The New World
Balancing time and space
With hope and inspiration, and perhaps a desire to shape and control it, the “New World” has framed itself in the rhetoric of many prominent public figures. Indeed, the post-Covid digital era bears its lot of paradigm shifts.
Yet, the “New World” is a rather worn concept, harking back to Antiquity, the Great Discoveries, the Enlightenment, or any significant and novel ways to comprehend and represent our world. In fact, for its oracles, the “New World” symbolises both unchartered territories and a reshuffling of established pecking orders.
Just like countries of the “New World” broke away from heritage-heavy Europe with the promise of new frontiers to conquer, the internet is said to have flattened our world by democratising access to information. More conceptually, one could say that the “New World” has transitioned from a vertical logic to a horizontal one. Hence, in the “New World”, sources of legitimacy shift from time to space.
“How does leadership evolve in response to these shifting sources of legitimacy?”, asked the Mouse.
Conquering the “New World” is about defining the relative value of frontier spaces. Leaders are surveyors of sort, providing the moral measure of unchartered territories, which amounts to taking responsibility for the consequences of the use of newly discovered spaces.
In doing so, leaders of the “New World” should be careful of the framing effect, which leads them to believe that territories are untouched because they are unchartered. “New” territories have an organic logic of their own. This is obvious when, for instance, thinking about indigenous people. When it comes to virtual spaces such as the internet, the organic logic is embodied by new groups of internet ‘knights’ or malevolent ‘trolls’.
The accelerating pace at which paradigms shift are what may save leaders from hubris. Whether it be land or knowledge, the value of what is still common good upon its discovery is to be defined collectively, by considering alternative uses for newly found resources. The rainforest provides ecosystem services, its land can feed people, and what’s underneath can make them rich. Similarly, social networks can connect people together or spread fake news. Which will it be?
The challenge is to reconcile a bottom-up approach building from organic logics and a top-down approach driven by established institutions. Hence, leadership in the “New World” may be judged as much by its ability to define new rules than by the process it follows to do so. By fostering collaborative dialogue on how to harness new potential, rather than pitting the “New” against the “Old” in an antique rhetoric, leaders become the stewards of the choices we make for our future.
It requires them to find a balance between engaging with a world of fast-evolving opportunities and retreating from it to fine-tune their ethical compass. It is a balance of time and space, and the difference between frontier and civilisation.
Baptiste Raymond - 04/2022