Strategy: a process (from conversion to conversation)
This morning, on the bus.
j(a)de: Hey Crystal, I've got a question for you. What do you think we ought to be doing to change the world?
Crystal: Oh, that's easy. We need to become the change we want to see. You know: healing ourselves, reconnecting with nature, growing our intuitive and empathic connection with others.
j(a)de: Isn't that pretty self-indulgent? Millions of people, human and otherwise, are being oppressed, killed, tortured, all around the world. And our society, this empire we live in, is the cause. We need to resist structural violence, smash the state so liberation can spring forth!
Crystal: But that's just reinforcing the fear paradigm, feeding it energy. We need to remember that all is one, everything is connected, and our words manifest reality. Don't roll your eyes at me! Hey, what has all that antagonism and resistance gotten us, anyway? Massacres, repression, revanche.
j(a)de: And what has navel-gazing "self help" spiritual eclecticism gotten us? Cultural appropriation, demobilization, head-in-the-sand abdication of responsibility! It's entirely naive to think that individualized personal growth among the privileged and elite is going to do anything more than distract us from the real work.
pause
j(a)de: But no, you're right in a way that we keep getting crushed by an empire that has more guns that we do (or would want to!). It would be better to come up with a strategy that really fundamentally changes things, but is too subtle or too complex or too something to get crushed with impunity.
Crystal: Like water rather than fire?
j(a)de: Yeah, something like that. So: rather than challenging the empire to a duel, we start embodying the new world in the shell of the old.
Crystal: Hey, I like the sound of that! And I hear your concerns, too. I know way too many people who use rhetoric about conscious evolution to avoid reaching out to others and taking risks. So what could it look like to start embodying a new world?
j(a)de: Hmmmm. Well, I think we need new forms of work and play that are much more empowering and energizing.
Crystal: And therefore more sustainable in the long term, so people don't get burned out all the time!
j(a)de: Exactly. So, collectives and communities -- bands, kickball teams, covens, houses, bicycle repairshops, knitting circles, and yes, committees -- that really function well, that do power and growth and balance with grace and skill.
Crystal: Cool! But as you said, if that's all, if we just have these isolated circles of light in our lives, then we are still depending on the empire and not really fundamentally changing things. We need to link it all together. There's a lot of alignment at the level of consciousness, intention, but we need to bring it to a practical level: to weave our wisdoms and our gifts together.
j(a)de: Right. And that challenge, I think, when you get down to it, is an economic one: how can we effectively organize an alignment between our needs and desires on the one hand, and our resources and labor on the other?
Crystal: OK. So we're talking about ongoing exchanges of ideas, goods, and actions? Decentralized, I imagine, because a central coordinating role would likely be scrapped over and cause jealousy and corruption and all the rest of it.
j(a)de: Yeah, definitely. Well, now that I think about it, there are lots of possibilities. For example, ...
...
j(a)de: Great. Good thinking! So here's what we've got for now:
Vision:
A functioning parallel political economy in Portland, in which communities and small groups build the capacity to collaboratively decide upon and implement direct actions to transform the fabric of our culture. In particular, economies that build respectful and multi-dimensional relationships among parties (gift, barter, local currency), and political structures that maximize grassroots power to act and minimize state violence and repression.
Strategy:
Autonomous collective(s) provide specific services to improve the social function of the "new world" as such. That is, services are informed by a recognition that personal healing, group-level function, and inter-group coordination are all important and connected. Such services allow effective practices to be recognized and shared among movements and organizations. Services are focused on building long-term capacity in local communities rather than maintaining dependence on the collective(s).
Possible tactics:
- Survey nonhierarchical organizations for experience with approaches to dealing with common problems.
- Develop (anonymized) documentation to communicate the results of such surveys.
- Develop and facilitate trainings on specific practices or approaches.
- Support people who are (formal or informal) liaisons between organizations/communities.
- Develop structures to support individuals in discovering how to best discover and engage their "path" and match skills and interests with appropriate organizational/economic roles.
- Support emergence and interconnection of decentralized economic decision-making.
- Support processes for building mutual understanding and consensus for action between spectra of constituencies in local neighborhoods, industries, etc.
- Et cetera.
Crystal: Oh, I think that's good for now. A bit too many Latin words, but it'll do. The important thing is to get out there and see how it feels actually trying it all out! But hey, I really appreciate the conversation.
j(a)de: Me too. I learned a lot. Here's my stop; see ya tomorrow!
Crystal: Bye!