Our approach to change

(aka Theory of Change)

Modern Culture: the tyranny of power-over

Human culture is a continuum of experiments and resulting ancestral wisdom around how best to be in relationship with our fellow humans and the other than human world - place, animals, plants, waters and weather. In its regenerative form, it is worldview made into myth, ceremony, sacred law and tradition, as well as practices, processes and structures that support us to collaborate and collectively make good decisions together. In its current iteration, that of consumer capitalism at the cresting wave of collapse and a sixth mass extinction (that we could call modernity), we notice particular patterns that represent symptoms of what we at Starter Culture call civilisation trauma*, which stems from and perpetuates humanity’s illusion of separability from Earth community (by which we mean all life on, and including earth). These symptoms of civilisation trauma include colonialism, racism, white supremacy, sexism, ableism, classism and oppression, abuse, violence and normativity more generally. All of these oppressive ways have their roots in what we are calling power-over culture.

* This term was coined by Sara McFarland. Also referred to as collective, historic and ancestral trauma - depending on the lens and intention of the discussion/ inquiry.

Photo: Ava Osbiston

Our approach to change is a response to modern human culture having become power-over culture - and to our unknown collective futures resting on us re-membering and co-creating, with Earth, more regenerative and equitable ways of relating with power as it shows up in our groups and organisations - and those who fund them, as well as within our families, schools, communities and across all our relationships.

The Roots of our Cultural Crises

It seems we have forgotten, out of necessity or duress, the essential ingredients for renewing culture and living in reciprocal relationship with Life - at great species-wide cost. How did this happen, we might ask? What did we do wrong? Where did it all begin? Unfortunately, there is no one moment to point to, no way to say when or what happened first, no way to go back to a time before. We can't continue as we are now, in the culture of consumerist comfort that some of us are used to at the expense of too many lives. These times are coming to an end. For many species, and maybe even for humans, the days are numbered. And hope, in and of itself, is not something we can rely on to “turn it around”. But there is the emergent potential of Life continuing to live on that we might co-collaborate with.

Composting Power-over Culture

Power can be described simply as Life-force energy in motion. Power-over culture is a way of describing systemic ways of holding, centralising and using power that are based on objectification, coercion, force, domination, manipulation and ultimately fear. At an interpersonal level this is the perennial, and all too familiar drama triangle dance between the psychological structures of victim/persecutor/rescuer.

Composting power-over culture is about tracking and transforming power-over’s imprints within our own psyche, identity, behaviours, beliefs and group culture. Through this composting, we transform the collective trauma which results from historic and on-going supremacy and colonisation and intergenerational patterns of violence. Through recognising this as a collective species-wide initiatory process that is re-awakening us to our inherent belonging within the wider web of Life, we fundamentally change how we approach what we call activism or ‘change-making’ as well as how we perceive and co-create culture. The process of composting power-over culture from the inside-out supports us to  de-centre our human, individual experience. It invites us into an inquiry around how power moves and is wielded in us, and our relationships and groups. so as to become reverent to a power greater than the human individual self.

Inner-Led Change:
how you stand here is important*

We at Starter Culture framed the term inner-led change as a long-overdue reuniting of ‘outer’ change work (which recognises and challenges harmful societal structures and tries to create alternatives) with ‘inner’ change work (which supports us; to explore our own entanglement in the power-over culture that perpetuates these harmful societal structures; to cultivate healthier relationships with ourselves, each other and other-than-humans; and to co-create the healthy, relational and just cultures our hearts long for - and which our current social and ecological collapse demands). Crucially, inner-led change goes well beyond personal wellbeing and western psychology to include dimensions that are richly relational, interpersonal, fractal, social, cultural, mythic, political, spiritual, soulful and other-than-human. 

* From William Stafford’s poem Being a Person

Tending the threshold
between Inner and Outer change

The deep cultural transformation demanded by these times requires outer practices of challenging systemic injustice alongside ongoing choice-making in our day to day relationship with the world. Crucially though, the effectiveness of these outer actions depends on our inner transformation - engaging in inner practices that support us to expand our consciousness beyond the power-over culture of right/wrong binaries and “drama triangle consciousness” which this polarising mind-set perpetuates. This tending of the threshold between inner and outer, and the tools and practices of inner-led change are what Starter Culture is bringing to the conversation about systemic change. 

With this in heart-mind, we at Starter Culture find ourselves articulating our approach to change through the lens of composting power-over culture from the inside-out. For us, it is this composting process that holds the keys to unleashing the deep cultural transformation currently demanded by these times. Our intention is to facilitate the process of becoming good soil of the current culture, in order to nourish future generative cultures out of the remains of the current paradigm. Each new iteration of culture grows upon the previous one, and we want to presence the goodness that is also within the current human culture - it is not all terrible! - there is also beauty and gifts that have evolved over the last several thousand years.

We have identified four Vital Ingredients, and Design Principles that flow out of them. Together this emergent approach to change gestures towards those aspects of post-activist change-making* we perceive to currently be vital to inner-led change and its composting of power-over culture. We could say then that these vital ingredients and design principles are our way of being in co-creation with Life’s evolutionary edge. They are our offering and praxis for how we might support the composting of the old power-over culture to make humus out of which the new might grow into a time far beyond our own. *See this article for more on post-activism from Bayo Akomolafe.

Much of our approach to change has evolved as a result of a huge amount of research that we've been involved in over many years. You can read more about our research process and our 'Cups of tea' conversations here.

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