How food prices, the Arabian spring, and a crisis in consciousness are connected

Did you know that China has a strategic pork reserve? Sudden spikes in food prices could send the world’s political systems into turmoil, and may have been a root cause of the Arabian spring. In “Let Them Eat … What? High Food Commodity Prices Could Cause A Global Revolution,” Greg Lindsay of Fast Company summarizes the findings of a pointed NECSI study:

Letting them eat cake has always been a surefire way to spark a revolution, but did a spike in food prices, as opposed to a thirst for liberty, ignite the Arab Spring? And is that just the first of a series of much worse conflagrations? That’s the conclusion of a scientific paper submitted for publication earlier this month by researchers at the New England Complex Systems Institute, which found a causal relationship between critically high food prices and social unrest.

Using the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index as a benchmark, the paper’s authors argued that past a certain price point for food–which was crossed shortly before the global food riots in 2008 and again in late 2010 on the cusp of the Arab Spring–citizens begin to look at their rulers differently. To borrow the lingo of complexity science, the relationship between food prices and the consent of the governed is “non-linear,” i.e. “widespread unrest does not arise from long-standing political failings of the system,” the authors wrote, “but rather from its sudden perceived failure to provide essential security to the population.” All’s quiet, in other words, until a certain threshold is crossed, when all hell breaks loose. And now the bad news: If current trends continue, the authors note, prices will permanently cross that barrier as early as next July. Prepare for a lot of angry people.

Politicians tell us that U.S. foreign policy is intended to export democratic values worldwide, but they neglect to mention that Wall Street has its own agenda which doesn’t necessarily coincide with our national interest. Research shows that factors as the deregulation of commodities markets and consequent speculation in the US probably had a destabilizing influence on food prices.

Complexity demands a higher level of thinking

When thinking about America’s role in the world, we need to consider the influence of multiple socio-economic systems built on different value systems and led by individuals who have not only different values but different worldviews. What’s more, getting affordable food for the world’s population depends on changing hearts and minds of people in power in Wall Street, Congress, and the White House … and the public who invest in their pension plans and elect politicians.

These are additional reason for supporting and electing leadership at all levels of business and government who are capable of integrating diverse world views and synthesizing innovative solutions. And if there’s truth to the latest research, additional political instability is assured if nothing is done.

Very real problems faced by billions throughout the world — such things so basic as to whether parents can afford to feed their children — depend on the emergence of more sophisticated, integral ways of thinking about problems and more effective methods of addressing multi-dimensional crises.

Dominant modes of thinking are too compartmentalized to recognize interdisciplinary methodologies and overlapping insights, and they too often offer poor one-size-fits-all solutions because they neglect to consider the role of consciousness development. But who is talking about the core dilemma of our time as a crisis in consciousness, not just a crisis in commodity prices?

Five political steps for the Integral community to consider

People who find themselves with an integral worldview, having integrally informed perspectives, or appreciating integral values are not  without responsibility for the crisis of consciousness in our culture. Have we done enough to create the sort of awareness and effective actions necessary for bringing about political change?

Here are some of the steps that are worth discussing, all of which work within the current economic and political system. Some of these ideas have already had steps taken towards them, though honestly such efforts have not received much publicity and are little known:

1. What sort of Political Action Committee (PAC) might we create and contribute to in order to advance political candidates who demonstrate more integral levels of awareness than others?
2. What other sort of political interest groups might we create and contribute to which can publish voters’ guides to publicize the failings of most politicians to rise to an integral awareness and praise more integrally-minded politicians?
3. What sort of political platform, manifesto, or program might we create and contribute to? How can it be supported by ongoing research and think-tank activities?
4. Is it necessary to create a separate Integral Party in order to field candidates? Unless such candidates were extremely well qualified and funded, they would be unlikely to have much electoral success. However, by participating in campaign debates, rallies, and fundraisers, they could begin to inject Integral Politics more into the mainstream.
5. How can integral ideas be brought into support of established political parties and have greater influence on their policy-making?

The next steps forward

As I recently said, I am in agreement with Steve McIntosh who recently argued that the most important activism we can do today is to build the integral worldview itself. I offered some practical places for us to start in building the worldview:

Unless others know that we see the world a little differently (better yet, that we inhabit a different world, but I digress), they don’t know that there’s another option out there. Many of them won’t care. Their reactions will be what they will be. If they’re not drawn to it, they’re not drawn to it. Some will react in ways that cause us pain.

But a certain percentage of them (that is, the future Integralists) will be inspired because they will see in Integral ideas what we’ve seen in them. They will respond as if they’ve seen what they’ve known to be true all along but couldn’t find the words to express … only more detailed, intellectually rigorous, and expansive than anything else they’ve seen.

Where can you start? Ask around. If you ask me, I will tell you to start a blog. (Ask and I’ll link to it here, and other bloggers will do the same on their blogs.) Use social media to learn about Integral and share ideas with others.

Like Integral articles on Facebook. Follow Integral people on Twitter. Connect with them on LinkedIn. Write your own thoughts in an article or blog post, and ask your church or professional association to publish it. Squeeze Integral somewhere in your résumé.

That’s why I’m blogging on Awake, Alive & Aware … I notice and am deeply concerned with the frequently inadequate level of thinking among our dominant pundits, policy wonks, philosophers, spiritual teachers, theologians, executive officers, and other world leaders.

I am convinced that 1 percent to 5 percent of leaders and influencers out there already think at an integral level of cognitive development. If they begin to become self-aware of that fact and seek out ways of becoming more stabilized and effective at that level, then this will create more opportunities for them to steer society’s institutions in ways that create a world with more democratic and well-integrated political systems, greater economic development, and an overall better world.

But this won’t happen if integral ideas are presented in such a way that they seem too complex or inside baseball. Being part of an integral wave is, for many millions of people, something that can be experienced as a moment of discovery, healing, and greater appreciation of a beautiful, evolving, and self-aware world.