The Fractured Lens and Culture

The Fractured Lens and Culture

Culture is a pattern of meaning, a system of belonging, a structure of power, and a negotiation with the unknown. It is both inherited and constructed, stabilising and destabilising, visible and invisible. The Fractured Lens is a framework for seeing how these forces, Unknowing, Meaning, Belonging, and the Dynamics of Power & Change, shape culture, leadership, organisations, and identity.

Unlike traditional models that seek clarity through simplification, The Fractured Lens embraces complexity, contradiction, and emergence. It recognises that the world is not a machine to be fixed but a living system to be navigated. Rather than imposing a single truth, it helps us perceive the forces shaping what we think of as truth in the first place.

At its core, The Fractured Lens is an invitation to see culture not as a static entity, but as an ongoing negotiation, a dynamic interplay of meaning, identity, power, and uncertainty. Whether in organisations, societies, or personal identity, these forces are always in motion, shaping what we take for granted, what we assume is possible, and what remains unseen.

Culture as a Living Process

Culture is often described as ‘how we do things around here’, but this masks a deeper reality: Culture is how we make sense of the world together. It is neither neutral nor inevitable, it is shaped by the tensions between stability and change, inclusion and exclusion, hierarchy and dialogue.

The Fractured Lens does not see culture as an artefact or a thing to be managed. Instead, it sees culture as an emergent process, shaped by the interplay of Unknowing, Meaning, Belonging, and Power.

1. Unknowing: Every culture, organisation, and society has its blind spots, things it cannot see about itself. These are the limits of its narratives, the gaps in its history, the knowledge it excludes. To understand culture is to understand what it does not question.
2. Meaning: Culture is a web of meaning. It is shaped by the stories we tell, the metaphors we use, and the symbols we imbue with significance. But meaning is never fixed, it is always contested, shifting in response to power, history, and collective action.
3. Belonging: Culture is about who is ‘us’ and who is ‘them’. It is about shared identity, but also exclusion. We do not just belong to cultures, cultures belong to us, and they also shape us. The Fractured Lens helps us see how belonging is constructed, reinforced, and sometimes weaponised.
4. Dynamics of Power & Change: Culture is always embedded in power structures. Who gets to define the narrative? Whose perspective is centred? What ideas are suppressed? Power is not just about authority, it is about who gets to shape the reality we live in.

Through this lens, culture is not a ‘thing’ but a living process of negotiation, power, and adaptation. The Fractured Lens helps us see beyond static definitions of culture to the unfolding forces shaping it in real-time.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

The Fractured Lens is not a new theory, it is a way of bringing together perspectives that have long challenged how we see culture, knowledge, and reality. It is deeply influenced by philosophy, systems thinking, and relational ways of knowing across Western, Eastern, and Indigenous traditions.

Eastern & Indigenous Perspectives: Culture as Flow

Western philosophy often seeks fixed truths, but Eastern and Indigenous traditions offer something different: an understanding of culture, identity, and reality as fluid, relational, and ever-changing.

• Taoism & Flow (Laozi, Zhuangzi): Taoist philosophy sees reality not as a set of fixed categories but as a dynamic flow. Culture is not a static thing to be controlled but an emergent pattern, like water, adapting and reshaping as it moves. The Fractured Lens resonates with this idea, emphasising that culture is always in motion, shaped by the unseen forces of power, belonging, and unknowing.
• Buddhist Emptiness (Nāgārjuna): The Buddhist concept of emptiness (Śūnyatā) challenges the idea that things have inherent meaning. Meaning is always relational, shaped by context and perception. The Fractured Lens echoes this, seeing meaning as co-created rather than fixed.
• Indigenous Knowledge Systems: Many Indigenous worldviews see culture as embedded in place, time, and relational networks rather than as an abstract system. The Fractured Lens takes inspiration from this, recognising that meaning and belonging are always situated in lived experience.

Western Thinkers: Power, Systems, and the Unseen

While Eastern and Indigenous traditions offer fluidity, Western philosophy has long interrogated power, systems, and the construction of knowledge.

• David Bohm & Dialogue: Bohm saw thought as a system, not just individual cognition but something shaped by culture, history, and dialogue. He believed that true understanding emerges not from certainty, but from engaging with the unknown. The Fractured Lens draws from this, seeing culture as a space of ongoing dialogue rather than fixed definitions.
• Foucault & Power: Michel Foucault’s work on power and discourse informs how The Fractured Lens sees the construction of reality. Power is not just held by individuals, it is embedded in language, structures, and institutions. Understanding culture requires seeing how power shapes what is considered ‘normal’ and what remains unspeakable.
• Bateson & Systems Thinking: Gregory Bateson’s insights into feedback loops, double binds, and ecological thinking show how culture is a living system, shaped by the patterns and relationships between meaning, belonging, and power.
• Edgar Schein & Organisational Culture: Schein’s work highlights how culture is formed through deep assumptions, not just values and behaviours, but the unspoken rules that shape how people make sense of their reality. The Fractured Lens extends this by asking: Whose meaning is prioritised? Who gets to belong? How does power define ‘normal’ behaviour?

Unknowing as a Way of Being

The Fractured Lens is ultimately a way of seeing and thinking rooted in unknowing, the recognition that certainty is an illusion, meaning is constructed, and the world is far more complex than we can grasp.

This is not a call to nihilism or disengagement. It is a call to curiosity, humility, and awareness. To see through The Fractured Lens is to embrace the idea that culture is not something we ‘fix’ it is something we participate in, negotiate with, and reshape together.

Why This Matters

In leadership, organisations, and life, we are taught to seek certainty, clarity, and control. But culture is not something that can be ‘controlled’ in this way. It is shaped by the hidden forces of unknowing, meaning, belonging, and power, forces that are always shifting beneath the surface.

The Fractured Lens is an invitation to:

• See the unseen. What is shaping how you think, act, and relate?
• Question meaning. Who decides what matters, and why?
• Understand belonging. Who is included? Who is excluded?
• Trace power. Where does authority come from? How does it shift?

To engage with The Fractured Lens is not to adopt another rigid model, it is to see culture as a living, breathing negotiation of forces that shape us all.

Where Next?

Each of these four forces, Unknowing, Meaning, Belonging, and the Dynamics of Power & Change, deserves its own interrogation. In the following blogs, we’ll go deeper into each, exploring how they shape organisations, leadership, identity, and change.

But for now, the invitation is simple: What if you could see the world through a different lens?