From There to Here
Evolutionary Learning Community
Evolutionary Systems Design
Conclusion
About the Authors
Endnotes

Learning to Become: Creating Evolutionary Learning Community through Evolutionary Systems Design

by Kathia C. Laszlo and Alexander Laszlo

 

From There to Here

When we think of the kind of future we wish to bequeath to future generations, we imagine one in which we finally have found ways to live in harmony with each other and the other inhabitants of this planet and are consciously and ethically engaged in the most fascinating explorations of our human potential. This is our vision of a “sustainable and evolutionary future.” By sustainability we mean the capacity to maintain the viability of the biosphere since, without it, neither healthy life nor healthy societies are possible. Evolution, as we are using the term, implies the conscious capacity to unfold into new ways of self-organization that allow for a fuller expression of the creative potential of the universe of which we are part. In this sense, sustainability is as a necessary but not sufficient condition for an evolutionary future. But combined, these two features provide a powerful attractor1 for the ethical co-creation of desirable futures.

We have a lot to learn to bring about a sustainable and evolutionary future. But unless we learn to learn in new ways, we will not be able to transcend the interrelated set of global problems facing us today. By recognizing that we cannot create a new society with the same ways of thinking that got us here, the authors have focused their work on envisioning a new form of education dedicated to the development of the competencies and sensitivities for individuals and groups to purposefully design experiences of community that are learning oriented, self-empowering, environmentally sustainable, and evolutionary. We call this new form Evolutionary Learning Community (ELC). In our search for disciplined, creative, and participatory forms of learning, research, design, and action that facilitate the emergence of ELC, we have also developed an approach that we call Evolutionary Systems Design (ESD).

In contrast to other social change approaches that project the present into the future, ESD seeks to transcend current realities by engaging in the creation of an ideal image of education — ELC — by which to guide collective self-development efforts. That is why, rather than exploring ways of going “from here to there,” ESD explores ways of getting “from there to here.”

Evolutionary Learning Community

Evolutionary Learning Community (ELC) is an ideal image of a future educational system. The three interrelated concepts that comprise the ELC construct (evolution, learning, and community) make explicit the key assumptions and aspirations underlying this image of education:

  • It is a community based educational system. Rather than functioning on the assumption that we need to go to school to learn, to work to be productive, and “away” to enjoy and have fun, ELC suggests the integration of work, learning, and enjoyment throughout life (i.e., intergenerational learning) in all our communities (e.g., family, neighborhood, organizations).

  • It is a learning oriented education, rather than a teaching based one. Its focus is life-long learning and the development of human potential.

  • It promotes self-directed, flexible, ongoing collaborative learning through learning community. This is not simply collective individual learning, but synergistic collaborative learning: learning content issues together while at the same time learning process issues about how to be community.

  • It seeks alignment with the evolutionary processes of which we are a part and empowers people to participate in conscious evolution.

Evolution

Evolution, both as a scientific theory and as a universal myth, is a powerful story for the transformation of consciousness and society2 — a story of the leaps and bounds of systems3 of all kinds from simpler to more complex forms of organization. The evolutionary process manifests a dynamic pattern of differentiation and integration which is starting to be comprehended through the new sciences of complexity.4 The appreciation of the general evolutionary process allows us to see the evolutionary history of our species in a broader context and thereby to better understand our role in it. Eric Chaisson believes that “an appreciation and understanding of evolution ... can provide a map for the future of humanity,”5 and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi concurs, noting that “in order to make choices that will lead to a better future, it helps to be aware of the forces at work in evolution.”6

The development of the sciences of complexity has produced “the beginnings of a general theory of evolution that covers everything from molecules to humankind.”7 From this perspective, evolution is conceived as irreversible change that moves a system further and further from the inert state of thermodynamic and chemical equilibrium.8 The process involves periods of dynamic stability (homeostasis), and when this stability can no longer be maintained, the system enters a period of turbulence — signaling a bifurcation9 — when it transcends (self-organizes) into a larger whole with a higher level of organization, structural complexity, dynamism and autonomy. In this way, open systems become more complex and dynamic, more self-directed and able to influence their environment, as they move further and further from thermodynamic and chemical equilibrium.10 This conception of evolution describes an order-producing universe, and according to Sally Goerner,
has dramatic implications for human beings because, like the Copernican revolution, it creates a radical change of perspective ... It denies classical science’s image of a sterile mechanical universe of directionless colliding particles and accidental life. The Copernican revolution showed that we were not at the center of the universe. The nonlinear revolution shows that we are embedded in a deep, creative, and directed process that is the physical universe. We are part of something much larger, more coherent and more miraculous than just ourselves.11
This emergent understanding of evolutionary dynamics offers great possibilities for the conscious creation of sustainable futures. However, not many share in this understanding yet since it is relatively new and thus far tends to be accessible only to those fortunate enough to engage in advanced study. The mainstream understanding of evolution remains biological and strongly Darwinian — dominated by conceptions of competition and survival of the fittest — just as the dominant world view is still rooted in a mechanistic and reductionistic way of thinking. It is through learning that these outdated conceptions can be updated, transformed, and shared more broadly.

Learning

In the past few decades, the human species has put at risk not only its own future but also that of life on Earth.12 Our contemporary ways of living are ecologically unsound, our social systems are breaking down, our societies are not at peace. Current limits to human will, and understandingly, obstruct paths toward a better future. Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell considered that “we have to learn to think in a new way”13 in order to apply our knowledge and provide creative and ethical solutions to our problems. To learn to think in a new way may depend on our ability to learn to learn in a new way.

Learning is a transformative process that holds the potential for being “the greatest source of change in social systems.”14 However, “learning” means different things in different contexts. Sometimes learning is confused with or taken as a synonym for teaching. Sometimes learning cannot be separated from what happens in a formal educational institution, or is constrained to a process for children and youth. Sometimes learning is limited to cognitive, rational, and verbal processes that only treat with data and knowledge but not understanding and wisdom. But learning can be much more than all these. For instance, Fritjof Capra considers that to learn is to be alive.15 Clearly, learning is a complex activity that involves the whole human being and implies interactions with other human beings and with the natural and socio-cultural environment. It is a process of change that can have many results, including, for example, the acquisition and generation of knowledge, the development of skill, the appreciation of sentiment, and the reformulation of value and perspective.

Educators, psychologists, organizational consultants, and philosophers, among others, have theorized about different kinds of learning. Yet, one kind is particularly relevant for the change of mindset called for by Einstein and Russell, as well as for ELC: evolutionary learning. Evolutionary learning enables the learner to cope with uncertainty and change, renew perspectives, and creatively design new forms of social systems.16 Evolutionary learning encompasses a continuum of enabling and empowering processes that go from inner development (characterized by the expansion of consciousness) to outer transformation (involving the co-creation of evolutionary social systems). In other words, by catalyzing the transformation of the learner’s values and perspectives of so that they are aligned with broader evolutionary processes, evolutionary learning enables the transformation of communities and society so that they are consonant with the dynamics of their larger environment. Evolutionary learning is a journey that enables the evolution of consciousness through conscious evolution.

Community

In its most fundamental conception, community can be considered “a group of two or more individuals with a shared identity and a common purpose committed to the joint creation of meaning.”17 M. Scott Peck suggests that a community is “a way of being together with both individual authenticity and interpersonal harmony so that people become able to function with a collective energy even greater than the sum of their individual energies.”18 Authentic communities are able to enhance their own development while at the same time enhancing that of each individual in the community, thereby promoting both freedom of personal choice and a sense of responsibility for the whole. In such communities, the operating principle is that of unity in diversity.

There are different types of communities and attention to their distinct characteristics helps clarify the particular orientation of ELC. Four types of communities are relevant for this consideration: Traditional Community, Surrogate Community, (simple) Learning Community, and Evolutionary Learning Community.19

Traditional Community: A closed, stable system where the individual’s identity is determined by a collective identity rooted in transmitted myths, values, norms, rituals, and beliefs. That is, an individual born within this kind of community is socialized into the local culture. Many indigenous communities are good examples of traditional communities. They are natural rather than designed communities. In many cases, change within this type of community is slow and gradual unless it is caused by a violent imposition of values from an external dominating group. Traditional communities have been the primary social manifestation of human evolution since the formation of tribal hunter and gatherer groups. Within them, humans developed relationships of mutual support in exchange for a sense of belonging, security, and well-being. But this kind of fealty did not bind others outside their community. In our current interconnected world, such orientations tend to be limiting. As Ruth Richards astutely points out, “our survival has become strongly dependent upon our commonalties as human beings, not on the differences between each other as individuals and as members of narrow reference groups.”20

Surrogate Community: A closed, unstable system artificially created to attract and satisfy disenfranchised individuals yearning for community through imposed norms and values. Modern industrial societies have fragmented the traditional experiences of community for which human beings yearn. Surrogate communities are identified as an artificially designed means to satisfy the need for shared identity and a sense of belonging among individuals who would otherwise not have access to authentic forms of community. Surrogate communities are not authentic in the sense that individuals who join them must accept pre-established values, beliefs, and rules — as defined by others — under which the community operates. For instance, there exists an organization ostensibly dedicated to encourage community in the US and abroad. To do so, it sells community workshops — two day encounters among individuals interested in having a cathartic experience leading toward feelings of empathy and connectedness among each other. After the workshop is over, participants must continue to pay a substantial fee in order to “experience community” again, or else they will “loose community” and life will continue for them much as it did before the workshop.

Learning Community: An open dynamic system in which individuals collectively learn to adapt to their environment. The “learning organization” is a case in point. In both organizational and educational contexts the notion of learning community has become a focus of attention in recent years.21 Individuals in learning communities have an explicit common purpose: to learn together. However, in some cases there is no difference between a learning community and a community of individual learners. Even when a learning community demonstrates creative and fluid processes of collaboration and synergy by which to adapt to its environment, it tends to do so in a reactive mode. Such simple learning communities are often excellent means for learning about “doing things right,” that is, for increased efficiency and efficacy in a rapidly changing world. And as such, they are ideal spaces for exploring new ways of working, learning, and enjoying life in an integrated way. But they rarely incorporate an ethical futures perspective such as required for “doing the right things.” Such an ethical futures concern marks the quest for sustainability and for the sort of evolutionary possibilities explicitly espoused by ELC. In this sense, simple learning communities can be stepping stones toward evolutionary learning community.

Evolutionary Learning Community (ELC): An emergent (self-designing) learning system demonstrating dynamic stability by adapting with its environment and generating developmental pathways that are sustainable in the context of broader evolutionary flows. ELC is a human activity system that strives toward sustainable pathways for evolutionary development in synergistic interaction with its milieu. It does so through individual and collective processes of empowerment and learning how to learn22 and through an ongoing commitment to evolutionary learning. “ELCs do not adapt their environment to their needs, nor do they simply adapt to their environment. Rather, they adapt with their environment in a dynamic of mutually sustaining evolutionary co-creation.”23 Just as the concept “system” is more a pattern than a thing, ELC is best conceived as an ideal image of community that can serve as a beacon for the design of new social systems appropriate for a new evolutionary era.

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Evolutionary Systems Design

Evolutionary Systems Design (ESD) is an approach for learning about evolution and acting accordingly. As a species, our actions and interventions on this planet have been largely driven by chance and, at best, ‘20/20 hindsight.’ However, as Margaret Mead noted, we are at a point where for the first time in human history, we are able to explain what is happening while it is happening.24 ESD builds on this relatively new meta-reflective competence by serving as an instrument for the evolution of consciousness and for conscious evolution. It suggests that with the new understanding of evolutionary dynamics and effective approaches to the participatory design of social systems, our species can stop drifting upon the currents of change and begin to adjust its sails in view of sustainable evolutionary futures.

ESD draws on Social Systems Design,25 General Evolution Theory,26 and lifelong transformative learning orientations.27 Those engaged in ESD must either select or design appropriate approaches for addressing their particular purposes. Communities that face practical challenges for socio-ecological survival must learn to move “toward what will work to provide answers where no reliable guides exist.” 28

This does not mean that ESD is methodologically eclectic or that it disregards the need for a coherent body of theory to inform its practice. By empowering evolutionary change agents neither as activists nor as theorists, but as a synthesis of the two, it offers a way — an integral path — for human becoming in partnership with Earth.

Evolutionary Learning

Evolutionary learning is a core aspect of ESD. We have developed an operational learning framework for the stages through which individuals and groups pass as they become evolutionary systems designers (ESDoers). The four stages and their corresponding objectives are:

  • Evolutionary consciousness: To create an awareness of the evolutionary history, of the changing conditions of change, and of the challenges that sustainable human co-habitation with life on Earth entails.

  • Evolutionary literacy: To develop a basic scientific understanding and an empathic appreciation of the challenges facing humanity that is both personally significant and societally attuned.

  • Evolutionary competence: To gain a sense of responsibility that is coupled with the change management competence of responsability so that we can affect purposeful, positive, evolutionary change in the communities within which we work, play, and learn.

  • Evolutionary praxis: To learn how to become catalysts for change by learning what modes, methods, and means are best for clearly articulating and effectively communicating to others the need for change.

The four stages along the ESD path of lifelong evolutionary learning can best be illustrated as follows:

Figure 1.
The evolutionary learning framework of ESD

The ESD orientation to future creation is essentially possibilistic. It assumes that human beings have the choice consciously to participate in the co-creation of the future. And yet it seeks neither to predict nor to ‘socially engineer’ the future. Rather, it seeks to create the conditions for the emergence of evolutionary futures:
In systems such as contemporary society, evolution is always a promise and devolution always a threat. No system comes with a guarantee of ongoing evolution. The challenge is real. To ignore it is to play dice with all we have. To accept it is not to play God — it is to become an instrument of whatever divine purpose infuses the universe.29
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Conclusion

Evolutionary Learning Community can serve as an attractor and guide for the design of new learning systems. Evolutionary Systems Design is an approach for realizing the vision of a sustainable and evolutionary learning society — a paidea, as the ancient Greeks called a society where the promotion of life-long learning and the achievement of the human potential in the broadest sense was a central priority.30

ESD involves learning to learn together about our values and to use the resulting understanding to co-create pathways for socio-ecologically sustainable futures. The challenge is to find practical ways of living in harmony with nature; to learn to live lightly, meaningfully, and simply in and with Earth, and to realize an extended sense of identity that moves us from anthropocentric to ecological and evolutionary ways of being and becoming with the world. The design of ELC through ESD seeks to do just this. By expanding our sense of self to include the natural and physical environment and creating conditions that foster conscious evolution — in ourselves and in others — we embark on a path by which to realize the evolutionary opportunities ahead of us.

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About the Authors

Kathia C. Laszlo, Ph.D. abd, is co-founder and executive vice-president of Syntony Quest and a Fulbright Scholar from Mexico. She is now working on her second book, and has published in the areas of values in education, future trends in education, technology and learning, and systems thinking. As a doctoral candidate, her research in the field of human science at the Saybrook Graduate School focuses on social and institutional change. She is holder of a Masters degree in education with specialization in cognitive development, and of a B.A. in marketing.

Alexander Laszlo, Ph.D., is co-founder and president of Syntony Quest and former dean of the doctoral program in management at the Graduate School of Business Administration & Leadership (ITESM) in Mexico. Currently full professor of learning and human development at the California Institute of Integral Studies, he teaches in the learning and change in human systems doctoral program. He is on the editorial boards of Systems Research & Behavioral Science and Latin American Business Review, recipient of the Sir Geoffrey Vickers Memorial Award, active member of several systems science societies, and author of over thirty journal, book, and encyclopedia publications.

Syntony Quest is an evolutionary learning organization dedicated to helping those who wish to learn how to cope with change and uncertainty in ways that foster community and sustainability. It responds to this challenge by tapping the creative potential of individuals and groups and facilitating the emergence of Evolutionary Learning Community through conversation, design, and action. Activities include: design of learning ecologies; community development projects; provision of learning resources; action-research on new educational models; and workshops and seminars on systems thinking and its application to social and environmental concerns.
Syntony Quest IS A 501(c)(3) TAX-EXEMPT PUBLIC BENEFIT ORGANISATION.


1761 Vallejo, Suite 302
San Francisco, CA 94123-5029
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Email: info@syntonyquest.org
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Endnotes

1.

The notion of an “attractor” as used here derives from the study of non-linear dynamical systems (as through chaos theory). It indicates “a pattern of behavior that a system moves toward over time ... [whose] output never repeats but no point [of which] falls outside a limiting shape. ... attractors show how a complex system may have endlessly unique behavior that is nevertheless clearly ordered. The long-term behavior of the system is non-repeating yet attracted to a clear form” (Goerner, Sally, 1994. Chaos and the evolving ecological universe. Langhorne: Gordon and Breach, p. 212).
2.

Feinstein, David and Stanley Krippner, 1988. Personal mythology: The psychology of your evolving self. New York: Jeremy Tarcher, pp. 212-213.
3.

A system is an interconnected whole that is structurally divisible but functionally indivisible. In other words, it cannot be separated into its component parts without destroying the essential properties of the system. For instance, the molecules of hydrogen and oxygen in water, when separated, loose the property of “wetness” present only when H2O is a system. Systems are more patterns than things. Molecules, organisms, societies, and the solar system are all examples of systems.
4.

The sciences of complexity deal with chaos, self-organization, and new understandings of evolution. Among them are: general system theory, cybernetics, nonequilibrium thermodynamics, autopoietic systems theory, chaos theory, and dynamical systems theory.
5.

Chaisson, Eric, 1987. The life era: Cosmic selection and conscious evolution. New York: W.W. Norton, p. 200.
6.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, 1993. The evolving self: A psychology for the third millennium. New York: Harper Collins, p. 4.
7.

Op. cit., Goerner, 1994, p. 20
8.

There are three thermodynamic and chemical systems states: at equilibrium, near equilibrium, and far from equilibrium. The first is an inert state, for example, a closed box with equally distributed gas from which no energy can be generated. The second is the state of things that tend to run down (as per Newton’s second law of thermodynamics), like a car which needs constant maintenance and gasoline to continue to function. The third state is characteristic of systems that work against the second law: rather than running down, they complexity, like living systems which grow and evolve.
9.

A bifurcation is a period of indeterminacy in the evolutionary trajectory of a system characterized by turbulence and organizational instability when, because of changes in either its internal or external environment, it transcends its current functional structure and self-organizes at a new level of organization (a new dynamic regime) that is re- establish a new state of dynamic equilibrium or flowing balance. Inability to do so — that is, to reach a new dynamic regime — implies devolution and possibly extinction.
10.

Laszlo, Ervin, 1996. Evolution: The general theory. New Jersey: Hampton Press, p. 12.
11.

Op. cit., Goerner, 1994, p. 21
12.

Laszlo, Ervin, 1994. The choice: Evolution or extinction? New York: Tarcher/Putman, p. 1.
13.

Einstein, A. and Russell, B., 1957. The Pugwash manifesto. Proceedings of the First World Conference on Science and World Affairs. Pugwash, Nova Scotia.
14.

Banathy, Bela H. 1996. Designing social systems in a changing world. New York: Plenum, p. 318.
15.

Capra, Fritjof, 1996. The web of life: A new scientific understanding of living systems. New York: Anchor books.
16.

Op. cit., Banathy, 1996, pp. 318-319
17.

Laszlo, Kathia C. and Alexander Laszlo, 1997. “Partners in life — Syntony at work.” Proceedings of the Ninth International Conversation on the Comprehensive Design of Social Systems. Pacific Grove: ISI, p. 6.
18.

Peck, M. Scott, 1987. The different drum: Community building and peace. New York: Simon and Schuster, p. 239.
19.

McCormick, S.; François, C.; Laszlo, A.; Laszlo, K.; and Nanay, B., 1998. “Designing sustainable evolutionary learning communities.” Proceedings of the Ninth Fuschl Conversation. Austria: Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies.
20.

Richards, Ruth, 1993. “Seeing beyond: Issues of creative awareness and social responsibility.” Creativity Research Journal, 6(1&2), p. 168.
21.

See Senge, Peter M., 1990. The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday Currency; Senge, P.M., A. Kleiner, C. Roberts, R. Ross, G. Roth, and B. Smith, 1999. The dance of change — The challenge to sustaining momentum in a Learning Organization. New York: Currency/Doubleday; Caine, Renate, and Geoffrey Caine, 1997. Education on the edge of possibility. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
22.

Laszlo, Kathia C., and Alexander Laszlo, 1995. “Building a design culture through Evolutionary Leaning Communities.” Proceedings of the Seventh International Conversation on the Comprehensive Design of Social Systems. Pacific Grove, CA: ISI.
23.

Laszlo, Alexander, and Stanley Krippner, 1998. “Systems theories: Their origins, foundations, and development.” In Jordan, J.S. (ed.), System theories and a priori aspects of perception. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

24.

Montuori, Alfonso, 1989. Evolutionary competence: Creating the future. Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben, p. 27.
25.

Op. cit., B.H. Banathy, 1996.
26.

Op. cit., E. Laszlo, 1996.
27.

Elias, Dean, 1998. “It’s time to change our mind: An introduction to tranformative learning.” ReVision. 20(1).
28.

Salner, Marcia, 1996. A new framework for human science. Saybrook Perspectives. San Francisco: Saybrook Institute, p. 8.
29.

Op. Cit., E. Laszlo, 1996, p. 139.
30.

Milbrath, Lester W., 1989. Envisioning a sustainable society: Learning our way out. New York: SUNY, p. 94.

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Table of Contents

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