Participant: Alessandro Bellafiore
Affiliation: Department of Communication Sciences, Faculty of Sociology, University of Urbino
Format: Presentation and Conversation
Themes: paradigm, praxis

The rise of ecological ideas has meant the entry of a new population in the ideas ecosystem. A walk-on producing an huge change in self-representation of human groups in relation to the rest of the existing world; as an unavoidable consequence, previous narratives became apparently inadequate and a process of innovation is therefore necessary, with an interesting opportunity for applying the paradigm of ideas evolution on a concrete and significant topic.

A change in the description of ourselves as species – with our role, our goals, our rights – and the acceptance of both a set of limitations and a more inclusive concept of variance, seem to be the two main elements; in few words, it’s the well known switch from an anthropocentric perspective to an ecological one.
It means a mutation in social institutions, and in culture, of which, in a circular dynamic, institutions are an expression; a mutation that present conditions and the urge of ecological issues require to be quick and effective, but that institutions (firstly, the political ones) often look to be unable to perform or guide.
Here there is the main concern in translating new ideas into new conditions: evaluating if ideas and culture in our society are still sufficiently flexible and adaptive – in Bateson’s opinion, the distinctive qualities of a cultural behavior – or if, through iteration and self-confirmation, have developed some rigid features of an instinct.

Many theories and paradigms have been developed about change and adaptive management but, on the other hand, west societies have created a complex web of rules, laws and contracts aimed to a cultural continuous removal of variance and unforeseen from everyday life and policies.

Which conditions may be obtained earlier: the ones producing an effective evolution in ideas and institutions, or those tied to a potentially dramatic state shift?