This is Andrew Benedict-Nelson, social change strategist and innovation educator. Each week, I share a question that you and your organization can use to find a new perspective on the toughest problems you face. Reply to the e-mail or comment on the site and we can talk about them together!
NOW FOR THIS WEEK’S QUESTION…
Every problem has a past. The history of yours might be a few months or a thousand years. Nevertheless, you’ve probably divided up the past of the problem into different periods or phases. What would you call the period that you are in now? Why does that particular name make sense? What differentiates this time from other eras?
This prompt was inspired by the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Commentary on Her Majesty’s demise often invoked the idea of “the second Elizabethan era.” Of course as a former historian myself, I started to wonder what the heck writers actually mean by that. Was there really something special and distinctive about the years 1952-2022 that makes them different from, say, 1945-2017?
Historians sometimes call this the “problem of periodization.” Of course, any way of carving up history is going to be a little bit arbitrary. I ran into this problem with my senior thesis. “Victorian” is a nice word that denotes a bracket of time as well as a whole way of viewing the world. But the people I was writing about had the temerity to publish their most important books right after Victoria died, so I ended up with a lot of “Victorian and Edwardian.” My advisers suggested that most of it should just become “in the British Empire before World War I.” But a few decades ago it would have been totally normal to write “in the modern era” or “in the Second British Empire,” two schemes of periodization that are less popular now. And that’s just a small, Anglocentric slice of all the different ways you can divide up time.
The point is that the name we give time periods tells us a lot about what we value. In this exercise, you’ll explore those values in two ways: first, by looking at some of the ways people characterize the past of your problem; second, by imagining some of the ways you might characterize the present in that context. Each part will help you see assumptions you couldn’t see before.
HOW TO DO IT
Start by asking yourself if there are any commonly accepted ways of breaking up your problem’s past. Chances are they aren’t quite as formal as “the Victorian era” — it’s okay if some of your labels look like “2005-2007: confusion.” It may also be that people talk about the past of your problem in a way that aligns with other kinds of periodization. For example, the dynamics of many different social problems changed during the Reagan Administration. For now, just try to capture whatever way people normally talk about the parts of your problem’s past.
When doing this exercise, some people find themselves recounting the history of their organization rather than the history of the problem. If that is how the people around you normally talk about the problem you are trying to solve, go ahead and divide up the past that way — we’ll have a chance to look at different ways later.Next, consider what you would call the present time if you were only thinking about it as the most recent chapter of the timeline you just laid out. Don’t overthink it. For this step, if the second Elizabethan end just ended, the third Carolingian age just began (whether Charles III “deserves” his own era or not). People probably aren’t calling the present time by the name you picked just yet, so it may help to imagine someone looking back at this era from the future. How do you think they would characterize this time in opposition to the past? What would be some of the good and bad things about it?
Now it’s time to try out some different periodization schemes for the history of your problem. Some of the other ways historians break up timelines is by major conflicts, technological developments, or the rise and fall of religions and philosophies. When I worked in history of medicine, we should sometimes talk about the time we live in now as occurring “after the second epidemiological transition” which was a fancy way of saying relatively few people in the wealthy parts of the world die of infectious disease most of the time.
Anyway, what are some alternate ways you might break up the history of the big problem you think about every day? If your first timeline was centered on your organization, make sure this one isn’t. Look for other turning points or big shifts in the story. Don’t worry if you can’t assign them specific dates — if professional historians can’t agree on when the Renaissance began, you don’t need to make your dates precise either.Then let’s return to the present again. How would today fit into the different periods you defined? Are we part of an era that stretches far into the past, like “the agricultural era” (~4000 B.C. - present)? Or could we be living in a fairly recent period of change like “the social media era” (~2005 - present)? Look for specific words and phrases to attach to these concepts of the present, even if they seem counterintuitive or even offensive. You never have to share this timeline with anyone. Just try to unearth all your unspoken ideas about how the present relates to the past.
This exercise draws upon a problem-solving approach I call the history dynamic, and the big reveal of this dynamic is always the same: all different ways of looking at the past are legitimate from somebody’s point of view. So now consider the consequences of each of the different ways you characterized the current era in the history of your problem. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages or each perspective? Are there ideas you might be able to pluck from one perspective and use in your everyday life, even if you throw away your imaginary timelines?
CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE?
I had nothing to do with this example, but I really like it. In recent years, scientists trying to raise awareness about climate change and related problems have begun talking about us living in the “Anthropocene” era in the planet’s history. That is to say that the most significant thing going on right now on Planet Earth is the way human beings are changing it. This includes massive negative impacts like the “Sixth Extinction” of plant and animal life characterized by Elizabeth Kolbert. But writers like Analee Newitz and Katherine Hayhoe have also observed that if we radically change our perspectives on our responsibility to Nature, the Anthropocene actually has the potential to be a positive era in the planet’s history. Here’s hoping!
COOL, SO WHAT MAKES THIS WORK?
This question is an example of how to view your problem in new ways using the history dynamic. It’s one of six innovation dynamics I help people master to improve their critical thinking and build strategies for social change. Reply to this e-mail with your answer to the question and I’ll let you know what I think! Or learn more by visiting http://www.teachingsocialchange.com.
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