A tendency that I continue to find somewhat puzzling — and hopefully it’s only an error in perception, but I seriously doubt it — is the evidently sincere notion held in certain places that undirected community interactions and willing cooperation across levels of organization can somehow be bundled and consolidated into singular activities, platforms, programs, etc. It’s a tendency that assumes one size really does fit all, despite all claims and experiences to the contrary, or rather that there’s one solution to the problem…which may actually be the case if you have the luxury of framing your own challenges.
I’m going to venture, though, that most organizations (i.e. outward-facing organizations, in the sense that I’ve discussed on a number of occasions) do not enjoy an exclusive mandate or jurisdiction over the spaces within which they find themselves. Thus, answering questions you’ve asked yourself is a fundamentally different process than coming to terms with the multiplicity of interests at play in an open system or environment, and leads to results betraying more flawed assumptions than the best intentions are willing to acknowledge. A first assumption along that path, I dare say, might resemble a belief that *you* are so uniquely positioned to catalyze shared purpose among your associates that you can somehow avoid the same pitfalls and missteps encountered by everyone else who has tended toward similar hubris.
When it comes to growing partnerships and sharing responsibility for more just societies, the assumptions, processes, and tools set in place to realize these aims play a critical role in defining the nature of the relationships we seek. In that regard, the outcomes that can be expected from non-hierarchical interactions are not just products of mutual intentions but of the conscious/subconscious/unconscious boundaries that arise in the process of social and technical design. I’m only in a position to speculate, but it seems that many easy questions are often preferred to a few hard ones…the hardest perhaps relating to your own significance in a space that has slipped beyond your grasp.
