What The World Needs Now…. Is Discernment.
Very few institutions encourage, much less teach discernment, in recent times. When I was a child, the adults around me encouraged me to memorize authoritative bible scriptures and recite some verses daily. The idea was that I would recall them when the time arrived and not have to think or question, but to obey. My church minister often spoke of ‘drumming teachings into children. “The hope was for these texts to reference moral and ethical ways to live. My paternal grandmother frequently spoke, knowingly, about family and the commandments I was to live up to, although they were modified to meet her message of the moment. I could never recite them on a spur-of-the-moment test, at least not come up with the one demanded when I was falling short in behavior. Even at the time, I was aware that the platitude conditioning did not work. On me at least.
On the other hand, my maternal grandfather, raised in an indigenous Mohawk culture and worldview, had a different method. He engaged me to ‘understand the effect of my choices” he called it. He used a ‘parallel learning’ process versus a “teaching moment”. He never corrected me or instructed me in the moment of shortfalls based on external authority. He engaged me as part of a discovery process as we reflected on the workings of the world we were embedded in.
We would frequently walk through creek-side paths and look at the effect of human, animal, and living patterns on the place. It was very akin to tracking processes offered today. This was teaching a process to find my own answers. It involved reflecting and interpreting, based on actions and how they had played out. So, we did this routinely not just when I “fell short.’ But, if I brought up a concern, he would ask me to do the same process. Look at the earlier choices, what I was holding in mind when I made the choice, and what the effect was of my choice. He was developing my capacity for discernment with this reflective process.
Discernment, in my experience, is the ability to perceive, understand, and judge things clearly, especially those that are not obvious or straightforward. Discernment, in wisdom traditions, points to a reference for higher morality and effects; getting as close to an ethical perfect or universal answer as can be ascertained. References sources like the Sermon on the Mount in Christian traditions. Or The Four Noble Truths in Buddhism. The Five Pillars of Islam.
True discernment means not only distinguishing the right from the wrong; it means distinguishing the primary from the secondary, the essential from the indifferent, the timeless from the urgent, and the permanent from the transient. And, yes, it means distinguishing between the good and bad or the better, and even between the better and the best. We are often called in to make these choices on small and large subjects, and we fail to assess the quality of our thinking, choices, and effects.
I am particularly concerned when doing this with really big questions like ecological, planetary, and societal questions. We have lots of borrowed, unexamined ideas but have lost the capacity for discernment, or maybe never gained it. We cannot tell if our borrowed ideas, from grandparents, ministers, teachers, or authoritative experts, are likely to lead to the outcome we claim they will. We blindly follow.
It is the ability to make discriminating judgments, to distinguish between, and recognize the moral and practical implications of different situations and courses of action. It includes the ability to “weigh up” and assess the ethical and spiritual choices of individuals, groups, and even movements. We quickly become attached to ideologies and the smaller references that accompany them. Like what our friends or consultants think. And most often the condemnation they offer that accompanies it. Thus, we fall into judgmentalism, for the lack of discerning and discriminating processes.
How do we develop Discernment?
One capability that needs to be brought to bear is Essence thinking as the process. By imaging the working of Living systems. That was my grandfather’s parallel or tracking process. It is a form of critical thinking skills using a 'Living Systems at Work,' Mind to discern the precise heart of the matter. (The concept of Nature is a distraction in thinking since it is a static, objectified, view of living systems at work) Living Systems at Work is a non-fragmenting view, with no externalities created, and with a nodal engagement for each role in a living system, including redefining a Human’s role.
If we look at a frog working in a system, we consider what is needed for it to do its work. If we only look at the frog, we cannot understand its role in its ecosystem. A first level of fragmentation. If we dissect the frog and name its parts, it is dead. We cannot see it, in process, even of its own function. We can tell by our language about the parts created. When seeing it ‘at work,’ we use verbs. When we see fragments, it is nouns. A bear, versus a bear dining in a river on particular geology formation that is shaped and worn by cascading hydrological processes. When the bear in its a system, we see what comes about from living patterns for centuries. We stop seeing food as something on our table, but rather as a value-adding process in a particular life shed with centuries of geological activity making it what it is. When we fragment, we see soil, parcels, and seeds as separate and not at work. We don't figure out how to fix it soil by augmentation, but rather how to evolve its capacity to do that work. We stop being heroes with missions, visions, and purposes.
This is discernment with rigor in judgment but without judgmentalism.
What is the Value of Discernment? How does this discernment affect the way we live?
Discernment acts as a prime instrument of regeneration. It calls for grace and humility when engaging living systems including other humans and consideration for their essence process. I have known a small number of people whose ability to ascertain the aims and aspirations of others has been remarkable. Such people seem able to penetrate into the heart issues someone else faces better than the person can do for themselves. Of course, this is in some ways a dangerous gift. They must only do this essence revealing with those they commit to love forever- for their own lifetime. When exercised in love, discernment can be the surgical scalpel to consciousness that makes understanding possible. Without love, it is projection and prejudice.
I have known others who can walk in the woods and see it at work. How and what animals have passed through, how long ago, and what their work was along the trail. They often have tears from seeing the pattern an injured animal leaves. Empathy, compassion or caring is an effect and discernment. It evokes love.
Specifically, discernment catalyzes unitive energy development: One with a whole and see self as embedded in it. Why? Because the discerning person goes to the heart of the matter to understand it.
For a person interested in development of themselves and living systems, discernment is a process that helps an individual reach a deep understanding of that which is hidden or not obvious, the likely effects of each action, and therefore best decision. The Latin root of “discernment” means to “separate” or “set apart.” In life, it is the ability to separate automatic from higher energies, truth from falsehood, and wisdom from foolishness.
Yet, we need to recognize that discernment doesn't just happen but requires hard work and attentiveness.
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Why we need discernment.
In a way, the essence of the discernment process is being able to differentiate between ego and my people of the world, and the greater voice of Life, and to recognize when something feels right or wrong— for all of Life.
There are a lot of compassionate and well-intended people offering practices and programs to resolve climate change, societal injustice and inequity, habitat loss, and attention to our deteriorating cities. But discernment is lacking. They cite platitudes and offer practices but do not use personal discernment to determine if it is really what is needed. It is missing the higher-order reference that helps go to the heart of the matter and know what really will work, versus salving our conscience. They are missing a reference point beyond ego and infused from Supra-Implicate order. (David Bohm’s term) Not necessarily religious, but a universal discernment. An example of this source is found in a higher order reference like the Iroquois seven first principles of living systems. A guide all my life from my grandfather as a reference for discernment. (https://medium.com/@carolsanford/heeding-einsteins-admonition-a-white-paper-on-regeneration-s-significance-e4bbbe702670)
What do we lose when we are not discerning?
I cringe when I see people use the term regeneration nowadays. It is mostly offered from a humanist or environmentalist paradigm, not a living systems paradigm. There is little discernment among differences in the use of the term. As Herb Simon, the Nobel Prize Economist said, anything better than the bad, is good. So, if it is not from the extra value from forests,
We don’t know how to have developmental dialogues, in a way that new precise thoughts are born or considered. Or imprecise ideas are questioned, upgraded or dismissed. We cling to our firmly held ideas, preventing ourselves from seeing a higher-order reference, like that of The Iroquois First Principles. Particularly, by how we always begin with fragmenting the ‘what,’ and ‘how,’ which is how we make sense of the world. It is hard to move beyond what we are attached to, and already believe in. Especially our ideas about how humans and living systems work and how change happens. The field of change theory and practice is mostly advanced by consultants offering the next ‘best practices;’ and if it ‘trends’ with a big-name company, then it spreads even further; we add to our toolbox, always unexamined. We don’t stop to assess before adopting. We don't ask if the idea has an outcome that is meaningful or even related to the interventions. The Hawthorn[1] effect always works to some degree. Other consultants adopted the new approach because the originating consultants sold the approach and became famous with a replicable response, so it is saleable. We don’t just take on one thing but pile on more unexamined ideas into our existing practice.
Results of Lack of Discernment
As a result, we have a Bolt-on approach to education, consulting, and corporate training. Even parenting! We collect a hodge-podge of ideas, old and new, unexamined as to how they all fit together, the effects they are having, and sometimes damage that is being done from ignorance of the theory from which they are built. (e.g., behaviorism) Mixing ideas is common with most consultants and staff organizational change agents. In fact, there are so many approaches to practice that consultants or organizations feel like they cannot afford to miss one. No time to question them or discern what is effective. And they assume that these approaches are neutral as to their effect on people. Their organizational members hope that, at worst they might do some good.
There is rarely anything removed from the roster of tools, completely. It looks a bit like a home that people have added new rooms to for hundreds of years. You have to go through one room to get to the next and then the next.
The downside is a shotgun, bolt-on approach to change, and the hazards that go with it. Try it all and hope for the best. This is creating a culture and organization that functions without a focus, without consciousness of effects, and no clear corporate direction to pull all the horses in the same direction causing waste and confusion. Our attention is decreasing each year, and our ability to maintain the intention of things that really matter.
Generally, we end up lacking in rigor, discipline, and development of capability appropriate to our nodal reference. We don’t know what we are departing from if we have no focusing mechanism to reference.
Missing ingredient in developing a Direction or Focusing Point:
The core missing idea of a Bolt-On approach is not understanding that different levels of experiencing the same phenomena exist simultaneously. We have life partners who often help us see what we are missing with our children or even with situations with friends. What we are missing is taking another perspective we have not and often do not consider until it is pointed out to us. What we understand then is that the expanded or evolved is lost without being able to step between these levels of perspective. It is often called a different worldview. Holding a different framing. Mental models or mental biases. It is the meat and potatoes of discernment.
When we do open to a different, more encompassing level it increases our understanding and freedom beyond less encompassing levels.
We can only tap into a new level of experience with a new level of process. We miss part of the experience in lower levels and therefore what that level offers. E.g., Do Good versus Evolve Capacity paradigms. These frameworks show up in many cultures as part of educating the members and can be organizing (how fit together) or ordering frames (how they effect outcomes at different levels of significance).
The mixing and matching practices, picking and ignoring of ideas are not unusual in organizations where everything is seen on the same level and not evaluated as a system or for effects. Change agents borrow from different paradigms. But ordering by levels of paradigms provides a frame for assessing the levels of outcome and effects and assessing a way to see the importance, impact, or significance of some outcomes over others. This is how it is possible to elevate values above just activities we check off as done. What values are being advanced when we take action? Values frame our activities. So do paradigms. Without an ordering framework agreed on in a culture, we cannot determine the answers to such questions as How Do We Assess Effectiveness and Effects.
It is clear when we think about hierarchies in a company. We are expected to see, understand, and manage more, the higher our level on the ladder. We then have more freedom of decision-making. This is a misapplication of the ideas of levels or ordering but is likely a misguided attempt to fulfill the living system and developmental version of the ordering of ideas. We all have the sense that some people can see things and lift us up because of this. And others are stuck in a way of seeing the world that causes pain and traps them.
This is what is missing when we mix and match, select, and ignore practices and ideas as though in a flatland world. And we undermine the very capability needed to solve our biggest problems by not discerning levels, teaching discernment of levels, and building capacity for attention and intention about outcomes at different levels. “It’s all good,” we say. But the process of shotgun borrowing and practicing undermines and hides the fact that the idea can matter, and it can be assessed by understanding levels of effects and effectiveness.
The wisdom sages have a way of showing us how this works in living systems, and how we can do this for ourselves. Not just one thing having an impact on another thing. The levels are not equal in importance, effectiveness, or power of transformation. They are not all the same but are at different levels of affect and effects. People are not taught to see levels unless they are artificial ones like power structures. We only learn about categories. We see children and families as different categories. Not the nested levels of ordering. Of meaning, significance, leverage, or more impactful.
Our Developmental School calls this an ordering process. Almost no other School develops this capacity in humans so they can assess and design change with shared ordering frameworks. We lose the opportunity by mixing frameworks with non-living-systems models that are most often at different levels of order and therefore different levels of effects. It is the first phase of assessment, setting the path to use for observing consciousness, which creates integrity, or lack thereof, in thinking. What are the paradigm, worldview, and levels of work? Ordering frameworks help us discern, with dialogue and engagement, what we are producing in the world by our actions and what are the implications of these choices.
Levels of thinking hierarchy must not be confused with power hierarchies or one person over another. They are assessment hierarchies to improve our thinking about an action, change practices, and effects in a self-determining way, They are not to order authority but reflect on discerning processes. If you are averse to power structures and you associate ordering frameworks with levels, you miss a powerful, not power over, way to be discerning.
[1] Harvard studies at Hawthorn Electric in the 1960s that any intervention will create some improvement, just by destabilizing the current practices. Even new lights in the parking lot of a business.