2026
It isn't just one thing that has just happened - it is many things, colliding, compounding, and accelerating all at once! The more we try to make sense of it all, the more we feel the ground shifting beneath us. Things no longer feel normal - not necessarily abnormal, just - not normal. The world we once knew still exists, but its familiar patterns seem to be unraveling, leaving us moving towards - what, exactly?
Postnormal times is both a description of the zeitgeist and a theory of change. It is an in-between period where the old paradigms are dying and new ones have not been born - hence, we can make little sense of what is going on. In this wide-ranging introduction, Liam Mayo elegantly describes the postnormal condition, and traces the historic background to the emergence of postnormal times theory. He explains the main features of theory from speed, scope, scale, and simultaneity (4S's) to complexity, contradictions, and chaos (3C's), to varieties of ignorances and uncertainties, and elucidates the methods and tools for charting postnormality, such as the black elephant, black swan, and black jellyfish - the menagerie of postnormal potentialities. An Introduction to Postnormal Times Theory is a devastating critique of modernity and postmodernism as well as an essential guide for navigating our turbulent and complex epoch towards more positive and humane futures.
Author: Liam Mayo
Published by The International Institute of Futures Studies (IIFS), IIIT, & CPPFS