Searching for Serenity in a VUCA-Plus World

Contradiction and Consistency

We have now arrived at the final aspect of our VUCA-Plus environment.  This aspect is most likely to drive people to Perry’s Dualism and an authoritarian regime than any of the other aspects of VUCA-Plus. It is also a condition that is mostly likely to prove challenging to the leader who views themselves as open-minded. We are confronted with messages that are being delivered all the time that are valid—though ambiguous. We often wish that they would remain vague, for when they are clear, these messages often point in quite different directions.

At a trivial level, we are inundated with advertisements that conflict with one another. Which, after all, is the best way to brighten our smile? Do we need one of those fancy whitening trays prepared by our dentist or will one of those much less expensive whitening toothpastes be sufficient? And what about mouth odor, wrinkles and digestive challenges? There is a false sense that we are free when we have all of these trivial choices to make. As Erich Fromm (1955) noted many years ago, there is a pervasive marketing orientation in American life (and in most other Western countries) that distracts us from real matters of freedom. In mid-21^st Century life, this distraction is not confined to Western societies. We even find it in the very different societal structures of China (Ma, 2019). Yet, in the midst of this widespread escape from true freedom, we find a new challenge—this being contradictions in the marketing messages we receive every day. It is hard to be Serene if the world is hitting us hard from many different angles and forcing us to make difficult decisions about things that aren’t ultimately of real importance.

At a more profound level, we find the radical contradictions offered by political candidates. The men and women running for office often seem to be living in quite different worlds. Their differences are not easily resolved. There often does not seem to be a meeting ground. The moderate candidate and those advocating compromise seem to be out-of-date with current polarized political realities. The splitting of political reality into profoundly contradictory camps is exacerbated by the misinformation, lies and distortions offered by one or more of the camps (Weitz and Bergquist, 2022). It is one thing to acknowledge that there are valid differences in the way two political candidates view the problems their constituents are facing. It is quite another thing to be confronted with profound differences based at least in part on the inaccurate information provides by one or both candidates. Contradictions based on different viewpoints can be addressed constructive dialogues whereas falsehoods and deliberate lies often can be addressed only in a courtroom.

There is major systemic impact when contradiction is saturating our 21^st Century life. Credible advice is being offered by people and institutions that can be trusted—but the advice is often inconsistent.  As a result, we can’t trust any expertise, since the “experts” don’t seem to agree on anything. We collectively regress to Multiplicity–to use William Perry’s term (Perry, 1970).  Faces with no one clear “reality,” we decide that there is NO true reality. We turn collectively to expedience in our alignment with authoritative version of “truth.” Whoever has the most power and the highest status provides the “truth” and those who offer their version of the truth from outside the circle of power and status are ignored or isolated. The new golden rule is in effect: “those with the gold rule [and provide the truth]!”