Civic Engagement and the Restoration of Community
Six
Conversations That Matter
SM
Change Your Thinking, Change Your
Life
Accountability-based civic engagement is created through
a shift in three conditions:
Our
thinking,
The lens
through which we formulate strategy,
The keys
or tools we apply to specific events.
The shift in the world begins with a shift in my
thinking. Shifting my thinking does not change the world, but it creates
a condition where the shift in the world becomes possible.
The shift is actually an inversion in our thinking. The
step from thinking of ourselves as effect to thinking of ourselves as
cause is the primary act of inversion. This is the point upon which
accountability revolves.
It is to reverse what I thought to be true. The cause and
effect, mechanical thinking of the world, not only overstated the
mechanical nature of the world, but puts the cause in the wrong
direction.
This inversion is based on the thought that for every
great idea, the opposite idea is also true.
Change your thinking, change your life. The change in
thinking is to invert the conventional, or default culture ideology.
Inversion is 180 degrees, not 179 degrees. This shift in thinking
precedes a shift in behavior.
An alternative future arises from the choice to invert
what we believe to be the case. This is done not to claim accuracy, but
to give power to our way of being in community. The question is “if you
believed this to be true, in what ways would that make a difference, or
change your actions?”
The heart of the matter is the question of cause. Have we
chosen the present or has it been handed to us? The possibility of an
alternative future rotates on this question. We can say the primary
inversion is our thinking about cause. What is cause and what is effect.
The default culture would have us believe that the past creates the
future, that a change in individuals causes a change in organizations
and community. That we are determined by everything aside from free
will. That culture, organizations, and society drive our actions and our
way of being. This is true, but the opposite is also true.
The shift in thinking is to take the stance that we are
the creator of world as well as the product of it. Free will trumps
genetics, culture, and parental upbringing.
Some examples of the inversion of thinking:
The
audience creates the performance
The
subordinate creates the boss
The child
creates the parent
The
citizen creates its leadership
Problem
solving occurs to build relatedness
A room and
a building are created by how it is occupied
The
student creates the teacher
The future
creates the present
The
listening creates the speaker
The
openness to learn creates the teaching
In each case, this repositions choice and exchanges it
for fate.
The question is not whether this is true or not. The
question is which system of thinking is most useful? Which gives us
power?
This shift in thinking is a condition for shifting the
context of civic engagement, within which the restoration of community
can occur.
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