Contemplative Inquiry

In recent months I have felt an increasing pull towards better understanding our current ecological, cultural and political crises. From a Druid perspective, I am mindful of my commitments to nature and all beings, and accountability to all our ancestors and descendants. From a contemplative perspective, I am bearing witness to the world in which I breathe: any ‘beyond’ is accessible only from within. From an inquiry perspective there is much to inquire about.

So Jem Bendall’s new book, Breaking Together: a Freedom Loving Response to Collapse (1), is important for me both to learn from and to write about. In this post I describe two concepts that I see as driving the book: ‘deep adaptation’ and ‘critical wisdom’. Bendall explains these concepts in a way that gives me questions to ask and tools to use. Boiled down, they are not complicated. The words that follow are his, not mine.

Deep Adaptation

“Deep Adaptation refers to the personal and collective changes that might help us to prepare for – and live with – a collapse of the societies we live within. Unlike mainstream work on adaptation to ecological and climate change, it doesn’t assume that our current economic, social and political systems can be resilient in the face of rapid climate change. The ethos is one of curious and compassionate engagement with this new reality, seeking to reduce harm and learn from the process, rather than turn away from the suffering of others and nature.

“There is an emphasis on dialogue, with four questions to help people explore how to be and what to do if they have this deep outlook on the future.

“What do we want to keep and how is a question of resilience.

“What do we need to let go of, so as not to make matters worse, is a question of relinquishment.

“What could we bring back to help us with these difficult times, is a question of restoration.

“With what and who shall we make peace as we awaken to our mutual mortality, is a question of reconciliation.”

Critical Wisdom

“What I term ‘critical wisdom’ is the elusive capability for understanding oneself in the world that combines insight from mindfulness, rationality, critical literacy, and intuition.

“A capability for mindfulness involves our awareness of the motivations for our thought, including our mind states, emotional reactions and why we might want to ‘know’ about phenomena.

“A capability for rationality involves an awareness of logic, logical fallacies and forms of bias.

“A capability for critical literacy involves awareness of how the tools by which we think, including linguistically constructed concepts and stories, are derived from, and reproduce, culture, including relationships of power.

“A capability for intuition involves awareness of insights from non-conceptual experiences including epiphanies and insights from non-ordinary states of consciousness.”

For me, Jem Bendall provides an invaluable set of questions to ask and tools to use under the headings of Deep Adaptation and Critical Wisdom. The questions refine my understanding of Deep Adaptation. The combination of understandings that lead to wisdom are, as a set, new to me, though I was already aware of the individual elements. ‘Critical Wisdom’ reframes my sense of wisdom, more clearly experienced as a dynamic processes of wise-ing.

(1) Jem Bendell Breaking Together: A Freedom-Loving Response to Collapse Bristol: Good Works, 2023 (Good Works is an imprint of the Schumacher Institute – see also https://www.schumacherinstitute.org.uk). I can certainly recommend this book now, on the grounds of both its wide knowledge and deep wisdom. I may write a full review in future.

NB: Jem Bendell is a world-renowned scholar on the break-down of modern societies due to environmental change. A full Professor with the University of Columbia, he is a sociologist specialising in critical integrative interdisciplinary research analysis on topics of major social concern. His Deep Adaptation paper influenced the growth of the EXtinction Rebellion movement in 2018, and he created a global network to reduce harm in the face of societal collapse (the Deep Adaptation Forum). Although recognised as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2012, Bendell has been increasingly critical of the globalist agenda on sustainable development.”