The Gift Contract
Also catalogued elsewhere
An overview of GTDF’s position. “Violence and unsustainability are conditions that are necessary for the system (that is ‘not working’) to exist, how we are part of this system (and complicit in harm) and how this system has screwed (all of) us up… Without this cognitive, affective and relational ‘decluttering’, we will only be able to want and imagine different versions of the same thing.”
The logical solution proposed is one that keeps our hopes up: that “we” the (virtuous, woke, moral, righteous, deserving, enlightened) people in the “good team” can choose to fix the system by either patching it up or offering a replacement, a better alternative.
The usual story of change is that there is a problem with the system that needs to be solved.
Our analysis has a different starting point. It begins with an examination of how violence and unsustainability are conditions that are necessary for the system (that is “not working”) to exist, how we are part of this system (and complicit in harm) and how this system has screwed (all of) us up.
Without this cognitive, affective and relational “decluttering”, we will only be able to want and imagine different versions of the same thing.
Our use of the term decolonial emphasizes facing humanity’s wrongs, our own complicities in harm, and the likelihood of social and ecological collapse in our lifetime, while learning to walk a tightrope between naive hope and desperate hopelessness, with honesty, humility, humor and hyper-self-reflexivity
start with the interruption of our satisfaction with harmful desires encouraged and rewarded in the current system
we need to move beyond forms of politics that are based on exceptionalisms (e.g. looking for the most virtuous or meritorious groups/leaders), the expansion of colonial entitlements (e.g. unlimited consumption of knowledge, experiences, relationships), exaltedness (e.g. expectations of pats on the back and celebrations of success), ego-empowerment (e.g. self-centering/self-congratulatory), and externalization of culpability (e.g. denial of our own complicity in harm).
When we run workshops based on the work of GTDF, we usually say that we “lovingly don’t care about what you think”
sobriety, maturity, discernment and accountability (SMDA).
It requires people to want to declutter their existence by confronting their shadows, fantasies, fears, insecurities, fragilities, addictions, denials and delusions.
Those who engage with this type of pedagogical processes with investments in feeling virtuous, being validated, having higher moral grounds or finding a universal language or consensus around a specific vision of the past, the present, or the future tend to quit the process as a result of frustration, sometimes causing damage to themselves and to others involved.
Tags: sm/coordination
It is common for people to assume that we believe this work is universally relevant. They assume that we would like to scale up the work, and that we would be grateful for any platform offered for us to do that. Some people expect that we should feel deeply indebted for their enthusiasm and efforts to bring this work to other people. We perceive this very differently. Offering this work to those who are not ready to engage with it is potentially harmful (to facilitators and participants). It is also often the case that most people want to consume the work superficially and selectively (wanting to make this work fit their own agenda, and demanding time, attention, and validation). Given the demands we already have, we prefer not to use our time and energy with this form of engagement.
Tags: sm/healing
the in-depth work that is required for the containers to be effective can only be done with smaller groups of people who are ready to accept a high level of responsibility for their own (un)learning and the fact that there are no formulaic solutions or quick fixes to the mess we/humanity have collectively created
We need to interrupt the cycle of vilification/pathologization and romanticization/idealization
There is a mega-storm coming, and our only option is to go through it, together.
Tags: sm/collapse
No one is off the hook, and no one has all the answers.