2: Pluralism in Practice

Fractal Pluralism 2:of:13
Pluralism in Practice

Scholars the world over are in the process of applying Pluralist thinking to different areas of the social world. In terms of government, Peter Somerville put forward the idea that government no longer has a monopoly on power. Instead, we can now see how social circumstances are created at the intersection of governments, markets, media, organizations, and individuals. Practically speaking, change is not brought about exclusively by government, although the goal might be nested within the realm of government. The change occurs through a complex, multifaceted process, which includes government, just as it also almost always includes markets, media, organizations and individuals.

            A lot of what activists are currently working for  does not lie within the  realm of government’s power, and certainly is not solely attainable through government. Individuals and organizations find themselves striving to bring about general shifts in consciousness or working on areas as complicated and nebulous as the global financial system. In many areas, government may not be the most effective way to bring about the desired change. OR, in practice, it may be more strategic to coordinate with governments from a position within markets, media, organizations and as an individual. If we acknowledge that circumstances and social systems are created at the intersection of governments, companies, media, organizations and individuals, then we can understand how large scale social change happens through people working in all of these areas, through all these different channels, at once.

            In terms of global economies, previous economic social theorists have said that we are living in a Global Capitalist System. Though some nation-states may have slightly different models, they still participate and engage in Capitalist structures for the goods and services that sustain them. How few rogue states there are is a testament to how difficult it is to go against the global norm. Often, when nation-states do, they are commonly jocking for a more advantageous position within the system, not genuinely transcending it. Even nation-states who begin with revolutionary ideals end up playing this way out of perceived necessity. This view sees that we are all encased in this Global Capitalist System and, at this point, there is no way out.

            J.K. Gibson-Graham, in their book on Queering the Economy, forwarded the idea that what is actually going on is a kind of Heterogeneous Capitalism. If one pulls back the hard case label of Capitalism, one  can see there is actually a multiplicity of economic exchanges and systems going on. There are socialist institutions, communes, black markets, care economies, gift economies. There are even groups that do use capitalist structures as a way to transmit life-sustaining values, create fair chains of production or bring people together in community. Gibson-Graham evoke what they call  ‘a theory of possibilities’, a way of seeing what resources one does have and what one is able to do. In this way, starting from present circumstances, we can find fertile areas of possibility to begin taking action. They feel that one of the most productive kinds of action we can take is to create spaces for people to come together. Whether physical or virtual, it is through a space for ‘being in common’ that we gain the potential to generate and support novel innovation. It is through spaces of being in common that alternative economic exchange systems can inoculate and grow inside the organismic whole. This is a dynamic vision of change, a process starting from present circumstances, shifting the infrastructure of survival from within the container of a heterogeneous capitalism.

            In terms of the very process of how things come into being, Michelle Callon and Bruno LaTour originally crafted Actor Network Theory in order to tell the history of data. They felt that all cultural objects, like skyscrapers and scientific facts, are the result of innumerable living and non-living actants involved in micro-processes of relationship and interaction. There is a story that describes and explains why things come to exist in the way that they do. LaTour and Callon wanted to break up linear telling of history, traditionally told from limited points of view as cause and effect- where one event occurs drawing an arrow to the next event and so on. They showed how an arrow pointing in one direction is also pointing in the direction it came from. In Actor Network Theory all arrows are pointing from all elements to all elements at all times. An awareness similar to what Buddhist scholars call pratītyasamutpāda, meaning inter-dependant co-arising.

            Detailing the Actor Network in an exercise in complexity, a thought experiment to consider and include all of the living and non-living entities that enable, support and influence the way that something comes to be in the social world. To try to understand a single social formation, this perspective includes things like opposing groups, the building a club uses for their meet ups and the media used in promotions as all part of the extended network because they have a role in influencing the behavior of that group. This view allows us to understand that a single social formation exists within an ecology of people, nature and technology, which all contribute locally and non-locally to the expression of each. Actor Network Theory is an exercise in fully considering all the factors that impact the reason why a particular social formation comes into being as well as seeing the full landscape of which it is a part.

            In all of these cases, Pluralist thought is a cognitive tool, an ontological step revealing the interconnected nature of existence. This Pluralist view does not erase difference. It is not intended to gloss over the structural dynamics of power or underestimate the fear and anger that rise up in response to the forces we face. The darkness is great, the pain very real, the stakes high. We are being called to action. The task before us is nothing less then transforming the way that we live with each other and the planet. We are being called to bring about true social justice, an internal and external peace unheard of in recorded human history. We are being called to bring about an environmental relationship drastically different then that which now enables our survival. The information indicates that time is running out. This is our narrowing window of opportunity to see the intricate and inextricable interexistance between the social and the environmental worlds, and to work for that totality, to work for a Global Justice.