How can new politics happen? What are ways of doing it? Here are some approaches we have used and learned from during the time of the project.
We discovered a variety of approaches that can help us when engaging. There are approaches that serve us on the inner, capabilities we all have and may want to rediscover. There are tools that can support our work in groups and tools that can help us to make sense of the world. How can we hold ambivalence and polarity when feeling our way forward? What are the patterns that distinguish a helpful conversation from a frustrating one? What are examples of processes or formats that serve the emergence of surprising and beneficial solutions?
DIALOGUE
Whether we are speaking about a political system that needs to be changed, decisions governments and non-government organisations make, or dealing with conflicts in a variety of arenas: dialogue is an essential ingredient of politics. The problem is that the word dialogue is used very imprecisely. In fact, it is used for any kind of conversation and in some cases for communication which is entirely one-sided. We have added the word Transformative to indicate dialogue that makes a difference to those who are involved in it. Engaging in Transformative Dialogue changes the way people see a situation. It changes the way people view a conflict, a challenge, or simply a situation that needs attention. Seeing the world differently – if only in a minor way – is transformative.
Transformative Dialogue sometimes occurs by itself. It is a timeless art that has been practised for centuries. For many of us, however, it does not happen without some forethought, planning and skill. This part of the LiFT project is a collection of building blocks for Transformative Dialogue.
Bernard Le Roux has uncovered and explored core elements of Transformative Dialogue and he has created a website that introduces its building blocks as well as patterns that contribute to improving the quality of the conversation.
Bernard has created a website with the intention to build up a collection of scenarios that illustrate the use of transformative dialogue. New examples will emerge, and the collection will grow. We hope that these will help to inspire those seeking to use dialogue in different settings.
If you are interested in exploring this material - here are some questions that you can use as a starting point:
Think of a conversation you will have with someone in your personal or professional life that is likely to be angry or upset. Look at the Scenario for preparing yourself for a difficult conversation and use the techniques to prepare yourself for the conversation.
Think of a meeting you will lead and look at the Clarify the Objective scenario and the Method and Tools to help you prepare for it.
Go through the skills and the meta-skills and explore which ones you are mastering and which one you need to develop further. Explore with your partner, one of the skills you wish to develop further.
How to make sense in the crisis of confusion
Three of the major crises of our time, Covid-19, climate change, and the war in Ukraine are indicators of the general failure of our globalized, co-dependent and fragile systems. Collectively, we are in a phase of deep uncertainty. At the moment, it seems that our own interests contradict each other on many different levels of our work and personal life. We have a hard time balancing our basic values while it seems that work is pitched against health, health against freedom, economic interests against survival, young against old, ethics against pragmatism. We are in an unprecedented crisis of confusion: we are unable to process what is happening around us sensibly in real time in order to be able to act.
Anne Caspari, Bettina Geiken and Beth Smith have been looking at the new stories that are emerging using the tool SenseMaker®:
It is an online crowd-sourcing research tool for collecting and self-interpreted micro-narratives and for discovering actionable insights beyond surveys and focus groups. It offers a science-based approach to guide collective impact and leverage the strengths of being human in uncertain times.
SenseMaker® works to democratise the research and engagement process by enabling participants to be the analyst of their own contribution, and in doing so creates a rich integration of storytelling, statistics and data visualisation; that allows for both personal and collective insight generation. The tool can be used as a platform for real-time distributed network response to key issues or in defining collective insight with a view to taking action. We believe that it offers great potential to contribute to (and is congruent) with the new forms of politics, particularly through the ability to couple contextual and cultural insights with large volumes of quantitative data, whilst relying upon reflexive self-interpretation rather than AI. SenseMaker® is an online crowd-sourcing research tool for collecting and self-interpreted micro-narratives and for discovering actionable insights beyond surveys and focus groups. It offers a science-based approach to guide collective impact and leverage the strengths of being human in uncertain times.
The intention here is to democratise the research and engagement process by enabling participants to be the analyst of their own contribution, and in doing so creates a rich integration of storytelling, statistics and data visualisation; that allows for both personal and collective insight generation. The tool can be used as a platform for real-time distributed network response to key issues or in defining collective insight with a view to taking action. We believe that it offers great potential to contribute to (and is congruent) with the new forms of politics, particularly through the ability to couple contextual and cultural insights with large volumes of quantitative data, whilst relying upon reflexive self-interpretation rather than AI.
We invite you to try it out by giving input on one of the open SenseMaker® captures that have been developed within the scope of LIFT-project:
Citizens' participation in the Conference on the Future of Europe
(Re-)building Society Together in Turbulent Times
Social Media and Polarisation (EU - Mediafutures Project)
CAPABILITIES
In the course of this project on New Politics, Harald Schellander was inspired to work on future capabilities. He had the feeling - actually he knew - that for a new world to be liveable for all living beings, a new language is needed. So he started to look around and ask around which words (of the German language) could be future-oriented. There was no catalogue of criteria, but Harald trusted his intuition. Over the course of a few weeks, he came up with an unordered list of around 350 words which he later added to. Central to the process was Harald's remembering the word "Vermögen" (capability) or "vermögen" (ability), both of which have wonderful layers of meaning in German. He understood that his process of inquiry had filtered out 16 capabilities that we need, especially in times of crisis, to cope with the present and the future. In co-creation with his wife Marianne, who painted watercolours, the book AND came into being. And the journey continued, many different levels were added - such as a map of knowledge, which underlies Harald's being and doing, as well as a drawing project that brought essential things to light. In the meantime, the book AND is waiting to be extended by your story ...
The 16 capabilities are the ability:
1 to live in my own rhythm
2 to stay cheerful and curious
3 to feel with the heart
4 to be truly myself
5 to be present
6 to be in touch with others
7 to invite the muses
8 to dream the impossible
9 to endure not knowing
10 to stand in for something
11 not to be taken in
12 to take responsibility
13 to find one's place in the big picture
14 to pass on one's fortune
15 to build on the AND
16 to co-create
Explore these further in Harald's and Marianne's book, that is free for download.
MEDITATION
Meditation is a very helpful technique to train the skills and capabilities needed in new politics. Since it helps us not to get triggered or entangled in all the problems that are in front of us. Instead it helps us zoom out, see the bigger picture and understand what is really important. It also helps us embrace life's inevitable difficult patches and see meaning in them rather than try to manage them as old politics tries to do.
Meditation is an ancient form of contemplation that many religions have practiced for thousands of years. More recently modern day psychology has embraced many practices due to their many health benefits. Most practices have in common that they focus the attention on something like the breath, the heart or a mantra or prayer. And a common approach is to see the feelings and thoughts that arise as floating leaves passing on a creek, where you don’t hold on to them but let them go. A metaphor for this is the sky; sometimes it is covered with clouds that pass, but you know that behind them is always the blue sky. And you can focus on the sky rather than the clouds even when the sky is not visible.
Here are links to explore meditation practices:
https://insighttimer.com
https://www.headspace.com
