Achieving Transformation in Our Highly Interconnected World I: Systems Thinking and Network Thinking

The central thesis of the Manifesto is that we can transform our societies from their present unhealthy focus on economic self-interest, to a condition where cooperation, mutual support and sustainability are the norm, through the application of humanistic values, as exemplified by many Buddhist principles. In this and the next Chapter I examine how such change might be achieved in practice. In the present Chap. 1 consider our increasingly interconnected socio-economicecological world as a whole, and show how it may be seen as a giant complex adaptive network (a CAN). It is a network because its individual members (such as people, plants, animals, institutions, rocks and oceans) are connected with each other, and interact either directly or indirectly. It is adaptive because the interactions are dynamic, driving change and being changed themselves in turn and over time. Finally, it is complex because the direction and nature of overall change is often both unpredictable and uncontrollable.