The fault is on my end. The url was changed. weallcanada.org
Thatās not a link to your business. But bizarrely to a Canadian WEALL site, yet you donāt believe in any solution. Weird.
At a certain point this conversation seems counter productive in this manner. Is it possible those interested in this debate move to a zoom discussion or set up a new thread?
Ironically, Teilhard de Chardin is a huge influence of mine and I love that quote.
Iām not sure where you got the idea from what Iāve written that Iām saying that anyone should āgive up.ā Iām saying that the specific tactic of messaging doeanāt work to create systemic change. There;s decades of data backing that up no matter how passionate we may be about our own ideas of what we think works, if we are serious about this, we MUST pay attention to the data. Itās what we did regarding climate change - we looked at the data. We also lament that many wonāt look at the data - and thatās what Iām lamenting now.
I offered a perspective that reflects one of the higher leverage points that Donella meadows suggests - shifting paradigms - and lo and behold, Iām met with the same resistance Meadows predicts. Thatās how difficult the road ahead is, and why I think broad messaging as a path to systemic change is a waste of time.
To pull some nuance out of it - weāre still going to do it to reach each other. We still want to connect with other like minds and build networks of solidarity and collaboration, there are still reasons to craft messaging. it just doesnāt work as a lever of social change convincing the masses to change the direction of the their ingrained behaviour.
Itās not giving up to admit that the course of action one has chosen wonāt succeed and instead correct that course and choose a different path. Itās just called critical thinking.
Yes, thatās what weāre working on: WeAll Canada. How is that bizarre? I literally told you that that was what we were working on?
We donāt have or need a website for our business. Weāve been working successfully for five years without one based solely on the contacts we;ve made over the course of our activist and academic careers. Not sure why the existence of a website would be a marker of credibility.
I think it is pretty obvious that out friend here is being uncivil and adversarial. it is not the nature of the exchange itself. Iāve just been offering my perspective based on my experience. It would be counterproductive to interject a false equivalency to the exchange when only one of us is acting in bad faith.
I donāt think a Zoom would be productive considering that he is already engaging in an adversarial way that is on no way conducive to productive dialogue.
Iām happy to entertain any good faith dialogue on what Iāve offered. I will simply no longer respond to the bad faith trolling from our friend.
You stated āthere is no solutionā
So, if you believe that, why are you working with Weall in Canada? That seems bizarre to me.
On the plus side, Iām pleased that you embrace Teilhardās philosophy.
We may not be a million miles apartš
As for trolling, donāt be so sensitive.
Honestly, if you re-read what Iāve written in good faith, it should make sense. And in fact, comes FROM the perspective Teilhard de Chardin offers in that quote.
Further context:
I USED to believe in solutions. Our first biz name was Second Wind Solutions. After a year or two of work we realized that the currency of any new economy was relationships, and we changed the name to Second Wind Relations. After a couple more yearss of work we recognized that that too was an incomplete picture. What we needed was a very practical āhowā to the work. We wanted to foster an economy based on love and care. What we found was liberation practice. It is a significant paradigm shift. It was Dr, Andreotti, who wrote Hospicing Modernity, who opened our eyes to the fact that our default thinking was compromised by our immersion in the culture of modernity. Dr. Andreotti is at the University of Victoria and participated in the WeAll Can June convenings this past summer. We are planning on continuing to work with her.
Our theory of chaneg isnāt solutions oriented. Itās emergence-oriented. How do we nurture the metaphorical soil of culture to grow in healthy ways that align with the planet? To extend the metaphor, if the modern landscape is a brown field, we need to be transitional plants that draw toxins out of the soil and prepare it for future generations to grow. Weāre not ready for roses. Thatās what we learned. We were so focused on solutions that we lost sight of the fact that nature herself doesnāt work that way. She is gradual and systemic. We are planting trees in whose shade we will never sit. What we also discovered was just how embedded modernity thinking was in our default worldview. In all our solution-making, we would keep coming up with some version of ācapitalism-liteā that held central tenants of production and consuption at its core that would inevitably still lead to disaster. Thatās what I mean, when I say that messaging wonāt work, and that there are no solutions. We need to shift the paradigm of our approach. Communications strategies steeped in the thinking of modernity will reproduce modernity every time.
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Iāve reread it. To summarise, there is no hope, and the planet would be better without us.
I vehemently disagree as would Teilhard.
P.s. I wasnāt trolling you, but when I couldnāt find any evidence of you or your businesses online, I thought you might be a destructive ai force. My apologies.
āDonāt be so sensitiveā is explcitly gaslightting and abusive. You were acting in bad faith and explicitly trolling. I was led to believe that this platform was going to be populated with folks who wouldnāt be engaging that way. The mature thing to do is to just be accountable for how youāve behaved and then continue in good faith.
The speed of response suggests AI.
I was never abusive, just questioning your credential given you web invisibility and nihilistic philosophy.
Iām starting to expect nothing but bad faith from you. A good faith summary would be that we need to de-center ourselves as humans, that you should really check out Dr, Andreottiās book Hospicing Modernity, and that the specific approach of messaging as a lever for social change has persistently failed and we need a new approach.
I further pointed out that your responses more than proved my point about messaging not working. Which you are continuing, ironically, to do.
Apology accepted. Can we have a good faith conversation about what Iāve been trying to get across now?
Not after that arrogant remark
What was arrogant about it?
Letās be clear here: youāve accused me of being a communist AI bot who doesnāt exist because you couldnāt find my LinkedIn account or a website for my business, I donāt owe you any kind cordiality. Asking if you are prepared to have a good faith conversation is appropriate because there;s no evidence so far that yo u will do so.
Arrogance would be me making exaggerated claims about my ability. My comment was a frustrated one.
I type fast. I;m a professional writer, as I said before. Iām not sure why my credentials are in question, or why a website or web presence would confer credibility. My philosophy isnāt explicitly nihilistic. Itās pragmatic, and steeped in decades of direct work in the field.
Iām glad that youfound your way to this work in the last year after your trip to India. Your website is very beautiful. I love the pcitures and layout. I donāt think you should stop doing what you are doing. I think itās lovely.
I was trying to have a nuanced conversation about approaches to systemic change that actually work from a place decades deep in it. If you are finding too challenging, donāt engage, but please just donāt be abusive. Gaslighting is abusive. I will ask again: can you please engage in good faith?
Iāve started reading the book. Hope for me yet.
Thank you for your comments about my website.
All the best.
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Hi Aamirah, Just out of curiosity, is there a way folding up replies under the comment that sets a conversation going? Just thinking that itāll become harder to see the beginnings of new inputs/threads the further we have to scroll to reach them.
I realise your initial framing is important to what follows, so I guess that would have to be pinned if you simply reverse display to ānewest firstāā¦ (and this post written under your opening comment took me to the bottom in a blink!)
Yours curiously 
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I read Hospicing Modernity some time ago and Iām not sure if my āreading,ā of it was correct, but I came away basically with the conclusion that the human made economic system of racial capitalism (and neoliberalism) is whatās needing hospicing and not the actual behaviors of the environment (which are in response to human-made systems, i.e. Anthropocene). Correct me if Iām wrong on this point?
Also, I take exception to the word āhospicing,ā in this context because hospicing is normally something you do for someone you love, whereas racial capitalism is something I would love to see die a horrible death given all of the atrocities it has and continues to cause. There will be no mourning from me when capitalism finally croaks, not even a hospicing.