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2 comments

• Comment Link Tuesday, 18 December 2012 05:04 posted by David MacLeod

  I enjoyed the discussion in the podcast of Joanna Macy's three sources of transformation: holding actions, structural transformations, shifts in consciousness.
  
  I would enjoy being part of a group that was effective in doing all three, but I'm thinking it would need to be a small group. It seems that it might be difficult to agree on the specifics on how you would do each one.
  
  In general I agree with the part of the discussion that considered the benefit of different groupings of people doing different parts of these three approaches - the benefits of the rhizomatic approach.
  
  In Rob Hopkins' Transition Companion, I was credited (p. 135 - I actually heard it from Cindi Landreth) with the idea that Transition Initiatives behave like a "Crazy Quilt" - we don't do everything ourselves, but we effectively knit together with other groups that are doing different pieces of the work.
  
  Transition Initiatives do have "Heart & Soul" groups that focus on Inner Transition, but there have been some pretty fascinating discussions on how far to go with identifying with one particular way of doing this work. See Hopkins' blog: http://transitionculture.org/2010/09/28/a-discussion-about-ways-of-knowing/
  
  Hopkins argues that to make the spiritual aspect explicit in the Transition movement would be self-defeating because it would limit itself to people that identified themselves with whatever faith expression became associated with the movement. I made the argument in the comments that "it needs to be made very clear that Transition is non-sectarian as a whole, but also that Transition acknowledges the important role that spirituality can play in supporting people’s transition to a post-carbon future."
  
  By the same token, Transition has made a decision not to engage in the "holding actions" that are so often associated with environmental activism. There has been some criticism for this approach, but I think Hopkins makes a good argument: "Transition is determinedly inclusive and non-blaming, arguing that a successful transition through peak oil and climate change will by necessity be about a bringing together of individuals and organisations, rather than a continued fracturing and antagonising. It seeks common ground rather than difference and realises that people who run businesses and people who make decisions are all similarly bewildered and forced to rethink many basic assumptions by these new and challenging times we are beginning to enter. I make no apologies for the Transition approach being designed to appeal as much to the Rotary Club and the Women’s Institute...For me, Transition is something that sits alongside and complements the more oppositional protest culture, but is distinctly different from it. It is a different tool. It is designed in such a way as to come in under the radar."
  http://transitionculture.org/2008/05/15/the-rocky-road-to-a-real-transition-by-paul-chatterton-and-alice-cutler-a-review/
• Comment Link Friday, 21 December 2012 21:47 posted by Trevor Malkinson

  David, I love this idea of the "crazy quilt"
  
  "the idea that Transition Initiatives behave like a "Crazy Quilt" - we don't do everything ourselves, but we effectively knit together with other groups that are doing different pieces of the work".
  
  I had someone whose view I respect, criticize the notion of "the rhizome" and getting "rhizomatic" as being too heady, to postmodern conceptual. But it's anything but. Deleuze and Guattari, who came up with the concept, always argued that a concept is only as good or useful as "what you can do with it". The rhizome, or the crazy quilt, is in my experience first and foremost a way of being-in the-world, of relating to others, of learning to make connections, to unite forces, then when the time is right, to move on and form new connections (or assemblages in D&G's terms) and so on. It's accepting that you are only one strand in the quilt, and to trust the power of the whole as you support it from your node in the meshwork. It can be a very dynamic and exhilarating way to move in the world. This sort of form (rhizome/quilt) is also very hard for dominant hierarchical/centralized forms of power to control. This is one reason why guerrilla warfare has often been so effective against substantially larger militaries operating in that centralized form. (And that goes back a long way too, it was used effectively against the Romans by many barbarian tribes too. Mongols also used many guerrilla tactics, conquering much more than anyone would have ever foreseen or predicted). So I think the form itself is a powerful one, and particularly appropriate to counter the dominant calcified power centers of our time.
  
  I think this switch to a way of being that can embrace and effectively move and make connections in that rhizomatic way is a really important one. And of course, one part of making that switch is to also understand it at a cognitive level (ie. Macy's 'shift in consciousness'), which is partially what we're doing here and I wrote a short piece around it when the Occupy movement broke out. But all that in my experience prepares one for the orientation on the ground, which as I said, can be quite an engaging and fulfilling way to move in the world. Hail the crazy quilt!
  
  bits-a-pieces/item/627-the-growth-of-the-rhizome-resources-for-occupy-wall-st