Padding the STEEPLeS

George Clark, 12 December 2008

 

The STEEPLeS acronym offers a checklist against which to rate the fit of a unit of development theory or practice. This presupposes an agency for change (individual or group) with a vision of a before and an after in at least one of the seven factors. The details will vary with time and place. The following table offers a very rough rule-of-thumb for a set of before and afters that correspond respectively with modern and post-modern[1] phases of development.

 

Type of change		Before	After
S	Social	Parochial  (xenophobic)	Global (pluralist)
T	Technological	Mechanical	Smart
E	Environmental	Exploitation	Stewardship
E	Economic	Inequality (profit)	Equality (wealth)
P	Political	Hierarchy (elites)	Democracy (participatory)
Le	Legislative	For the rich	For the greater good
S	Spiritual	Linked to 'religion'	Linked to 'psychology'

 

Each type of after demands its own agency of change and style of activism.  But the task ultimately is to change minds and this involves motivations, intentions and actions that are rooted in beliefs and values.

Beliefs and values are themselves deep rooted in the 'spiritual' domain. This might thus be viewed as the foundation upon which the others are built. There is thus a call not so much for minor 'norm cracking[2]' as for major 'paradigm shifting[3]'. There is need for epiphany[4] on a massive scale if we are to move from a situation of blind faith in a divisive ideology[5] towards a situation of widespread experience of the non-egoic state of peace, compassion and happiness.

Much work has been done to create effective change agents for social development[6]. Some of this can be coopted by change agents for spiritual development although they might want to find a less jarring label for their profession! There is the possibility of building on the various 'mindfulness-based' methodologies that are fast gaining ground in serious medical circles in the West[7].

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[1] We can think of a progression from pre-modern (traditional), modern, post-modern and now the post-post-modern. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernity

[2] http://www.srds.co.uk/winwin/heuristics.htm

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift

[4] (1): a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something  (2): an intuitive grasp of reality through something (such as an event) usually simple and striking  (3): an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure

[5] religious or secular (eg scientism, communism, market fundamentalism etc)

[6] http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/change-management/roles/agent and, from high up the Google search, - http://www.caledonia.org.uk/change.htm . Also, with repeats, at http://www.srds.co.uk/cedtraining/bast/bast12.htm

[7] Follow links from Jon Kabat-Zinn and the offshoots of his Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme. See http://www.mbsr.co.uk/index.html