Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World

by Tyson Yunkaporta

Preindustrial cultures have worked within self-organizing systems for thousands of years to predict weather patterns, seasonal activity, and the dynamics of social groups, then manage responses to these complexities in nonintrusive ways that maintain systemic balance. While interventions are possible from within these dynamic systems, they cannot be controlled from the outside. Systems are heterarchical—composed of equal parts interacting together. Imposing a hierarchical model of top-down control can only destroy them. Healthy interventions can only be made by free agents within a complex system—agents referred to in chaos theory as “strange attractors.” Could you be a strange attractor within your institution? It is a risky endeavor in a culture that attaches negative meanings to words like “chaos” and “anarchy,” equating them with disorder and ruin. But chaos in reality has a structure that produces innovation, and “anarchy” simply means “no boss.” Could it be possible to have structure without bosses?