Goodby Institute, Hello Labs
Introducing Life Itself Labs: the new version of our research wing
Life Itself’s research wing is renaming itself from the Life Itself Institute to Life Itself Labs. This reflects our entry to a phase of pragmatic experimentation – though one still informed by deep reflection. The effort is also getting a new online home at: https://labs.lifeitself.org/.
We have expressed quite a clear theory of change in books and white papers and will continue that work. However, what is most needed now are strategic actions grounded in an appreciation of the ultimate importance of being. We are interested in experiments driven by new ways of seeing. There is a lot of talk about the shortcomings of think-tanks and the need for “think-do” tanks. Laboratory is a venerable word for a space where ideas are invented, tested and refined or abandoned. We prefer to stay away from coining new unnecessary words, so Life Itself Labs we are.
As I wrote in my book Collective Wisdom in the West: Beyond the Shadows of the Enlightenment, part of what keeps us stuck in our patterns of rationalism and anti-rationalism is the idea that arguments are what shifts attitudes. Guided by this supposition, when we realise that Western culture does not value life itself as it should, our first impulse is to write a book that will expose this oversight through lucid argument in the hopes that an argument will drive cultural change. The problem is, attitudes are shifted as much by practices, contemplation, and action. If a fraction of the effort put into great books have been written about why our culture is dysfunctional were put into practices, containers that can shift minds and organisational infrastructure to support this, we would be far better off.
So we are interested in cultivating innovations in practice in our hubs, and finding ways to convincingly measure the value of reflective innovative practices on such difficult subjects as personal development, shadow work, and nature connection so that more resources are mobilised to enable radical mind shifts. We also are interested in distilling contemplative practices that transform our moral life disposition to action into a form that is compatible with the scientifically-grounded mindfulness courses taken by millions. We are also interested in holding space for discussing difficult questions that ask us to set aside our ingrained views.
Thought and action are best seen as an integrated whole. Both the formal scientific method and natural human learning are understood this way by science.
Something very powerful happened when scientific experiments became a part of inquiry during the renaissance. Instead of endlessly refining ideas, thinkers decided “let’s look, let’s try these ideas out and see if they work.” Thought and action both badly when they are not integrated. The explosion of knowledge that has come from since the renaissance was because basically, we realised this. Much of what is ridiculed as primitive superstition is actually the outcome of abstruse theories that were never critically examined. The letting of blood with leeches was actually based on learned theorising, examples of psychoanalysis as a baroque untestable theory come to mind, martial arts become esoteric and mythologised and less useful for self-defense when not put to the test.
To be clear we are not becoming victims of “doerism”, the misguided idea that action is somehow superior to or separate from reflection. Action can be an escape from the need to face and think through complex and challenging issues, just as surely as research can be a way of putting off difficult action. The world of social change is full of attempts to feel like you did something that end up exacerbating the problem (see studies of the international development industry, full of ambitious programs that achieve little.) There has never been a more dynamic and active society than ours and yet it is a danger to itself. The idea there is too much philosophising in our culture is comedic ─ ask a room of people with degrees from top Universities what the West’s most influential philosophers like Kant, Heidegger, Rousseau and Wittgenstein actually said and you’ll reliably receive awkward handwaving. Rather, there is too little philosophical work done, but it seems empty because it is too divorced from the rigors of producing useful interventions, too hopeful about finding airtight answers or definitions simply by discussing more, and too afraid to step on toes.
About Liam Kavanagh
Liam Kavanagh is a co-founder of Life Itself. He is a researcher, community organiser, and cultural activist working at the borders of secularity and spirituality. He draws on contemplative, intellectual, and collective wisdom practices to mediate the tensions that immobilise cultural imagination, allowing new visions for collective flourishing to emerge.
