![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/the-dao-of-complexity-212x300.jpg\")
<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nDe Gruyter (2024)<\/strong><\/p>\n ISBN\u00a0 978-3110992649<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Reviewed by Ian Mowll I love exploring the connection between science and spirituality. Not just because it\u2019s interesting but because it\u2019s important. I often realise how much my outlook on life is deeply informed by my cultural upbringing which, as the book shows, tends to see the world as a machine which can be manipulated. This has practical implications, and so one of my favourite quotes from the book is this:<\/p>\n People who start to \u2018get\u2019 complexity tend to have one of two reactions. One is a sense of relief; they always thought things were that way and had for a long time questioned the orthodoxy of mainstream management methods. They feel empowered.<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s me down to a tee. Here are 2 practical examples.<\/p>\n In GreenSpirit, we are encouraged by the Charity Commission to have a strategy. That has some value but many of the positive changes I have seen in GreenSpirit are \u2018bottom up\u2019. Some of the best successes are not ones that the organisation may have been specifically seeking but ones that have evolved due to the particular people and activities involved. Complexity theory supports this bottom up approach and knowing this can help me to better understand how the charity grows.<\/p>\n Another example is from a mental health charity I worked as a fundraiser. Fundraising applications had to have targets which could be measured. One of the biggest success of the charity (anecdotally) was to reduce suicides. But, because the numbers involved were small and the reasons for this tragedy are complex, you could not really measure it. The biggest quality to help the service users was compassion \u2013 shown by the support, empathy and understanding provided by the project workers. This quality of compassion could not be measured and easily included in fundraising applications but it was the most significant thing that the charity did. Complexity theory as explained by this book gives me a framework to show how, as a society, we need to have far more emphasis on quality and less on quantity.<\/p>\n This shift from a mechanical world view to one embraced by complexity theory is a huge cultural shift and it could take a long time for wider society to change. But at least this book gives me a firm stepping stone on my journey to understand the world and to respond in more skilful ways to make the world a better place.<\/p>\n I loved the discussions about Daoism and how important values are in any human system. That the values embedded in a system early on can be so important in its ongoing evolution.<\/p>\n I do not pretend to understand everything that is written in the book but at least it has shown me the vistas of this new and growing territory. There is also so much more I could say about the book, there were many \u2018ah-ha\u2019 moments or challenges to my world view to think about.<\/p>\n I cannot find a better way to end this review than to quote from the final paragraph:<\/p>\n This final section, then, presents a call for action \u2013 difficult, courageous, contentious action. It is a call to find our moral compass, face what is happening in the world, show up and play our part. It is a call to nurture our humanity, value life, value others, value the future and stay true. We must embrace our agency, however tiny that might feel. We are all complicit in co-creating the future.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Thank you Jean for your courage and insights in writing this book.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 De Gruyter (2024) ISBN\u00a0 978-3110992649 \u00a0 Reviewed by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","category-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3756,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3754\/revisions\/3756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n<\/em><\/strong>This book is about\u00a0complexity theory, its similarity with Daoism and how we can learn from complexity theory to make sense of the world. The book goes through the scientific cultural background, it gives an explanation of complexity theory and aspects of Daoism and finally how we can apply the lessons learnt to ourselves and the wider world.<\/p>\n