It follows, therefore, that the simplification of democracy, like education, is completely negative. The very idea that one can simplify such a complex form of organization and governance is tantamount to reducing democracy to a mere sequence of procedures and norms, with the effect of rendering the delicate balance of complex factors constituting our democracies into soulless, unfree technocracies. The simplification of democracy is negative, to begin with, because it creates the illusion of having an equal and direct relationship to power. It is negative because it eliminates the processes of negotiation, because it suppresses alternative thinking and protest, and above all, because it can only produce a simulation of participation and a simulation of citizenship, hetero-directed (Dominici 1996, 2008, 2014) from the top down, a citizenship (Marshall, 1950; Veca, 1990; Bobbio, 1995; Dahl, 1998; Dahrendorf, 2001; Bellamy, 2008; Norris, 2011; Balibar 2012) without citizens, as I have said before. (See Figure 1).

A further negative result of the ideology of simplification is the concept of disintermediation, which has been so highly celebrated in the so-called digital revolution—the idea that there is no longer any need for processes or figures of intermediation which can be eliminated without further ado. This may be a better way to purchase flights and hotels online, but when we are dealing with cultural factors, is it really desirable that we allow digital platforms belonging to private high-tech giants to supply us directly with their choices, decisions and versions regarding information, government, economics, ethics, politics, health, education, entertainment, history, religion, art? We have attempted to simplify, disintermediate, reduce and simulate reality with data, figures, measurements and quantities into a strange kind of “virtual concreteness” (Dominici 2019).

Going back to our initial argument that the obsession with concreteness has become a veritable dictatorship, what is paradoxical is that the very same proponents of concreteness and facts are now loudly proclaiming the importance of thought, of critical and systemic thinking, of creativity, of imagination, of “creative thinking” (which, in every country, must unfailingly be expressed in English), even of the importance of philosophy, until recently battered and mistreated along with other important disciplines, and not only within educational institutions. It seems that no one, at this moment, would dream of denying the importance of interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, empathy and unpredictability, of innovation, change, and above all, of complexity (which has suddenly become the talk of the town). After years of pursuing concreteness at all costs, decision-makers, opinion leaders and intellectual front men are shouting from the rooftops what I and others like myself have been repeating for years: that know-how and competences will not suffice; that education plays a vital and strategic role in this hypercomplex and hyper-connected civilization, that technology itself cannot guarantee a symmetrical and inclusive society, that it is the person who should be placed at the core of society (Maritain, 1947; Castells, 1996-1998, 2009; Rodotà, 1997; Ferrarotti, 1997; Rifkin, 2000; Himanen, 2001; Dominici, 1996-2017; Benkler, 2006; Byung-Chul, 2012, 2013; Bostrom, 2014; Tegmark, 2017). While, in one respect, this is undoubtedly positive (it’s one of the ways that cultural climates can change), the slogans that are being used run the risk of trivializing, of creating a public discourse to shape the agendas of public opinion according to the usual driving logics of polarization, leaving little or no space for in-depth analyses or critical evaluation of the positions being taken. The worst consequence is that in this manner, it all becomes formula, norms, mainstream, thus losing any drop of disruptive potential and any possibility of creating an authentic discontinuity with the hegemonic models and with “how it has always been”.

5. EDUcation—Teaching Error, Doubt & Unpredictability in the Era of Anthropological Transformation

Furthermore, beyond the above-mentioned rhetorical or hegemonic narratives, whose function may well be limited to maintaining a positive image or reputation as an innovator or as an efficient and innovative organization, what comes through is how little awareness there truly is on the strategic relevance of thought and of thought systems, on conjecture, on imagination, on how complexity pervades all questions in all fields, of the importance of error and of the opportunity—the vital need—to be free to make errors, of all this being complex rather than complicated (Dominici P., 1995-2019). There are many who, having habitually chosen “concrete” approaches and methods, are now claiming that they have always expounded, written and published articles on critical thinking and on the need for an alternative view of reality. Theirs is a kind of cannibal conformism that gobbles up ideas and projects, without seeking to genuinely share or spread knowledge or skills, setting up barricades to block or slow down the way to a social and cultural innovation genuinely capable of making systems, groups and organizations truly dynamic.

In reality, therefore, what I have defined as an obsession for concreteness, indeed, as the tyranny of concreteness, is condemning us to never making any real changes (at best, what is made are adjustments), to never managing to create any real innovation (only façades), to continuing, who can say for how long, to adapt passively to the ongoing extraordinary technological transformation, which is first and foremost an anthropological transformation of identity, of life experiences, of epistemologies.

Part of this transformation regards velocity: the new digital speed, in its complex interaction with the human factor and with the system of social relations, preserves the original ambivalence inherent to any factor of mutation and to every social and cultural process; an ambivalence that, aside from representing an extraordinary opportunity, also highlights our limits and inefficiencies—on personal, organizational and social levels—but above all, that leaves us too little time for reflection and for critical analyses of what is happening, and more in general, of a (hyper)complexity that lays bare the radical inadequacy of our paradigms, our interpretative models, our cultural traditions, and even more, of our modern instruments for management and control. (ibidem)

For some time now, we have been losing our ability to look at/observe the set, the system, the whole, the global totality and the system of relations and/or interactions that these feature; in other words, we have difficulty recognizing bonds, correlations, causal nexus: precisely because we have been taught and trained (in the best of cases) to describe and record regularities, to see the “hows” and not the “whys”; we have been educated to look for (?) and be satisfied with simple or pre-coded answers (in any case, obtained in a brief amount of time), to look for—as I am always saying—simple solutions to (hyper)complex problems. This perspective, aside from being nearsighted and misleading, reveals itself to be even more paradoxical precisely because what we live in (= what we know) is the era of global interconnection, in which all processes are interdependent and linked to one another (and will become increasingly so): we must cope with dimensions and levels of interaction and retroaction—on subjective, relational, systemic, organizational, social levels—that highlight, as if more evidence were needed—the urgency of rethinking our paradigms from a systemic, (hyper)complex perspective.”

“What must be encouraged, not just proclaimed in institutional documents, is critical thinking, complexity, and interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity.”

Instead, we are teaching our students—or rather training them—to be mere executors of functions and rules (Dominici 1995 and further works), who are not even capable of reflecting on their nature, on what governs these functions and rules, not to mention pondering “why”. Furthermore, what is even more worrying is that we are increasingly staking everything on the construction of a kind of thought directed exclusively at concreteness; a thought or thoughts, which at the very best, equates itself to calculations and to reaching results. This nearly hegemonic approach directly regards—and impacts—issues directly related to learning. Students and educators alike have been caught up in these false perceptions. Furthermore, the technological revolution has defined a new rapport between individuals and the norm, between theory and praxis, giving them, in some way, the illusion of being absolute monarchs and masters of their own choices, with the risk of not holding interactions, social interdependencies and the community they belong to in sufficient consideration.

6. Our Inadequacies and the Illusion of Control: the Cultural Factor

Once again, I strongly insist: we must radically correct the structural inadequacies and the appalling nearsightedness that have always characterized schools and universities, (which must be thought of “together”, in order to deal with the age-old question of teaching the teachers), which are the only “true” institutions/places in charge of defining and constructing the conditions of social emancipation (Dewey, 1916, 1929, 1933; Gramsci, 1948-1951; Capitini, 1964-1968; Freire, 1968; Rawls, 1971; Nussbaum, 2010; Robinson, 2015; Profumo, 2018; Dominici, 2014-2019). What must be promoted is the kind of education that is capable of analytically addressing complexity and responsibility (from the early years of school), but also and above all, what must be encouraged, not just proclaimed in institutional documents, is critical thinking, complexity, and interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity. The benefits would, furthermore, significantly influence the didactic pathways themselves, and thus, evidently, the (continuous) teaching of our future teachers. Preparing ourselves to accept and become accustomed to the idea that the outcomes of these vitally important strategic choices are always, in any case, long-term and will only be “seen” many years into the future. An as yet unimaginable future, as we have said above, for which the only preparation is teaching the value of doubt, uncertainty and error, in the framework of a systemic vision of ecosystems and of life itself (Mead, 1934; Wiener, 1948, 1950; Arendt, 1958; Ashby, 1956; Simon, 1962; von Bertalanffy, 1968; Piaget, 1970; Bateson, 1972; Morin, 1974, 1993, 1994, 1977-2004; Holland,1975; Feyerabend, 1975; Capra, 1975, 1996; Musgrave–Lakatos, 1976; Maturana–Varela, 1980, 1985; von Foerster, 1981; Luhmann, 1984, 1990; Bocchi–Ceruti, 1985; Maturana–Varela,1980, 1985; Ceruti, 1986, 1995; Gleick, 1987; Gallino, 1992; Kauffman, 1993; De Kerckhove, 1993, 1995; Gell-Mann, 1994; Popitz, 1995; Prigogine, 1997; Diamond, 1997, 2005; Emery, 2001; Morin, 2001-2008; Barabasi, 2002; Israel, 2005; Gandolfi, 2008; Dominici, 1996-2019; Taleb, 2013; Braidotti, 2013; Longo, 2014; Sloman–Fernbach, 2017).

“Innovation invariably involves a crucial challenge—even a dare—which means leaving behind certainties, consolidated visions and ritualized behavior, and above all ridding ourselves of the idea that things should be done in a certain way because it has always worked till now.”

We still have not realized how complex complexity is; indeed we do not yet know how to recognize complexity, hypercomplexity, variability, the emergent, the constant and dynamic instability of all that is relational, social, human, vital. Complex dimensions, what is more, that interact with the new technological praxes and with social systems (Parsons, 1951; Granovetter, 1973; Luhmann, 1984, 1990; Lévy, 1994; Rainie–Wellman, 2012) that are threatened more and more by the neural networks of Artificial Intelligence and by automated systems; caught up in a cultural bog of backwardness which hinders the teaching and the co-construction of a different “gaze” and of a systemic viewpoint together, a backwardness from which we continue to perceive, recognize, design and manage organizations as though they were machines (complicated systems) rather than living systems (complex). Once again, with little awareness that “innovating means destabilizing”, and with even less awareness that “thought is action”. Thought vs. action is yet another of the “false dichotomies” that so much have embraced to damage the minds of the younger generations.

The tyranny of concreteness springs from an obsession that is throttling our capacities to inhabit complexity, to inhabit the future, forcing us once again to take refuge in an incomplete and false security (insecurity?), owing to our incapacity or in any case our lack of courage to stray from the (thousand-fold) well-trodden paths. It is forcing us to hide behind prejudices, platitudes and clichés from all haunts, to make choices and follow behavioral patterns that “have always worked” (?), harking after the same “tangible results” and solutions: simplesolutions for complex problems, preferring labels and etiquette to ethics. In other words, it is holding us back from even attempting the change which all hail from inside their safe cubby-holes of custom. It is paradoxical that those who speak the loudest actuate the least, especially in higher education. While demanding concreteness and usefulness, they present themselves as experts in creativity, innovation and complexity, as though these concepts/approaches required no particular knowledge, competence, preparation, experience. Beyond the slogans and lip service, therefore, within schools, universities, institutions and organizations, what continues to be sought and activated is above all order, control, stability, security, conservation, not only for the purpose of maintaining power and relative advantages. Attention, however! Not against concreteness, not against facts and data does this article wish to stand; let it be clear that the criticisms we have expressed herein are reflections against the current obsession with concreteness, against the modern-day tyranny of concreteness which crystallizes into a reductionist and simplistic approach to problems, uncertainty, unpredictability, variability, thus becoming an obstacle to authentic social, political, cultural or organizational change. Against the tyranny of a “culture of standardization” (Hammersley, 2013; Robinson, 2015), founded on the deceptive and misleading idea that knowledge must be useful, quantifiable, measurable. A culture constructed with the building blocks of rationality and control, themselves fraught through and through with the same ambivalence and ambiguity typical of all social and cultural processes (Gallino, 1978; Elias, 1987; Putnam, 2000; Coleman, 1990). A culture of concreteness based on the illusion (and the mistaken ambition) of being able to eliminate error and unpredictability from social and organizational systems.

On the contrary, it is essential for us to become fully aware that the profound changes implicated by innovation regard our way of seeing, observing and of understanding phenomena, processes, objects, the “things”, which must become a systemic perspective. Innovating also implies the courage to destabilize something which—to all appearances—is permanently well-balanced and well-rooted, stable, regular, orderly, and in some ways, ideal. Innovation invariably involves a crucial challenge—even a dare—which means leaving behind certainties, consolidated visions and ritualized behavior, and above all ridding ourselves of the idea that things should be done in a certain way because it has always worked till now. Historically (with, admittedly, some exceptions) those in power, who have decision-making responsibilities, even within “simple” organizations, are rarely interested in genuine innovation, precisely because the dynamics of innovative processes inevitably impact the situations, along with the context of reference, rendering them less stable and controllable. It is, in any case, the cultural factor that determines both the static and the dynamic aspects of social systems and complex organizations, because, as I have often said, the processes of innovation walk on human legs.

7. Hybrid Figures and the Great Mistake (1995-2019)

The great mistake being made by the technological civilization today is precisely that of believing that the kind of education and/or training that is necessary today is purely technical and/or technological, which instead is the exact opposite of what we so desperately need.

Only when we have come to be fully aware, and we have clearly recognized our “great mistake”, which marks the (withheld) dialogue between knowledge and skills, and is also profoundly marking public life and democracy, will we succeed in redirecting our present course of navigation, which leads us to adapt to change but not to understand how to manage and modify it. Beyond the many paradoxes of the mutations currently underway, the “great mistake” of and in hypertechnological and hypercomplex civilizations is to keep thinking of education and of educational processes (which also refer to training) as a question of a purely technical nature, solely a problem of “skills” and “know-how” and nothing more; a problem—a series of problems—which must be dealt with by staking everything on speed and simulations. Hence continuing to reproduce, not to correct, the dramatic separation between studies in the humanities and in scientific fields; (time and time again, we will keep on claiming that first one, then the other, is more important), dooming ourselves to gradually losing sight of the whole, the complex, the global, to losing sight of the “other from ourselves.”

The best itineraries, consequently (best and not “ideal”), will be those pursuing interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity. In other words, those best equipped to prepare people to inhabit the current and future complexity, those who will be able to shape critical and elastic minds at every level: hybrid figures (Dominici, 1996-2019) open to the contamination among fields of knowledge and skills. Hybrid figures, who must not be mistaken for the growing number of “experts on everything”, but are rather highly trained professional figures who have mastered a systemic approach, who are capable, even from within their fields of specialization, of considering and evaluating the complex and ambivalent dimensions of reality, recognizing their connections and open architecture(s). Figures and profiles that will be constantly capable of perceiving the limits and borders of every form and nature as opportunities for growth and experimentation.

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