Emergent Strategy
Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown is a refreshing read.
This summer, I had the amazing opportunity to do a research fellowship with Princeton University, where I learned a lot about systems thinking, emergence, and networks. It was a new way for me to think about policy discourse and what it means to live in a global community. Who knew I’d come back to it on a community level!
I came across Emergent Strategy through a friend, and as soon as I got to page three, I knew I was in the right place: “But emergence notices the way small actions and connections create complex systems, patterns that become ecosystems and societies. Emergence is our inheritance as part of this universe; it is how we change. Emergent strategy is how we intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for.”
After reading, I quickly realized that if I want to change the world, emergence tools are ones I need to adopt into my skill set ASAP. Reading this book also made me want to get into sci-fi more, which I am looking forward to over winter break, (starting with Dune).
Brown describes her hope for the book which is “that this content will deepen and soften that intelligence such that we can align our behavior, our structures and our movements with our visions of justice and liberation, and give those of us co-creating the future more options for working with each other and embodying the things we fight for- dignity, collective power, love, generative conflict, and community.”
Long story short, I will be coming back to this piece time and time again. It includes some amazing practices and action items, making it both accessible and interactive.
Here are some key messages that really hit home for me:
“When we are engaged in acts of love, we humans are at our best and most resilient…….Perhaps humans’ core function is love. Love leads us to observe in a much deeper way than any other emotion. I think of how delightful it s to see something new in my lovers’ faces, something they may only know from inside as a feeling.” (9)
“Science fiction is simply a way to practice the future together…..practicing futures together, practicing justice together, living into new stories.” (19)
“What we pay attention to grows”. (19)
Toni Cade Bambara: we must make just and liberated futures irresistible.
“And I think it is healing behavior, to look at something so broken and see the possibility and wholeness in it. “ (19)
“Emergent strategies are ways for humans to practice complexity and grow the future through relatively simple interactions.” (20)
Relationships are everything
“love is an energy of possibility: the possibility of wholeness, in a platonic understanding.” (32)
“Healing happens when a place of trauma or pain is given full attention, really listened to. Healing is the resilience instinct of our bodies, a skill we unlearn as we are taught to pay for and rely on data and medicine outside of our own awareness to be well……There is a way I can open up my presence, voice, and touch to an energy greater than what my body or life has given me. Then truth, comfort, ease, release, and other healing experiences can flow through, wholeness and acceptance of what is can be felt.” (34)
T.C.B: “Writing is one of the ways I participate in transformation”
“I read sci-fi and visionary fiction as political, sacred, and philosophical text, and I engage with others who read it that way…..Science fiction, particularly visionary fiction, is where I go when I need the medicine of possibility applied to the trauma of human behavior." (37)
“My life is a miracle that cannot be recreated. Each day should be lived on purpose.” (54)
“I want a future where we are curious, interested, visionary, adaptive.” (58)
“How do we prepare not just for suffering, but for sharing and innovation? How do we resource the local and still honor our nomadic tendency, our natural migration patterns (which we deny by trying to stay in one place), our global interconnections.” (59)
“When we speak of systemic change, we need to be fractal. Fractals—a way to speak of the patterns we see—move from the micro to macro level. The same spirals on seashells can be found in the shape of galaxies. We must create patterns that cycle upwards, We are micro systems.” (59)
“We do not insert ourselves into people’s political or community work.” (64)
Read all of page 71
“Do you understand that your quality of life and your survival are tied to how authentic and generous the connections are between you and the people and the place you live with and in? Are you actively practicing generosity and vulnerability in order to make the connections between you and others clear, open, available, durable? Generosity here means giving of what you have without strings or expectations attached. Vulnerability means showing your needs. “ (91)
“We have been growing otherness, borders, separateness. And in all that division we have created layer upon layer of trauma and vengefulness, conditions for permanent war, practices that move us into battle with the very planet we rely on for all life. The scale of division, conflict, racism, xenophobia, and hierarchical supremacy on our planet is overwhelming. Finding the places of healing and transformation, moving towards a world beyond enemies, is work that has to be done for our survival. Which means transformative justice-justice at every scale, but I am particularly focused on how it becomes the common orientation and practice of movements for social change, for peace, for liberation.” (132)
“But to move immediately to punishment means that we stay on the surface of what has happened.” (148)
‘Why’ is often the game-changing, possibility-opening question. That’s because the answers rehumanize those we feel are perpetrating against us. ‘Why’ often leads us to grief, abuse, trauma, often (un)diagnosed mental illnesses like depression or bipolar disorder, difference, socialization, childhood, scarcity, loneliness. Also, ‘Why’ makes it impossible to ignore that we might be capable of a similar transgression in similar circumstances. We don’t want to see that.” (148).
“Real time is slower than social media time, where everything feels urgent. Real time often includes periods of silence, reflection, growth, space, self-forgiveness, processing with loved ones, rest, and responsibility.” (149)
Zapatistas: “The world we want is one where many worlds fit.”
“Creating more possibilities is my favorite aspect of emergent strategy- this is where we shape tomorrow towards abundance. Creating more possibilities counters the very foundational assumptions about strategy.” (155)
“Ideation is the process of birthing new ideas, and the practice of collaborative ideation is about sharing that process as early as possible.” (156)
“Imagination is one of the spoils of colonization, which in many ways is claiming who gets to imagine the future of a given geography. Losing our imagination is a symptom of trauma. Reclaiming the right to dream the future, strengthening the muscle to imagine together as Black people, is a revolutionary decolonizing activity.” (163)
“And in order to learn together, you have to be good at humility and curiosity.” (171)
“Emergent strategy is about shifting the way we see and feel the world and each other. If we begin to understand ourselves as a practice ground for transformation, we can transform the world.” (191)
This book uncovers so much about the future, about community, and about ourselves. I highly recommend picking it up in your free time.
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