Postnormal times or "PNT", a concept developed by Ziauddin Sardar, is a description of the turbulent and changing times we are living in. Sardar defines PNT as "in an in-between period where old orthodoxies are dying, new ones have yet to be born, and very few things seem to make sense." This period is characterized by three C’s: chaos, complexity and contradictions, which come together to produce uncertainty and different varieties of ignorance.
Contents
Definition
The concept of postnormal times is based on the notion of Post-normal science, developed by Jerome Ravetz and Silvio Functowicz. In PNS, "facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high, and decisions urgent."
What applies to science also applies to the world at large. In PNT, what we conventionally see as ‘normal’ evaporates. Concepts and ideas that have historically guided us - : modernity, postmodernism, predatory capitalism, market fundamentalism, hierarchical structures of society, institutions and organisations, top down politics, broken government, polluting industries, runaway technology, marginalisation of the vast swathes of humanity, xenophobia, racism and misogyny, unjust social and political policies, scientism, and everything else that has shaped and defined the ‘modern world’ - become irrelevant. In particular, the old ideas of progress, constant growth and efficiency are now redundant. We need to find new ways to understand and navigate postnormal times.
A number of scholars and journalists have observed that something strange is happening to our planet as well as at social, cultural and political levels. Globalization has created an inter-connected world where everything is connected to everything else. Innovations and advances in technology transform the social and cultural landscapes rapidly. Climate change has added an extra layer of complexity. The resulting phenomena has variously been described as global weirding" (3) and "global swarming" But the concept of PNT provides a theoretical framework for the analysis of this phenomenon, methods for developing policy to cope with it, and ideas for exploration of postnormal futures. Sardar emphasizes that we are not talking of desired futures or preferable futures---that comes after postnormal times---although we are describing a potential, indeed given the trends, a necessary future. What we are actually doing is describing, based on certain observations, a phenomenon ‘out there’. By understanding the trends of the last couple of decades, we can have a better appreciation of the potential postnormal future that lies ahead. Postnormal times thus describe the dynamics of our time, or the zeitgeist if you like, and charts the transitions we are going through.
In support of engaging communities of various scope and scale on how to best navigate PNT and imagine preferred pathways toward the future(s), Sardar and Sweeney published an article in Futures outlining The Three Tomorrows method, which fills a gap in the field as "many methods of futures and foresight seldom incorporate pluralism and diversity intrinsically in their frameworks, and few, if any, emphasize the dynamic and merging nature of futures possibilities, or highlight the ignorance and uncertainties we constantly confront." In this article, Sardar & Sweeney provide an overview of the Menagerie of Postnormal Potentialities, which includes black elephants, black swans, and black jellyfish.
PNT is one of the core areas of research for the Center for Postnormal Policy and Futures Studies, which is based at East-West University in Chicago, Illinois, USA. A number of articles and editorials on PNT have been published in East-West Affairs: A Quarterly Journal of North-South Relations in Postnormal Times.
Criticism
PNT has been criticized as a Western concept that does not apply to India and other emerging markets. The three C’s of PNT (chaos, complexity and contradictions) have been panned as Alliterative Logic, theorizing through alliterative word-triads that is not based on empirical evidence. Jay Gray has suggested that PNT is embryonic, needs a more robust framework, and should be extended to include C S Holling's adaptive cycle. Scientists working on complex evolving systems have pointed out that PNT recalls the ‘Long Waves’ of Kondratiev and Joseph Schumpeter’s view of waves of "creative destruction."
Evidence
As Sardar argues, PNT is not a ‘Western’ or ‘Eastern’ concept. Indeed, such divisions in an interconnected, globalised world make little sense. Postnormal outcome of, for example, climate change is not confined to northern or southern hemispheres of the globe but affect us all. Similarly, financial collapse or a global pandemic would affect every corner of the world. The empirical evidence for PNT is everywhere: just look around you. The capitalist economic system is not working; or working just for one percent of the world populations who are accumulating the bulk of its wealth at the expense of increasing inequality. Just 88 individuals have amassed 80% of the world’s capital. Politics has become dysfunctional; governance has become problematic; and the world is awash with protests and demonstrations that could easily become chaotic. The old paradigm of America leading the world no longer holds true with the emergence of China, India, and Brazil, and the re-emergence of Russia and other powers. Many things we have taken for granted are about to be transformed radically raising a series of fundamental questions. What does it mean to be human when you are a product of synthetic biology? What is ‘the body’ when it consists of parts printed on a 3-D printer? What happens to the conventional notion of marriage when we have same sex marriage? What does it mean to be human when you are a product of synthetic biology? Yet, the human, however we see it, is now deeply implicated in changing the planet itself: human behaviour and its impact on Earth’s atmosphere has become so significant as to constitute a new geological epoch – leading to the concept of the Anthropocene and, as some have argued, the concept of the "Technopocene." Climate change and loss of biomass has produced the phenomenon of Global Weirding of which jellyfish blooms are a clear sign. The mass extinction of species is leading us towards the "Sixth Extinction." We are constantly on the verge of ‘market failure’, turbulent political change, social unrest, pandemics, and this and that crisis – all of which indicate that many interconnected systems are on the verge of going postnormal.