Emergent Strategy
Ratings10
Average rating4.2
15
Ratings10
Average rating4.2
"Inspired by Octavia Butler's explorations of our human relationship to change, Emergent Strategy is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live. Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, this book invites us to feel, map, assess, and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen. This is a resolutely materialist 'spirituality' based equally on science and science fiction, a visionary incantation to transform that which ultimately transforms us"--Page [4] of cover.
Reviews with the most likes.
If you do activism or social change work, you should read this.
A inspirational toolkit for social-justice movement organizers. I don't count myself as one of those, and the book's flow and structure is very loose and free-spirited, so this naturally wasn't my favorite book experience. This is a book for EPs (and I am only pulling out the mbti because the author herself included a letter that singled out TJs) with an organization theory that's all emotional and organic and spiritual.
The “emergent” part of the strategy is that movements should learn from nature. How to grow, how to adapt to change, how to become resilient. Systems thinking and a framework - like nature - that allows and learns from failure. Which is good advice. It gets a bit diluted by the many quotes and interviews that are distributed throughout the book. I gave myself permission to skip them towards the end, as they didn't add much to my experience.
Lots of good ideas to distill from this, even if the editing of the book wasn't to my taste. I was intrigued by the tie-in to Octavia Butler's fiction. Something to remember when I finally get around to reading my second Butler.
A philosophy for love, life, organizing, and relationships in the midst of the end of the world. amb is so comforting to me as a public intellectual sharing these ideas-- and yet they are deeply challenging ideas as well. Will need to reread. Preferably with some woes of my own.
Rating: 4.25 stars
Learned a great deal about practicing activism and self-care that wasn't performative along with read questions that can help maintain my activism after college. Thank you MyTBR.CO for recommending this collection. It was worth the money and read.
