Convenient

I am doing research on reflexive monitoring and in this context on transformative learning. Reflexivity is needed for transformative learning. Transformative learning is not per se about a transformation towards sustainability. It is about transforming the learner’s mind.

There are different types of learning. Object learning or instrumental learning is learning about a task. Like one learns to cicely a bike, speak a new language, or do a handstand. When we engage in this kind of learning we think about the process and refine it. A feedback is involved. It seems this feedback can be conscious or unconscious, and it can be internal or external. Think of the annoying peeping sound when you do not use the seat belt in your car. The peep is a feedback mechanism that tries to teach using the seat belt. Think of the teacher giving you feedback on our math homework. But also think about your own feedback. You bake a cake and once you taste it, you figure that it got too dry. There is no external person telling you the cake is bad. It is your own judgment, your internal process. Hopefully, the result of this learning is that your math improves, that you use a seat belt and that you bake better cakes.

Apart from this type of learning we can also learn about how we learn. This is meta learning. It is about the circumstances of learning, but also about how you interpret what you learn and about why you learn what you learn in the first place. Say you failed another math test. You do everything you can to improve, do all the homework, do extra exercises, but nothing works. Then maybe you start thinking about the conditions under which you learn and the conditions under which you do your exams. Maybe there is some other variable that you must consider improving. Maybe it is about dealing with stress, maybe you do not sleep enough, maybe you are distracted when you do your homework. All of these considerations are about how you learn, not about the task (learning math) itself.

This seems a trivial step, but I think that we often do not think about how we learn. I see this also when I observe people learning handstands. People keep on kicking their feet up in the hope that one day the feet will stay up. Likely they will. But likely this approach takes much longer and is much more frustrating than when we approach learning with more strategy.

These considerations about learning can be about many more things. We could ask for example, why we have to learn math at all. This is a deeper question about our society and the role of math within it. We can also ask, why women are prepared to care for kids and clean the house? Thus, we are not asking, how to do these things better (e.g. getting a washing machine or using a different detergent). We are asking more fundamental questions about why I have to learn certain things, but not my brother.

Questions of this sort are what transformative learning is about. We question our unquestioned assumptions, values, worldviews that we are often unaware of. I am a sustainability transformations researcher and I am interested in figuring out how a sustainability transformation can be achieved. I believe that changing our minds, including my own, is crucial to achieve transformations. We need to understand that the dude in the big loud car is a prick and not something we all should aspire to. We should learn that climate change is not fine, just because we can install air conditioning. We should learn that inequality is not a natural force but is created by human design. We have to learn that just because we can grow our GDP, which allows us to buy the big loud car and the AC, that this will not eliminate the fact that we are living on a planet with finite resources. And we should learn to better not listen to people who tell us, that the solution is to colonize Mars.

Addressing deep held unquestioned assumptions, will be the way out of the crisis we are facing now. But this is not easy. It is not easy for various reasons. For example, those who profit form the status quo, invest in maintaining the technofix narrative (because they sell fancy cars, space missions or GPUs). Or they invest in narratives that make us hate each other so that we do not look at the root cause of things (like CEOs making massive profits from exploiting workers).

Transformative learning is also not easy because it is about questioning our values, our believes, our worldviews. When we start question our values, we might realize that there is a rift between us and our family, our group of friends, our employer, the nation we grew up in, etc. Thus, transformative learning can be isolating, which is not a nice thing. But also, it can lead us to question our identity. Imagine you do no longer identify with the values of your family. Not only may this be isolating, you might also question who you are and what the right values are. It can be smaller things, like disappointing your father that you do not want to become a lawyer or take over the firm. It can be bigger things about your religious believes, social hierarchies, etc. Thus, all of this is unsettling.

Doing research for a paper on transformative learning, I read this passage. “Therefore, I suggest that as a prerequisite to becoming aware of and assessing the problematic assumptions in reflection, one needs to recognize and accept the edge-emotions, so as to become aware of, assess, and explore their bases. The bases of these emotions may be seen to be the very assumptions that have become problematic” (Mälkki, 2010, p. 56).

It struck me. Change is uncomfortable. But we can only transform if we deal with the uncomfortable situation. Instead of engaging in mechanisms to avoid the discomfort we have to sit with it. I immediately had to think about Ashtanga yoga. I do no longe practice it, but I did for a long time. One thing it teaches you is sitting with the discomfort, exploring it and finding room in it. When I stretch, people sometimes ask me how I manage to find peace in this uncomfortable situation. It is because of yoga. It taught me to accept the situation as is and to not fight it. The interesting thing is, that often, at least after some time, you find a good spot within the discomfort (which is when you have to increase the discomfort again). The interesting thing also is that in this practice you voluntarily enter a stage of discomfort. You could stop at any time. No one forces you to do this. Yet you do it. That is not necessarily masochism. Teachers told me, that yoga is about life. It is not about being bendy or physically strong (although that helps in life as well). The practice of yoga brings other lessons, such as being able to deal with discomfort. This is about doing a twist that first reduces your breathing space before you find space to deeply breathe again. It is about seeing your own body, realizing your own judgement and then letting go of that too. Even when I stopped with yoga, this was about accepting the identity change that came with this process. It was painful and I had to sit with it.

To transform, we need to be able to voluntarily delve into discomfort and stay there. Sit with it, calmly reflect on it. Now here is what made me pause. We are increasingly living in a society in which we are reducing discomfort. As per usual, a disclaimer. No this is not about going back to stone age. But think about it, many things are extremely convenient. And we get angry and annoyed very quickly if things are not as convenient as we want. That is also what money buys us, convenience. Not standing in line, not sweating, not having to cook, no chores, etc. This is what we aspire to, more convenience. This is why we might engage in an inconvenient job. To have more convenience. Listen to what the AI and the robot salesmen tell you. They promise that we will all have a personal robot doing all the chores for us. That this promise is completely ridiculous needs to be treated in a different blog post. The point is, what salesmen think we need is convenience. Everything delivered at our doorstep without friction and hardly any waiting time.

And I think it is one thing, if this happens on a more physical level, like not having to stand in line at the airport or at the supermarket. Though, I think that this does something to the mind of rich people and I absolutely think that everyone should learn to stand in line.

It is another thing, if we increasingly avoid cognitive discomfort. Yes, this is about social media, our phones and AI. I think it did not start with social media, but I think social media elevated it to a new level. It helps us to make standing in line more bearable. Imagine you have to just stand and wait…. Just wait and be! Imagine. Look around, we are unable to just be. Be with our thoughts. This reminds me of when I was a heavy smoker. There was no point in the day, where I just existed. It was always me and my cigarette. The smart phones are doing just the same. And you see how much people are already disconnecting from reality. Have a look at how many people will not even wear headphones to watch the content. Don’t get me wrong, I am not perfect. I engage in many of these things too. That is because all of this is addictive. And it is meant to be.

With AI this is hitting yet another level. We outsource thinking. To engage in transformative learning, not only do we have to sit with discomfort, we also need to be able to reflect. We outsource this ability too. Because it is faster and much more convenient than having to do the thinking ourselves. I get it. Work pressure is high, it is this stupid presentation, this annoying essay, etc. With a click the discomfort is magically gone. And we even feel accomplished because we are so clever to use AI. We might not primarily use AI to reflect on things. Though some engage with AI to have a reflection sparring partner. Yet, we let the machine do the thinking for us. Reflection is something that we need to learn, that needs to be built up. My generation and the generation before still learned to reflect. AI was not a thing. A couple of generations down the line, this might no longer be the case. What is bring us convenience now, might have much more severe consequences down the line.

We have to pause and think, critically reflect. What world are we creating and why? We have to think this to the end. No one would have predicted that the phones we carry in our pockets would once dictate our lives. How will this world look like in 20 years? Or in 50 years? Will we comfortably have given up all our humanity? Likely, once we lost our ability to critically reflect, we have lost our ability to transform our world and to evolve as human species. What is then left of us and our intelligence?

I do not think that we have to do all the things that are inconvenient. I think some of the cult around inconvenience is quite toxic (like the self-improvement cult, that asks you to cold plunge and have a health regime that will put you in a burn out in no time). On the other hand, we are proud of running a marathon, write a book (or read a book!), proud of finishing a project that has taken much time and effort. It is not only the achievement, it is the process that changes us. It is all the skills we gain in the process. What would be left of us, our lives, if all is delivered to our doorstep? If all is a flat line? If we have to consume content to have some emotional reaction? If we give up our power to create, to think about stuff, to find solutions to problems.

Reference:

Mälkki, K. (2010). Building on Mezirow’s Theory of Transformative Learning: Theorizing the Challenges to Reflection. Journal of Transformative Education, 8(1), 42-62. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344611403315