Moving from a political led approach to a systems thinking approach
It’s a little understood fact amongst politically active people that most people tend to find politics really boring. Political tribalism and limited thinking reduces everything to soundbites and makes long term problem solving almost impossible on a national scale. Scotland becoming independent is seen as a party political position but it shouldn’t be. It’s a constitutional position, it’s about optimising the systems of governance of a nation. Politics shouldn’t be anywhere near the constitutional question.
This is because any party, of any colour, running Scotland for the benefit of Scotland’s people, communities, economy and environment, will be infinitely better than London rule because Scotland’s problems are better understood by people who understand Scotland.
No political party can deliver independence on its own, nor a wellbeing economy. Both must come from the people because politicians don’t create waves, they ride them.
Therefore, the addiction to political leadership in the independence movement is a huge problem and limits its progress. No political party can deliver independence on its own, nor a wellbeing economy. Both must come from the people because politicians don’t create waves, they ride them. The nature of tribal politics means that it’s divisive, more about power and survival, rather than the need to manage generational systems change in the face of a pending environmental and neoliberal economic disaster.
All political parties have an overriding goal of winning elections. Political thinking is therefore focussed on being seen to take action rather than actually solving the systemic problems that undermine society, economy and environment. In a nutshell, to address Scotland’s problems we need to apply long term holistic systems thinking and not tick box short-termism. No political party can deliver independence on its own, nor a wellbeing economy. Both must come from the people because politicians don’t create waves, they ride them. 20 Systems thinking transcends the quick fixes of political thinking and sources longer term systemic solutions. Politicians tend to address symptoms and not the fundamental causes of societal problems. This means we get policies that often generate a false expectation of relief but cause long term worsening of the underlying system failures.
In contrast, a systems thinking approach is about engaging with everyone with knowledge to share on problems, so that we are collecting knowledge not projecting politics. Understanding and addressing the complex interconnected components of problems allows the possibility of creating sustainable, long-term wellbeing solutions, by addressing the health of a whole system and not just high profile symptoms. In short, people don’t like to be messaged at, they like to be listened to.
A new referendum right now would be a bitter political debate, not the open and creative cultural conversation that Scotland needs.
Although public engagement will remain simple, social and democratic, the design of the Citizens’ Convention and how it operates and gathers evidence and opinion will be based on a systems thinking approach. This is because the Citizens’ Convention will not be in the business of promoting policies or political partisanship but will be there to solve Scotland’s fundamental problems and drive an exponential increase in our nation’s ambitions. It will do this by facilitating a more positive mindset change and socioeconomic paradigm shift.
A better engagement process than a referendum?
Properly implemented, a Citizens’ Convention would be a better way to have that conversation than a referendum campaign: the latter involves adversaries taking set positions and refusing to engage, in a process distorted by political party tribalism and corporate donations to the UK Government made to maintain favour and government contracts. The dominant right wing media would continue to misrepresent the facts about Scotland and the official opposition would scaremonger and make unsubstantiated claims. A new referendum right now would be a bitter political debate, not the open and creative cultural conversation that Scotland needs.
A referendum can be expected to trigger political loyalties, thus encouraging divisive political language. Whereas, in contrast, attacking a Convention, whose goal is the creation of a better Scotland, would backfire on the forces of conservatism.
Managed by a committee of trustees to ensure high levels of organisational governance, the Convention’s conclusions will be voted on in the Scottish Parliament, in order to give official democratic credibility to The Convention’s conclusions.