IDG Global Practitioners' Network Late Group discussion

Hello Everyone!

I was deeply moved by

narrative on what it means to be socialized in a culture and foreign to it, at the same time. The discussion in the break-out rooms was also very interesting and provided aha moments of truth for me. Given the strong resonance that the narrative had, I would say that it proves that the narrative approach to culture change is more viable than the problem solving one.

I came out of the session with two strong outcomes:

1) Use of the IDG framework to question assumptions in our culture and "unlearn" what is apparently obvious and socially approved but not true,

2) Practice bubble hopping across bubbles to become tolerant of the diverse visions on sustainable development while sharing the process of community building in doing so.

On the first point, I would like to invite a reflection on the existence of "collaboration" and "competition" in our western culture as derived from collaboration and competition in "nature". Darwin's construct of "selection of the fittest" has put together three very different things that we should be able to "unlearn" and untangle. The first is "struggle for life" with prey-predator relations that keep the ecosystem balanced and are NEVER referred to member of the same species. The second is physical struggle among alpha males to control the access to sex and dominance in the group. The third is selection by breeders of the individuals with desirable traits to serve their purpose (such as horses with big and short legs to do work in the fields or horses with long legs to show elegance in the parades). From which aspect of "selection of the fittest" have we human beings derived competition in academia and in the work place? I am confident that you will see that it is from the third aspect AND that this third aspect is an antropomorphic Darwinian projection on nature of something that ONLY HUMANS do, breed animals for their market purposes.

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