Intentional Society: attending to differences, representation, inclusion
Still looking for a tour of Intentional Society? RSVP for the next informational call this Sunday, Feb 21st.
Another beginning in group awareness
Last Sunday we gathered to explore the subject of diversity (and DEI fairly broadly) in our shared virtual space, as well as in our lives outside IS. We made only a beginning, of course - of bringing our awareness to who is and isn't represented in our nascent community, to the differences we bring relative to each other, and to the internal experience of people who aren't a part of the majority in one or more of many societal dimensions. Beyond common DEI categories like gender, ethnicity, and age we'd like to be mindful of other segmenters like intellectualism and seriousness. We noticed the compounding effect of imbalances: "there aren't many women here, so does it feel like a welcoming place to invite more women to?" We agreed to spend some ongoing time over the next weeks to question ourselves further, bringing out this discomfort and other edges.
Meta-sameness in valuing diversity
Given the hot-button nature of the culture war around wokeness, I'd prepared to navigate some conflict and hold space for differing values to generate tension. That didn't really show up! I do see how a set of people interested in stretching and expanding themselves would tend to be aligned towards the clear value of personal and cultural differences for growing our perspective-taking abilities. This sparks some meta-level questions for me: What does it mean to be uniform in our enthusiasm for these values - does that lean towards a kind of postmodern fundamentalism? Is it a shibboleth to our tribe? What are the boundaries given the paradox of tolerance? I'd say our goal is not to build the absolute biggest tent possible, however a space that's big enough for growth is a space that's big enough for some large amount of differences and challenges. Safety first and foremost, and then also bravery within that contianer? Polarities like that tend to seek a "both/and" integration.
A self-modifying game
One of the rhythms emerging over the last several weeks is context-switching between "operations" and "governance" time, or between object and meta levels. If this whole endeavor is a game, then we're both playing the game and changing the rules of the game as we go. We do this by bubbling up proposals which the group then consents to if they are safe enough to try and good enough for now. I feel a sense of collective mobility in this practice: if we can see what we want to change, then we have the means to steer ourselves in that direction.
This week we'll be learning-by-doing the Empathy Circle practice. I'll let you know what we learn!
Cheers,
James