WHAT THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIA TELLS US IN 2020

The pandemic is a strong warning of the deregulation of human-nature relations as well as spaces. The animals carrying the virus mingled with the men. Viral and ecological crises are linked. This theme comes back in depth in all the reflections gathered in this notebook. Viruses no longer know borders. The stakes are global.

We lived with pride in a world where Artificial Intelligence had been deified. It was to bring to humanity a happiness based on numbers and perhaps according to the thought of transhumanists eradicating death.

But nature is there to teach us every year the link Between Life/Death or Death/Life, nature is reborn every spring, “if the grain of wheat does not die, it cannot bear fruit”.

To follow biologists and especially Antonio Damasio, life has three characteristics: survival, reproduction and flourishing. And this process of fulfillment, this internal energy of humanity, is the very approach that in times of extreme crisis, we must seek: it is the spirit of Happymorphosis.

We were worried about our planet, not enough for humans. And a small virus, from China, probably from an endangered animal, has blocked the entire planet. The world is “confined”, non-virtual communications have disappeared, each one personally reinvents his joie de vivre or in virtual liaison with others. We return to the essentials that make the human being. AI is now just “at our service” to help us in our own research. The search for meaning is the human being. A message from Heaven or the gods? The great singers of AI are silent, philosophers, spirituals, writers reappear. In France, confined to our home, our president advises us to read. Containment causes great social and moral distress. But also for some of the time recovered that can allow us to resume telephone contacts or write the memories of our lives. “The simple act of living and being fulfilled. That’s joy.^[1]” We lived nowhere, in planes, hotels, in places without identity, “man as the place of life of being” disappeared. Today, we seek harmony with ourselves, with nature (even if we can no longer walk there, we look at birds and flowers), and networks are now flourishing more than ever with creativity, humour, attention to each other, beauty (even if the “scams” continue).

In our specific networks, Happymorphose, Global SoL and learning society, we must look for ways to remain aware, work on our socioperception. We cannot decide the future, but together we can look for specific ways by using the learning process to take care of the ongoing metamorphosis.

This notebook, different from the previous ones, presents texts – reflections, weak signals and very different internet links related to the pandemic and all of which illustrate in their ways aspects of the humanist metamorphosis described by Alain de Vulpian[2]. At each stage, we will illustrate in bold letters how these reflections make us deepen the steps of Happymorphosis, use other paths, walk towards the future.

[1]Pierre Giorgini: “The Crisis of Joy” Bayard 2020, philosophical counterpoint by Bertrand Vergely p.225

[2]Alain de Vulpian: “Praise of Metamorphosis”, currently in digital Alain de Vulpian and Irene Dupoux-couturier: “Homo Sapiens, Collapse and Fulfillment”2019

AND IF KAIROS^[1], THE GOD OF OPPORTUNE OPPORTUNITY TRIUMPHED

Pierre Giorgini in an article published in the Social Weeks www.ssf-fr.org , writes: for 3.8 billion years, crises and disasters in the biosphere have followed one another. They have always stimulated the forces of adaptation and reinvention of the living. This is probably why we are experiencing a real metamorphosis in the way we perceive and conceive complex technical and human systems. We move from a domination of pyramid systems that distribute solutions and directives from top to bottom from a central intelligence that concentrates and preserves information, to conceptions where intelligence and information are distributed among the entities of the system that co-contribute by co-elaborating decisions and good behaviors along the way. Each locality optimizes, adjusts its survival conditions and contributes to the survival of the whole in entanglement of localities at different scales.

This second model based on contributing localities dominates biology. It demonstrates at the moment with the experience of South Korea, Japan and the city of Prato in Tuscany that it is by far the most effective in solving complex situations. However, we are well aware of the complexity because no one, no expert has the plans or the way of using the pandemic. In these countries, it is every citizen (component of the system) who, helped by easy access to tests and masks, regulates his own behavior and creates a collective intelligence that optimizes in real time the balance between the economic equation and the health equation by mutual adjustment along the way. This is the technical model of Google cars.

However, when it comes to social, political or economic systems, several conditions are essential for this contributory design to be viable and effective. The main thing is that every human being agrees to awaken and rise to the ethical awareness of the interdependence of humanity in solidarity with each other but also with nature. It is likely that these recent viruses from the animal world are the result of the few precautions we have taken in the ecological disorders we have created in the biosphere.

The climate issue seemed to be able to create the conditions for this rise in ethical awareness. But it appears that its consequences are not yet concrete enough to trigger a real mutation of individual habitus! The global health crisis is a tragedy, a partial collapse. Will it be the appropriate opportunity for this salutary disruption by stimulating the transition to a contributing society where the locality acting for the common good, the glocalisation, will take over globalization? Will representative democracies use this crisis to invent new models of a co-development democracy?

[1]Booklet 8 already referred to the god Kairos, the one of the right moment (to be distinguished from Chronos, the god of long time)

THE TRICKS OF HISTORY 

History manufactures alternatives as if there were a logic of the living that dominates rational logic. Unexpected encounters take place between entities that did not communicate. It’s a catalysis of the living forces.

In the 2017 presidential elections, Macron, the young improvised candidate had little chance of winning the game. Much of his victory was due to the collapse of political parties and the disintegity that prevailed. The approach of his “walkers” movement illustrated this desire for “something else”, another form of politics, based on listening, dialogue and the rise of initiatives. But elected by people who wanted change, he acted as a traditional policy and, after his victory, quickly disappointed. Surrounded by technocrats, he felt he was embodying the history of France but did not feel the people alive. He had forgotten the “walkers.” For a few months, we thought that a scenario was beginning that would save him: that of the Yellow Jackets that put him back in touch with the people of France. By a ruse of history, the Yellow Jackets could reverse a trend and make him aware of the ill-being of the working classes. The technocratic way of managing the reforms has brought it back since the autumn of 2019 to the previous scenario.

The Coronavirus is another trick in history that gives the President the opportunity to review the model[1], to rethink the future of the nation in a global way, to reorient its positioning and our national and global policy. How can we break with a short-termist, globalized, hyper-financial capitalism? These are practical works combining the Global and the Local (the “Glocal”) to protect the humanist metamorphosis. In his speeches and actions, the President clearly seeks these new balances. His April 16 interview with the Financial Times is an essential marker of his evolving thinking, “the human at heart”, the Common Good.

A fundamental political question arises: is Coronavirus better managed by authoritarian or democratic regimes? In early and mid-January, did the Emperor of China risk losing the mandate of heaven? It is one of the oldest Chinese concepts dating back more than a thousand years BC, and to the Zhou dynasty, the emperor can only exercise his power if he is “listening” and “in compassion with his people.” If he does not, Heaven and the people can take away his power. The coronavirus outbreak may be an example. At first, the central government did not want to “see” the drama that was emerging, the death of the one who had announced it, Dr. Li, unleashed anger. Power then regained the upper hand with strong authoritarian measures. A propaganda policy, highly organized internationally, follows the “blindfolded” of the beginning of the crisis. Where does the apparent effectiveness in later management come from: is it the authority of the central government or the accountability of citizens, Asian citizenship? Facial recognition measures and “social credit” go in this direction. “Patriotic solidarity” plays. But the death toll is clearly questionable. The questioning is from a Chinese point of view, the future failure of the “Silk Roads”, losing face vis-à-vis the West.

This theme crosses the planet and the various political regimes in place: in addition to China, from the United States to Brazil, Russia, India and Europe. Some Asian countries with deeper cultures of the organization seem to be better equipped. The question of Europe divided between North and South arises.

But another form of non-political communication is exploding on the path of humanist metamorphosis and solidarity.  On social media, the humour of young people is unleashed, an excellent sign of resilience!

[1]Interview at the FT of 16.4.20

TOWARDS A NEW HUMANITY: THE CURVE OF MOURNING

The mourning curve and the U-shaped curve are topical.

Elizabeth Kobler-Ross proposed the model of the mourning curve with the passage through shock, denial, great emotional crossings, abatement, then acceptance and transformation. Everywhere to varying degrees all these stages go through. For some, denial at the outset has been full of rebellion and suspicion towards the media and the authorities, and let us remember that denial is an archaic and instinctive way of protecting yourself from the fear that could be overwhelmed.

For others, the shift has been done quite quickly in fear and anxiety resulting in an addictive need to listen to the news, from everything that comes from social networks and TV and radio channels, in a form of primitive alliance between anxiety and survival strategy. Each, each with its own repositories and belief systems, has found itself confronted with massive awareness through containment. The state has really fulfilled its protective function by sheltering everyone at home, imposing a framework containing and proposing exceptional economic support measures.

Parallel to this great descent into the emotional and the tripal, there are realisations about a desire for a better future that would begin to be built now at the heart of the crisis.

Weak signals become strong signals, they shout and sing at the windows to support health care workers; we see words of humor or poems circulating on social networks, people are called, take news of each other, some make painful realizations that no one calls them …

n the U-shaped curve that is superimposed on the curve of Kobler-Ross it is a question of shared vision, of a common base of desire.

At the bottom of the U-shaped curve, the fork point, says Alain de Vulpian[1], makes you aware of the different possible scenarios. Otto Scharmer calls it the “presencing” point (a presence to oneself, to others and to the world).

It is the socioperception that allows you to go up the U-shaped curve to the Happymorphose scenario.

We are in a unique opportunity in contemporary history to build a shared vision and as if by a miracle of life, the universe, the cosmos, the collective unconscious, or coming from elsewhere, the great ecological dramas that shake the planet, the rise of the youth revolt cry for climate, the concordance of municipal elections on this topic increase our chances of a true humanist metamorphosis.

The current obligatory decline, bringing back to the forefront the essential pleasure of being alive, breathing, loving, listening, talking, watching, feeling, making to the economy offers us an exceptional space-time experience if we know how to grasp it.

Everything that is re-divided into humour, love, sensitivity, presence in the present moment, sharing of points of view, good ideas and solutions in the service of the human being, all that makes it possible to realize that pollution at this moment is decreasing, all this contributes, conspires to metamorphose.

But how are we going to ensure that the consciousness that is in motion and that creates lots of new gestures, new opportunities, awareness, does not close, does not fall back on the usual then, does not get caught up by the power of the economic steamroller?

A number of us are asking the acute question of the articulation between living the present moment, available to what is and related to its environment, and thinking about tomorrow to anticipate. There is still a dimension to this issue. How are we going to create significant changes on a macro scale (city, European countries, Europe)?

At the moment collectives are very active on the question of ecology and the city of tomorrow, there is a tremendous breath of postmodernity that ignites minds already committed for a long time for some and which proposes a utopia tremendously attractive.

These are weak signals. How do weak signals become strong when they resonate with the life, the wishes, the development of societies?

[1]Following Ilya Prigogine

THE STRENGTH OF INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL NETWORKS

SoL in Europe, SoL Global, Happymorphose, a local and global conversation.

The Global SoL network meets virtually, since the global containment period, every Saturday (for the Asian part of the globe) and Sundays (for the western part), the two networks interconnecting. On 29 March, 20 people were gathered, coming from 15 countries, from the Philippines, Singapore, Iran, Europe (Italy, Spain, France, Sweden, Scotland, ), Morocco, Egypt, USA, Colombia, Brazil… The “conversation” in the strong American sense of the term, “turning to the other” has been for several very rich sessions. Together globally, we are connected and facing the same challenges, this has never happened before. It is carried by global social networks with their risks and benefits.

From the presentation of the particular situations of each, each country and the painful situations emerged the desire to work and coordinate on the 3 themes proposed by Otto Scharmer, or those parallel proposed by Happymorphose and Alain de Vulpian: observe, feel the point of “presence to oneself and the world” as well as the “bifurcation point” , work on socio-perception, weak signals, reflection on scenarios of the future, post-pandemic, with applications, such as education and learning, democratic infrastructure and local governance, economic infrastructure, humanist and business metamorphosis, metamorphosis and spirituality. The current changes are highly systemic in nature, the effort must be collective.

What to do about the future? And how do you do that? The key words were: socio-perception, intuition, empathy, awareness, being present in the world, taking care. 

“Open your sensing,” “seek latent energies”: optimism and conviction underpinned what to do? Develop “citizen skills”, lifelong education, rely on networks, local (see local governance) develop solidarity, deepen our relationship with nature, keep humility in all our actions. Living in the moment, changing the modes of “governance”, relations with customers and suppliers, going beyond competition (see the attitudes of great entrepreneurs mentioned above).

Create, relying on new opportunities, and be aware of the values that protect humanist metamorphosis: awareness, socioperception, body energy, listening.

What to do, focus on action: Creating platforms for initiatives

It’s integrative ecology.

Example: the success of U.S. laboratories on H1N1 in 2010 and the current crisis of testing related to the ill-being and stress of current research executives. (FT article: Inventing COVID testing in a culture of well being. Dennis Sandow, Reflexus)