The model below offers a framework to look at our society. It helps to see how things relate to each other, and emerge from one another. I’ve dubbed it the Societal Emergence Model.
The Societal Emergence Model maps how the deepest assumptions of a society unfold, layer by layer, into the lived reality of its people. Reading from the inside out:
The model’s central argument is simple: you cannot sustainably change what people experience without changing what produces it.
Applying the model
A framework only proves its worth when applied to something real.
In the next article, I do exactly that: I take the Societal Emergence Model and apply it to the society we actually live in — the industrial society that has shaped the last two centuries of human organisation.
The result is what I call the Diagnostic Map: a layered account of how the deepest assumptions of that society have unfolded, through its institutions and its structural patterns, into the lived experience of its people. It is not a comfortable read. But it is, I think, a clarifying one.
Check out the Diagnostic Map →
1. UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM
On sustainability
2. UNDERSTANDING HOW THE WORLD WORKS
On nature
On human nature
On the meaning of life and living
On culture
On morality
3. UNDERSTANDING HOW CHANGE WORKS
On the Next Level Society
On behavioral change
On marketing sustainability
4-A. FIXING HOW WE DESIGN THE WORLD
On naturalness
On naturalness in behaviour
On naturalness in art
Artworks of interest
On naturalness in architecture
Architecture of interest: naturalness
On livable architecture
Architecture of interest: livability
On naturalness in design
Design works of interest
4-B. FIXING OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH OURSELVES
On well-being, self care and happiness
4-C. FIXING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BUSINESS AND SOCIETY
On responsible business
On Positive Design & design ethics
On privacy
Progressieve bureaus van Nederland, 2021
OTHER NOTES AND WRITINGS
On digital design, CX/UX, and technology
On the travel & hospitality industry
Miscellaneous