Allies
Invite people to create the solutions to their own problems, and convert their anger to action.
because we have Big Loves, we get angry when we perceive that those loves are threatened. Combine that with a sense of helplessness and we get a lot of misdirected energy. This pattern describes how we might redirect that energy toward solving the problem.
When we see a problem and don’t think we can do anything about it, we can waste a lot of energy trying to get someone else to care as much as we do and fix it.
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Big problems like, say, climate change, can generate a lot of turmoil. No one wants to accept blame, and since it’s a complex problem, it’s easy to divert blame to others. No one seems to think they can solve the problem themselves, so they spend a lot of time trying to raise awareness and put pressure on the institutions they think can solve the problem: governments and large corporations.
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I don’t want to be too hard on activism—I know it can make a huge impact in the right circumstances—but much of this kind of energy is wasted and could be better used toward solving the problem more directly. As “users” who care about the problem at hand, they are likely to have important insights into how it can and should be solved.
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This is a bit like the statement, “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” I don’t think that’s necessarily true; it could well be a false dichotomy. But the idea of the pattern is to encourage people to be part of the solution, regardless of whether they’re contributing to the problem or not.
Therefore:
Invite people to participate in creating the solutions to their own problems, and convert their anger to action. Bring people together as allies to solve the problems they care about.
Contribute your time and energy to an Evolutionary Design Teams working on an Open Artifacts project that is trying to solve some part of the problem; create or join Local Commonships working to improve problems in your local area