You could add the qualifier “online” in front of “learning.” That might appeal to more readers, providing a highly relevant focus for these pandemic times, while speaking to broader trends toward using the internet as a medium for everything. I didn’t, because while there are practices specific to online learning that I want to speak to directly, the incentive and organizing logic to identify these practices is not at all limited to online learning—in fact, online learning brings with it compounding effects that exacerbate many of the obstacles and systems of domination I want to subvert.
Subvert what exactly and why? I have found that the structure upon which a meeting sits creates room for certain roles to typically play out and, unfortunately, in many cases these roles impede or restrict learning, good decision-making and collective process, in favor of reproducing domination (undervaluing women’s voices, for example, propping up white male entitlement, or generally silencing the majority). Not only are such patterns dehumanizing but they also teach conformity to authority instead of learning from all, and when courageous people attempt to break the silence, the typical reaction is to contain and dismiss: their ideas are treated as out-of-place or even hostile to the ‘normal’ functioning of the meeting (really, of the authority of the structure it rests upon). You can begin to see, I hope, why democracy, justice, and alternatives to the capitalist heteronormative colonial patriarchy require subverting these patterns to establish new norms in which outlier voices are not automatically dismissed and in which all voice hold equitable opportunity to express themselves — the current authorities are not the only or best game in town.
But let’s look at some more concrete examples. Think of a Zoom meeting where the facilitator is a white man. He is a good talker, seemingly polite and respectful and he has considerable authority in his role in this institution. He fails to start with a land acknowledgement, does not address people by their preferred pronouns or names, and after introducing the topic, he says he wants input — who speaks out first? — probably someone similar to him in demography and perhaps in ideological view as well. And so the tone of the meeting is set, in line with existing authority, where any other voice that speaks will either be seen as in line or out-of-step-with that authority, if any other voice dares to speak up at all. Someone does, a different view, and right away the white male facilitator feels the need to be the first to respond, reasserting himself by either offering some evaluation of what was just said or by dismissing it. When all is said and done, he believes he did an excellent job managing the meeting — whatever happened (tasks were delegated, questions were ‘handled’, ideas were conveyed — he got through the agenda without any or many scars.
There are thousands of variations on this basic pattern. But they all serve to keep the status quo, to make it seem natural and to make any contribution become a contribution to furthering the status quo — never challenging it. By identifying some of the most common patterns, how they work and why they arise, I want to show how alternative meeting formats can be designed and actualized, and how different kinds of interventions into dominant patterns may or may not be possible on the spot. The point is to successfully subvert dominant patterns and to work toward conditions in which humanity can design better futures for itself and for the planet. I believe this kind of work is part of the foundation of new societies and forms of social organization that are more capable of addressing the world’s more prevalent and urgent needs, including big issues from climate change to interpersonal violence. To be clear, I am not suggesting that a good meeting from which everyone can go home happy magically fixes anything. But our opportunities for social intercourse need to be transformative, otherwise the world is stifling, as the prevailing order reasserts itself over and over under the guise of new ‘solutions’. To be transformative, our encounters need to lay a new foundation that challenges many dominant norms and provides us with the kinds of spaces that support dissent, that support diversity, that support Indigenous teachings and traditions, that support science and democracy, and that support our abilities to transform ourselves with confidence as we transform the world.
This vision is not limited to a Zoom call, or to online learning in general. These dominant patterns pre-exist online infrastructure, which will in general simply reproduce the hetero-patriarchal, white supremacist, and colonial norms. However, with new technologies comes the opportunity to revisit key questions, to re-examine norms forcibly in a new way: as online infrastructure challenges many of the norms of the working day — for better or for worse, I will talk more about this — it becomes imperative to see what possibilities and obstacles arise for new and better forms of self-social-organization.
This year has been a big one for EDI, JEDI, or whatever other acronym your institution is using to respond to the movement for Black Lives. While such responses are victories for the movement — evidence of how mass mobilizations push policies in previously ‘impossible’ directions — the actual intent and effect of much equity, diversity and inclusion work organized by administrative leadership is about reasserting its own authority, control, sense of righteousness and, ultimately, affinity with the white hetero-patriarchal and capitalist leadership structure that remains dominant. So while my work on a very practical level is about changing meeting processes, it’s also about changing what those processes rest on: whiteness, for example, as the norm into which others are either included or excluded. What is a black space? what is an Indigenous space? What is a Trans space? What does it mean for these spaces to coexist in ways that lead to better outcomes in terms of human well being and environmental justice?
To be continued…
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