Shift Happens

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"Don't forget that you are the product of a culture that went stark raving mad about ten thousand years ago. Adjust your thinking accordingly."
    --Chuck Lorre, Vanity Card #184

 

This is a term I'm using for the biggest picture of the movement i work for. (Also the title of some talks/workshops i've offered; maybe a book.)

 

aka
World Undomination
Culture Shift
"Social Change"
Power-With

Process Consciousness

Process Life

etc.

 

Some high-leverage areas/strategies:

  • Culture shift from 'power-over' to 'power-with' - see resources below
  • Revoking Corporate Personhood (now with new energy from the recent Supreme Court decision affirming/expanding corporate free speech rights)
  • Economics - in particular, the Sharing Economy, and the effort to create language and systems that allow for truer seeing of, freer experimentation with, and much greater value-creating currencies (e.g. seeing them as being/modeling value flows).

 

Talks/workshops

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I offered Shift Happens for the first time in a session on Friday, noon-3pm. Went well, learned, excited to do more! The announcement/blurb:

 

First, a short overview/discussion inviting participants to see the scale of our movement (a framing that goes beyond all forms of oppression). Then, a workshop in which we'll explore asking for the kind of change we want to see, and get in touch with the power of being with — and exposing to others — our deepest motivations for what we want. (In different terms, an activist-themed taste of Nonviolent Communication.)

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Will propose a Shift Happens talk for this.

 

Ignite advice from Kristin:

watch some

short chunks - to ease moving on when/if falling behind

 

 

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Shift Happens+resources

Resources for seeing the movement’s scale, and systems/process consciousness

(links/updates: http://johnabbe.wagn.org/wagn/Shift_Happens+resources or http://tr.im/shiftresources/)

[Twelve] Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System — Donella Meadows
http://www.sustainer.org/pubs/Leverage_Points.pdf

Upward Spiral — Paul Krafel
http://www.chrysalischarterschool.com/Paul/Paul/HOPE.html (link to film, how to purchase, more resources)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1452672721626540278 (40 minute version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-frWkYg2-Ew (last three minutes)

The Tyranny of Structurelessness — http://jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

I may never settle on terms for what we’re shifting from/to, because i don’t think either can be captured in a term. Here are lists of the deep assumptions i see (calling what we're shifting to “power-with” just as some way to refer to it):
http://ourpla.net/cgi/pikie?AssumptionsOfPowerWithCulture

A website about Process Arts — http://processarts.wagn.org/

The Tao of Democracy — Tom Atlee (more background, & some very large-scale, hopeful strategies)
http://www.taoofdemocracy.com/

 

In particular, Wisdom Council — http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-wisdomcouncil.html — an iteration of:

  1. Gatherings of random selections of people from whatever whole population who select issue(s) they believe matter, and are facilitated in a way that gets them through and beyond their usual perspectives and positions toward more whole/transformative creation of consensus suggestions,
  2. which are widely reflected to the larger population as part of ongoing action and conversation.

 

"Don't forget that you are the product of a culture that went stark raving mad about ten thousand years ago. Adjust your thinking accordingly."
    --Chuck Lorre, Vanity Card #184

 

More of my Favorite Quotes

 

What resources do you have to offer?