4: Introducing Fractal Pluralism, Space and Scale

Fractal Pluralism 4:of:13

Introducing Fractal Pluralism: Space and Scale

    Applying these principles, I have developed a model of the machinations of social change and a vision of Global Justice that I call Fractal Pluralism. Fractal Pluralism brings a fractal understanding to a pluralist conception of social change. Fractal Pluralism is a model,  a way of spatially visualizing the intricate interconnection of the full spectrum of activities being undertaken by people to bring about a life sustaining culture on this planet. It is a form of scalar play, collapsing the dichotomy between local and global to show the complex layering and the multi-scalarity of human organizing. As a model in action, it is geared towards finding tactical alliances on all scales. This does not mean that everyone is on the team. The opposition is real and distraction, destruction and disengagement are ever present. This model is a tool for visionary activists to conceptualize their position in the pluralist process towards Global Justice. It is a re-imagining of networks, intended to move us towards the goal of discerning which relationships are useful for us to articulate, including markets, governments, non-governmental organizations, spiritual communities and whomever else one wants to include, honor and celebrate as doing the work to bring about Global Justice.

            First, one must choose a point of focus. This could be an individual, a social formation, an object, anything one can identify. Focusing on a particular point, it becomes the intersection of the X and Y-axis. The Y-axis is scale. Everything that the focal point participates in that is larger than itself, a more complex organization which includes itself, extends up the Y-axis. Everything smaller in scale than the point of focus, the levels of organization which comprise it, descend down the Y-axis, below the X-axis. The X-axis shows time moving horizontally. Everything to the left of the Y-axis marking all that has come before. Everything to the right of the Y-axis marking being that which shall emerge as the future. This model is crafted so that we can pin-point an exact time-scale coordinate and map out the ways in which it is participating in generating its part of this fractal pattern as it self-propagates iterations throughout the whole.

Basic Fractal Pluralism Cross Formation:

            Here, we begin this model by describing the vertical Y-axis of space, taking just a snap-shot of what is going on at a given point in time. If we begin with an individual, everything to the left of the Y-axis represents their nature, their nurture, their history of encounters with information, their socio-economic-geographic-historic specificity- all that particularity, what Donna Haraway calls the specificity of specificity. Through all these influencing forces, they will limit their focus; they will choose interests; they will translate those interests into action. Some of this action will be collective, bringing it to a larger scale of the social world. Individuals will cluster, creating social formations- social formations being a word intentionally open enough to encompass the diversity of things that come from people uniting around interests in some sort of activity. Social formations will include the people they consider to be their network, those who they are consciously coordinating their activity with. Scaled up and seen through a broader perspective, they also have their Actor Network. Although they may be diverse in their goals, multiple in the topics they address and that emerge, when pressed, most individuals within social formations can identify a particular issue they most want to impact. This is the level of the Issue Plateau, where the efforts of the particular social formation are co-existing with those of diverse groups locally, regionally and world-wide who are also working to bring about change, to bring about something new, in the topography of that interest area.

            Being Pluralistic in our view of the broad landscape populated by diverse social formations at the level of the interest plateau, we can see how these are often the groups that are in rabid disagreement with each other over the kind of change they want to see. This is also where the opposition exists, holding strong, often controlling the infrastructures of the terrain- exerting with tenacity the destructive, consuming violence of the blind industrial-growth status quo. And this is where the Pluralist perspective enables us to be strategic, redirecting our efforts towards the systems we are working to transform. Instead of wasting our passion by directing our energy towards a potential ally about a response that makes sense to them and that they have come to given their specificity, we can put our energy towards doing our own thing and exerting energy only towards those forces that are truly a threat to global justice.

The Scales of Fractal Pluralism:

            If we can achieve this way of seeing, this strategic, experiential being-ness of compassionate understanding and acceptance, then at the next scale up, at the planetary level, we can feel ourselves united with diverse individuals, social formations and networks from all over the world- all working, dancing, striving, struggling, playing, trying to bring about Global Justice and a life-sustaining culture on this planet. From there you can play it backwards: From all these efforts and desire to bring about Global Justice, people focus on different issue areas by participating in diverse social formations, which address different aspects of an issue, through governments, markets, media, organizations and individuals. They are all  co-existing in relationships outside the consideration by the groups involved, whose activity influences and shapes each other, who almost create the need for each other. Social formations actively articulate their relationships with whom they consider to be their network. Individual social formations are composed of individual people who choose to participate because it is an active expression of their interests and passions based on what makes sense to them given their specificity, their nature, their nurture, and their history of encounters with information.