Reflections from Tarrytown: “global challenges” and finding our North Star

I’m flying home from Newark, and want to take a moment to reflect. I had the privilege of being invited to a small curated convening hosted by the Stanley Foundation: their 50th annual “Global Issues” conference, hosted at a lovely retreat center in Tarrytown, NY. It was conceived as an opportunity to do what the title implies: consider the major issues of the day, their interrelationships, their possible solutions. This year the invitation was framed around collective action.

To their credit, they sought to switch up the typical “conference” model. Instead of speakers, panelists, and a largely passive audience, they brought a small group (20) together around a table. They deliberately curated a diverse list: by race, by gender, by national origin, by issue area, by discipline.

I was excited about the opportunity, both to engage with a diverse set of people and perspectives, as well as to observe and learn from the unenviable process of trying to usher a bunch of strangers through a massively complex set of issues — hopefully toward some actionable outcomes — in fewer than 48 hours together.

I’m still processing, and this isn’t really the right forum for all my thoughts (I’ve also been journaling). But I wanted to take a moment to capture some of the themes bouncing around in my head. I had a really good conversation last night with my wife, who was concurrently in a similar-but-different space. While I was on the banks of the Hudson River in NY, she was in Sonoma County for a 5-day immersion program exploring philanthropy’s role in social movements with Thousand Currents. [Huge thanks to my parents for stepping up to take care of the kids while we’re on the road! It takes a village, indeed.]

So we had a chance to compare notes about what we were seeing. It was an interesting flip of our usual perspectives. These days I spend the vast majority of my mental energy in movement spaces; she spends the majority of hers in institutional spaces (primarily in philanthropy). This was the reverse: she in a movement-dominated setting, me in a more institutional setting. Anyway, a few of the themes I’m thinking about:

1) There was a lot of coalescence in our conversations in Tarrytown around the need for a “North Star” (or a Southern Cross or “lodestar”, if you will). Some superordinate vision toward which we can orient ourselves and serve a coordinating function across our disparate endeavors. There was generally a feeling that our star has faded (if indeed we ever had one… the “liberal world order” at least seems to have lost its luster). And in the face of multiple intersecting crises (climate change, rising authoritarianism, economic inequality, and migration to name but a few) it’s clear that we can’t afford to tackle things piecemeal.

2) This in turn prompted me to think about where that north star comes from: how do we come up with a global vision? My own reading of history is that transformational change only and always starts with the courageous actions of a few people. To name a few contemporary examples: three queer black women starting a hashtag called #blacklivesmatter; one Swedish schoolgirl starting an effort that became #climatestrike; one black woman started a program to combat sexual violence against girls of color (and one white woman sent a tweet) called #MeToo… etc. Of course, there is an important and complicated relationship between an online viral hashtag and offline organizing, but we’ll get to that below. This begs the question: who now is doing the work of organizing that small group? Which individuals are focused on the (massive) challenge of a global vision adequate to the complexity of our current moment?

3) Of course, this question begs several others. Is it possible to build toward a vision from a bottom-up approach? Recognizing that no one of us can possibly hold all the pieces together, can we work together from a set of common principles to identify that broader global vision? There is one effort I’m aware of nationally seeking to do just that (called, appropriately, the “Northstar network”). It’s primarily a U.S.-focused effort at this point, but it’s a good place to start. I also think there is something instructive about the movements we are trying to combat, particularly those that are truly global in scope. I think particularly of neoliberalism (which sprang from a small group of thinkers who first gathered in Mont Pelerin) and white nationalism (which has a much longer and more varied lineage).

4) The sequencing that came to mind for me goes something like this (mindful that each step of course encapsulates a huge range of activity that thus includes many sub-steps):

a. First you come up with the idea (let’s say the vision, the north star).

b. Then you need to figure out the narrative/story to translate that vision into something easily digestible by people.

c. Then you need to figure out how to disseminate that narrative and vision widely. That allows you to build a broad-based constituency for change.

d. Then you need to build a movement: this requires strategy and organization, bringing people together around a theory of action, coordinating on- and offline approaches.

e. That movement then makes demands of existing institutions and power structures, seeking satisfaction of concrete grievances in the short term AND seeking to transform or replace those institutions in the medium and long term.

f. This process in turn requires capturing institutions (in the context of electoral politics, this means political power). There are many ways to do this, working through or around existing party structures, building new ones, etc.

g. But we can’t stop there (and this is where we progressives seeking transformation differ from the neoliberals or white nationalists): we are not interested only in capturing the institutions. We want to transform them, and in some cases dismantle them entirely. If we were designing the architecture for effective global governance today, would it look like the current UN system with a permanent 5 sitting on a Security Council, paired with a General Assembly? I suspect not. The goal is to identify — and create — new institutional arrangements that embody and reflect the world as we want it to be: democratic, transparent, accountable, adaptive. Of course this sequence is not linear, and even as this is happening there is a huge range of concurrent efforts needed.

5) I know this is all a little abstract. Which brings me to another point in the context of our fading north star. We suffer from a lack of imagination. I was listening to an interview with psychologist Daniel Kahneman (who pioneered the field of “behavioral economics”); he coined the term “availability heuristic.” It’s a cognitive bias which basically assumes that all we can see is all there is. If we can’t see it, we can’t imagine it. It resonates for me in the context of the problem we have with re-imagining our economic system: people can’t readily conceive of an alternative. This of course doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist (or multiple ones, for that matter). I’m increasingly thinking that we need to devote serious intellectual effort to a visioning exercise that seeks to paint a picture. Let’s say 2035. Say we’re successful beyond our wildest dreams: what does the world look like? What is a day — a year — in my life in 2035? Are there planes? Global commerce? Is there a stock market? Is their currency? Obviously these are radical questions for such a short time-frame, but that’s the point: we need to think about it. I’ve been struggling with this, because I’m of two minds. On the one hand, I think we need to trust the process: get the right folks together (everyone) with the right design principles (I would just say human and planetary thriving, but we could say freedom, belonging, justice, equity, sustainability, etc) and the end product will be what we need… whatever it may look like. On the other hand, I don’t think we’re wired that way: people need to feel it, to see it, to believe it. I’m increasingly coming to believe that if we can’t visualize the end state, we can’t get there. This is the realm of radical imagination, and in part I think why adrienne maree brown’s writing is so powerfully tapping into the cultural zeitgeist of the moment. She channels science fiction, and black female futurists in particular, who were/are engaged in this precise exercise: what might a different world look like? What ought it look like?

6) One of the most surprising take-aways from the convening gives me some optimism. We kicked off our time together with a real pick-me-up: identifying all the big global problems in the world: the “rocks” that are immovable, complex, multi-faceted, uncertain, ill-defined, not time-bound, etc. Climate change. Inequality. Authoritarianism, etc. We ultimately identified 64. I offered (among others) our global epidemic of human disconnection, alienation, and social isolation. We then did a voting exercise where we could choose which ones we wanted to focus on. To my great surprise, alienation/isolation made our top 4. The next day we further refined the topics, explored them in more detail, and had a chance to re-vote: alienation/belonging (now with a positive re-frame) was the top vote-getter that people wanted to engage more deeply. I admit I did NOT see that coming, but I found it deeply affirming of the direction I’m going in my own work. It also led to a really cool thread that unspooled throughout the convening: around empathy, around self-transformation, around addressing trauma, around holding tension and space, around forgiveness. And to my great surprise, the whole group pretty much coalesced around it. Not in the same way or to the same degree, but we all agreed it was important, both as a means and an end (building connection as a way to build more connection). More of us every day are reaching this conclusion; one participant noted the recent establishment of a Center for Empathy in International Affairs.

7) I would go farther. I was one of probably 3 or 4 people who saw it as fundamental to the whole enterprise. I have come to believe that transformational change is not possible without doing that work: without serious self-examination, without unpacking histories of trauma, without a collective process of reconciliation and redemption. As Esther Perel says: ignoring conflict (or pain) does not make it go away. This is of course a complicating variable for our broader process of movement-building: we need to create space for it. But it’s the only way: vulnerability is the path to authenticity and connection… and in turn to belonging. We can’t “belong” if we can’t be our full selves, and we can’t be our full selves until we’ve done the work to re-integrate: to build ourselves back up from the fracturing forces of capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy. All of which seek to divide us from ourselves and from each other. Once we are whole we will be able to turn our attention from the individual to the systems (of course, the two are necessarily done in tandem, and it’s increasingly clear to me that progress at the system level depends on progress at the individual level). And I should be clear that I don’t think individual change happens in a vacuum: we absolutely need serious help. From our friends, our family, our therapists, the collective wisdom of our ancestors and our kindred spirits who are on this journey with us (what adrienne maree brown calls our “woes”: people “working on excellence”).

8) These points are clearly no longer proceeding in any logically related order. My apologies. This next theme cuts across a few of the above points. It’s about the operating system of our collective action efforts (which at this point I think about as social movements, though obviously there’s an important relationship to consider between the “inside” institutional game and the “outside” game of movements). What is the governance structure of a movement? What are the rules and the norms, and the accountability mechanism? What is the feedback loop of co-creation and co-ownership between the originators (the small bold group that got things started) and the millions of others needed to sustain and implement it? In my mind this is both a “form” (structure) and “function” (purpose) question. To make it more concrete, let’s talk about Ultimate frisbee. A few people made it up in a parking lot in New Jersey 50 years ago. Then debated and agreed on some basic rules, and eventually settled on an organizing ethos: the “spirit of the game” (which is basically some version of the golden rule, or “don’t be a jerk.” It’s what allows our self-refereed sport to function.) So Spirit of the Game to some extent provided the north star and thus guided the norms that ended up emerging around it. Eventually the rules were codified and published somewhere, and finally institutionalized in the form of what is now USA Ultimate (and its global equivalent, the World Flying Disc Federation). But the particular beauty is this: I’ve played Ultimate in Kenya, Rwanda, Vietnam, and Myanmar. And it works. Despite not knowing the language, within a few minutes I’m able to quickly divine the local norms (how much contact is considered appropriate, how decisions are made around play-calling or what defense to run, etc), and we can play the game. So that’s the goal: something de-centralized, locally relevant, people-driven (voluntary), low barriers to entry. Other models I’m thinking about that we may be able to adapt and learn from: Alcoholics Anonymous, labor unions, social clubs like Elks, Indivisible, Wikimedia, and of course all the current movements/political formations that are attempting to create some sort of enduring structure, invariably in a place-based context: Movement for Black Lives, Democratic Socialists for America, etc.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there for now: my brain is tired. But this is precisely the work I’m trying to do: partner with people to answer all these questions. Not with the “one right answer”, which I’m sure doesn’t exist. But with a testable hypothesis that we can iterate while doing. I’m doing my best to find people with expertise and insight on each of these questions, and to bring them together: movement-building strategists; process experts to think about design principles; healing justice practitioners to think about the relationship between personal and collective transformation; narrative experts to think about how to tell a story and connect it to people; electoral strategists thinking deeply about the relationship between the inside/outside game; etc. If you’re one of those people: let’s build together.