Special Issue Article Possibility Studies & Society 2023, Vol. 1(1-2) 157–162 Ó The Author(s) 2023 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/27538699231172435 journals.sagepub.com/home/pst Possibilities in postnormal times Alfonso Montuori California Institute of Integral Studies, USA Abstract In a time of global unrest and ‘‘polycrises,’’ the study and utilization of possibilities is a matter of urgency. In this article I briefly review some of the current studies that point to a view of human beings as having greater capacities, poten- tials, and possibilities, from the cognitive to the relational and spiritual. I celebrate the birth of this journal in the hope that a greater awareness of human possibilities will lead to more attention and research and an awareness that cur- rent assumptions about human possibilities are too limited. Keywords Complexity, creativity, postnormal, potential, transformation, wisdom The focus on a study of possibilities comes at a crucial time. Many scholars have pointed out humanity is living through a time of transition, when an old (industrial, western, patriarchal) world is dying, but a new world has not yet emerged (Capra, 1984; Inglehart & Norris, 2017; Montuori, 2021). The term postnormal times has been used to indicate a period marked by complexity, chaos, and contradictions (Sardar, 2010). Ironically, the very inventions and solutions of modernity have in many cases become the source of the problems humanity is facing. It is also a time, in many western coun- tries, of lowered expectations, of dangerously rising mental health issues for younger genera- tions, and of an ‘‘epidemic of despair’’ among the middle aged (Case & Deaton, 2020). There is a certain hopelessness that is the result of a lack of possibilities, and a painful awareness of the current ‘‘poly-crisis’’ (Morin, 1999), the con- stellation of crises—environmental, economic, educational, political—that seem to leave no room for the possibility of better futures (Barbiroglio, 2019; Luhby, 2020, January 11; Nordensvard, 2014; Norris & Inglehart, 2019). While there may be, as Pinker and others sug- gest (Norberg, 2017; Pinker, 2011), individual metrics that show great improvement in the world, the tensions of this transitional period are reflected in the ideological clashes and polarization in the US and the West in general. A lot of the polarization is cultural, having to do with what Inglehart called the Silent Revolution of changes in the way gender, race and ethnicity, and the environment are con- ceived in society (Inglehart, 1977). The argu- ment is that there is a movement toward a transformation in the traditional understanding of, for instance, gender, from binary to ‘‘fluid,’’ which creates anxiety about the role of men and women, and what it means to be a ‘‘man’’ (Hymowitz, 2011), as well as a rejection of tra- ditional and deep-seated assumptions of white racial and cultural superiority, and humanity’s domination of the environment. These changes Corresponding author: Alfonso Montuori, California Institute of Integral Studies, 1453 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-2557, USA. Email: amontuori@ciis.edu