PATTERNS LIST version 2.0

In scanning through the cards, and then putting each card into their specific category, I am most struck to the category ‘Diversity’, with a probe question of ‘how can we include enough diverse people and perspectives?’

In many ways, my personal interest in this as a topic (pattern language following) is drawn from a reading of the philosopher, Kelly Oliver. In her 2001 book, ‘Witnessing: Beyond Recognition’ she suggests that, ‘Witnessing is the heart of the circulation of energy that connects us, and obligates us, to each other. The spark of subjectivity is maintained by bearing witness to what is beyond recognition, the process of witnessing itself.’ (p. 20) When it comes to diversity, of people and perspectives, I would suggest that we need to witness the otherness of either of these, before we arrive at the inclusion of diversity.

The first pattern card in ‘diversity’ that strikes me is: ‘safety first, then challenge’. The card reads, ‘most people don’t step far out of their comfort zone, even though change and challenge demand that they not back off or close down.’ But, where do our comfort zones emanate? From what source in our lives are such a sense of comfort derived? Do all people have such ‘comfort zones’, so that those in power and those power-less make the same claim to ‘safety’? For me, in line with Oliver’s sense of witnessing, I feel it necessary to suggest that we witness the challenge before any sense of safety. In other words, when we seek to include all diverse perspectives, we put our own (safe and comfortable) perspectives to one side.

In the image on the card, ‘safety first, then challenge’ we can see what I mean by this. While the climber (is that the correct term?) seems to have a tie of some kind attached to her, the sense of thrill attached to a challenge must be top of her thinking and feeling here. How can we start thinking, metaphorically, about putting out safety, and comfort, aside, for the real challenge of diversity?

The second pattern card I want to explore is, ‘collective distributed intelligence.’ The different perspectives that diversity offers, allows for such a view that there is, indeed, potential collective (shared) intelligence from a wider (collective) intelligence. But that intelligence forces (I would suggest) that we put our safety and comfort (of card above) aside to explore how we (addressing the image on the card) fit pieces of the puzzle. In other words, we only fit into the (collective and distributed intelligence potential in diversity) when we are open to such fitting in. That fitting in may confront our safety and comfort, but is that part of the process of diversity itself?

Finally, the pattern (perhaps my favourite in the ‘diversity’ category) card is ‘complex identity’. Here, the lovely description of, ‘any entity (my companion dogs and the donkeys in the field outside our window in the field approve)–person, group, idea, system, etc.–can be known through its essence, character, story, boundaries, fruits, relationships, infinitude, and more. ‘ In many ways, the only ways for us recognise (I’m back to Oliver above) is to witness it outside of our comfort and safety. Otherwise, stuck in our personal perspective (or, our ‘comfort zone’) we do not see, hear, sense, feel the complex identity (or should it be, ‘complex identities’?) inherent in any entity.

This third card is, perhaps, the most challenging. There is complexity in everything around us (indeed, the card reads, ‘much is lost through oversimplification’) and only our (limited personal, or safe and comforting) perspective limits how we perceive that complexity. Consider a song lyric from Carrie Newcomer, ‘…leaves don’t fall, they just let go; to let new life from a new seedling grow’). If we continue to state that, ‘it is autumn and the leaves are falling’ is the simplification of the grand scheme of life in its totality. Give leaves consciousness and how does our view of the living world change?

I may be drifting away from notions of wide democracy here, but I do not believe so. Maybe our sense of wide democracy requires us to invite (no, a much, much stronger word is needed here) into our democracy!

From the wild Irish midlands,

brian