Shifting strategically to catalytic action
CONSCIOUS catalysts of social change are NONLINEAR change agents. They create generative spaces, make vibrant connections, ask juicy questions, raise awareness, invite engagement, open up what is hidden, evoke latent energies.
There are also UNCONSCIOUS nonlinear change agents. Sometimes LINEAR change agents end up stimulating nonlinear change by taking linear actions that unintentionally catalyze results that are totally different – even the opposite – from what they were trying to accomplish.
Trump claims to be an agent of change – and he is. But above and beyond what Trump and his movement think they are about, they – and the energetic reactions to them – are ALL catalysts for the disruption of what’s familiar and the emergence of something different. This will be true whether or not Trump becomes president, whether or not he does what he or his allies and enemies currently think he will do.
Currently it looks like he is about to magnify the “internal contradictions” inherent in the neoliberal capitalist oligarchy that has (subtly and not so subtly) shaped our current world.
If Trump takes office and pursues his apparent agenda, I suspect that the resistance and protest (both domestic and international) to that – and his US government’s response to that resistance and protest – will be massive and unpredictable. On the other hand, if Trump is denied office, his movement (without or probably with his leadership) will massively and unpredictably resist and protest whatever replaces him.
