One of the things I see as a Canadian working in the USA in these times is that politics takes a second seat to actually working on problems at the local and community level.
My experience in the past few years has been working with diverse groups of people people on issues such as disability inclusion, the future of churches, anti-violence, social justice, immigrant and refugee services, health promotion, public education alternatives, fisheries policy engagement, and palliative care. Some of these groups have been made of of folks with shared politics, but many have included people from across the spectrum. I have been working with groups of people that are diving in together on some important shared work for their communities. The divisiveness that everyone associates with American civic dialogue is usually highly muted when there is actual work to do. I find that on the ground, our work has not been hampered or even really affected by the political divisions that are appearing in the public conversation. At the least there is some smoke and heat, but then we just get down to work.
This is interesting to me because it suggests that while people might hold a firm ideology about what direction the country SHOULD be going in, there is very little impact of that ideology in the grounded work of day to day problem solving. We run into the ideology when work we are doing begins to require political support, and the elected officials, who are more and more guardians of a mindset rather than stewards of possibility, apply their lens to support or stop things. I have witnessed many times people frustrated by their own elected officials, from their own parties who stop good work on the basis of ideology. And yet these same people, outside of their own projects, demand a kind of ideological test of integrity for anyone wanting to run for office.
So this strikes me that the divide is not left/right in the US so much as it is ideological/practical. Americans are at heart very practical people. If you have a decent project and a compelling need, Americans will roll their sleeves up and get to work on it with very little ideological bickering. (This is in stark contrast to some work I have done in Europe, where ideology often needs to be negotiated before getting down to brass tacks.)
The cost of the divide is that good work at the community level often gets blocked at the policy and governance level.
The antidote therefore I think to the “divide” such as it is, is to work obliquely to the problem by inviting people into shared work together where they can see that actual problems and real humans are more complex than the projections everyone throws up against their “enemies.”
I think addressing the “divide” question head on actually results in the divide become more and more real and more and more debilitating. I’m not saying that you should ignore it, but I am suggesting that people’s passion and attention are better used solving actual problems, and when they sit down and work together, it is remarkable to me how unified Americans can still actually be.
I’m in a period of recovering from travel and work, over what has been a very busy spring. This weekend I just took right off and did some reading, cleaning and planning for a major kitchen renovation we will be doing this spring.
Reading-wise, it has been a luxury to sit on my front porch and spend hours in a book. My choice this week has been Kim Stanley’ Robinson’s “Aurora” which is a story about a human voyage to colonize a planet 11 light years away. It is an amazing book about problems solving and ontology and should be on every reading list for those who are trying to understand the kinds of philosophy, thinking skills and patterns that make it possible to live with complexity. It’s also a lovely meditation on the difference between technical and adaptive problem solving and leadership. Yes, this is a relaxing piece of fiction for me! I’m lucky to enjoy my work!
On other notes, several interesting links and articles have come my way through different sources this week. Here are a few of note:
So, you don’t think you directly benefit from nonprofits? / Nonprofit With Balls . On why you actually do.
Some Corals Survive Environmental Assault: Scientists Want to Know Why – Plexus Institute. An interesting summary of some of the ways that corals are beginning to demonstrate resilience in the face of massive environmental changes to their habitat. If you’v read Aurora, you’ll appreciate why this article in particular interests me.
Creative Leadership Workshop | Johnnie Moore . A pitch for a cool looking course from my friends Johnny Moore and Viv McWaters in Cambridge this summer.
A Modern-Day Viking Voyage | Hakai Magazine . A few years ago I was staying in Montreal with a Manx friend and learned about this form of governance. My maternal great grandmother’s family is Manx so I’ve always had a passing interest in the little country in the Irish Sea. But the viking connection and the form of council used to govern the country is fascinating.
Complexity Labs . A very interesting new site on complexity, featuring a lot of learning resources.
Saving the planet from governments and markets | Henry Mintzberg. This is the quote that you never expect to see from a business school professor, unless it’s Henry Minstzberg: ”
“It is not plans from some elite “top” that will begin the world over again, but actions on the ground. We are the feet that will have to walk all the talk, connected to heads that will have to think for ourselves. We shall have to confront the perpetrators of climate change—and that includes ourselves—not with violent resistance or passive resistance, but with clever resistance. Some years ago, the angry customers of a Texas telephone company paid 1 extra cent on their telephone bills. This tied the company in knots. It got the message.
Beyond resistance will have to come the replacement of destructive practices by more constructive ones, as has been happening with wind and solar energy. There will be more of this when we “human resources” pursue our resourcefulness as human beings. Imagine, for example, an economy based on growth in qualities instead of quantities, of better instead of more—in education, health care, and nutrition.”
The Secret History of Bioluminescence | Hakai Magazine : Hakai Magazine is one of my favourites, because it’s funded locally but covers global ocean issues. And because I live on an island in the global ocean, that matters. This article is a beautiful meditation on the natural and social history of bioluminecense, one of the many incredibly beautiful things that happens in the ocean here.