BiB The Postnormal Times Reader Combined PDF
BiB The Postnormal Times Reader Combined PDF
BiB The Postnormal Times Reader Combined PDF
The Postnormal
Times Reader
978-1-56564-958-3
Books-in-Brief
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:13 Page 1
The
Postnormal Times Reader
978-1-56564-958-3
Series Editors
Dr. Anas S. al-Shaikh-Ali
Shiraz Khan
Printed in USA
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:13 Page 3
Are you paying attention at the back? Lee Gates, in the film Money Monster
states “You don’t have a clue where your money is. See once upon a time you
could walk into your bank, and open your vault and point to a gold brick.
Not anymore. Your money, that thing you bust your ass for, it’s nothing more
than a few photons of energy traveling through a massive network of fibre
optic cables. Why do we do it? We did it to make it go faster because your
money better be fast. Faster than the other guys. But if you want faster
markets with faster trade, faster profits, faster everything, sometimes you are
going to blow a tyre”.
A sane and timely observation; except, it is not an odd tyre that’s had a
puncture—the car and the road itself are in complete disrepair. Blowouts are
everywhere and seem to be occurring simultaneously with frightening
regularity. In 2016, we witnessed a string of unprecedented events. Ongoing
conflicts in Syria, Libya, and Iraq leading to a refugee crisis of unparalleled
proportions. Mass shootings in France, Germany, and the US. Left wing
populism that produced Jeremy Corbyn as the leader of the Labour Party in
Britain, and Bernie Sanders as the leader of ‘political revulsion’ in the US.
Right-wing populism in France, Austria, Holland, Poland, Hungary that
could bring the far right to power in Europe. Zika virus. The rejection of a
landmark peace deal in Colombia. Escalating tensions between China and
Japan in the South China Sea. President Rodrigo Duterte who defends the
killing of the poor as necessary in his ambitious drug war in the Philippines.
Brexit. Cracks in the European Union. And, of course, Donald Trump.
Something is not quite right with the world.
saying is that we have either lost, or are losing, our faith and trust in what we
have thus far considered to be normal, conventional or orthodox.
New methods must be developed for making our ignorance usable []. For
this there must be a radical departure from the total reliance on techniques,
to the exclusion of methodological, societal or ethical considerations.
Problem-solving Strategies
Uncertainty and decision stakes are the opposites of attributes which
traditionally characterized science, namely its certainty and its value
neutrality. The term ‘systems uncertainties’ conveys the principle that the
problem is concerned with the comprehension or management of an
inherently complex reality. By ‘decision stakes’ we understand all the various
costs, benefits, and value commitments that are involved in the issue through
the various stakeholders. Understanding this we can characterize the three
kinds of problem-solving strategies.
Applied Science
The explanation of problem-solving strategies starts with the most familiar
strategy: applied science. This is involved when both systems uncertainties
and decisions stakes are low. The decision stakes will be simple as well as
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 4
Professional Consultancy
Professional consultancy includes applied science, but deals with problems
which require a different methodology for their complete resolution. Personal
judgments depending on higher level skills are required, and uncertainty,
now more complex, is at the methodological level. The decision stakes are
also more complex. For the purposes relevant to the task will be in conflict,
involving various human stakeholders and natural systems as well.
Professional tasks deal with unique situations. The personal element becomes
correspondingly important. The public may become confused or disillusioned
at the sight of scientists disagreeing strongly on a problem apparently
involving only applied science. The gain in clarity should more than
compensate for the loss of mystique of scientific infallibility.
Postnormal Science
We now consider the third sort of problem-solving strategy, where systems
uncertainties or decision stakes are high. We call it ‘postnormal’ to indicate
that the puzzle-solving exercises of normal science are no longer appropriate
for the resolution of policy issues of risks and the environment.
will have a keen awareness of how the general principles are realized in their
‘back yards’. They will also have ‘extended facts’, including anecdotes, informal
surveys, and official information published by unofficial means.
Conclusion
The new policy issues of risk and the environment are global not merely in
their extent, but also in their complexity, pervasiveness, and novelty as a
subject of scientific inquiry. The activity of science now encompasses the
management of irreducible uncertainties in knowledge and in ethics, and the
recognition of different legitimate perspectives and ways of knowing. The
post-normal response is to recognize the challenge and then to start towards
a reintegration, through the acceptance of uncertainty and the welcoming of
diversity.
References
. S. O. Funtowicz and J. R. Ravetz, “Three types of risk assessment and the emergence
of postnormal science”, in D. Colding and S. Krimsky (Eds.), Theories of Risk (New
York: Greenwood Press, ).
. J. R. Ravetz, “Usable knowledge, usable ignorance: incomplete science with policy
implications”, in J. R. Ravetz, The Merger of Knowledge with Power (London: Cassell,
).
It never rains but it pours, says the proverb. And it has been pouring a lot in
recent times. If the multiple threats from climate change were not enough to
give us sleepless nights, we are now in the grip of one of the worst recessions
in history. Before we had time to draw breath, a pandemic of swine-flu
threatened to engulf the globe. Lurking behind all this is the energy crisis,
dwindling natural, the continued threat of nuclear proliferation, and the ever-
present menace of terrorism. We hate the bankers, distrust our politicians
and worry constantly about the security of our jobs, safety of our children
and the blight of our communities. Nothing is definite, truly guaranteed, or
totally safe.
new ones have yet to be born, and very few things seem to make sense. It is a
time when all choices seem perilous, likely to lead to ruin, if not entirely over
the edge of the abyss.
Much of what we have taken as normal, conventional and orthodox just does
not work anymore. The world itself is now a far more uncertain place. There
is hardly a country where politicians are either trusted or respected. Even the
cycles of our weather cannot be trusted – thanks to global warming. These
are times of multiple and simultaneous crises. It is not just that things are
going wrong; they are going wrong spectacularly, on a global scale, and in
multiple and concurrent ways. We thus find ourselves in a situation that is
far from normal; and have entered the domain of the postnormal.
All of these incoherencies are related to three c’s: complexity, chaos and
contradictions – the forces that shape and propel postnormal times.
Complexity
Almost everything we have to deal with nowadays is complex. Complexity is
a natural by-product of the fact that most of our problems have a global scale.
Chaos
Complexity is a precursor to, and a necessary condition for chaos. Chaotic
behaviour is not an uncommon phenomenon. But it is rather unusual to see
civilisations, whole societies or indeed the entire inhabitants of the globe,
behaving according to the dictates of chaos theory.
-hour news media, we are constantly in the know. We are thus primed to
react instantly, equipped with the means to set off new patterns of chain
reactions.
Like complexity, chaos too has a fundamental lesson to teach us: individual
and social responsibility and accountability are all paramount for our
collective survival. Individualism is a recipe for catastrophe.
Contradictions
A complex, networked world, with countless competing interests and
ideologies, designs and desires, behaving chaotically, can do little more than
throw up contradictions. In postnormal times, there are two contradictions
that need our particular attention.
The first concerns change. Things have always changed but they have not
changed with the accelerating pace we are witnessing nowadays. Exponential
acceleration has now become the norm. Yet, vast segments of the planet and
swathes of our social life are quasistatic. The more things change, the more
they seem to stay the same.
Uncertainty
When contradictions, complexity and chaos combine with accelerating
change the only definite outcome is uncertainty. Uncertainty may be the only
thing of which we can be sure, but it is not a comfortable, nor as yet a
politically or socially acceptable, basis on which to debate real hard choices.
Virtues
We need to negotiate our way towards new normal times. The problem,
however, is that the space, time and willingness to engage in coherent debate
has become scarcer, the more complex, contradictory and chaotic things have
become. To negotiate our way out of postnormal existence we have to learn
how to negotiate, how to translate aspiration into transformation.
The moral to be drawn from the characteristics of postnormal times are age
old virtues: humility, modesty and accountability. Humility, modesty and
accountability are indispensable virtues, essential requirements of living with
uncertainty and complexity. The failure to acknowledge the uncertainty and
complexity of certain situations is not only a technical error, but also an
ethical one []. Indeed, it is ethics, and only ethics, that can guide us out of
the postnormal impasse.
Imagination
The most important ingredients for coping with postnormal times are
imagination and creativity.
Why?
References
. Paul Cilliers, “Complexity, deconstruction and relativism”, Theory, Culture & Society
(), , pp. –.
Here, I would like to critically engage with some of the rejoinders to the
paper, attempt to answer some of the questions that have been raised, pin
down a few characteristics of the postnormal condition, highlight the
postnormal that lurks over the horizon, and explore what it means to ‘be
postnormal’.
Those of us working on PNT theory have opted for postnormal times for
five basic reasons. First, it avoids apocalyptic tones. Second, it emphasises
agency. Third, it emphasizes and focuses our attention on complexity,
contradictions and uncertainty that we need to really understanding how the
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 10
world is changing. Fourth, PNT has a sound theoretical base. Fifth, theoretical
work enables us to develop policies in a plethora of areas and issues to
actually navigate postnormal times towards positive futures.
Rakesh Kapoor [] has argued that PNT is a western theory or concept.
Nothing could be further from the truth. First, the boundaries of East and
West have not only changed but have become blurred and indistinguishable.
PNT is neither western nor eastern concept; it is simply a theoretical
framework which describes and explains our epoch.
What about the argument that we have faced similar hurdles and ‘strange
times’ in the past and, as Sam Cole [] states, given our ‘sufficient latent
reserves of knowledge’ and our superior state of evolution, we can solve all
our problems and therefore should continue in our present path. This is,
Merryl Wyn Davies notes, “optimism of a monumental nature based on the
assumption that because we have managed to solve our problems in the past
we will continue to do so forever” []. The conventional disciplines are part
of the problem in that they have led us to our current predicament and a
great deal of what modernity has produced is steeped in ignorance. We have
never faced so many problems simultaneously; we have never experienced
such accelerating pace of change, or such globalised interconnections and
complexity, and have never been so steeped in ignorance of things that have
such extensive consequences beyond our own context.
It is worth noting that the Cs do not operate at equal levels on all situations.
In some cases, complexity may be the biggest component; in others, it may
be chaos or contradiction. But, in general, as the Cs accelerate and grow, they
combine to produce a postnormal situation.
‘Be Postnormal’
So how do we cope with postnormal times? How do we move forward
without falling prey to chaos? How do we survive increasing uncertainty and
the different varieties of ignorance that we face? The answers to these, and a
plethora of other questions raised by postnormal times, begin with awareness
and end with creativity and imagination.
Almost all the changes that postnormal times are ushering have deep ethical
connotations. Ethics is not just about being-in the world, but also about
being-with the world. It is about how we are related to the rest of the world.
Futures studies cannot simply be about what could happen in the future. It
has to be largely about what ought to be done for the preservation of sane,
ethical futures.
Perhaps the most fundamental shift that postnormal times will usher will be
in the power to define. The real power of the West rested on its power to
define the key concepts of humanity and human society. But postnormal
times tell us that these definitions have passed their ‘sell by’ date. This is where
creativity and imagination enter the equation.
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 12
References
. Rakesh Kapoor, “Is there a postnormal time? From the illusion of normality to the
design for a new normality”, Futures , , pp. –.
. Sam Cole, “Alliterative Logic: A Theory of Postnormal Times”, Futures (), March
, pp. –.
. Merryl Wyn Davies, “Postnormal Times: Are We There Yet?” Futures (), March
, –, alexander-cyberwar/all/
Introduction
In light of such far-reaching, rapid, and simultaneous changes an important
new question arises for futurists and foresight researchers and practitioners:
are existing methods able to cope with futures that are intrinsically complex,
chaotic, contradictory, uncertain, and rapidly collapsing in and upon
themselves? Traditionally, Futures Studies deals with plurality of alternative
futures by differentiating between plausible, probable, possible, and
preferable futures []. But what is probable in a world where uncertainty and
chaos is the norm? What is plausible in futures dominated by contradictions?
Are our conventional methods, such as forecasting, scenarios, and modelling
fit for purpose in PNT? Do scenarios about future(s) take note of changing
change? Do existing scenario modelling methods adequately allow for the
requisite pluralism and polylogues, including amongst humans, non- and,
un-humans, needed to confront PNT? How do we produce viable policies to
navigate PNT?
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 13
Current futures methods are not irrelevant but carry inherent limitations –
particularly in relation to PNT. What we believe is that futures methods are
not keeping up with the forces and drivers that are actually disturbing the
present and moving us toward unthought futures.
What is needed? Polylogues of various scope and scale []. Polylogues denote
‘multiple logics, speeches, and existences’ []. As we see it, polylogues require
the creation of new physical and mental spaces where diversity, pluralism,
and contending perspectives are present on their own terms but also deeply
invested in engaging others in creating and sharing and knowledge. In
addition to finding better and more egalitarian ways to share what and how
we know, we must continuously seek out collaborative and dynamic means
to craft and share our stories. Any analysis of the present and futures also
needs to acknowledge that many things we take for granted are going to get
weird.
The Extended Present is the first tomorrow; it is what most people mean
when they talk about ‘the future’. The Extended Present is dominated by and
populated with trends and emerging issues or weak signals that cannot be
averted; they simply expand and extend the present. Here the best we can do
is use the lens of PNT to identify systems that may be creeping towards
postnormality, or on the verge of PNB.
After the Extended Present comes the Familiar Future(s), which seems
familiar because it is mediated by images and imaginings of the future(s)—
from data-driven projections to science fiction. Trends embedded in the
Extended Present along with images from advertising, corporate visions,
popular ‘futurology’ and science fiction novels, films and television shows
are extrapolated and projected to create a picture of the future that is all too
familiar.
Taleb’s popular notion of the ‘Black Swan’ captures the essence of the Familiar
Future(s). Black Swans are not perceptible or articulated, even by experts;
they appear as ‘outliers’ and come ‘out of the blue,’ as Taleb notes, they are
“very fragile to miscalculation, with a general severe underestimation mixed
with an occasional severe overestimation” []. Black Swans can be positive,
which is to say that their impact might illuminate previously unimagined
opportunities. However, they can equally be negative and serve as a signal
for emerging PNC or PNB.
Jellyfish are all about how normal situations and events become postnormal;
how they mutate through PNC by becoming interconnected, networked,
complex and contradictory.
Collectively, we call Black Elephants, Black Swans, and Black Jellyfish the
Menagerie of Postnormal Potentialities (Menagerie). As an ensemble aimed
at challenging deeply held convictions, illuminating entrenched contradic-
tions, and enlivening novel considerations, we believe our Menagerie does
just that.
Working with 3T
The T framework has three specific functions: to aid our exploration of
alternative futures, with an emphasis on plurality and postnormal
potentialities; to critique existing projections and extrapolation; and to
structure and shape policies that are specifically geared to navigating
postnormal times.
References
Infectious Connectivity:
Illustrating the Three Tomorrows
John A. Sweeney
Until , Le Roy, New York was only known for having given birth to the
American delicacy Jell-O. All this changed when a group of teenagers at Le
Roy High School began displaying uncontrollable spasms, tics, seizures, and
stuttering. A diagnosis of mass psychogenic illness (MPI). Early reports note
how the initial group of affected teenagers were watching videos on YouTube
and mimicking what they saw. Dr. David Lichter commented “I think you
do have the potential for people going online and witnessing other student’s
behaviour, then I think this medium has the potential to spread it beyond
the immediate environment” [].
The symptoms of mental illnesses are not fixed and unchanging, but can be
modified by changing cultural milieus. If cultural background is a
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 18
contributing factor in such incidents, how might this help one understand
what happened in Le Roy?
Can affect explain the outbreak in Le Roy? Does the World Wide Web
(WWW) have the capacity to infect someone? Could infectious connectivity
be exploited or perhaps even weaponized? Using the lens of Postnormal
Times to investigate the WWW’s infectious connectivity, this study deploys
a new foresight method to explore the emerging forces and issues pushing
and weighing the WWW in the years to come.
Scenarios
Human beings have always employed tools to enhance the limits of our being
in the world, but increasingly our tools are becoming more pronounced
prostheses, which portend a range of radical possibilities whose very sociality
has come to rely upon a range of things.
References
. Admin WKBW. “Social Networking to Blame for Spreading LeRoy Illness?” February
. http://www.wkbw.com/news/Social-Networking-to-Blame-for-Spreading-LeRoy
-Illness-.html
. L. Dimon, “What Witchcraft is Facebook?”, The Atlantic (, September ). Retrieved
from http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive///what-witchcraft-is-face
book/ /
. J. A. Dator, Sweeney, J. A., & Yee, A. M., Mutative Media. Lecture Notes in Social
Networks (Cham: Springer International Publishing, ). http://link.springer.com/
./–-––
. Mi. Amodio, “High-tech babysitters: Gadgets as attention grabbers for little ones”
(June , ). Retrieved from http://zone.tmcnet.com/topics/articles/-high-
tech-babysitters-gadgets-as-attention-grabberslittle.htm
. Council on Communications and Media, “Children, adolescents, and the media”,
PEDIATRICS, (), , pp. –. doi:./peds.–
. Z. Brzezinski, Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era (New York:
The Viking Press, ).
. Jake F. Dunagan, “Politics for the Neurocentric Age”, Journal of Futures Studies (),
, pp. –.
This quotation is from Dr. Chris Fay, Chairman and Chief Executive of Shell
UK Limited. Dr. Fay received an education about the social problems of
scientific knowledge which was not easily available in universities, but which
was presented to him, rather unexpectedly, in the course of his work.
The quotation reminds us that the loss of certainty and the intrusion of ethics
are central to this new syndrome of science. With it comes the loss of
hegemony of scientific experts in the area of discussion and debate of science
related policy questions. ‘Objectivity’ has been made a problem rather than
a foundation for science. We use the term ‘post-normal science’ to provide a
historical location for this new sort of science.
Leading Questions
Accepting the idea of different styles of research, we can proceed to my
classification, which is organized around ‘leading questions’. We may start
with three sorts of enquiry, which we may call research, design and
exploration. For each of them, we have the relevant questions: respectively,
‘what/how?’, ‘how/why?’ and ‘what-if?’.
In the context of the new challenges for science, ‘what-if?’ becomes the
leading question, with a new urgency. Now our ignorance is no longer
benign, but threatening. Perhaps nothing, for some, most or all of the time;
but perhaps something, just once, or once too often.
With ‘what-if?’ as the leading question, our whole conception of the scientific
enterprise could evolve in a fruitful way. The task is to ensure that the
uncertainties of the working environment of the system intrude only to an
acceptable degree so that the problem-solving exercise deals mainly with
these well-defined proxies for an uncertain reality.
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 23
Along with the uncertainty of the real world, we also need to deal effectively
with its complexity. This approach pervades our whole scientific and
technological culture. When we are accustomed to asking ‘what-if?’, and
expecting the unexpected that we fully appreciate how no single perspective
can completely capture any real situation.
The adoption of ‘what-if?’ as a scientific style will also have important effects
on the policy process. We now know that the application of science to policy
is very different from a simple process of ‘getting the facts’. To secure them
requires an initial setting of priorities so that research is supported; and then
the research must be designed around appropriate questions; for every policy
issue is complex, including aspects of both nature and society, and where the
‘cause’ of the problem will be equally complex.
Finally, there are the social implications of the ‘what-if?’ style of science.
Insights and suggestions from people with different sorts of expertise or even
none at all, must be accepted into the dialogue. Since so many of the ‘what-
if?’ questions are prompted by such unorthodox data, the adoption of the
‘what-if?’ style is inseparable from the recognition of extended facts, extended
peer communities, and the approach of post-normal science.
others see us’. On that basis, we might accomplish the necessary reform of
science, in its social functions, working methods, and conceptual objects. A
complementary development could now be taking place within accidental
culture, among the tendencies variously labelled ‘green’, ‘feminist’, or ‘New
Age’. The variety of names indicates the great variety of issues and styles,
some overlapping but some mutually incompatible and hostile. Any
consistent vision of science based on one section of this diverse movement
would certainly alienate most of the other sections in some way.
References
. R. Ravetz, “Critical Science: Politics and Philosophy”, in Scientific Knowledge and its
Social Problems (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press, ), pp. –.
. Z. Sardar, “Conquests, chaos, complexity. The Other in modern and postmodern
science”, Futures, (), , pp. –.
Introduction
Engraved on the copper face of the Lenox Globe are the evocative words: HIC
SVNT DRACONES. This phrase, ‘here be dragons’, was used to signify
dangerous or unexplored territories. For any user of the map, understanding
where the boundaries of knowledge lay was almost as important as the
knowledge itself. Illusion of knowledge was the greatest danger of all [].
The critical question is whether these new digital tools and processes could
result in growing awareness and acknowledgement of the ‘Here be Dragons’.
Used in conjunction with scenarios and foresight, these tools could ensure
that the ‘Here be Dragons’ become located on our collective mental maps.
There has never been greater need for societal adaptability in the face of
exponential change. Societies today are so interconnected and interdependent
that there is a great need for resilience, yet this will require recognition of the
‘Here be Dragons’ and strategies to deal with their materialising.
Conclusion
It is now time to acknowledge the ‘Here be Dragons’ and explore which ones
pose the greatest risk to the society we desire for ourselves and our offspring.
Ignorance, ambiguity and scientific uncertainty have all too often been
conveniently airbrushed off our knowledge maps. The world is forever
changing. The ‘Here be Dragons’ are around us, and human beings
dependent on the complex webs of interconnected systems ignore them at
their peril.
References
. J.R. Ravetz, “Usable knowledge, usable ignorance: incomplete science with policy
implications”, in W.C Clark, R.C. Munn (Eds.), Sustainable Development of the
Biosphere (New York: Cambridge University Press, ), pp. –.
. H. Rittel, M. Webber, Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning, Policy Sciences ()
(), pp. –; R. Ackoff, Redesigning the Future: A Systems Approach to Societal
Problems (NJ, London: John Wiley & Sons, ).
. N.N. Taleb, The Black Swan (London: Allen Lane, ).
Postnormal Artefacts
Ziauddin Sardar
Classic: –
Modern: –
Postmodern: –
Postnormal: –
Meaning
Classic: ‘I think, therefore I am’
Modern: ‘I progress, therefore I am’
Postmodern: ‘I shop, therefore I am’
Postnormal: ‘I share, therefore I am’
Truth
Classic: Monolithic
Modern: Monolithic
Postmodern: Relative and Pluralistic
Postnormal: Contradictory
Identity
Classic: ‘I am tradition and culture’
Modern: ‘I am science and technology’
Postmodern: ‘I am what I buy’
Postnormal: ‘I am my Facebook page’
Change
Classic: Quasi static, slow
Modern: Fast
Postmodern: Increasingly Rapid
Postnormal: Accelerating, Chaotic
Systems
Classic: Simple, Closed
Modern: Complicated, Closed
Postmodern: Complex, Open
Postnormal: Open, Interconnected, Complex, Chaotic
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 28
Key Concepts
Classic: Conquest, Supremacy, Progress
Modern: Progress, Efficiency, Modernization
Postmodern: Dissolution of Grand Narratives (meaning), Multiple
Truths, Plural Voices
Postnormal: Complexity, Chaos, Contradictions, Uncertainty, Ignorance
World Order
Classic: Competing Colonial Powers (Britain, France, Holland, USA)
Modern: Bi-Polar World; ‘Cold War’ (USA, Soviet Union)
Postmodern: Unipolar World (USA)
Postnormal: Multi-Polar World (USA, China, Russia, EU, India, Brazil)
Knowledge
Classic: Pursuit of Reasoned Inquiry…
Modern: …Acquired through Scientific Progress and Development
Postmodern: Socially Constructed and Relative, Wikipedia
Postnormal: ‘Extended Facts’, Embedded in Uncertainty and Ignorance
Science
Classic: Pursuit of Truth, funded largely by the State
Modern: Scientific Method as Neutral, Objective Truth; funded
by the State and Corporations (Military-Industrial Complex);
Peer Reviewed Publication
Postmodern: Socially Constructed; funded largely by Military-Industrial-
Corporations Complex; Peer Reviewed Publication
Postnormal: ‘Facts are Uncertain, Values in Dispute, Stakes High and
Decisions Urgent’; Driven by Mega Corporations (Google, Microsoft)
and Billionaire Philanthropists; ‘Extended Peer Communities’ but still
largely funded by Military-Industrial-Corporations Complex
Technology
Classic: Slow Application of Science to Make Work Easier
Modern: Ideologically Driven to ‘Improve Society’, Antibiotics but also
Nuclear Weapons
Postmodern: Embedded in Politics; Genome Sequencing, Biotechnology,
Information and Communication Technologies
Postnormal: Human-Machine Synthesis, DNA editing, Drones, Cyborgs
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 29
Medicine
Classic: No Antibiotics, or appropriate Anaesthetics
Modern: ‘Modern Surgery’, Antibiotics, Electrocardiogram (EKG)
Monitoring, Open Heart Surgery, Kidney Transplantation
Postmodern: Electronic Monitoring of Patients, Microsurgery,
Face Transplant
Postnormal: Remote Surgery, Stem Cell Therapy, Synthetic Organs
Communication
Classic: Telephone, Telegraph, Morse Code, Radio
Modern: Microwave, Television
Postmodern: Mobiles, e-mail, Internet, World Wide Web
Postnormal: Instant, Perpetually Connected, -hour Global News
Channels, Facebook, Twitter, ‘Internet of Things’
Political Organization
Classic: Empires
Modern: Nation States
Postmodern: Regional Groupings and Alliances (EC, ASEAN, OIC)
Postnormal: Power shifts to Non-State Actors
Governance
Classic: Representative Democracy
Modern: Interest-Based Democracy (neo-liberal, hyper modern)
Postmodern: Deliberative Democracy (diversity, plurality,
‘politics of difference’)
Postnormal: Complex, Chaotic, Unmanageable
Economy
Classic: Classical Macroeconomics (Adam Smith)
Modern: Capitalist (free market), Communist (centrally controlled)
Postmodern: Neo-Liberal Economic Globalization (large-scale, corporate
commerce and the privatization of resources)
Postnormal: Digital, Runway Monetarism
Religion
Classic: Monotheism
Modern: Monotheism
Postmodern: New Age, Fundamentalism
Postnormal: Eclectic, Fundamentalist, Polytheistic
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 30
Equality
Classic: Legislated discrimination, Poor Law
Modern: Welfare State, Equality before the Law (assumed)
Trickle Down Effect will improve the lot of the poor
Postmodern: Multiculturalism, Integration, Assimilation
Postnormal: Acceleration of Inequality, Rich Grow Richer
at Lightning Speed
Boundaries
Classic: Fixed
Modern: Flexible
Postmodern: Porous
Postnormal: Dissolving
Nature
Classic: To be Tamed, and Exploited
Modern: Tamed, Under Control, but ‘Limits to Growth’
Postmodern: Social Construction of Nature, Eco-Politics
Postnormal: Feral, Climate Change, Disappearing species
Environment
Classic: Relatively Healthy
Modern: Polluting
Postmodern: Toxic
Postnormal: Catastrophic, Climate Change
God
Classic: God is Everywhere and Everywhen
Modern: God is Truth (big T) (early Modern) God is Dead (Late Modern)
Postmodern: God is the machine or God is me
Postnormal: God is Ignorance
Religion
Classic: Religion Explains the World
Modern: Religion Helps Us Understand the World
Postmodern: Religion was a Lie; Liberal Secularism is the new
Theory of Salvation
Postnormal: Religion is Uncertain, therefore must be Open
to Multiple Interpretations and made Complex
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 31
War
Classic: ‘The First World War’
Modern: ‘Holocaust’
Postmodern: ‘The Gulf War’ (as seen on TV)
Postnormal: Drone Attacks, Cyber War, Militarised Robots
(war is a game, removed of humanity)
Protests
Classic: Civil Disobedience (African American Civil Rights Movement),
Non-Violent Resistance (Gandhi)
Modern: Anarchist Subversion, Violent Demos (Black Panthers), Peaceful
Marches (CND)
Postmodern: Mass Mobilization (‘Gay Pride’, Gulf War Protests)
Postnormal: Propelled by Digital Media, Interconnected, Complex and
Chaotic (‘Arab Spring’, Truckers Protests in Britain, US and elsewhere,
Argentinian Public Transport Protests)
Terrorism
Classic: Urban Gorillas, Terrorism for Independence (‘Battle for Algiers’)
Modern: Local, with Specific Goals (IRA, Basque Separatist)
Postmodern: Global, Suicide Bombers, non-State Actors (al-Qaeda)
Postnormal: Global, Interconnected, Social Media Savvy, Seeking
Territory (‘Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’, Taliban, Boko Haram)
Body
Classic: Muscular
Modern: Athletic
Postmodern: Androgenic
Postnormal: Enhanced
Cities
Classic: Mississippi, Cape Town (under apartheid)
Modern: New York, London, Paris
Postmodern: Tokyo, Dubai, Putra Jaya (Malaysia)
Postnormal: Baghdad (after the Allied withdrawal), Cairo
(after two Uprisings), Aleppo, Ferguson, U.S.A.
Films
Classic: Mr Smith Goes to Washington
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 32
Television
Classic: I Love Lucy
Modern: Mission Impossible
Postmodern: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Postnormal: Silicon Valley
Music
Classic: Jazz, Big Band Swing
Modern: Pop, Rock n Roll, Disco, Heavy Metal
Postmodern: New Age, Psychedelic, East-West Fusion, Punk,
Grunge, and House
Postnormal: Yet to make an appearance (but Canadian experimental
band ‘Post Normal’ is making an effort)
Hollywood Heroes
Classic: Clark Gable – ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’
Modern: James Dean – ‘The bad boy from a good family’
Postmodern: Arnold Schwarzenegger – ‘Hasta la vista, baby’
Postnormal: Johnny Depp – ‘Honestly it’s the honest ones you have
to watch out for; you never can predict if they’re going to do
something incredibly stupid.’
Sex Symbol
Classic: Mae West – ‘Is that a gun, or are you just pleased to see me?’
Modern: Marilyn Munroe – ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’
Postmodern: Madonna – ‘I am a material girl’
Postnormal: Laverne Cox – ‘Faking It’
Sex
Classic: The Hayes Code (no double beds, no kisses lasting more
than ten seconds, no nudity)
Modern: ‘Wham, Bam, Thank You Mam’
Postmodern: Cybersex – Log on, Log up, Log off.
Postnormal: Pornography is Normal
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 33
Marriage
Classic: Monogamy
Modern: Serial Monogamy
Postmodern: Serial, Multiple, Monogamy
Postnormal: Hetero, Homo, Trans, Serial, Plural
Buildings
Classic: The Empire State Building, New York
Modern: The Guggenheim Museum, New York
Postmodern: The Portman’s Bonaventure Hotel, Los Angeles
Postnormal: The Clock Tower, Mecca
Painters
Classic: Picasso
Modern: Jackson Pollack
Postmodern: Andy Warhol
Postnormal: Banksy
Novels
Classic: Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Modern: Camus, The Stranger
Postmodern: Rushdie, Midnight’s Children
Postnormal: Wilson, Alif the Unseen
Global Weirding
John A. Sweeney
How weird are things going to get? This might be the defining question of
the st century.
The Mauna Loa Observatory reported in May that atmospheric carbon
dioxide reached parts-per-million. The last time atmospheric carbon
levels were this high ‘the globe’s temperature averaged about degrees C
warmer, and sea level lapped coasts meters or more higher,’ one absent of
humanity. We have weirded the global climate system, and as this process is
ongoing, we live in a world subject to extreme weirding.
Global Weirding, rather than global warming, is more than just a play on
words—it is a prognosis. Global weirding ‘is a fitting moniker for the
emerging meshwork of
When a street cart vendor immolated himself in Tunisia in , few could
forecast the impacts to come. In a time of extreme weirding, Mohamed
Bouazizi is a quintessential example of a postnormal actant. Thanks to
networked media, the uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa
spread like wildfire. How can we think through such changes? What
conceptual lenses might aid in making sense of the seemingly implausible?
How weird are things going to get?
The advent of the ecosystem concept did much to further the systemic
analyses of human activities on the biosphere, but a host of thinkers around
the turn of the century were already making grander claims about the role
and possible outcomes of human-driven changes to the planet’s operations,
which is to say that some had theorized the world as a single, unified
system—one increasingly coming to grips with the extremes of human
control.
So many things we take for granted as ‘normal’ have now become extreme
that it is not easy to have all extreme behaviour encapsulated in a single term.
Our technology has become extreme, modernity has acquired extreme
connotations, our economic system is extreme, corporate behaviour is
extreme; almost every ideology has gone extreme.
The extreme weirding brought about by climate change has led some to
consider radical ‘solutions.’ While some believe that the only way humanity
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 35
References
. Gwynne Dyer, Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats (Oxford:
Oneworld Publications, ).
Ideas conquer more territory and maintain more authority than all the
armies of the Queen Empress eulogized by Kipling. Despite the evidence of
history, politics, economy and culture, Kipling’s simplistic dictum still
remains the preferred approach to understanding the world.
What is just so about Kipling’s lines is not its beginning. East and West are
different, and the differences are substantive and of enduring import. The
problem arises because difference is taken to be an unbridgeable gap: ‘never
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 36
the twain shall meet’. What is encoded by this negative value is the basis for
fear, doubt of the other, perpetual insecurity and prejudice. The East, in all
its complexity, continues to be seen as the provision of ‘bogey men’ and
villains to the West.
But time has now come for us to transcend this pernicious binary logic. The
boundaries and dividing lines of East and West have not only changed but
have become blurred and indistinguishable. There is as much East in the West
as there is West in the East. The potency of the ideas that impelled western
imperialism is alive and well and operated by the East within itself, by itself.
Any attempt to move from binary oppositions must take into account the
goodness in East and West as well as the evils within both. Only by
acknowledging there is no-one with clean hands can we accept that we all
have to find new ways of washing away the grime of our own imperfections.
The need to bring East and West together becomes even more urgent when
we consider the truly global nature of many problems that beset us. None of
these problems can be ‘fixed’ by individual states; and they affect every person
on the planet. The first decades of the twenty-first century have made it
abundantly clear that we are living in postnormal times.
East and West both need new methodologies for dealing with the
predicaments of postnormal times. Diversity and plurality are essential both
to understand and deal with complexity. Chaos teaches us that individual
and social responsibility and accountability are all paramount for our
collective survival. In postnormal times, the world can really be laid to waste
by the actions of a few individuals.
References
. Rudyard Kipling, “The Ballad of East and West”, () available from http://www.
bartleby.com//.html
A spectre is haunting the European Union (EU) — the spectre of its own
contradictions. These contradictions suggest that the EU is turning into a
truly postnormal institution. The contradictions are a product of the EU’s
economic policies, the main driving force that shaped the Union. But it is its
political, social and even cultural dimensions that will ensure its significance
in the future.
The European constitution emerged as the first contradiction ailing the EU:
it falls short as an international body and it goes too far as a state club. Bluntly
put, too often the EU lacks the muscle to deploy joint policies, but the states
also frequently lack enough influence to defend its specific interests. As a
result, many policies are not ambitious enough to tackle the deep issues
affecting Europe.
governance; at least, until the crisis came along. The specificity of this
crisis is that it is systemic and global. On the whole, the financial meltdown
presented both a challenge and an opportunity for the EU. But the challenge
was not taken up, and the opportunity was missed. The European institutions
embraced austerity with the faith of new converts and told the people of
continent to accept it without question or be doomed.
Paradoxically, the severe budget cuts look like the most consistent solution
given the constraints of the European design. The Euro was defined in ,
enacted in , and turned into usable coins and banknotes in . It
epitomized the political push to attain a higher level of integration, a
common currency for a stronger Union; it has also become a metaphor for
a lack of political will. The Euro was and is insufficient to generate a joint
economic policy and without a joint policy it is doomed.
Thus, the Euro suffers from two severe weaknesses. First, it defines a common
currency for countries with deeply divergent economic conditions and
dynamics. Second, its management is in the hands of an institution, the
European Central Bank (ECB), which is totally independent from state
control. The ECB has only been able to offer cheap money to European
private banks in the hope that these banks would help their national states.
Ultimately, austerity has been more an attempt to provide a dubious moral
foundation for budget cuts than a real economic argument.
The end product of the EU’s attempts to navigate the financial crises has
produced a deep fracture within its boundaries, generating more contradic-
tions. Currently, there is a split amongst citizens within the Union; people
from rescued countries versus the rescuing ones. The real division within
each country is between those who are doing well and those who are not.
More and more Europeans are coming to terms with the certainty that their
children and grandchildren may never achieve the welfare level they have
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 39
enjoyed. Globally, the bailout has revealed just how fragile the fabric of the
European Union is. But within the Union, the bailout has reinforced the
perception that the EU favours economic stability over democratic
legitimacy.
• A market?
• A currency?
• An unfinished project on supra-state governance?
• All of the above?
The future of the EU and its relevance in the postnormal age depends on the
answer.
I would argue that most citizens of the EU now realise that a turning point
has been reached. The European elections in were the first sign. With
far-right parties on the rise, the parliament accommodated the highest
percentage of anti-Europe representatives in its history. For the right (and
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 40
far-right) wing parties the solution is less EU, for other the only logical
alternative is just the opposite: more EU.
Yet, the events in proved both sides right and wrong. Millions of
refugees, from Syria and other countries started to get into Europe. Few
rejected them openly at the beginning. But as the numbers escalated,
objections grew as well. The management of this humanitarian crisis has
been a source of shame for many Europeans ever since. Nowadays, very few
people feel that the EU serves their interest or needs; and it is no wonder that
most consider that there is nothing in the Union for them.
The option now is either to take the EU to a civilized and dignified end, or
for it to transcend its contradictions, and navigate postnormal times with
insight and anticipation. First, the awareness of the people about the
importance of regional dimension in a progressively interconnected, complex
and chaotic world has to be improved. Second, the EU needs a new design
fit for postnormal times that takes into account both the economic wellbeing
of its entire people as well as its governance structure. Third, the European
Union is in urgent need of new leadership. To survive the future, the EU
needs a new generation of ethical leaders able to navigate postnormal times.
I would like to discuss two films that I think reflect postnormal America:
Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper () and Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu’s
The Revenant (). Ostensibly, they appear to have little or no relation to
postnormal times. But we can derive metaphors [] that shed considerable
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 41
American Sniper gives us the story of the late Navy SEAL, Chris Kyle – a man
who became famous for killing people. An American hero. Clint Eastwood’s
film takes this tragic American alloy and turns his story into a surreal
metaphor for postnormal America. Much of the film has the all too familiar
feel of your prototypical dystopian post-/ American war flick. By its
conclusion, Kyle remains, at the very least, a metaphor for the good ole U. S.
of A.
A metaphor of what the United States has become since its rise to global
dominance, leaving the audience with a choice as to the trajectory of the
future course. Kyle loves Texas, he loves guns, and he wants to be a cowboy.
More importantly he has the classic American, preternatural sense of justice.
The metaphor used resembles countless other empty metaphors that exists
in the radical realist American psyche. In the film, Kyle watches a news report
of the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya in as though he is seeing his
little brother beneath a bully’s pummel. A society so bent on a fundamentalist
individualism suddenly feels for strangers only when connected to them by
the word ‘American’.
The news commentary spews forth chaotic fear and a deep uncertainty over
the new enemy, and then there is /. The Communist, The Japanese, The
German, all with distinguishable characteristics easily caricatured, now are
usurped by a shadow. The enemy is a spectre, almost inhuman. Thus,
America must also lose its humanity. We watch Kyle’s SEAL training, which
is expected to be a striping of humanity, but instead the training feels more
like manual online training. Then reality settles in.
Just as Kyle has it all, a perfect bride, a child on the way, the American dream,
we learn shooting game or paper targets is no preparation for killing living
humans. America watches the world through a high-powered scope and to
be the shield the world needs. The very term ‘hero’ is put to the pitch like a
soccer ball, kicked back and forth, transformed before the audiences’ eyes.
Chris Kyle is our hero. All the clearly shown contradictions in his values pull
Kyle into the deep uncertainty of postnormal times. The result is a self-
detached, quixotic hero whom the audience is perpetually shifting between
rooting for and hoping he fails.
But the world is no longer that simple. The hero of postnormal times cannot
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 42
simply defeat the bad guy or defuse the bomb. The postnormal hero is a
navigator above all. The postnormal hero is faced with taking our old
conceptions, putting them to the test, and demanding that we re-educate
ourselves or be doomed to fall at the hands of the true enemy – ourselves.
The first of these heroes are almost certainly damned to become tragic heroes,
for an unfamiliarity with postnormal times will prove a deadly challenge.
Some will accept the complexity and contradictions all around us, others will
look to transcend it, and still others will be killed by it. These characters will
be swallowed by the uncertainty surrounding them; and their options are
limited to how they handle their own ignorance.
To set up our navigation, the film begins in running water, a key element of
life. A father and a son. Glass and Hawk. Then there is something not of the
Earth per say, their guns. A buck with countless delineation within its antlers,
the tree of life made flesh. BANG! The unnatural sound begets our journey.
Nearby we see an encampment of men living in nature. The progression of
morning is paused by the gunshot. John Fitzgerald expresses concern over
the unnatural noise to the authority figure of Captain Andrew Henry. The
ominous Other lurks all about.
The story here is essentially a father’s guide to postnormal times. Glass’s role
as a father is interestingly complicated. The simple metaphor is that Glass,
like the misguided political view of America, is carrying the beaten
uncivilized world into prosperity. Glass cannot foresee a light at the end of
the tunnel in this journey. He is just trying to get them to the safety of a
nearby fort. He is coerced into being the father of this group of white men
who look to only him to save them from the ever-present possibility of
another attack by the Arikara tribe. The quest has a high probability of
failure, and even upon reaching the fort, what then?
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 43
Fitzgerald, likewise, is a sort of father. Let us call him the father of ignorance
and Postnormal Lag. Fitzgerald takes the young Bridger as his son, corrupting
him with the old paradigms that are slowly crumbling at the end of an epoch.
His philosophy is every man for himself, suffering is completely unnecessary,
and lying is justifiable. All of these will collapse in the face of uncertainty.
Captain Henry is the false father. This is the father that we demand our
governments and various subscribed organizations be. The tragedy being
that they are at the mercy of experts and public opinions, both subject to the
damning fate of chaos and inevitable contradictions. Henry cannot save his
children, his men. Chief of the Arikara provides a sort of antithesis to Captain
Henry. He is motivated, and thus his tribe, to find his daughter. He remains
true to his identity but embraces the advantages of the white man’s guns and
learning their language. His defiance of ignorance provides a potential for
all the false fathers as they face tomorrow’s uncertainty.
This film is a story of the convergence of these various fatherly technics and
gives us an interesting experiment in postnormal times. This convergence is
wrought with confrontation, the most noticeable being that of Glass with
the Grizzly Father, or in this case, Mother.
My own father’s view of bears is greatly influenced by his Cold War life. The
Soviets. The Reds. In my own life time, bears have gone from pacified cartoon
to force of nature. I grew up with Winnie the Pooh, Yogi Bear, and Baloo.
Then came Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man (). This documentary was
fuelled by the spirit of saving nature and respecting its beauty, but taught us
a valuable lesson. Nature is wild and those who walk on its territory are
bound by its rules. The bear is the king of the American jungle. So why not
let it be the natural father in Iñárritu’s film?
The tragedy of this film is that the conflict is amongst fathers. Like a father-
son picnic, the winner of this competition is not dependent on who loves the
most, who has the most innate fatherly prowess, or some other sense of the
romanticized parental bond. Glass, Fitzgerald, Henry, the Arikara Chief, nor
the Bear are heroes in this story. These characters only converge due to the
ignorance they all bear and in their approach to the uncertain future.
One of the closing images of the film leaves us with running water charging
through a tundra landscape, but now a massive blood stain dements the
water’s bank. Wind, water, and a fresh snow can return it to the beauty at the
film’s start. These are the stakes of postnormal times. The truth is not simply
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 44
empirical, but requires the second degree of reflection. Ignorant breaths will
be defeated by nature’s wind.
References
. See Matthew Berstein and Gaylyn Studlar (Eds.), Visions of the East: Orientalism on
Film (London: I B Tauris, ); and Ziauddin Sardar, Orientalism (Buckingham:
Open University Press, ).
. E Ann Kaplan, Climate Trauma: Foreseeing the Future in Dystopian Film and Fiction
(Rutgers University Press, ).
. Trevor Whittock, Metaphor and Film (Cambridge University Press, ).
Postnormal Governance
Jordi Serra
Modernity appeared as the answer for a new kind of power that needed a
new legitimate source that would break up with medieval traditions and
structures. But these assumptions of an assumed monolithic world, with a
single source of power are no longer valid in a multipolar, multicultural
world. Modernity is in a state of crisis; and its successor, postmodernism
simply turned out to be a “new imperialism of the Western culture” [].
Consider the case of Ukraine. It all began with demonstrations against the
government in Kiev. President Viktor Yanukovych’s government was indeed
corrupt but it was democratically elected. His main crime was that he wished
to align Ukraine with Russia. The western preference was that he instead
move to join NATO. Soon armed protestors in Kiev took over government
buildings and demanded a change of government and constitution. When
the parliament voted to oust the Yanukovych, he fled to Russia; and the
equally corrupt former Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, was wheeled out
from jail to address the demonstrators.
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 45
A decade or so ago, that probably would have been the end of the affair.
Western powers would have established a government of their choosing in
Ukraine, just as they had done in numerous other places. But the generalized
acceptance of the conventional distribution of power and the hierarchy of
interests are not valid. The reality that power has genuinely shifted is hard to
comprehend let alone face.
Notice the complexity and the resulting contradictions in the Ukraine affair.
It is not just the interests of two competing powers that are at stake, Ukraine
has different minorities, each with its own reasonable and unreasonable
demands. The contradictions were equally glaring. Western interests were
paramount, but Russian interests were irrelevant. The democratically elected
president was replaced by an entirely unconstitutional and undemocratic
takeover. The democratic demands of the mob in Kiev were seen as
legitimate; but the democratic demands of the mob in Crimea, where a
referendum was held, were deemed ‘illegal’. Our fascists, who are an integral
part of the new government in Kiev are benign; their fascists are racist brutes.
If you light a touch paper in the postnormal world, you are as likely to burn
yourself as much as your intended target. This is well illustrated in the case
of Egypt. The initial demonstrations against the Morsi government were
initiated through Facebook and rapidly escalated into a chaotic phenomenon
that led to the overthrow of the regime. The Egyptian military took advantage
of the chaos, and the secularists played into their hands. The end product: a
legitimate, democratically elected government, albeit an autocratic one, was
replaced by military rule. A ‘coup’ was not a coup. Far from nudging Egypt
towards more democracy, the secularists succeeded in turning it into a
nightmarish police state.
Consider the postnormal plight of Spain. After a golden period in real estate
business, the subsequent burst of the housing bubble came as a chaotic
implosion. Spain asked for a European Union bailout to sanitize its banking
system. Spain had to endure severe budget cuts and some structural reforms
that have resulted in a drastic reduction of the Spanish welfare system. The
unemployment rate in Spain escalated over % producing no less than five
million unemployed people during this period. For a number of years,
Spanish politics grinded to a halt thanks to a four-way deadlock. The
resulting deadlock has kept Spain paralysed for several years.
The resolution has brought Spain back to the status quo with a caretaker
government. The population is interested only in making profit at the
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 46
expense of the society. Roy’s conservative government won the elections.
The conservative government ended up doing just the opposite of what it
said it would do: far from reducing, they increased taxes, far from decreasing
unemployment, they saw it rise sharply. But the economy was not its main
challenge. That came from Catalonia. Catalonia wanted to secede from Spain
and become an independent state.
So, what have the Spanish Conservative government, the ‘acting’ and previous
one, done to tackle these issues?
Policies are made on the conventional direct linear cause and affect basis.
Nowadays phenomena are the result of complex networks of causality in
which many causal factors are intermingled; in such cases, action on just one
element is not only futile but often also quite dangerous. Policy has to take a
quantum leap to be meaningful in postnormal times.
We do not really know how to shape viable policies for postnormal times.
But there are three basic principles that can guide us. First, we need to
acknowledge that no one is in control. So, policymaking must consider and
involve a host of different perspectives and competing, even contradictory,
interests. Second, we need to appreciate that in a complex environment the
guiding mechanism must itself be complex. Plurality and diversity have to
be at the heart of governance for democracies to endure. Third, a policy
worthy of the name must consider the impact of positive feedback loops.
How are we going to cope with myriads of unintended consequences? How
are we going to negotiate chaotic upheavals? While we cannot predict the
outcome of a policy, we ought to have some awareness of its potential
consequences.
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 47
Postnormal Japan
C Scott Jordan
There is nothing ‘normal’ about Japan. Japan has been dealing with internal
chaos, uncertainty and contradictions for decades. The movement towards,
turned hastily into an endorsement of, postnormal times in Japan was not a
killing of tradition, but rather a systematic shedding of classical elements
from its society. An extrapolation of Japanese policy and actions reveals how
the country practically navigated itself through postnormal times.
How this system of navigation developed provides needed insight into the
concept of change. In the past, change has been a concept states have kept a
close eye on in their efforts to maintain control and order. The Republic of
Japan, standing currently without a national motto, has bravely donned the
c’s of postnormal times: contradictions, complexity, and chaos as it paces
towards a new tomorrow.
Complexity can be illustrated with the example of the Rubik’s Cube. At first
look, with all the small squares mixed up, the Cube is found to be quite
complex. Yet, there is a pattern by which the cube can be solved, making each
of its six sides one solid colour. In fact, the Rubik’s Cube is not complex, but
rather simple. Let us change the rules slightly. First you are colour blind,
second for every shift you make in the cube, another automatic and random
shift is made.
fusing of the new, the outside, with what was local and indigenous, to make
something anew, yet that retains its traditional values.
Always new and yet always thoroughly Japanese. Education is still held
paramount, yet new concepts are added to the curriculum and student gain
a conglomerate education accumulated abroad. The absolute rule of the
emperor is supplemented by a very Western style parliament, but this
parliament practices ritualistic respect alongside the idea of democracy.
Eventually, all elements of a warring society are removed, only to be reshaped,
years later, to a military loyal to ‘peace and the security of all humanity’.
The Japanese have morphed into an organic flux of East and West. Let us add
an extra layer to our now complex Rubik’s Cube. For each shift you make in
the cube, one of the nine squares on each side randomly changes. Chaos now
grips the reins of this postnormal ride and the smallest changes produce
radical outcomes.
Chaos in Japan has largely been observed through its power struggles. The
object of power, and those who sought after it, drove a tumultuous military
evolution, ending in its eventual extinction. Post-war Japan was heavily
influenced by foreign inspiration and the embrace of such ideals as efficiency
and development heavily controlled Japanese Policy. Most recently, tight
ropes are walked between economic dominance and economic catastrophe,
technological leadership and environmental plunder, and harmonious peace
and hostile security.
Let us return to our Rubik’s Cube. A random move is made for each one you
make and a random square is allowed to change its colour with each move
you make. The random changing of small squares allows, for example, for
the cube to contain ten red squares. This contradiction prevents the game’s
objective from completion.
Contradictions are seen in the post-war Diet; meant to be one of the greatest
success stories for democracy. Although the country had many opposition
parties, there was only one clear ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party
(LDP). A current debate is the contradiction between the security of the state
and the strict mandate presented in Article of Japan’s Constitution
preventing the formation and maintenance of a standing military.
a dirty word in Japan, if one business comes to control a certain market, the
Japanese respect that and other businesses look else ware. Internal competi-
tion is virtually non-existent. Instead, Japanese businesses compete on the
global market against other corporations on a global scale.
The first one is simply the Japanese Diet. What started as a council of scholars
for the emperor has evolved into civic minded academics fighting to preserve
Japan’s deeply rooted ritual; a ruling body of many voices. While other
legislative bodies tend to be comprised of duelling extremes, the Diet has
been reformed so as to allow for the greatest representation of the Japanese
voice.
You have your opinions and I have mine. Until I chose to kill you. We think
we live in a secular age, yet God is everywhere. Power over decision-making
has been ceded to God. We are left wondering, why the youth are joining
Christian evangelical movements in huge numbers or flocking to the cause
of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and other such radical
religious extremists so prevalent in the day’s headlines.
The world George R. R. Martin created in his book series, A Song of Fire and
Ice, made popular HBO television series, Game of Thrones [], respects and
explores religion as it exists in the real world. In doing this he gives us a clever
allusion to the religious interactions of our own world and the contradictions
that arise therein.
The episode titled ‘What is Dead May Never Die’, Tyrion Lannister, Hand to
the King of Westeros, is posed a riddle. “Three great men sit in a room, a king,
a priest, and a rich man. Between them stands a common sell sword. Each
great man bids the sell sword kill the other two. Who lives? Who dies?” The
question poser, Varys, responds to Tyrion’s silence with his wise lesson:
“Power resides where men believe it resides. It’s a trick, a shadow on the wall
and a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”
Varys has explained the postnormal state of the Seven Kingdoms, but also
gave us a vital reflection on religion in contemporary times. But something
strange has happened: thanks to social media, -hour news channels, and
other forms of instant communication, small men can now cast really large,
global, shadows.
Consider, for example, the Reverend Fred Phelps and his followers known as
the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC). They are known for their extravagant
and pot stirring protests against funerals of military service members and
the LGBT community. This church at the time of Phelp’s death was reported
to have members []. Phelps’ has managed to accumulate a lot of
America’s attention, the world’s attention, and thus cultivated enormous
power.
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 51
Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida
gives us another example. He was one of many anti-Islamic Christians who
announced one day that he is going to burn the Qur’an []. Through the
actions of Jones, who had no more than two dozen followers, and the speed
with which communication technology turned his intention into a global
phenomenon. Jones did not end up burning a Qur’an and it is unclear that
he had any intention of carrying the act out.
Recent headlines have been painted with the youth flocking to the cause of
the Islamic State. This is not a phenomenon of the oppressed and secluded.
It is global. And it is a specific product of our postnormal times, where the
God-shaped hole in people’s mind can only be filled with something
spectacular.
The analysis of Hans Küng [], Talal Asad [], and Karen Armstrong []
suggests that religion often expresses itself as a super-self belief: not just a
belief in the supernatural but also a belief in one’s conviction of possessing
the Absolute Truth. Religion moves out of the boundaries of faith and
becomes a decision-making process; and inevitably comes in conflict with
other decision-making processes such as politics, science, state and
secularism. Now, religion becomes the sole source of certainty for the
believers. An attack on religion is perceived as an attack on the Self, the
abandonment of religious principles in society is seen as a loss of the Self.
And the lost Self is a dangerous thing.
Yet, there has never been a greater need for people and communities with
genuine religious and spiritual values. Many of the contradictions of
postnormal times require old fashioned religious virtues of humility,
patience, love, compassion, and compromise to transcend. I would suggest
that the purpose of religion cannot be to perpetuate super-self belief but to
show love, compassion and provide service to others. The diversity and
plurality of postnormal times can only be navigated by acknowledging that
the faith of others is as important to them as our faith is to us. Above all,
religion must stand against ignorance of all types, and see uncertainty not as
a threat but an opportunity to shape more desirable futures.
Postnormal times have made characters as powerful as any quote from
the religious text of your choice. We return to Vary’s riddle and are left
wondering who lives and who dies. And are forced to ask: where do we want
power to reside in the future?
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 53
References
. George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book ), (New York:
Harper Voyager, ); Home Box Office, New York, .
. Michel Paulson, “Fred Phelps, Anti-Gay Preacher Who Targeted Military Funerals,
Dies at ”, The New York Times, March , .
. Paul Harris and Paul Gallagher, “Terry Jones defiant despite murders in Afghanistan
over Qur’an burning”, The Guardian, April , .
. Hans Küng, Theology for The Third Millenium: An Ecumenical View. Translated by
Peter Heinegg (New York: Doubleday, ).
. Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and
Islam (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, ), pp. – .
. Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions
(New York: Random House, ), pp. –.
. Hanna Rosin, “How A Danish Town Helped Young Muslims Turn Away From ISIS.”
NPR. July , .
Prelude
Today’s Islamic discourse is, for the most part, a future free zone. The future
is a subject that should concern every Muslim. Yet, talk of the future is
conspicuously absent in Muslim circles.
Why is this so? It doesn’t help that there are hardly any scholarly works on
the future of Islam and Muslim societies that one could engage with. There
are some books where the word ‘future’ appears in the title. But the term
‘future’ here is an appendage; there is no acknowledgement that ‘the future’
is a developed and sophisticated field of exploration and study.
For a book that lives up to the title, we have to turn to Wilfrid Scawen Blunt’s
The Future of Islam []. Blunt was concerned with certain trends in Muslim
societies; these pointed towards a particular future. Blunt illustrates the basic
ingredients of a futures-based analysis. It is about understanding change and
the rate of change. It is about understanding trends and extrapolating them
to see what kind of future they could generate. And it is about formulating
policies and taking actions in the present that promote a desirable future [].
Blunt also illustrates another key point: if Muslims do not engage in thinking
and shaping their own futures, others would happily do it for them [].
The only way out of the current impasse is to think boldly in terms of long-
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 54
Thinking about the future is daunting. The future is unknown; and in most
Muslim traditions it has largely been consigned to the domain of ‘God’s will’.
The difficulty is compounded by the fact that the future does not really exist:
it is always a time that has yet to arrive. However, just because the future does
not exist, and indeed cannot exist, it does not mean that we cannot study it,
develop ideas, images and metaphors about it, and attempt to understand
and shape its direction. The future may be elusive and uncertain but it is a
domain over which we can exercise some power.
Consider also the idea that ‘Islam is a complete way of life’. The statement
suggests that all issues of ethics, morality, law, governance, indeed all human
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 55
life, have been settled in history. If this were so then ethical and moral
evolution, developments in law and other critical areas of human thought,
come to a grinding halt.
They (we) are responsible for the fact that Muslim societies have been drifting
from one undesirable future to the next for centuries; and represent the most
serious threat to shaping viable and more fruitful futures for ourselves.
Muslim history also brims with concepts with liberating potential that open
up the future to multiple alternatives. Perhaps the most proactive idea, that
involves constant engagement with the present as well as the future, is ijtihad,
normally translated as ‘independent reasoning’. Clearly, reasoning is not
something that can be done once and for all; and reasoning often leads to
innovation. It’s about thinking boldly and imaginatively about possible,
probable and desirable futures.
We can also see an awareness of the future in the life of the Prophet
Muhammad. For example, he forbade cutting of trees and hunting of wildlife
in the woodlands around cities because they provided sustenance for humans
and animals and protected the cities with a green belt. The hijra was planned
meticulously, and the path for the migration was systematically cleared over
several months. The Prophet anticipated the Quraysh uprising against him.
Months before the battle of trenches the Prophet anticipated the coming
conflict and prepared to defend Medina by digging a trench around the city
thus actually preventing a major conflict.
I would argue that Islam is intrinsically future oriented; and insists that the
believers should actively shape their futures.
First: the obvious fact that we live in a globalised world. Second: the problems
we face nowadays are not simple. Third: we are constantly on the edge of
chaos []. Fourth: the present is full of contradictions and they cannot be
resolved; they can only be transcended. Fifth: uncertainty is the norm [].
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 56
We need a new base from which to move forward. This requires us to bring
back the human in Islamic discourse. The Prophet is seen not as a human.
But, contrary to what the Qur’an declares, as a superhuman whose every
action is perfect, to be copied to minutes detail. The problem is if everything
is God given there is no role for human effort and imagination. The believers
have no agency. No mechanism for the evolution of religious thought and
morality, no way of constructing a new ethics for our times.
Ironically those who are most concerned and obsessed with ‘Islam’, beat their
chests and shout the loudest about ‘defending Islam’ and ‘Islamic Sharia’,
insist on politicising their identity and expressing it stridently and visibly (in
their niqabs or hijab, or the lengths of their beards), represent the greatest
threat to Islam and its future.
Coda
In our quest for preferable, worthwhile futures for Islam and Muslim
societies, we need to ensure that the future is open to all potential and
dissenting possibilities. We don’t wait for things to change; but actively
change things and thereby make history.
By far the biggest problem in thinking about the future from an Islamic
perspective is the absence of an appropriate language. A language is not just
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 57
References
. Wilfred Scawen Blunt, The Future of Islam (London, ); reprinted by Sind Sagar
Academy, Lahore, . All citations from this edition.
. See Ziauddin Sardar, Future: All that Matters (London: Hodder, ), for a general
introduction to how we study the future.
. For more detail on how the future can be colonised see Ziauddin Sardar, “Colonising
the Future: The ‘Other’ Dimension of Future Studies”, Futures () and “Other
Futures: Non-Western Cultures in Futures Studies” in Richard A. Slaughter (editor),
The Knowledge Base of Future Studies: Directions and Outlook (vol. three), DDM Media
Group/Futures Study Centre, Hawthorn, Victoria, ; and Ziauddin Sardar, editor,
Rescuing All Our Futures: The Future of Future Studies (London: Adamantine Press;
Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, ).
. For a more analytical explanation of what happens at the ‘edge of chaos’, see Ziauddin
Sardar, Introducing Chaos (Cambridge: Icon Books, ), see also “What Chaos? What
Coherence? Across the River I Called” in Mika Mannermaa, Sohail Inayatullah and
Rick Slaughter (Eds.), Coherence and Chaos in Our Uncommon Futures: Visions, Means,
Actions (Turku: Finland Future Studies Centre, ) and “Conquests, Chaos,
Complexity: The Other in Modern and Postmodern Science”, Futures (), pp. –
(July/August ).
. See Gabriele Bammer and Michael Smithson (Eds.), Uncertainty and Risk:
Multidisciplinary Perspectives (London: Earthscan, ).
Historical Background
About a half-century ago there was an awareness among scientists that things
had changed. The current situation of science is one of very rapid change.
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 58
More to our present concerns, quality has replaced truth as the effective
guiding principle for science. It requires an ethical commitment, one that
must be seen to be practiced at the top of any institution. In its absence,
corruption and vacuous research is sure to follow.
Persons
There has been a growing recognition that policy-relevant science is done
better if the early stages draw on a broader experience than that of politicians,
science advisors and experts. Involvement of citizens has become increasingly
accepted as desirable and useful. In conventional scientific research, there is
a long continuous tradition of amateurs making a contribution, but more
recently they had been relegated to the role of lower-status assistants. But a
more active involvement is developing all the time. As a result, the status of
‘scientist’ is being progressively diluted.
Procedures
A similar process of change, variously seen as erosion or democratisation,
affects Procedures. For a long time, there was a common belief in a Scientific
Method, those procedures whereby science unerringly produced the correct
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 59
answers to its problems. With the rise of uncertainty and then of complexity
in knowledge and policy, this motivating faith gradually lost plausibility. The
inability to specify a Method that is not logically fallacious has contributed
to the difficulty. As to models, the best that can be said is the classic ‘all models
are wrong; some are useful’. But there does seem to be a much-heightened
awareness of these problems within scientific communities; and this could
simultaneously have the opposite effects of stimulating reform while also
reinforcing cynicism.
Property
In the previous epoch, the social relations of Property had not been changing
with great rapidity; there was a steady displacement of the traditional ‘public
knowledge’ by what we might call ‘corporate know-how’. However, there has
been a recent recognition of a deeply paradoxical situation in the
management of intellectual property. There has been a recent warning that
the progress of the field is being seriously impaired by the thickets of property
rights that surround the various bits of knowledge and technique that are
necessary for research.
Publicity
Innovation is even more rapid in the phase of Publicity, which is after all the
life-blood of science and which consists of information. What is significant
for the self-consciousness of science is the sudden discovery that there
actually is an urgent and deeply problematic political economy of publicity.
Scientific publication is not free, nor even particularly cheap. The problems
of cost and recompense in the digital age that had already afflicted the creative
industries have suddenly arrived in science. Thanks to digital publication,
the on-going inquiry can now be a focus of a continuous flow of communal
dialogue and development, in which there may be a temporary crystallisation
of a ‘product’ as a matter of convenience.
Quality Assurance
The effects of the new technologies on the quality assurance cycle are, if
anything, even more dramatic. Traditionally the quality assurance systems
of science were run largely informally and largely confidentially. As Wikipedia
itself has shown, all the editorial processes can be both convenient and
transparent. What had been a remarkably closed institution, with little public
scrutiny of its workings and hardly any investigative journalism is now
starting to be opened up.
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 60
Consequences
Near the end of the cycle is Consequences. Traditionally, the consequences
of science were assumed to be essentially good and overwhelmingly benign
in practice, and so the scientist could, with a good conscience, turn over his
products to society. Now the issue of consequences is recognised as crucial
in policy debates on new technologies as well as in broader policy debates.
We will know that science has genuinely entered its new epoch, when the
science of bads becomes recognised as a subject worthy of being taught as
part of a liberal education in science.
Since in the course of a scientific education students are totally shielded from
such problems, they become disoriented when they first encounter them in
practice. When they try to share their worries with colleagues, they are
frequently shunned as the bearers of uncomfortable knowledge. In many
cases, the thesis of postnormal science has served as liberation.
Postnormal science opens the way for plurality of perspectives, of the right
to be wrong, of awareness of ignorance, of humility. With its simple core
ideas, it enables us to see how the received image of science has fostered
narrow-mindedness, intolerance and pride. In this sense science as an
institution is being forced to look at itself realistically and not through
ideological spectacles. That may still be a little way in the future.
References
Introduction
The complexity, pluralism, and uncertainty of life appear overwhelming.
Imagination, and its broader umbrella, creativity, are essential ‘to imagine
our way out of the postnormal times.’ Creativity has gone from being a
fascinating, marginal, odd and inexplicable phenomenon to becoming the
engine of social change and transformation.
Historical Roots
Until the s, research on creativity in the West was situated mostly in the
discipline of Psychology. It focused primarily on Person, Process, and Product
[]. The unit of analysis was almost exclusively the exceptional or ‘eminent’
individual [].
Leadership and creativity are shifting from a Heroic, Great Man view to a
more relational, distributed, everyone/everywhere/everyday process.
Leadership can be a form of self-creation in the context of social
responsibility and the development of possibilities and alternatives in the
world. How do we channel our creativity? Leadership needs to account for
and be responsible for the direction and application of human creativity, and
creativity needs to infuse leadership with new possibilities and opportunities
to move beyond postnormal times.
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 62
Transforming Creativity
Research on the psychology of creativity now includes a strong emerging
focus on everyday creativity. The Where of creativity is now potentially
everywhere. This can be found in new research on innovation, group
creativity, jazz, and an increasing appreciation of ‘the wisdom of crowds,’ the
creative potential of ‘open innovation,’ where difficult problems are shared
with the public and useful answers emerge [][][][][][][].
Questions are now being raised as to whether what we are calling ‘everyone,
every day, everywhere’ creativity will lead to a growing narcissism, a
consumerist self-absorption, and a flattening of all values that will make the
‘Me Generation’ seem positively altruistic, or whether it can be channelled
towards worthy human aspirations [][][].
Reinventing Leadership
In an era of transition, we are not bound by fixed roles or destinies. The new
leadership does not assume one has to be a leader all the time. Leadership is
also increasingly viewed as heteroarchical, based on aptitude for a particular
context, task, and situation.
Factories are large, hierarchical, unwieldy, inflexible, and generally not prone
to innovation. In a factory, leadership is confined to a few. Command and
control are the central features of leadership in factories. Tribes are
networked, flexible, and heteroarchical, allowing leadership to emerge in a
plurality of sources []. The democratization of leadership is becoming an
increasingly mainstream perspective.
Concluding Reflections
We live in postnormal times. Creativity and imagination are necessary to
envision the new world. Creativity is leading us into this new world – it is
the way we conceive of alternatives. This means that creativity requires more
responsibility than ever before. Creators are leaders. People are learning to
work together, across differences, to develop creative solutions to old prob-
lems. Life may never be ‘normal’ again, but we may actually have something
to look forward to.
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 63
References
Contributors
Gabrielle Donnelly, writer and social change and innovation expert, obtained her PhD in
Transformative Inquiry from the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is an Associate of Collective
Wisdom Solutions, a consulting service that works with the public, private and not-for-profit sectors to
make ideas happen, based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Shirin Elahi is an expert on risks, uncertainty, change, and scenario planning. She has lectured widely,
including at the Said Business Centre, Oxford University; hec, Paris; International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg; and Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre, University College
London (UCL). She is the Managing Director of Scenarios Architecture, a strategic consultancy of network
specialists who work on complex global risks.
Silvio O Funtowicz has taught mathematics, logic and research methodology in Buenos Aires,
Argentina. He was a Visiting Scientist at the European Community Joint Research Centre at Ispra, Italy,
for many years where he worked as an analytic philosopher in the field of science and technology
studies. Together with Jerome Ravetz, he created the NUSAP notational system for characterising
uncertainty and quality in quantitative expressions, and introduced the concept of post-normal science.
Currently, he is Professor at the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities (SVT), University
of Bergen, Norway.
Scott Jordan, philosopher and political scientist, is attached to the Asian World Center at Creighton
University in Omaha, Nebraska. He is a member of the Nonkilling Consortium International, and has
worked with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation in China. A regular contributor to the quarterly Critical
Muslim, he hosts a radio podcast show, Tea Talk Asia. His research is focussed on the postnormal
dimensions of international policy, politics and governance, which he often explores through films.
He is a Fellow of the Centre for Postnormal Policy and Futures Studies.
Jerry R. Ravetz, a renowned philosopher of science, is known for his challenging works on risks,
scientific objectivity and history of science. His Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems (OUP,
1971) is regarded as a seminal work. His other books include The Merger of Knowledge with Power
PNTR Bib Text_Layout 1 14/10/2019 12:14 Page 65
(Cassell, London, 1990); (with S.O. Funtowicz) Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy (Kluwer,
Dordrecht, 1990); and (with Ziauddin Sardar) Cyberfutures (Pluto, London, 1997) and Introducing
Mathematics (Icon, Cambridge 1998). Regarded as the father of postnormal science, he developed,
together with Silvio Funtowicz, a notational system, ‘nusap’, for the representation of uncertainty in
quantitative information. Currently he is an Associate Fellow at the James Martin Institute for Science
and Civilization at the University of Oxford.
Ziauddin Sardar, writer, futurist and educator, is an internationally renowned public intellectual. He
has published over 50 books, including Rescuing All Our Futures (Adamantine, New York, 1998), Islam,
Postmodernism and Other Futures: A Ziauddin Sardar Reader (Pluto, London, 2003), and most recently,
Future: All That Matters (Hodder, London, 2013). He was editor of Futures, the monthly journal of
policy, planning and futures studies, from 1999 to 2012, and served as a Commissioner on the UK
Equality and Human Rights Commission from 2006 to 2009. He is the Director of the Centre for
Postnormal Policy and Future Studies.
Jordi Serra, futurist, consultant and educator, is Associate Professor in the Communication and
International Relations Faculty, Blanquerna, Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, Spain. Formerly, he
was head of Foresight Research, Risk Governance Centre, Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is
on the editorial Board of Futures, World Future Review and Revista IAPEM. He has published a number
of books in Spanish, most recently Inteligencia y análisis prospectivo: La gestión de la incertidumbre
(Secretaria de Inteligencia, Quito, 2014). He is the Research Director of the Centre for Postnormal Policy
and Futures Studies.
John Sweeney is a futurist, consultant and educator. He has worked with universities, international
development and humanitarian aid agencies, nonprofit foundations, and educational and cultural
organizations, including UNICEF, UNESCO, UNDP’s Global Centre for Public Service Excellence, the
Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, and the International Federation of Red Cross and
Red Crescent Societies. Co-author of Mutative Media: Communication Technologies and Power Relations
in the Past, Present, and Futures (Springer, Dordrecht, 2015), he is the Deputy Director of the Centre
for Postnormal Policy and Futures Studies.
The Centre for Postnormal Policy and Futures Studies (CPPFS) is an international research and
consultancy network with a particular focus on marginalised peoples and communities. The Centre
promotes futures literacy and an understanding of postnormal times, with emphasis on new means
of navigating contradictory, complex and chaotic situations and phenomenon. It aims to foster critical
inquiry, action learning, and an ethical imagination for shaping decolonized, alternative, and preferred
futures.
BIB PNTR Cover_Layout 1 14/10/2019 11:48 Page 1
978-1-56564-958-3
Books-in-Brief