Text:
Jitske Kramer
Published
27 May 2024
Reading time:
15 minutes
If you look through an anthropological lens at seemingly unconnected incidents, protests and escalations in society (or your organisation), you will see that they are part of a larger coherent whole.
Cultures always have their own internal logic. In major changes, it is not one small area that changes, but the coherence and whole logic of the cultural story is challenged. That makes the phase of liminality during transformations so intensely. All sorts of things that used to be normal are no longer so. The familiar cultural narrative is under pressure, causing heated debates. I wrote The book Tricky Times about.
If the answers no longer fit the changing environment or developments within the culture, it means that people have to look for new answers.
Cultures do not fall from the sky, cultures we make together. People form cultures and cultures form people. Cultures are systems of meaning. They tell us about aesthetics, about what is beautiful and what is not. About morality, about what is right and what is wrong. About what we should believe, about what is true and what is not. Culture gives us unique answers to all kinds of universal questions, so we don't have to think about everything all over again. Think of universal questions such as: what is good leadership, how do we deal with time, with living well together, with gender differences, with the distribution of wealth, with nature, et cetera.
Each group has found slightly different answers to the same human questions over the years. Since nothing has meaning of its own, people have to make meaning of life together, and each group does that slightly differently. The key questions are how to live together peacefully and how to cooperate fruitfully. The unique answers make up a specific culture. When the answers no longer fit the changing environment or developments within the culture, it means that people have to look for new answers. That is culture change.
Culture creates order in the chaos around us, shapes our relationships, our systems and the physical and virtual world we live in. It is a persistent misconception that culture is only about ‘relationships, manners and symbols’.
Systems are not separate from culture, something many people think. In other words, culture shows itself in the interplay of the ‘hard’ organisational side (also called the ‘blue’ side or system world) and the ‘soft’ relational side (called the life world). Culture is also known as a collective fantasy that we have all come to believe in. When we all believe in the same framework, it gives a foothold in our thinking and actions.
A culture change is the combination of a change in the collective narrative (the values), the collective behaviour patterns (the norms) as well as a transformation of the systems in the physical reality and the online world. So a system change is always also a culture change.
If we resist the temptations of the trickster can withstand, we can cut right through the turbulence of transitions.
You could say that in Europe (in the world) we have been working on a great social project for the past 400 years: improving people's lives through material progress.
Economic growth was gradually chosen as the engine of the economy, becoming central to everyone's lives. In terms of cultural formation, ‘economic growth’ became an important core value, forming the basis of a cultural narrative, with resulting collective patterns of behaviour, laws and systems. Anything that can promote economic growth is seen as beautiful and good in this cultural narrative. People who are good at bringing about material growth are given leadership and power to further shape the world as they see fit. Our current culture is shaped, by always including the aspect of economic growth in our answers to all kinds of universal questions.
Economists have much more influence on political choices than sociologists, anthropologists, biologists and psychologists. This is well explained from the dominant influence of economics and the core cultural value of economic growth. Those who contribute directly to this holy grail gain prestige and importance.
Our lives are steeped in economic ideas presented as sacred laws. Working with formulas and models, economics looks more like an exact science than the social science it actually is. The real world is much more capricious than economic models, which have major shortcomings and are full of outdated assumptions about human drives. Economists are not neutral researchers. Behind the seemingly objective figures and graphs is a huge mountain of cultural assumptions and perceptions, giving economic models political colouring and intertwined with unspoken human images. Economics is part of our cultural narrative. Not a law of nature, it does not fall from the sky, but is full of moral and political choices. It is a story, a concept, something we collectively give meaning to.
In the formation of culture, power relations play an important role because culture, and thus our actual living world, is created in interaction and decision-making. In every interaction, we create the stories we believe in.
In doing so, it matters what you say, where you say it, how you say something, but also who says something. Not everyone has the same power to make decisions or the position to participate in the conversation at all. We listen to some and not others. There are always people who have power over others, people are hierarchical beings and will always build monkey bars. The groups we form also always have boundaries. Within groups and between groups, we have to find ways to deal with the ever-present contradictions, clashing opinions and power relations. So culture formation and change is also always about power. In every decision we make, we change the world or perpetuate what we have.
Major changes are not a matter of planning to get from A to B. It is much more leaving A behind and then finding exactly what B entails and how to shape it together with those involved.
During the liminal phase of transformations we are, as it were, lost in our own personal or cultural story and challenged to find new ways and paths. It takes courage to acknowledge that while we know things have to change, we are not yet sure exactly what it should look like, how to get there or how long it will take.
Major changes are not a matter of planning to get from A to B. It is much more putting A behind you and then finding exactly what B entails and how to shape it together with stakeholders. We will have to drastically reduce our CO2 emissions, but it is unclear how. What will it cost? What will it yield? Is it feasible? Is it scalable? What are others doing...? These are mostly the kinds of questions we ask. It is exactly these questions that make us keep doing what we were doing. They pull all the energy out of good intentions and condemn us to the status quo that we increasingly see is not sustainable. We know, we get annoyed, but really changing is easier said than done. It is incredibly difficult to think outside these boxes. It's hard to imagine that we could ask different questions too, but what would happen if we asked questions like: Will this make you and people around you happier now and in the future? Is it good for the planet? Does it make things easier? Does it make things more beautiful?
Navigating through liminality means accepting that we do not understand things. You step consciously, as it were, on the threshold between the known and the unknown, the familiar and the strange.
Anthropologists call this liminality. You recognise that truth is complex and open yourself to new perspectives and possibilities, accepting that your answers and beliefs are not the final truth either. It takes personal leadership with creation and courage to arrive at new solutions. Creation to allow new things to emerge, courage to break with old things and integrate new things. Leadership is something that affects us all and in which we all have a responsibility. Leadership to liminality means standing on the threshold and guiding the space of chaos. Not by providing all kinds of solutions ourselves, but by guiding the process of getting there. And harnessing the creative power of the trickster exploit and not be tempted by misleading or shabby trickster tactics.
“People form cultures, and a culture forms people”.
The uncomfortable truth, of course, is that those who benefit greatly from the current system also have much to lose from a change. A peaceful transformation requires brave leaders who dare to start acting from a new narrative, even if that means their own position and that of their peergroup harms. It requires everyone to take a critical look at their own actions. When this fails, the anger of the groups currently hurting from the current cultural system logically only increases. Transformations are also always about power. As I often say: ‘If the heart of power wants it, it is settled with 24 hours.’ The question then is: where is your power and what does your heart want?
Anyone upset by threats to peace, climate, prosperity, nature or transgender people might want to consult Jitske Kramer. She looks at the great transformations and cultural changes of our time through the lens of cultural anthropology. ‘The current confusion offers plenty of opportunities to do better together again later.’
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