Entering the Emptiness Stage - GPCA Evolving Forward to effective community
In the Green Party we have a saying: "Neither Left nor Right, but Forward". We have a number of resources available to us at this point that we need to avail ourselves of that can move us forward, past our present GPCA crisis of ineffectiveness. I'll begin to put forward some of those resources here now starting with Scott Peck's Stages of Community development
M. Scott Peck in has detailed four cyclical stages in the quest for Community in his book The Different Drum:
The stages of Community Building generally include:
Pseudocommunity
An initial state of "being nice". Pseudocommunity is characterized by politeness, conflict avoidance, and denial of individual differences. Let's be honest -- most of us can't keep this up for long. Eventually someone is going to speak up, speak out, and the dam breaks.Chaos
In the stage of chaos, individual differences are aired, and the group tries to overcome them through misguided attempts to heal or to convert. Listening suffers, and emotions and frustration tend to run high. There are only two ways out of chaos: retreat into pseudocommunity (often through organization), or forward, through emptiness.Emptiness
Emptiness refers to the process of recognizing and releasing the barriers (expectations, prejudices, the need to control) that hold us back from authentic communication with others, from being emotionally available to hear the voices of those around us. This is a period of going within, of searching ourselves and sharing our truths with the group. This process of "dying to the self" can make way for something remarkable to emerge.Community
"In my defenselessness, my safety lies." In this stage, individuals accept others as they are, and are themselves accepted. Differences are no longer feared or ignored, but rather are celebrated. A deep sense of peace and joy characterizes the group.
WHERE WE'RE AT - THE CHAOS STAGE
In the GPCA we are struggling with the overload that old-school Domination paradigm Left (Bluish Greens) and Right (Redish-Greens) Factional Fanatics have introduced to our party. The Factional Fanatics have lost sight of our uniting 10 Key Values and instead of an attitude of harambe (Swahili for "Let's pull together" or "Coming Together As One") they are locked in mêlée violent political combat and dragging our party down with them.
Now believe it or not there are some clear upsides to this otherwise embarrassing and shameful situation.
For one thing much more of the party activists sat up and took notice, vowing to find solutions to the present impasse and abusive actions of the Redish v Bluish Green Factional Fanatics. Much more of the party is more fully aware now of the deadly seriousness of the situation and is working much harder to find paths forward.
Another upside is the clarity the Factional Fanatics have forced upon us that our political culture and structure needs to evolve forward. The strains of the Domination paradigm attempting to reassert control over our Grassroots Democracy culture is teaching us that we need to bring to bear some additional tools in order to become robust enough to be able to maintain our direction in the face of the political baggage that inadequately reoriented former Dems, Repubs and Socialists bring to our party.
So let's begin to delve into the vast array of tools that are now available to us that will evolve us forward from Chaos, through Emptiness into effective Community.
MY EVALUATIVE CRITERIA
Some important considerations that I will use in my evaluations of tools:
- Attempting to solve our problems merely creating new rules, positions or more generally working exclusively through structural reform will not work. Humans being humans they are never successfully coerced into a particular operational mode.
- On the other hand it would be quite naive to expect that people will behave in the most cooperative and altruistic ways without setting some boundaries, guidelines and above all incentives for the kind of behavior we need in order to be Effective.
We need to look at how our current internal political culture and system incentivize certain behaviors and alter those incentives to steer closer to the behavior we're looking for.
Don't despair
More enlightening discussion of how
Generally, a group will cycle through four distinct stages.In the stage of Pseudo-Community, the group is characterized by polite interaction as individuals "test the waters" of relationship, operating on the assumption that group members have few differences that divide them.
As the group continues to talk, the previously unspoken differences begin to emerge. Typically, participants deal with the discomfort caused by the discovery of difference by seeking to "fix" others or to "convert" people to their point of view. In this Chaos stage, there is often limited listening, high emotional energy, and a significant level of frustration. This stage has been labeled chaos.
Groups regularly deal with the confusion of chaos by retreating to the stage of pseudo-community or by attempting to organize in some way. Neither of these avenues leads to a deep level of connection with others. A difficult, but effective way to transcend the barriers to relationship lies through Emptiness. Emptying happens when individuals begin to notice what they are carrying within themselves that prevents them from being authentically present with the group and fully accepting others. As people begin to share what is real for them—personal experience of the present moment in the group, prejudices, stories of past pain or joy, unfulfilled expectations—group members begin to come together in a new way. In this stage, a group will often feel like it is dying but, in the painful struggle to let go of the barriers to relationship, there is opportunity for something new to emerge.
The process of emptying provides room for a group to receive the gift of Community. In this stage people experience a deep acceptance of others and find themselves accepted as well. Individuals come to know themselves and others in new ways. Differences still exist but they are transcended and celebrated rather than suppressed. The group is characterized by a sense of profound respect, appreciation and joy.
Each of these stages is part of healthy community. A group will not rest undisturbed in the fourth stage but continue to cycle through all the stages. A gift of this process is that people acquire skills to enable continued movement through the stages instead of being stuck in places of division. Community Building provides an opportunity for people to learn how to come together authentically and truthfully in ways that encourage wholeness in relationship.
A few of the resources for Evolving Forward that I'll be discussing upcoming:
Sociocracy
Co-op Housing/Communitarians - Intentional Communities
Community Building
Nonviolent Communication
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JamBoi,
I appreciate the valuable information you've compiled here and your insights into analyzing our current state of affairs in the GPCA.
But these Spiritual and philosophical perspectives, although valuable, are distracting from the task at hand as I see it, which is, coming up with a broad stroke solution set to address the malaise that the GPCA has wallowed in for many years now.
Group think anthropology and unpacking how humans interact and operate is important for historians, anthropologists, cultural experts, educators, religious leaders, BUT we are a POLITICAL PARTY.
What I mean by this, is that we have a task to forward political efforts that are successful electorally speaking, and right now we have a structure of conducting business that is entirely too idealistic and not practical; unwieldy in the face of political wrangling and factionalism.
WE must address this with emergency legislation, yes, actual RULES.
You said, "Attempting to solve our problems merely creating new rules, positions or more generally working exclusively through structural reform will not work. Humans being humans they are never successfully coerced into a particular operational mode."
AND THEN YOU SAY,
"On the other hand it would be quite naive to expect that people will behave in the most cooperative and altruistic ways without setting some boundaries, guidelines and above all incentives for the kind of behavior we need in order to be Effective."
These are contradictory statements. Enforceable boundaries ARE rules. Guidelines ARE positions.
You can't have it both ways here -- either we significantly change our way of moving the party business forward, or we continue to repeat an act of self-negation via our current political impasse. This is exactly the kind of Pollyannaish approach that doesn't clearly and definitively take a stand towards FIXING what's BROKEN.
You've have impugned the reforms I've suggested as "un-Green" and a violation of our principles,
BUT,
the overwhelming preponderance of successful party models -- including GREEN PARTIES – have a party structure that more closely resembles the suggested reforms of 1) a lower voting threshold, and 2) a party chairperson.
JamBoi, precisely which Green Parties around the world operate within this "domination paradigm" that you speak of?
Are you saying that these other Green Parties are NOT GREEN?
You consistently avoid this, because many of the successful party models that are successfully forwarding progressive and Green principles, have LOWER voting thresholds AND a party chairperson.
And their method of resolving conflict and moving party business forward is vastly more successful than what's happening in the GPCA right now.
Through translation of your comments, you indict the kinds of politics being practiced in Green Parties around the world as "UN-GREEN" operating under a "domination paradigm path".
Please respond to this directly and unequivocally instead of repeating your dismissive assertion that the practical reforms I've suggested will sacrifice our values.
You haven't answered this, why?
Your avoidance of this question and your desire to obfuscate our immediate reform needs into a philosophical discussion and/or nonviolence seminar, makes me wonder if you have an agenda to maintain the GPCA status quo, which is, sadly, a paralyzed and increasingly ineffective political party.
So before we delve into more philosophy to determine why our party is failing, I'll reinterate the question you refuse to address:
Precisely which Green Parties around the world operate within this "domination paradigm" that you speak of?
Are you saying that these other Green Parties are NOT GREEN?
Byron
There is a lot of good material here and I intend to carefully review it.
Your analysis of the group dynamics does not conflict with mine and so I kinda think we are "coming from" the same place.
I will not be moved by the rhetorical juxtaposition of "community" with "pseudo-community" (who wants to embrace anything "pseudo"?). I have seen that word "community" abused a lot (e.g. "Vote for the Democrats because they represent Our Community" or "This is a Christian community so go to church!").
I was surfing the Internet just now on the "Domination Paradigm" and I found that "The Domination Paradigm takes for granted that all individuals should conform to just one ideal-form of being a good individual" and that "The Domination Paradigm" takes for granted that it is essential for them to use coercive and violent methods to force individuals to conform to the one mandatory ideal form."
Nowadays, in the U.S. we sometimes have the worst or both worlds. Thus, for example I am told that in order to conform to "My Community" I am supposed to pretend that hearing my wife referred to as a "bitch" is okay. But if i say I do not think calling women "bitches" is okay, then I am accused of trying to "force" people to conform to the "pseudo-community" commonly referred to as "political correctness."
I am studying this, but reserve the right to assert that a "pseudo-community" where people work hard at "being nice" may be superior.