Engaging the Sacred in Design for Complexity: Ethical inclusion of spiritual commitments in the metacrisis

Cheryl Hsu, Peter Jones, Zaid Khan, and Natalija Vojno

Over the last 50 years, there have been waves of interest and contributions toward the inclusion of the spiritual domain in systems and complexity, cybernetics, business and organisational leadership, and, to a much lesser extent, design philosophy.  Despite design education’s evolution and an expressed desire for inclusivity, it still largely operates within a normative secular frame as a default assumption. Even in its embrace of social change, the inherent religious and spiritual commitments of past generations in changemaking have not revived in the postmodern era. The initiation of an experimental design “movement” in the form of a design sangha created a convivial group that, rather than centred around a common dharma tradition, was formed to harmonise our different spiritual commitments into common philosophical principles. This approach explicitly discloses and critiques the Western secular assumptions embedded in modernity that pervade design practice and its socioeconomic values. The unreflective acceptance of a dominant secular culture risks the intentional or unintentional minimisation and erasure of our own spiritual ethics and sacred traditions, diminishing their vitality in one’s moral imagination and limiting the availability of one’s whole personhood in design leadership.

Four philosophical designers share collaborative learning expressed from a long-term, reflexive participatory experiment in individual and collective spiritual commitment in design praxis. We believe these enduring traditions are vital to the intergenerational transmission of meaning-making and world-building. To embrace a truly pluriversal approach to design, we offer the provocation to intentionally create post-secular design principles and pedagogy that can also support conviviality across sacred and religious traditions.

PANELLISTS