Sense-making in a “Shapeless” World

It’s been said that we’re living in a “shapeless” world. What is meant by this is that our understandings about the geopolitical shape of our world has become fuzzy, hazy, or contradictory.  People, whether formally recognized as decision-makers or not, must make decisions. Some are becoming aware of having to work harder to make make sense of things.  They might wonder if they have the necessary tools to do so.  Often, however, people (especially experts) would not want to admit such uncertainty.

Illustration: Watercolor and Platinum Carbon pen and ink by Black Elephant Blog author on Arches 140 lb. Cold Press paper (October 2015)

There is a deeply-held belief in modern life that knowing things and eliminating uncertainty gives us more power and security, and that anyone who exhibits uncertainty and/or reflectiveness is therefore weak and indecisive.  (This is related, as well, to being perceived as  “doer”–a “climber”, a “mover” and a “shaker.”)  Deeply ingrained concepts of success are tied to our perceptions of others as confident, bold, and expert.   Certainly, we know, the stock market does not like uncertainty, and that’s because it’s made up of people having to make decisions. People do not like uncertainty and, for some potential setbacks, go so far as to buy insurance to protect themselves so as to better manage risk.

Up to now at least, accumulating facts, expertise, and scientific knowledge–and mastering the material world–seemed to suffice for decision-makers.  So, what’s changed today?  Cannot the facts of any matter provide us the answers we need to steer a safe course through choppy waters?

Of course, it is debatable what shape the world was in when it had more shape in our minds: the “Cold War” comes to mind. It gave shape to things, but perhaps not a shape most of us, at least those with any appreciation of history, would care to repeat. There also was the shape of the 1990s when it seemed to many that technological advances and globalization would inevitably lift all boats.  The Financial Crash of 2008 upended many experts’ basic beliefs about the essential shape of the world, and many experts today acknowledge that nothing yet has taken the place of the old certainties now pretty much ripped to shreds.

Into this incoherence comes a new book that may help us to self-diagnose, at least. Our yearning for “shape” is the focus of this book by Jamie Holmes, a “Future Tense Fellow”, at the New America Foundation, Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing, (Crown Publishers, New York, 2015).  Drawing from many interviews and lively case studies, Holmes looks at how we make sense of the world. He studies the neurological wiring that makes us calm or agitated in varying states of certainty or uncertainty.  He finds that uncertainty is an “emotional amplifier”:  “it makes anxiety more agonizing, and pleasure especially enjoyable.”  Holmes examines how the world of medicine has changed in a data-abundant world, for instance.  And he delves deeply into  how our sense-making minds naturally work to solve the puzzles of every day existence.  So, what has changed that makes the world seem shapeless, at least to some, today?

The paradox of modern existence, according to Holmes, is that “technological acceleration–in transportation, communication, and production–should provide more free time” but, in fact, most of us feel “continually squeezed” by overwhelming options and limited time to assimilate and evaluate information,” he writes.

Indeed, abundant information has created more uncertainty!  So much information “makes even the simplest decisions–where to eat, which health plan to sign up for, which coffee maker to buy–more fraught.”

Avoiding this reality or denying it would be of little use, Holmes writes.  “Managing uncertainty is fast becoming an essential skill.”  In his prologue, he cites economist Noreen Hertz’s argument that “one of today’s fundamental challenges is “disorder–a combination of the breakdown of old, established orders and the extremely unpredictable nature of our age.””

In his book, Holmes demonstrates that “being able to handle ambiguity and uncertainty isn’t a function of intelligence.”  (Interesting too that being a “superforecaster” also is not a function of intelligence (see previous post).  But it is an emotional challenge.  This is because individuals have varying needs for “closure,” a concept developed by psychologist, Arie Kruglanski, Holmes writes.  People who understand this concept, even merely intuitively, actually can manipulate others’ discomfort with ambiguity.  “When our need for closure is high, we tend to revert to stereotypes, jump to conclusions, and deny contradictions.”  This is the stuff of radical and dangerous shifts in popular attitudes over the course of history; it merits our deeper understanding.

What’s important in this work is Holmes’ seemingly original and certainly unusually accessible treatment of the importance of contextual circumstances in changing individuals’ need for closure.  This trait is not as hard-wired as many of us might assume.

Learning how to deal with what we don’t understand is a critical skill becoming more necessary for all of us in this “shapeless” and still fairly new century, according to this author.  It turns out that uncertainty and contradictions provide the environment for people to unleash their creativity.  Making sense of a shapeless world requires imagination and other cognitive skills which most people have but may not have had occasion to exercise as much as they would have liked.

Speaking of which: due to an abundance of choices, and must-do’s, today, this subject will be continued at a later date here on this blog, of that I am fairly certain.  Understanding what our options are for making sense of complexity is a subject that deserves our undivided attention.  Having read this book, I am confident that it does too.  So, to be continued…

Reading in a New Fiscal Year

Illustration: Watercolor and ink by Black Elephant Blog author

Today begins a new month, a new fiscal year even, and fall is in the air. Since every now and then, someone asks what I am reading, I have turned my attention to the question myself.  Some books on innovation have been covered earlier on this blog, particularly here.   But, why begin with innovation if we are not sure where, when or why, it matters?  Context can be helpful.

Upcoming on this blog, therefore, will be a few brief overviews of some important, and possibly even provocative, books which provide fresh optics on historical contexts, and which were published in the last year.  Some of these books review how we got to now and make suggestions for how to move forward.

These include:

The Shape of the New:  Four Ideas and How They Made the Modern World, by Scott L. Montgomery and Daniel Chirot.

Fields of Blood:  Religion and the History of Violence, by Karen Armstrong, an expert on comparative religion.

This Changes Everything:  Capitalism vs. The Climate, by Naomi Klein, who may be familiar to some for her investigation into “disaster capitalism.”  This book is so sweeping “and of such consequence,”  in the view of The New York Times,  that it is “almost unreviewable.”

But, to lighten the load, some fun reading is also in order.  I recommend:

Illustration: Painting of Madame Marthe de Florian by Giovanni Boldini (1888) – Wikipedia

A Paris Apartment, by Michelle Gable, a book which also came out last year. It is based on the true story of an apartment the contents of which came to light in 2010, 70 years after its tenant had hurriedly left Paris.

Illustration: Self-portrait of Giovanni Boldini (1892), from Wikipedia

In the apartment among antiques and other valuables, which had been untouched or unseen by anyone in all this time, was an original painting of a beautiful lady. Martha de Florian, by Giovanni Boldini.  Boldini was a contemporary of Edgar Degas, whose life and works was discussed earlier on this blog, in mid- and late-19th century Parisian artistic circles.

The painting depicts Madame Marthe de Florian whose diaries also were in the apartment when it was opened in 2010.

The novel, A Paris Apartment, recreates this true story in a fictional modern context.  The author has a fresh writing style which makes the most of her talents for creating realistic dialogue and alternating between periods of time separated by more than a century. Boldini himself–not to mention Madame de Florian–come alive here in a story that includes other better known figures of their time.  All this…a true story…and a fictional story…because of one real-life dusty old apartment filled with stuff no one wanted for nearly a century.

Little Dancer Coincidences

Illustration: Watercolor, gouache, pencil, and gesso by Black Elephant Blog author

Earlier this week I had a chance to see the glass-walled exhibit containing the wax figurine sculpted by the artist Edgar Degas in the late 19th century out of bric-a-brac and old paintbrushes and wire laying around in his studio.  While at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., I learned that this sculpture caused quite an uproar in the art world at the time.  Depicting a real-life 14 year-old aspiring ballerina of limited means, Degas captured the tensions over the haves and have-nots of his era.  (These young ballerinas were often called “opera rats” , and regularly exploited by unscrupulous individuals (whom Degas also frequently painted) who hung around the theater scene of the time.)

Breaking with conventions of the age, which did not include making sculptures out of trash and using real fabric to dress a figurine, Degas did something all successful artists do:  he forced people to change their perspectives on issues they would rather ignore or take for granted.

Image: From National Gallery of Art website

By coincidence, later this week, in a class, I was told that Degas did not use any measurement techniques to do his figure drawings.  We were told to draw something without looking at the paper on which we were drawing.  This was new to me:  but the teacher said to the class, “Your intellect gets in the way of your ability to see” if you study what you are doing.  This was fascinating; I had just read Seeing What Others Don’t: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insight, by psychologist and developer of “naturalistic decision-making,” Dr. Gary Klein.  Too much focus, he writes, on eliminating errors prevents us from having insights.

Most places we work focus on preventing mistakes and not on fostering insights.  Klein explains, mistakes embarrass organizations, and it’s easier to measure reduction of mistakes than it is to measure increasing production of insights.  (The enthusiasm over Six Sigma’s statistical approach to eliminating errors has just about killed off any potential for insights in the organizations that rely on it, he says, for instance.)  How natural is it not to make mistakes, and what are the downsides?

According to Klein, a risk-averse environment leads to a checklist mentality.  He notes that: “A checklist mentality is contrary to a playful, exploratory, curiosity-driven mentality.”  Of course, we want people with our lives in their hands–pilots, surgeons, and others–to use a checklist if this assures they won’t forget to close the doors before take-off or that they remember to remove a surgical tool in our brain.  And organizations everywhere play it safe by tabulating how many of their employees had the required training in this or that–a form of accountability and insurance, if not guarantees that errors won’t be made.

Apparently controversies, such as the ones that swirled around Degas’s “Little Dancer,” are necessary for helping us, eventually, to reframe our perspectives.   And this reframing does not involve minor adjustments or “adding more details,” according to Klein; the changes involved are not incremental.  Instead shifts occur that change our core beliefs.  Such shifts are “discontinuous discoveries,” he writes, giving many of his own examples accrued during years of study in his quest to learn where insights come from.

These shifts transform us in several ways, changing how we “understand, act, see, feel, and desire.”  They transform our thinking, and give us a different viewpoint, thus changing how we act and even “our notions of what we can do.”

It seems possible, in an age of digital hyperconnectivity and empowered individuals, etc, that integrating improved understanding (and insights) of how to develop and convey appealing narratives already has become something separating winners and losers in the battles for attention, “hearts-and-minds” and other contests of our age.  Perhaps this always was true but is amplified by today’s unprecedentedly interdependent world.