Archive for April, 2009

Apr/23/09//Curtis Ogden//IISC:Outside

When Theory Met Practice

A colleague and I recently met with staff of a client organization to discuss their interest in crafting a regional “partnership” strategy.  Leading up to the meeting there had been some discussion with folk about what it would mean to bring a network lens to their work, to perhaps approach this as a “network building” opportunity.  Needless to say we were excited and came ready to dive deeply into the conversation.

My colleague and I decided it would be best to “start where the people are” and hear what their interest was in a partnership approach, how this had come about, and how they saw it as different than what they had been doing up until now.  There was some very interesting discussion about the need and desire to break out of silos, change from being project-focused to creating more of a coordinated continuum of services, and develop stronger relationships among stakeholders in each of the regions in question.

Then the time came to pop the question – “What about networks?  How do these fit into your work?”  I was invited to say a few general comments about network theory and network building and how this might be different than general collaboration/partnerships/coalition building.   On the heels of my brief presentation, there ensued commentary that is coming to be a bit of a refrain.  “I still don’t understand how network building is different than what we are trying to do in terms of partnering.”  “I’m not sure how we fit our work into that theory.”  In some instances, there was palpable consternation expressed along with these comments – “Frankly, that just makes it all the more confusing for me.”

Okay, I said, let’s stop right there.  If we are working too hard to fit our efforts into network theory or bending our brains too much to understand how networks are different than other kinds of collaboration, then we may not be headed in a very productive direction.  I decided to add simply that partnerships have a lot in common with networks, that they may in fact be networks of a sort.  The only caution is that partnerships can be overly deterministic in terms of who is in and who is out and how things get done, which might not move the needle as much as we hoped.  If network theory can offer anything, it is the suggestion that we not make our partnerships too much like business as usual with the usual suspects.  It might be of some benefit to hold space open for new ideas to emerge and make efforts to reach out to those to whom we might not otherwise engage.

To these comments, all heads around the table nodded.  Brows unfurrowed.  And we moved on.  With each of these kinds of conversations I realize that we are all truly where we are.  I am also reminded that practice often makes a more powerful lead than theory.  The two must, of course, dance together, but the real star is what we make happen in the world.  So I say, let’s not wait until we get it right, because there is no such thing.  Let’s just remain open as we go, because there’s life in that.

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Apr/22/09//Linda Guinee//Liberation

Building a Bridge and Creating a Space

For a while, I’ve been fairly unsuccessfully trying to create a space in my apartment that works both for my heart and for my head. My meditation cushion is there – as well as my altar and poetry and spiritual books. It also has my desk, computer and two bookshelves overstuffed with books and journals about power, white privilege, race, class, genocide, conflict and social issues. If I’m really honest about it, it’s the most chaotic room in my apartment.

I’ve been intentionally trying to create this space because I’m trying to bring these two parts of my life together. In part because I’ve been noticing what seems like a split in progressive groups. For some of us, talking about the ways society is structured to benefit some groups and deny those benefits to others rolls off our tongue and is a framework that holds great resonance. Others are more comfortable talking about the ways we’re all connected – oneness and love are foundational ways we understand the world. There are a few wonderful examples I know (or know about) of people who fully integrate both. But I don’t know that many. Most people seem to lean in one direction or the other.

So for those of us who lean toward one or the other, talk of structure without spirit – or of spirit without structure – seems incomplete. As if the speaker is missing a huge part of our experience and belief. They may even seem to deny what we think of as reality. We tend to then move more vehemently to our “side.”

From a Buddhist perspective, reality can be described as being made up of two truths in which we live simultaneously – the relative (or historic) truth and the ultimate truth. The relative truth describes the world in which there are deep separations – it is the truth that describes a world with oppression, racism, sexism, homophobia and many other divisions. The ultimate truth describes the world in which there is no separation, in which we are one. The understanding is that both these truths co-exist – though we may only be aware of one.

The question I’ve been having (and don’t yet have many answers to) is this: How do we become aware of both, in our work toward social justice and social change, so that we build an authentic bridge between the two – so that anyone, no matter their leaning, can walk with us as we talk about structure or spirit? So that no one feels their truth is left behind. I’m wondering where others are in thinking about building that bridge – or would advise about setting up that room.

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Apr/21/09//Gibrán Rivera//Networks

Sifting Pragmatisms

Courtesty of Enlightnnext.orgLast Friday night I went to a great talk by Jeff Carreira, Director of Education at EnlightenNext, it was titled “The Roots of Integral Spirituality and Evolutionary Enlightenment in American Philosophy.”  It has been almost ten years since I last gave such focused consideration to the tradition of American Pragmatism, a strand of philosophy that focuses on “considering practical consequences or real effects to be vital components of meaning and truth.” Ten years ago I was privileged to take a memorable class on the subject, it was called “American Democracy,” and was beautifully lectured by contemporary pragmatists Cornel West and Roberto Mangabeira Unger.

I’ve had an uneasy relationship with the term “pragmatism,” specially as used in popular culture, which is somewhat different from the way it is used in the academy. My activist roots were grounded in an ideological framework that tended to equate pragmatism with compromise. In my work for social change I have often found myself identified with those communities that are more likely to have their needs and demands compromised away by some “pragmatic” solution or other. With this lens, pragmatism has often felt like a way to keep the balance of power stable while giving away enough crumbs for the excluded not to riot.

However, our recent national experience shows us this argument from the other side. We have seen how eight years of ideological leadership wreaked havoc on the country and the world. And today we find progressive hope in the thoroughly pragmatic approach of an even-keeled Obama administration, whose approach to leadership that has thus far proved amazingly steady even in the throes of ongoing turmoil. So I am interested in sifting through the sort of pragmatism that seems to generally keep things as they are, from the pragmatism that facilitates change and the pragmatism that Carreira was talking about on Friday night.

While the conversation has only just begun, I am starting to understand that the pragmatism of the American tradition, which Jeff was connecting to the Integral Philosophy of Ken Wilber and the Evolutionary Enlightenment of Andrew Cohen, is called pragmatism because it demands to be experienced. This sort of pragmatism looks suspiciously at a philosophy that is purely conceptual, it is a pragmatism that calls for the observation and experience of the actual – but it doesn’t stay there. We are talking about a sort of experiential pragmatism that demands we engage the very process of evolution, and this is what makes it exciting.

This is the first of a series of blog posts. Next, I’m interested in distinguishing between pragmatism as doing “what works” vs. pragmatism as doing “what could work.” Your insights are needed and welcomed!

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Apr/21/09//Marianne Hughes//IISC:Outside

Changing the Unstated

I am currently working with a client who is focusing on an issue that illuminates all of our recent blogs about this great moment of transition. They are seeking to influence the international community to make the issue of fragile states, a first order root cause in creating an unjust and disordered world. And, here’s the problem…the U.S is still working out of its cold war script i.e. that “most transnational problems like terrorism or piracy can be linked back to an enemy state with an irredeemable ideology” though most recently there are signs that a new understanding is beginning to emerge. The Obama administration is talking about “smart power” and the need for multilateral action. And, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair recently testified to Congress that ‘In recent years, it seems that we’ve had more security problems from states that have been in trouble than we have from strong states that have been an adversary to us in the traditional way” And, hello…we’re making friends with Cuba!

In Donella’s Meadows book, “Thinking in Systems”, she talks about the greatest leverage point, or place to intervene in a system to make change is at the level of paradigm, the mind-set. She describes this as the shared idea in the minds of society, the great big unstated assumptions about how the world works. So, here we are with a front row seat as so many of these great big unstated assumptions are being examined opening the door for real change. Let’s be aware and awake and contribute where we can!

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Apr/20/09//Cynthia Silva Parker//Race, Class, Power

On American Privilege

As a black woman in America, I know a lot about racism and white privilege. I am aware of privileges I enjoy by way of other aspects of my identity—education (graduate level), language (‘standard English’ speaker), able-bodiedness (relatively, speaking), citizenship (American). I’ve always fashioned my sense of Americanness after DuBois’s notion of ‘two-ness.’ I am black in America. That makes me American, but it makes me a “other” American who is set apart from Americanness because so much of Americanness means whiteness. When the attacks of September 11th happened, I didn’t feel like part of the “us” that was under attack. This is my country, but not completely, down to the core of my being.

Even so, I recognize certain things that are very American about me. Take my general stance that most things can be changed; that with enough energy, resources, brainpower, commitment “it can be done.” I recognize that point of view as a privilege that not everyone can partake.

I recognize the privilege of holding that little blue passport in the context of international travel. And, I know I have the privilege of freedom from scrutiny and discrimination in civic and economic processes like registering to vote or applying for a job, loan, or college.

But, there’s an even more basic privilege that I rarely consider. I carry shame and grief at the realization that I have done precious little to leverage or neutralize it. My American lifestyle and the privileges I enjoy are a direct function of genocide. On one level I’ve always known this. There were people here before the European settlers arrived. The Mashpee Wampanoag’s even helped some of them survive and learn to live here. And their repayment? Near obliteration and more than 350 years before the U.S. government would deign to recognize them as an official tribe. The unmitigated gall!

I’m ashamed of my smug progressive stance. Of course Native peoples have been oppressed and I call Columbus Day a Day of Mourning. Yet, I know so little of the history and I’ve been so unengaged in the struggle for justice for Native peoples. I’m only getting outraged in a very visceral way as I ingest spoonfuls of history. (Thanks PBS for “We Shall Remain“!) And, just as I’ve been told white people sometimes feel when they first really confront the reality of their privilege, I’m unsure what to do with the outrage and how to live inside the reality that every day my life is made possible by what has been taken from other people. It’s one thing to understand it in the abstract—to know that we’d need four planets for the entire world population to live the way we do. It’s another to know I that literally grew up on land in Massachusetts that was taken by force from people who initially acted in compassion and good faith. And that was repeated “from sea to shining sea.” And, now we’re back to the two-ness. The people who did that were not my people. And, yet, what they did accrues to my benefit daily.

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