Beyond the Hero’s Journey (Part III)

Beyond the Hero’s Journey (Part III)

Jul 27, 2024 | Transformation

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To some extent, the hero’s journey reflects and perpetuates a colonizer mindset, leading to the subjugation of entire cultures. Simpson (2011) noted that the current generation of Indigenous people “has been repeatedly told that individually we are stupid, and that collectively our nations were and are devoid of higher thought” (p. 32).

Time and Cultural Perspectives
Moreover, the linear nature of time, often central to hero narratives, is not a given for many cultures (Yunkaporta, 2021). The traditional hero myth may also not resonate with people of color, including Black women. Stein (1984) cited Black author Toni Morrison as one example:

Unlike the stock epic tale, in which the hero, driven by inner compulsion to leave society in search of knowledge and power, undertakes a dangerous but successful journey and returns in triumph to transform a fallen world, Sula presents a tale of courage in the face of limitation and powerlessness, of self-knowledge wrested from loss and suffering, of social amelioration eked out of hatred and fear. (Stein, 1984, p. 146)

Postmodern Critiques and Western Thought
The limitations of the hero’s journey are more evident in a postmodern world. Schieffer and Lessem (2016) note that many myths no longer carry their initial power to interpret the world and the cosmos or provide us with guidance.

In these complex times, a new hero must consider nature, humanity, and the more-than-human world in context. Analyzing complex phenomena out of context exemplifies disjunction, a conceptual pillar of Western thought. Morin (2014) defined disjunction as an investigatory principle whereby objects are divided into basic components without regard for their connections.

This thinking style is apparent in the Western focus on individual parts of nature (or humanity) over which control can be exercised. Westerners are not trained to think systemically, or use context, in their interpretations of the world.

Nisbett et al. (2001) note that “inferences rest in part on the practice of decontextualizing structure from content, the use of formal logic, and avoidance of contradiction” (p. 159). We cannot, however, avoid contradictions in today’s world, which calls into question the usefulness of the hero’s journey and its framing of problems in linear ways.

Besides its limitations for overcoming complex crises, the hero’s journey is inadequate given advances in our understanding of consciousness and its connection to transformation.

Rethinking Transformation and Consciousness
According to Mezirow (1978), transformation is a permanent change in an individual’s worldview.

However, the hero myth tends to reinforce a prior worldview and what is already suspected as truth. The boons of success referenced by Campbell (2008) could be seen as a false truth leading to a false self, especially when humans, particularly in the European-American world, separate their identities from the natural world (Canty, 2014).

This ability to separate one’s identity from the natural world is endemic to a larger European-American worldview. In popular mythology, the habitats, creatures, and processes of the natural world are ancillary characters in the story of humanity, as humans are unable (or unwilling) to see beyond their perspective.

Shorb (2012) suggested that humans harbor an innate need to affiliate with the natural world. Called biophilia, this need is “the genetic legacy that is a portal between the psychic landscape that inhabits us and the physical landscape that we inhabit” (p. 3). However, this may not be a portal through which the archetypal hero is inclined (or equipped) to walk.

In future files, I will explore alternatives to the hero’s journey as a metaphor for transformation.

 References

Canty, J. M. (2014). Walking between worlds: Holding multiple worldviews as a key for ecological transformation. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 33(1), 15–26, Article 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.24972/ijts.2014.33.1.15

Mezirow, J. (1978). Perspective transformation. Adult Education Quarterly, 28(2), 100–110. https://doi.org/10.1177/074171367802800202

Morin, E. (2014). Complex thinking for a complex world—About reductionism, disjunction and systemism. Systema: Connecting Matter, Life, Culture and Technology, 2(1), 14–22.

Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108(2), 291–310. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.108.2.291

Schieffer, A., & Lessem, R. (2016). Integral development: Realising the transformative potential of individuals, organisations and societies. Routledge.

Shorb, T. L. (2012, Summer). Exploring the twin landscapes of biophilic learning. Green Teacher, No. 96, 3–7. https://www.proquest.com/openview/dbeb7979afbe3b91f57e4601da9e3709/1.pdf?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=33544

Simpson, L. B. (2011). Dancing on our turtle’s back: Stories of Nishnaabeg re-creation, resurgence and a new emergence. Arbeiter Ring.

Stein, K. F. (1984, December). Toni Morrison’s Sula: A Black woman’s epic. Black American Literature Forum, 18(4), 146–150. https://doi.org/10.2307/2904289

Yunkaporta, T. (2021). Sand talk: How Indigenous thinking can save the world (Illustrated ed.). HarperOne.

Beyond the Hero’s Journey (Part II)

Beyond the Hero’s Journey (Part II)

Jul 23, 2024 | Transformation

Technology, profit, productivity—these are hallmarks of what is often construed as progress within the Western worldview? Progress for whom?

These thirsts are fueled by a belief shared by many in the Western world that nature is little more than a machine. According to Rout and Reid (2020), the machine metaphor “delineates nature as predictable, controllable, mindless matter that is separate from and does not matter as much as culture” (p. 948).

Seen through this metaphor, the ecological crisis is little more than a structural problem, a proverbial chink in the system that is nature that can be “fixed” by the hero.

Humanity’s “Needs”
In framing any aspect of the ecological crisis through the lens of its impact on humanity’s needs and wants, the Western world supports the importance of humanity over nature.

Extending this worldview, the machine metaphor lauds progress versus balance and the primary of globalization compared to local phenomena, all of which have helped turn nature into a commodity, a machine built for human use (Sullivan, 2010).

Metaphors such as “steward” are equally problematic. Whereas “steward” implies a moral obligation to care for the Earth, this term also suggests the Earth is inanimate with humans somehow its master (Flint et al., 2013).

Ubiquity of the Hero’s Journey
One way to better understand the machine metaphor (and ecological crisis) is to look at the rationale that supports the narrative structure and sequence of hero’s journey myths. Within these myths, presented similarly throughout the world, “a hero ventures forth from the common day world into a region of supernatural wonder” (Campbell, 2008, p. 28).

Campbell described the universality of the classic hero narrative as a monomyth, a single hero story with which all humans resonate (Allison & Goethals, 2016). According to Campbell (2008), this story follows a trajectory with three primary sequential stages: “A separation from the world, a penetration to some source of power, and a life-enhancing return” (p. 33).

Humans have always been drawn to hero stories, the evidence of which “can be found in the earliest known narratives that describe stirring accounts of the exploits of heroes and heroic leaders” (Kerényi, 1978, as cited in Allison & Goethals, 2016, pp. 188–189).

Rank (1952) said these heroes, found in different nations and “widely separated by space and entirely independent of each other,” present “a baffling similarity, or in part a literal correspondence” (p. 1). Homer’s Odyssey, written 2,700 years ago, is widely regarded as one of the first and best examples of the hero’s journey in the Western world (Allison & Goethals, 2016).

Hero’s Journey Examples
Examples of other ancient hero stories from across the world include “Hesiod, Vishnu, Gilgamesh, Etana, Sundiata, Beowulf, Samson, Thor, Leonidas, Guan Yu, among others” (Durant, 2002, as cited in Allison & Goethals, 2016, p. 189). The hero’s journey is also found in today’s movies, including “Harry Potter, Superman, James Bond, Luke Skywalker, and The Lion King’s Simba” (Singh, 2021, p. 183).

The hero’s journey is not simply a metaphor experienced as entertainment. Rather, it is explicitly used in numerous professional domains: counseling (Lawson, 2005), education (Brown & Moffett, 1999), transformational tourism (Robledo & Batle, 2017), and leadership (Goethals & Allison, 2019) among others.

Despite its ubiquity, tales of a single (usually male) hero armed with superior intelligence do not resonate with all people—a concept that will be explored at great length in the next file in this series.

References

Allison, S. T., & Goethals, G. R. (2016). Hero worship: The elevation of the human spirit. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 46(2), 187–210. https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12094

Brown, J. L., & Moffett, C. A. (1999). Hero’s journey: How educators can transform schools and improve learning. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.

Campbell, J. (2008). The hero with a thousand faces (Vol. 17). New World Library.

Flint, C. G., Kunze, I., Muhar, A., Yoshida, Y., & Penker, M. (2013). Exploring empirical typologies of human–nature relationships and linkages to the ecosystem services concept. Landscape and Urban Planning, 120, 208–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2013.09.002

Goethals, G. R., & Allison, S. T. (2019). The romance of heroism and heroic leadership. Emerald.

Lawson, G. (2005). The hero’s journey as a developmental metaphor in counseling. The Journal of Humanistic Counseling, Education and Development, 44(2), 134–144. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2164-490X.2005.tb00026.x

Rank, O. (1952). The myth of the birth of the hero: A psychological interpretation of mythology (F. Robbins & S. E. Jelliffe, Trans.). R. Brunner.

Robledo, M. A., & Batle, J. (2017). Transformational tourism as a hero’s journey. Current Issues in Tourism, 20(16), 1736–1748. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2015.1054270

Rout, M., & Reid, J. (2020). Embracing Indigenous metaphors: A new/old way of thinking about sustainability. Sustainability Science, 15(3), 945–954. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-020-00783-0

Singh, M. (2021). The sympathetic plot, its psychological origins, and implications for the evolution of fiction. Emotion Review, 13(3), 183–198. https://doi.org/10.1177/17540739211022824

Sullivan, S. (2010, Summer). “Ecosystem service commodities”-a new imperial ecology? Implications for animist immanent ecologies, with Deleuze and Guattari. New Formations, 69, 111–128. https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/lwish/nf/2010/00000069/00000069/art00009

To ‘Lead’ Or Not To ‘Lead’ (Part III)

To ‘Lead’ Or Not To ‘Lead’ (Part III)

Jul 7, 2024 | Leadership

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If we think in silos, we bring ourselves deeper inside single systems, which “cannot account for interrelations and how the system we have chosen to study interacts with, affects, and is affected by, its environment” (Montuori, 2012, para. 6). This way of thinking mirrors how many organizations organize knowledge and ‘their people’ into functional departments that often do not ‘talk’ with one another.

Social science and management science, however, have historically viewed individuals and organizations as fundamentally closed systems (Montuori, 2013, p. 206). By extension, organizations often separate employees from one another, especially as they relate to departments and functional units. Collaboration, then, is a step in the right direction.

Something leaders can do is create spaces so others can make decisions. Here, I reference Ashby’s Law that only variety can absorb variety, an idea paraphrased by Ison and Straw (2020, p. 127). This is a profound idea and one (I think) connects to Heinz von Foerster’s Ethical Imperative, which is to “act always so as to increase the number of choices” (as cited in Steier & Jorgenson, 2003).

For so many reasons, I find this idea brilliant, because it captures the essence of systems thinking (or does it?). Indeed, systems thinking appears (is) very circular.
So how does this relate to leadership? How can it not if everything is perpetually connected within a continuous feedback loop?

In the general case of circular closure, A implies B; B implies C; and (Oh, horror!) C implies A! Or in the reflexive case, A implies B, and (Oh, shock!) B implies A! And now the devil’s cloven-hoof in its purest form, the form of self-reference; A implies A (Outrage!)

– (Von, Foerster, 2003, p. 289)

Indeed, the outrage—and so, is a leader only possible in the minds of those who follow? Who or what makes someone a leader? Precisely…
…If one of a leader’s goals is to ostensibly lead by example and work to effect anything systemic on a massive scale in their organization, the first thing they must do is also the last. They must look within. If a leader is to channel Von Foerster’s Ethical Imperative, then they are faced with a nearly limitless number of choices, which does not come without consequences:

For some, this freedom of choice is a gift from heaven. For others
such responsibility is an unbearable burden. How can one escape it? How can one avoid it? How can one pass it on to somebody else? (Von Foerster, 2003, p. 293).

In the truest spirit of cybernetic thinking, I must ask who passed this mantle of leadership to me? Am I chasing myself? Are ‘leaders’ and those who follow them the same cogs in the same wheel(s)? In picturing these proverbial wheels, I am reminded of the following stanza in one of my favorite songs, “The Windmills of Your Mind”:

Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind! (Bergman & Bergman, 1968)

To a very real extent, I believe the above stanza aptly describes Western society as it develops the problems to the solutions that cause the problems. To return to the original question as to how systems thinking enhances leadership capacity, my answer is that it does not simply change how leaders think about themselves in relationship with others. Rather, it changes how leaders respond to their response(s) to others and others’ respective responses to their responses.

Systems thinking can help all of us discover more windmills in our respectives minds where there is no end/beginning and is no ‘thou’. There is only I, and I ‘shall’ (not)…

References
Bergman, A & Bergman, M (1968). The Windmills of your Mind. [Recorded by Noel Harrison]. The Windmills of your Mind [Vinyl]. Reprise Records.

Ison, R. L., & Straw, E. (2020). The hidden power of systems thinking : governance in a climate emergency (Ser. Systems thinking). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351026901

Montuori, A. (2012). Five Dimensions of Applied Transdisciplinarity. http://integralleadershipreview.com/7518-transdisciplinary-reflections-2/

Montuori, A. (2013). Complexity and transdisciplinarity: reflections on theory and practice. WorldFutures, 69(4-6),200–230. https://doi.org/10.1080/02604027.2013.803349

Steier, F., & Jorgenson, J. (2003). Ethics and aesthetics of observing frames. Cybernetics & Human Knowing, 10(3/4), 124–136.

Von Foerster, H. (2003). Ethics and second-order cybernetics. In Understanding understanding (pp. 287-304). Springer, New York, NY.

To ‘Lead’ Or Not To ‘Lead’ (Part I)

To ‘Lead’ Or Not To ‘Lead’ (Part I)

Jul 4, 2024 | Leadership

Is the past really past, and is the future somewhere ahead of us? The realization that past trauma, for instance, has a direct bearing on our mental health lends credence to the notion that yesterday is alive, a consideration that leads to a cybernetic complementarity that the future is equally real today.

Can we hold two seemingly disparate ideas?

The potentially contradictory nature of the above question serves as my segue to a discussion on how systems thinking enhances leadership. From a systems perspective, I do not believe a leader necessarily leads at all, but rather works to create a space within which as many inputs can be included as possible. This is a space in which people are allowed to make mistakes, an idea Ison & Straw (2020) indicate is a critical aspect of systems thinking in practice, as they rhetorically note, “Otherwise how will they learn” (p. 101)?

I find this question profound, because isn’t it the responsibility of a leader to create opportunities for people to learn? The answer seems obvious (at first), but this is not how businesses, including my own, Exponential Squared, on many occasions, are often run. If I am to step out on a proverbial limb and comment on the experience of other leaders or business owners, I believe it is fair to say it is a struggle (for many of us) to understand outcomes in context. I set due dates on various projects, and many of my decisions as a leader are directed to deliver them on time.

Am I creating enough space for my staff to not only learn, but to also make mistakes? Mistakes cost me money, and that is not a small consideration.

Systems thinking in practice can help me reframe my objectives as a leader, which could lead me to redefine the outcomes. Is completing a project on time the outcome I seek for every project, or is there something larger at work (play)? What is the social purpose of my company?

Systems thinking

As a leader or business owner, it is incumbent on me to help create environments within which my staff and clients are inspired, right? I am not just a business owner, however. I am a dad, a teacher, and a researcher among many other roles.

Do all my respective roles demand that I lead (and act) differently? Is the idea of a social purpose one that can bind all aspects of myself (and my many roles)?

Ison & Straw indicate that social purpose has different meanings in different contexts. One question I need to answer, then, is what does social purpose mean in the context of my life? A related question is how do I apply my belief in a social purpose?

A sense of purpose, claim Ison & Straw (2020), is “a common thread across the Blue Zone communities” (p. 86). Blue Zones, according to Talbott (2007), is the description given to areas of the world where communities have very long-life (age 100+) expectancies. Ison & Straw say that some of the health benefits that result from social purpose include a reduction of mortality risk, increase in resilience, and improvement in sleep among many others.

Ison & Straw indicate that social purpose has different meanings in different contexts. In part two of To ‘Lead’ Or Not To ‘Lead’, I explore not only what social purpose could mean in the context of our lives, but how to apply it.

References
Ison, R. L., & Straw, E. (2020). The hidden power of systems thinking : governance in a climate emergency (Ser. Systems thinking). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351026901

Talbott, S. (2007). Devices of the soul: battling for our selves in an age of machines. ” O’Reilly Media, Inc.”.