failure tounderstand and deal with this "inner" dimensionmeant that, according to Beck, "the scenarioprocess in South Africa (has) failed in that theydid not prepare the society for what was goingto happen". Crucially, he adds "my key point is(that) until scenarios deal with the realities ofthe interiors, along with an understanding ofnatural habitats, then they will be useless andeven dangerous."2

Mark Edwards is an integral scholar whohas both used and critiqued the four quadrantmodel and especially Wilber's use of holons. (Aholon is a whole and a part of any entity.) Hediscusses "evolutionary" dynamics (basically thedrive to grow, develop, dominate) and a corre-sponding set of "involutionary" dynamics (theneed to integrate, stabilise and sustain). Usingthis approach he discusses three global devel-opmental pathologies. These are:

� the bias towards a progressive, growthobsessed ... worldview which domi-nates everything;

� a valuing of the individual and personalfreedoms, rights, and responsibilitiesover and above collective freedoms,rights and responsibilities; and

� an extreme emphasis on a material,external worldview of life and knowl-edge and a widespread neglect or evendenial of the interior dimensions of lifeand knowledge.

Edwards is able to draw some powerfulinsights from this "integral developmental"

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approach. For example "ultra-technologies havealready reached a point of transcendental objec-tivism that is no longer interested in the healthof the subject but only in the emergence of newobjects of power for their own sake." Here is avery clear message for the so-called "transhu-manists" and any others who would uncriticallyswallow their fantasies of immortality andpower. Edwards stresses the need for "integrallyinformed" responses to these pathologies. Forexample, in relation to hyper-materialism, he isclear that the solution is not "some abstract spir-itualism but cultural identity and respect for theculture of others". And for Futurists: "our inter-preting, visioning and planning of the futuremust also accommodate the interior spectrumof consciousness, morality, creativity, and inter-personal being if it is to make a healthy contri-bution to our common future".

The overall significance of these examplescould not be clearer. Solutions to globalpathologies will not be found through workthat ignores the interiors. Rather, the groundsof solutions will emerge through depth under-standing, a balance between inner and outerdomains and the growth and application ofintegrally informed futures work.

Clearing the fogIn teaching about social and strategic fore-

sight at the Australian Foresight Institute I haveoften reflected on the need to "clear the fog" ofconventional understanding as a necessary firststep to becoming an effective foresight practi-tioner. Otherwise one is simply playing with,and shuffling, the conventionally known, super-ficial "frozen" views of power and the "waythings are". Then I realised that there was aneven simpler way of highlighting the issue. Thatis, to distinguish between pre-conventional,conventional and post-conventional work.Briefly, the former involves the process of"learning the ropes", becoming socialised, com-petent and qualified in a chosen area. At theconventional stage one has "arrived". One isable to work effectively within a pre-given socialor professional environment and is able to solvethe routine problems for which the existing cul-ture has solutions. The drawback to convention-

al work, however, is that it is immersed in socialprocesses that it cannot see and from which itcannot extricate itself. It has little or no reflexivi-ty or critical "distance". Hence powerfully shap-ing social, cultural, organisational and valuedynamics (for example) all remain "hidden", outof sight.

Post conventional work explores very dif-ferent territory (and is explored further below).It consciously sees the self as both a product of,and emergent from, the social order. The latteris clearly constructed, partial and certainly prob-lematic in very many respects. Nothing can betaken for granted. Here there is vast opennessthat, on the one hand, can land one in the mis-ery of existential angst or, on the other, openup one's entire being to a universe of deep sig-nificance and rich possibility.

That, in a nutshell, is why we can say that"conventional thinking is thinly disguisedpower". That is also why routine, conventionalfutures (what I call "problem oriented" work) ismarginally useful at a taken-for-granted sociallevel but unhelpful at more advanced levels. Itsolves small problems, keeps the wheels turn-ing, but is counter-productive when it comes todealing with a deeply divided and threatenedworld. Put simply, it plays with trifles and missesthe main game altogether.

Integral futuresAt the beginning of Mark Edwards' paper

on global pathologies he refers to a central fea-ture of our present world. He writes:

one increasingly pervasive and almostimmobilising aspect of life at the beginningof the 21st century is the feeling that theimmensely powerful forces which are shap-ing the social and natural environments ofthe globe are now out of control of any gov-erning entity.This is undoubtedly how many people,

especially young people, feel. Taken at this par-ticular level of "problem description" there issimply no solution in sight. If our "ways of see-ing" are conventional then we will not be ableto figure our way out. The global context is atrap for humanity, a civilisational end game. Thefact is, however, that "conventional" approaches

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to world issues within FS have barely scratchedthe surface. Moreover, in this brief overview,"post conventional" has itself been used as asimple label to point toward more the morefruitful areas of understanding and action thatare now beginning to emerge. Beyond it, espe-cially in the upper left hand (inner individual)quadrant, lie powers and capacities that havethus far not been seriously considered in therestricted frame of earlier futures work. Yetwithout venturing very far, it is clear that inte-gral futures brings new gifts to the futuresdomain. They include:

� a balancing of inner and outer perspec-tives;

� multiple and yet systematic views of ourspecies' history and development;

� access to the dynamics of social con-struction, innovation and "deepdesign";

� aspects of the "deep structures" of moreadvanced civilisations;

� a new focus on the detailed develop-ment of the practitioner (not merely hisor her cognitive ability, but otherstages, lines etc);

� an "integral operating system" (IOS) and"integral methodological pluralism"(IMP).3

Briefly, the IOS is a way of looking at quad-rants, lines, levels, states and stages – all ofwhich are descriptors of aspects of humanbeings and their world that bring new levels ofclarity and integration. The point, however, isnot to advance along all states, stages, lines etc.Rather, as mentioned above, it is to seek to be"integrally informed". That is, to understandone's own development in the context of oth-ers. Integral Methodological Pluralism is certain-ly a bit of a mouthful. It is also an approach toadjudicating different knowledge claims fromdifferent domains and areas of enquiry.Essentially it provides one way of resolvingmany of the "paradigm wars" that have plaguedso many fields, including ours, in these postmodern times.

Futurists and foresight practitioners needaccess to these new tools, perspectives and

capacities. Like any other tool kit, they are notthe whole picture. They too will change, devel-op and be replaced over time with others. Yeteven at this early stage they bestow potent newgifts upon this domain and its hard-pressedpractitioners: depth insight, practical wisdomand a durable foundation for productive work.

2. Aspects of post conventional futuresstudies / foresight

The notion of "waking up" has many richimplications. One of them is the clear need todeliberately and patiently critique the currentworld order. Here the metaphor has been usedto outline some suggestions for how futures /foresight practitioners can themselves "moveon" both internally (with respect to their owndevelopment) and externally (in terms of post-conventional futures work). I've suggested thatconventional approaches to world issues withinFS have barely scraped the surface. We nowturn to an overview of work in progress. That is,work that seeks to be both post-conventionaland integrally informed.

What does post-conventional mean?To be conventional is to operate within

pre-defined boundaries according to clearlydefined rules using well-known ideas andmethods. The bulk of futures work in the worldis conventional. It serves well-known needsand clients. It operates in familiar territory:corporations, planning departments, consultan-cies, government agencies and the like.Conventional practitioners will most likely havea degree, or equivalent experience and a certainamount of training in futures methods such asDelphi, trend analysis and scenarios. They alsotend to have a near exclusive focus on the "exte-rior collective" domain (in integral terms thelower right, or LR, quadrant). One of the hall-marks of conventional futures work is that itoverlooks the interiors.

On the other hand, post-conventionalpractitioners in any field clearly understand thatthe entire external world is mediated constantlyby inner structures of meaning and significance,and always has been. Therefore objectiveaccounts of the world are impossible (evenwithin the so-called "hard" sciences). Rather, all

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are situated in subtle but powerful networksthat are socially constructed and legitimatedover long periods of time. Clearly, therefore,post-conventional work demands more of thepractitioner. It means, for example, that a con-cern with "ways of knowing" becomes unavoid-able. Yet I have always maintained that what islost in naïvety is gained in depth knowledgeand profound insight – not merely into the cur-rently changing social order but to its possiblefutures as well.

For many years it felt like an up-hill strug-gle to show how Critical Futures Studies (CFS)contributes to the development of FS as disci-plined enquiry. But over time the penny hasdropped and many more people are seeing forthemselves how depth insight into the socialorder provides us with powerful new tools.Despite a recently disappointing book JayOlgivy summarised the evidence for this viewover a decade ago better than anyone elsebefore or since. Yet this was still only a begin-ning.

Post-conventional, integrally informed, futuresA further step was to begin to correlate

different approaches and methods in FS /Foresight work with a deep appreciation of theindividual interiors (or upper left, UL) quadrant.One approach was through "spiral dynamics",based on the work of Clare Graves. It depicted anested series of human operating systems that,as suggested in Part two, provide clues to whatis going on "under the surface". The approachcan be used as a guide to individual and socialinteriors but it is not immune to critique and isby no means the only option. In fact there are anumber of "stage development" theorists whoprovide a variety of insights into over twentydistinct "lines" of development in human beings.This means that we can gain greater clarityabout our own "ways of knowing", our prefer-ences, strengths, blind spots etc, as well asthose of others. Why are these developmentssignificant?

In the first place, they remind us that "suc-cessful practice" (whatever that means to differ-ent people in different places) is not merely amatter of taking a course or two and mastering

one or more conventional FS techniques. Oneof the great discoveries of integral futures work isthat it is levels of development within the practi-tioner that, more than anything else, determinehow well (or badly) any particular methodologywill be used or any practical task will be per-formed. In one sense this is obvious. A naivepractitioner will always get inferior results whencompared with a practitioner with in-depth per-sonal and professional knowledge. On the otherhand, how many professional training programsfocus on the interiors at all? There is clearly amajor imbalance here that needs to be correct-ed. Current practice lags a long way behindwhat we now know to be possible.

Second, we can now see why the earliertendency to focus on a practitioner's cognitivedevelopment and instrumental skill was mis-leading. To be a success in any field demandsfar, far more than "mere" cognitive ability andtechnical competence (as Peter Hayward's work– summarised below – demonstrates). Forexample, ethical, communicative and interper-sonal lines of development are equally vital tothe "well rounded" practitioner.

Third, if we see the professional develop-ment of practitioners as seeking a balancebetween "inner" and "outer" factors, we'll beopen to the idea of a new relationship between"futures literacy" (in-depth futures understand-ing) and "futures strategy" (timely and effectiveaction in the world). Moreover "depth" will nolonger be synonymous with "academic", "theo-retical" or "obscure" (though it can be any or allof these things in the wrong hands). Rather,depth will be seen as one of the main keys toindividual and disciplinary development.

The Integral Operating System (IOS) is notfor everyone.4 Those who do elect to under-stand and use it will find that the overview itprovides of quadrants, waves, lines or streams,states, types and perspectives open up all sortsof options. In time research will reveal some ofthe combinations of qualities that, it can beargued, help to make a "good futurist" or aneffective foresight practitioner. At this stage,however, the key point is to work to become"integrally informed". That means becomingfamiliar with the Integral perspective and the

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most useful aspects of the IOS. I'm well awarethat some of these suggestions may appearchallenging, to say the least. So it is useful toconsider four specific examples of post-conven-tional futures work.

3. Post-conventional futures / foresightin practiceWynberg – integral macrohistory

Andrew Wynberg is a graduate student atthe Australian Foresight Institute and, as such, isamong the first practitioners to have beentrained in Integral Futures / Foresight methodsfrom the outset. His paper on Using an IntegralPerspective to Reconceptualise Macrohistoryreviews the latter as it has been applied to FS byInayatullah and Galtung. He pays tribute to theway these writers use macrohistory to questiondominant perspectives and to bring into playdifferent worldviews, and worldview assump-tions, from other cultures. He then views thework of macrohistorians through the lens of theIOS (that is, through lines, streams, states, typesetc). One of his conclusions is that "most macro-historical theories do not integrate causes frommore than one of the four quadrants". Anotheris that all but two of those reviewed appear tobe operating at the level of mind. (The excep-tions are Steiner and de Chardin who are alertto the spiritual development of humankind.) Hethen comments on some other aspects.

Following the cognitive line as described byPiaget, at least "formop" thinking isrequired although I suspect that a higherlevel, perhaps "dynamic relativism" isrequired to grasp issues across differentcivilisations. For the moral line, asdescribed by Kohlberg, attainment of theprinciples of (the) "conscience" level is anecessary precondition for macrohistory tobe produced. For the self line, as describedby Loveinger, an "autonomous" level ofdevelopment is required in order to step out-side the bounds of what the society of themacrohistorian may have placed on theirthinking.In other words, by considering macrohis-

tory through the lens of the IOS, Wynberg isable to "interrogate the interiors" of this body of

work in sufficient depth both to diagnose somecurrent weaknesses and further develop itsstrengths for application in a futures context. Rushkoff – open source democracy

Douglas Rushkoff would not claim to be aFuturist as such, rather an informed commenta-tor on "cyberculture" and the internet. In apaper published by the UK "think tank" Demos,Rushkoff tackles the issue of open sourcedemocracy. He discusses three steps in thedevelopment of information era autonomy:"deconstruction of content, demystification oftechnology and finally do-it-yourself or partici-patory authorship". This is part of a "secondRenaissance".

The first Renaissance took us from the posi-tion of passive recipient to active interpreter.Our current renaissance brings us from therole of interpreter to the role of author. Weare the creators.... We begin to be aware ofjust how much of our reality is open sourceand up for discussion.

Or again,One of the most widespread realisationsaccompanying the current renaissance isthat a lot of what has been taken for grantedas "hardware" is, in fact, "software" capa-ble of being reprogrammed. (People) tendto begin to view everything that was former-ly set in stone – from medical practices tothe bible – as social constructions subject torevision.From here Rushkoff develops a critique of

US media policy (including the "selling" of theIraq war) and also of the current form of whathe calls "globalism". Dismissing Peter Schwartz'aphorism "Open markets good. Closed marketsbad. Tattoo it on your forehead", Rushkoff sug-gests that "the market's global aspirationsamount to a whitewash of regional values. Theyare as reductionist as the tenets of any funda-mentalist religion." He continues,

Mistaking the arbitrary and man-maderules of the market place for a preconditionof the natural universe, corporate capital-ism's globalist advocates believe they areliberating the masses from the artificiallyimposed restrictions of their own forms ofreligion and government. Perceiving their

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own free market model as the way thingsreally are, they ignore their own fabrica-tions, while seeing everyone else's modelsas impediments to the natural and rightfulforce of evolution. As a result, globalism, toalmost anyone but a free market advocate,has come to mean the spread of the Westerncorporate value system to every other placein the world.Set against this, Rushkoff's essay is about

the potential of "new interactive media" to "pro-vide us with the beginnings of new metaphorsfor cooperation, new faith in the power of net-worked activity and new evidence of our abilityto participate actively in the authorship of ourcollective destiny." In conclusion he suggeststhat "our understanding of progress must bedisengaged from the false goal of growth" and"be reconnected with the very basic measure ofsocial justice: how many people are able to par-ticipate?"

Here, then, is an example of advancedwork that looks beneath the surface and ques-tions some of the shaping realities that can nowbe understood, challenged and subjected togreater democratic openness. While not every-one would agree with Rushkoff's view of the lib-erating potential of new technology he has cer-tainly set out a strong case for viewing andusing it out of a post-conventional perspectivein which issues of credibility, legitimation andsocial construction are clearly highlighted andunderstood.

Voros – reframing environmental scanningIn earlier times Environmental Scanning

(ES) was seen as an activity based on fairlystraightforward methods for (a) detecting sig-nals from the environment (b) outlining organi-sational implications and (c) feeding these into adecision making process. It was described as a"front end" technique that alerted an organisa-tion to external changes and provided time forstrategic responses to be developed. So far sogood. What had been overlooked, however,what that the world "out there" is framed, con-ditioned and mediated by the world "in here".But the latter had been largely overlooked. Idrew attention to this and proposed that one

use of the four quadrant model could be todevelop a new framework for ES in which bothinner and outer factors would be considered.

Voros took this a stage further and devel-oped a notation method for clarifying the "fil-ters" at work in the minds of scanners. Hewrites that "in addition to opening up the view-space being viewed, one needs also to under-stand the extent and the scope of the 'mind-space' of the scanner doing the viewing, and totake conscious steps to open it up".

What was needed were "models of humanconsciousness" that would help to reveal the fil-ters that were operating in the scanners' mind."Informed by this one would then seek tobecome aware of the potential blind spots wemight possess as scanners". The next step is to

factor these insights into a scanning praxisso as to minimise the "scanning blindness"of the scanning team. In this way a teameffort of diverse scanners consciouslyreflecting on their preferred mind sets, andtaking steps to broaden their views, is lesslikely to miss critical signals than a homo-geneous group ... who are unaware of theirown potential blind spots...Clearly ES is an activity that absolutelyrequires a profound appreciation of humanand cultural interiors. Otherwise it cannotbe other than an exercise of the 'blind lead-ing the blind'. As Voros says, "scanning theenvironment ... depends very much on theeye of the beholder ... What that eye sees isconditioned by what lies behind the eye ofthe beholder, in the interior consciousnessof the perceiving subject".Finally, therefore, the hitherto-unacknowl-

edged reality of "interior consciousness" beganto emerge as one of the foundational shapingfactors in all Futures / Foresight work. This isshown even more clearly in the last example.

Hayward – resolving the moral impediments toforesight action

In an integral view the nature of the con-sciousness that is experiencing or directingchange is crucial. This has been elegantlydemonstrated by Peter Hayward who employedJane Loevinger's stage development theory to

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show how "the organisational capability to con-sider future implications (of foresight projectsetc) is synonymous with the individual capabilityof people in that organisation to do that verysame thing".

Hayward explores some implications ofthe role of moral thought in organisations. Heargues that "no sustainable change to theorganisational stance towards foresightresearch is possible unless there is adequatemoral development in the individuals of thatorganisation." To be brief, Hayward considershow the first four of Loevinger's stages can beconsidered "pre-foresight", ie, stages whereforesight is simply not possible. These stagesare Presocial, Impulsive, Self-Protective andConformist. The capacity for foresight does,however, emerge at the next stage – that ofbeing Self-Aware. He comments that "the indi-vidual now appreciates multiple possibilities insituations, and the understanding of complexityis increasing". He adds that "at the same timethat multiple perspectives are considered in theexternal world, the interiority of the individualbegins to examine itself". The "formal appear-ance" of foresight capability, however, occursfully at the following stage which is termed"Conscientious". Here are added the powers of"self-evaluation, self-criticism and self-responsi-bility (and hence) conscience is said to be fullydeveloped". He adds, "the Conscientious individ-ual is confident enough to make individualchoices around which group rules or norms willbe complied with... A focus on achievementemerges and with it comes long term self evalu-ated goals and ideals". At this stage whatLoevinger calls the "Conscientious ego" corre-sponds closely with what Piaget termed "formaloperational thinking".

Thus far Hayward has identified conven-tional stages of human development that corre-late well with conventional FS. In the next stephe identifies the transition that occurs in theshift from formal to post-formal foresight.Loevinger's focus here was on what she calledthe Autonomous stage at which individuals "cannow cope with ... inner conflict; they can acceptthe inherent contradictions in life and just geton with things. What were seen as 'opposites' at

the earlier stages is now recognized as com-plexity". Tantalisingly, Loevinger hypothesizedyet another stage that she termed "Integrated"in which conflicts are transcended and polaritiesreconciled.

The conclusion is clear. Questions ofhuman developmental stages, of the develop-ment of higher order moral, cognitive and othercapabilities are central to understanding anddealing with the global problematique in all itsguises. These human factors are deeply andprofoundly implicated because they evoke dif-ferent worlds of reference and, properly under-stood, foreshadow futures that can barely beglimpsed from within the desert of empiricism,the cold clear dehumanised and endlessly repli-cating technical surfaces of flatland.

ConclusionIn this paper I've tried to show how more

advanced forms of futures enquiry and actionare being developed that can help us to engagein depth with the multiple crises that continueto threaten our world and its nascent futures. Ibriefly explored some aspects of "integrallyinformed post-conventional futures work". Todeal with the anticipated criticism that all this is"merely theoretical" examples of work complet-ed and work in progress have been provided.

During 2004 a conference organised byprominent US Futurists considered "the role oftechnology in creating solutions to the world'sproblems". This was another in a long series ofexamples of "looking for solutions in the wrongplace". Why? Because it is very difficult indeedto see how in our currently divided world fur-ther investments in increasingly powerful tech-nologies that provide what Bill Joy called "enor-mous transformative power" can possibly gen-erate real solutions. The reverse seems muchmore likely

Now that terrorists are using mobile'phones to set off bombs that massacre inno-cent civilians, it is all too clear that genomics,nanotech and other innovations now beingdeveloped will also be misused. HG Wells sawthis many years ago, as did Robert Jungk,among others. The questions they raised have

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still not yet been answered. Some of them hitvery close to home. Where, we should ask, did"weapons of mass destruction" come from inthe first place, if not from the West that shirkedits moral responsibility to ban them from theearth when it could? Where are they currentlystored and with whose permission?

So the kind of futures work outlined hereis not merely theoretical. It is intensely relevantand practical. I have argued that it is necessaryto critique the current world order. It is equallynecessary to confront the sources of unre-strained power and the mad pursuit of endlessmaterial wealth. I believe it was DonellaMeadows who said something like "you onlyhave to spend millions marketing something ifits worth is in doubt". She had the theory, thetools and the moral courage to say what shetruly believed. Now, as futurists and foresightpractitioners we need to start looking moredeeply into ourselves and into our social con-texts to find the "levers of change" the strate-gies, the enabling contexts, pathways to socialforesight.

Post-conventional futures work is not forthe faint-hearted but it does suggest a range ofconstructive responses to a world currently seton the path to oblivion.

CorrespondenceRichard SlaughterDirector of Foresight International PO Box 793, IndooroopillyQld 4068, Australia Email: Rslaughter@ozemail.com.au

Notes1. For distinctions between 'translation' and

'transformation' see Frank Visser's site:http://www.integralworld.org

2. D. Beck, Personal communication to AlexBurns, March, 2002.

3. See Visser website above (note 1).4. R. Slaughter, op cit, 2004, chapter 11,

Towards integral futures.

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