Some questions for civil society leaders
What questions are we asking? What questions are we living, and organizing into? How are we stuck? Who are we talking to and collaborating with, and who do we not prioritize talking and listening to? How do we decide who to work with, and how to spend our time and energy?
If something challenges us directly, how will we respond? If something offers us the possibility of resources, what are we willing to sacrifice or deprioritize to contest for or keep those resources? If something threatens our resources and safety, how do we decide whether to shrink to accommodate and avoid the threat, or to fight, or run? If we fight, what makes us decide to use the accepted protocols of response, and under what conditions do we decide to resist or respond in a new way?
What causes us to seek out new partners in our work, to resist closing off and accepting stereotypes or quick and reductive judgments of potential partners? When do we approach collaboration only through the lens of what we think will benefit us in our present way of working, our present goals and our present means of attempting to reach those goals? And when do we enter into partnerships with an openness to strategic and tactical transformation or evolution?
When we set ourselves into conflict with an antagonist, and take steps to strengthen our position relative to our antagonist, and probe their weaknesses, what could make us pause to consider the cost of investing our energies in this conflict, rather than preparing ourselves for a different conflict that may pose a greater threat to us but which is not as tangible or easy to access and contest than the conflict we have chosen to prioritize?
What does it look like, outwardly, to be paralyzed by horror as our republic is engulfed by authoritarian rule? Does it look like business as usual, or a preoccupation with internal conflicts or hyper-specific projects unattached to broader outcomes? And what does it require to break that paralysis and engage in purposeful, coordinated action?
What do you think?
