[P2P-F] [Networkedlabour] Another Politics - After Syriza

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After my enthusiastic foray into Otto Scharma's U.Lab I have to report that I found it another liberal attempt to encourage people to become 'change makers', supporting them in a self blaming exercise, where fear and greed are seen as the problems of our social dis/ease, without linking this to social and economic pressures. 

Some good ideas of deep listening, connecting head, heart and will, moving from ego to Eco, focussing on what is emerging, but falling short of a radical critique which could reveal the enormity of the task in hand.  

Going beyond the shift in consciousness required to let go of old habits of thinking, takes us to an unexplored place on the edge of what we know. Few are willing to go there, because everywhere we judge, and we are judged, by what we know. In this culture ruled by science, there does not seem to be any room or any relevance for not knowing. Yet I persist in trying to bring it to the attention of those on this email list.

Anna



On 28 Jan 2015, at 10:57, Anna Harris <anna at shsh.co.uk> wrote:

A very different answer to the same question from Otto Scharma :

[–]rodneyrod 6 points 6 days ago 
Otto, as you have worked with change makers across the globe where have you seen the most resistance/discomfort in people as they attempt to enter the "presencing" stage of listening? How can those observations assist us as we open this journey to others? 
perma-link
[–]OttoScharmer[S] 5 points 6 days ago 
i have found that most people who, regardless of their sector, are exposed to real world change, and have to hold the space for people related changes (or are exposed to the creative process one way or another) are already well prepared to drop to these deeper levels of operating. so where is it not the case? with people who are stuck in powerpoints worlds of headquarters and politics--sometimes also people that are just very remote of real reality, like old style academia... but overall i am VERY surprised how significant the readiness for these deeper levels are --although that readiness is usually not conscious (yet)
perma-linkparent


> On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 5:01 PM, P2P Foundation mailing list <p2p-foundation at lists.ourproject.org> wrote:
> hi Anna,
> 
> At the p2p foundation we stress personal and interpersonal change and facilitation, but at the same time, we have to be realistic in this, what is already possible but very difficult in small groups of committed people may not be possible for society at large ... For understanding this, and though I'm critical of the authoritarian interpretations of that tradition, the integral psychology of clare graves remains fundamental ..
> 
> Detailed studies by Susan Cook-Greuters have determined that at most 2% of the population have integrative consciousness, with 30% more or less having this as a aspirational consciousness ..
> 
> I take great comfort in the growth of participative culture and skills now evident in the new mutualized working spaces  but this is far from being the general culture ..
> 
> Again, referring to the scheme of John Heron, I would say that for the greater masses, we are at the potential change of stage 2 to 3, with significant minorities at four ..
> 
> so here is how I see it:
> 
> * develop fully participative cultures for mature peer producing communities
> 
> * develop deeper participative potentialities for the aspirational parts of the population (active citizenship)
> 
> * embed participative process in the general social technology of our time, to upgrade the general culture ..
> 
> A lot then further depends on the relative positioning of scarcity vs abundance dynamics ...
> 
> for abundance context, the generalization of peer governance is very realistic
> 
> for scarcity contexts, the choice between hierarchical, democratic-representative, and market-driven allocation mechanisms remains entirely open
> 
> see for example how the wikipedia re-introduced a rather toxic bureaucracy by re-introducing artificial scarcity ... (notability requirements to be decide by elite editors)
> 
> just today, I am involved in a frustrating dialogue with a feminist activist who did not even want to share even excerpts of her book on 'moneyless living' .. in other words, she is creating a artificial scarcity of her own book, that is technically freely copyable, in order to 'swap' it in exchange for something else  ... reproducing the artificial scarcities in so-called advanced milieus ... moneyless living for those that have the money to buy it ..
> 
> I'm sure you can find similar contradictions in all of us, including me ..
> 
> in conclusion, we are not ready to shed relative domination processes for any pure egalitarianism any time soon,
> 
> Michel
> 
>> On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 1:05 PM, Anna Harris <anna at shsh.co.uk> wrote:
>> Amid all the euphoria in celebrating the Greek landslide, and following Michel's integrative approach, the points in the article below need to be emphasised. We all carry within us the wounds of oppression however much we feel we have cast them aside, and they will surface again in the new post capitalist structures unless we put some focus individually and collectively on healing ourselves and becoming whole. 
>> 
>> 'the wounding through oppression that we all experience shows up in our organizing, and have permeated organizational culture except where the influence of feminists and others committed to transformational work has created a different way of creating structure, that prioritizes a strategy and collective struggle rooted in healing and wholeness.'
>> 
>> Pauli Friere spoke about this in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
>> 
>> What does that mean? How do we do that? Often it seems there isn't time to go into this now, let's get into power first, then we can see to these issues. That's when the multitude becomes an instrument, and arguments between hierarchy and horizontality appear to be abstract concepts with no people involved.
>> 
>> How do we become more fully human in our relationships with each other? What makes it particularly difficult is that there is no ready made formula - follow these steps and you will get there. No. This is a step into the unknown. But that also makes it an exciting exploration. 
>> 
>> Anna
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On 25 Jan 2015, at 11:38, P2P Foundation mailing list <p2p-foundation at lists.ourproject.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/andrew-willis-garc%C3%A9s/another-politics%E2%80%94from-anticolonial-to-occupy
>>> Another Politics-from anti-colonial to Occupy
>>> Chris Dixon's new book identifies four principles that underpin the success of transformative social movements.
>>> 
>>> Andrew Willis Garcés 7 January 2015
>>> 
>>> [This article originally appeared in Waging Nonviolence.]
>>> 
>>> Seven years ago I worked at a tenant and worker organizing group in Washington, D.C. We referred to ourselves as a "movement-building" organization, but weren't always clear what we meant by that. One evening I was out door-knocking with one of our members, James, an African American man in his 50s. He asked me about a conference some of us had attended in Atlanta the previous week, the U.S. Social Forum.
>>> 
>>> "What was the big theme there that stuck out to you?" he asked.
>>> 
>>> It was a good question. At that moment, the DJ Unk song "Walk It Out" was booming from a nearby car.
>>> 
>>> "Well, I was most impressed by the groups that really try to walk out their beliefs-connecting all the dots between racism, capitalism, even imperialism, and the inner work we have to do as people to overcome the things we've learned."
>>> 
>>> I explained more about what that meant to me.
>>> 
>>> He shook his head, amused.
>>> 
>>> "That's a tall order!" He thought about it a little more. "When will we get time for all that?"
>>> That tall order is the subject of Chris Dixon's book Another Politics, newly released by University of California Press. The product of dozens of interviews conducted with community organizers over the last decade, the book is an excellent distillation of what Dixon calls "another politics," a shared political orientation that unites grassroots organizers working from similar principles in the United States and Canada across issue, movement, sector, strategy and identity.
>>> 
>>> Through the interviews, he identifies four core principles that unite left "anti-authoritarian" organizers across different "strands" of struggle, transcending traditional notions of issue-based organization:
>>> . being against domination of all kinds;
>>> . prioritizing the development of new social relations and forms of social organization in the process of struggle;
>>> . linking struggles for improvements in people's lives to long-term transformative visions; and
>>> . grassroots organizing from the bottom-up.
>>> 
>>> In regards to these different strands, he writes, "We braid them together as we work collectively and build relationships across politics, campaigns and movements: anarchist labor organizers draw on analytical frameworks from women of color feminism; radical queer activists use community-based models for dealing with violence, developed by anti-racist feminists and prison abolitionists."
>>> 
>>> He explores how Occupy Wall Street, anti-colonial movements, and INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, among other groups, have contributed to developing "another politics" across decades.
>>> 
>>> Dixon digs even deeper, characterizing organizations practicing "another politics" as being explicit about their "collective refusal" of oppression-specifically, as incorporating "the four anti's" of : anti-authoritarianism; anti-capitalism; anti-oppression; and anti-imperialism, into their work. This left me wondering how some organizations might "fit" this taxonomy-what if your group has a handle on economic exploitation, for instance, but relies on charismatic leadership?
>>> 
>>> But Dixon is nevertheless clear about organizations that he sees as practicing "another politics," and the book is most compelling when he recounts movement-building victories, like the story of Canada's multi-city immigrant rights group No One is Illegal:
>>> "In a stunning December 2007 action, some 2,000 people, largely South Asian, blockaded the Vancouver International Airport to stop Singh's impending deportation. And starting with an 'Education Not Deportation' campaign in 2006, NOII-Toronto launched a multi-year fight for Toronto to become a solidarity city, where all people can access city services regardless of immigration status. Organizing across sectors and services, they finally won in 2013."
>>> 
>>> Dixon also uses the book to highlight "ideas rarely in writing," exploring dynamics of movement-building organization that don't get much print. For instance, he writes about the process of integrating not just issue lenses but our whole selves-creating community and organization that operates at the speed of the whole.
>>> 
>>> As Dixon writes,  "recognizing and deliberately fostering feelings and relationships as essential ingredients for transformative struggle" is still not a widespread practice, and he points out that this is not a new phenomenon, as the Black Panthers and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee also sought "to develop common expectations about how people should treat one another."
>>> 
>>> Continuing this thread, he also counts as emergent practices among "another politics" practitioners, forms of organizing that affirm families and domestic and reproductive work simultaneously with challenging systemic inequity, and moving beyond an individual-focused anti-oppression politics.
>>> 
>>> Dixon and the people he interviews point out that the wounding through oppression that we all experience shows up in our organizing, and have permeated organizational culture except where the influence of feminists and others committed to transformational work has created a different way of creating structure, that prioritizes a strategy and collective struggle rooted in healing and wholeness. This increasing focus on wholeness and wellness, seen in the recent popularity of integrating somatics and other healing disciplines into community organizing, can only make us more adept at building a broader and more resilient web of movements.
>>> 
>>> And Dixon helps unpack the challenges unique to movement-building organizations, which, he says, must move towards specific victories and goals, while also moving through a process that creates new ways of being, doing and relating, that avoid replicating oppressive practices. All while avoiding "ruts" common to anti-authoritarian groups, like knee-jerk non-hierarchy, and the "burn bright, burn out" cycle of organizations that rise and fall quickly.
>>> 
>>> Dixon illustrates this point with a fantastic metaphor offered by Project South's Steph Guillioud, comparing different forms of organization to different kinds of cars suited to particular functions:
>>> "The variations in vehicles don't change the map, they don't change the road, they don't change the need for people to drive and people in the back or the people moving it. We will always have and need the people who can push it and the people that can work on the insides, the people who can never get a ride, et cetera."
>>> 
>>> It's rare to find a book on social movements written explicitly for people with less academic credentials than its author. Dixon, who wrote the book for a PhD program, takes care to explain terms as they come up; he doesn't assume we know about ethnography ("analyzing lived culture while experiencing it"). And he gives his interviewees plenty of airtime to put their own spin on, for instance, "affective organizing," which becomes "not being a fucking asshole," in the wonderfully succinct words of Bay Area activist Harjit Singh Gill.
>>> 
>>> Still, the number of concepts he introduces feels overwhelming at times, and I longed for a glossary or flow chart when concepts like "non-instrumental organizing" popped up (which, it's worth noting, refers to the analysis and strategies people can create when they come together in dialogue and struggle as peers, as opposed to treating people as instruments to be manipulated, or pieces on a figurative chess board to mobilize toward a predetermined end).
>>> 
>>> "Anti-authoritarian," then, could be shorthand for "principled organizing"-organizing that gets down to the roots, that refuses to settle for electing a slightly better candidate, for selling out our potential allies to scoop up a superficial win, or that sees the path to victory as anything less than the destination itself.
>>> 
>>> Towards the end of the book, I was reminded of my exchange that day with James. Clearly, as Dixon demonstrates, there are mixed-class organizations that make time for individual and collective healing practices, for skillshares and strategy seminars, for discussion groups, for intentionally developing and evaluating leadership, and for developing organizational structure. But increasingly, as people are forced to work longer hours for lower incomes, I have to wonder: How are organizations adapting to support their people to do more with less?
>>> 
>>> I longed for more detail on what day-to-day life is like for an organizer in the six specifically-chosen cities from which Dixon chose his interview subjects. What does it look like to practice "another politics" in Atlanta, for instance? It's worth asking, given that the book is structured around questions like, "How can we most productively manifest our visions through our organizing work?" Like a good organizing mentor, Dixon (and his interviewees) gives us insight without "right" answers, helping to deepen our understanding of commonalities and remind us of the deep roots of the "another politics" leftist lineage.
>>> 
>>>  ((((((  )))))
>>> 
>>> Andrew Willis Garcés works with Training for Change and has led trainings for immigrant activists in several US states on campaign strategy and civil disobedience. Read more of his work at www.porvida.org/.
>>> _______________________________________________
>> 
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