Paradoxes of Group Life...

Kenwyn K. Smith & David N. Berg's "Paradoxes of Group Life: Understanding Conflict, Paralysis, and Movement in Group Dynamics" just arrived in the mail a few days ago...

Just started reading it, and I am very pleased with their consideration of racial(ised) subjectivities and the diverse cultural lenses through which certain forms of group behaviour or 'governance' are constructed as normative.

Also really glad that in their intro, David Berg writes that his interest in paradox emerged through engaging with his Jewish heritage, and in particular, Talmudic exegesis (Rabbinical commentaries on the Torah).

He remarks, "The purpose of [the] arguments [that he had as a child with his father] were rooted in a tradition of Talmudic dispute... to explore an issue and generate some insight, not to defeat the other side. In the Talmud, there are a number of famous pairs - sages whose names, linked together, are a symbol of opposing views. One famous pair -Hillel and Shammai - dispute a number of legl matters throughout the Talmud. Those who have studied these judical texts know that when all the arguing is done, the legal rulings almost always follow Hillel's reasoning. The obvious question is: If the law is always according to Hillel, why have Shammai's arguments been studiously preserved for almost fifteen hundred years?

Perhaps this inclusion is meant to suggest that the other side is also inside the law somewhere and inside us always. The presence of both sides allows us to examine more fully, to understand the complexity of a situation without reducing it to a simple rule or adage. The fullness of our understanding - an understanding that carries with it the other side - enables us to empathize with, make a relationship with, and listen to the other side within us and within our social groups."

creating change by transcending paradigms

beautiful passages from Donella Meadows, "Thinking in Systems" (2008).


There is yet one leverage point that is even higher than changing a paradigm. That is to keep oneself unattached in the arena of paradigms, to stay flexible, to realize that no paradigm is "true," that every one, including the one that sweetly shapes your own worldview, is a tremendously limited understanding of an immense and amazing universe that is far beyond human comprehension. It is to "get" at a gut level the paradigm that there are paradigms, and to see that that itself is a paradigm, and to regard that whole realization as devastatingly funny. It is to let go into not-knowing, into what Buddhists call enlightenment.

People who cling to paradigms (which means just about all of us) take one look at the spacious possibility that everything they think is guaranteed to be nonsense and pedal rapidly in the opposite direction. [...] But, in fact, everyone who has managed to entertain that idea, for a moment or for a lifetime, has found it to be the basis for radical empowerment. [...] It is in this space of mastery over paradigms that people throw off addictions, live in constant joy, bring down empires, get locked up or burned at the stake or crucified or shot, and have impacts that last for millennia.

...

The higher the leverage point, the more the system will resist changing it—that's why societies often rub out truly enlightened beings. [...] In the end, it seems that mastery [of creating systemic change] has less to do with pushing leverage points than it does with strategically, profoundly, madly, letting go and dancing with the system.