Process Power
Posted April 19th, 2008 by Chester Asher
I'm starting to realize Process Power. Process Power is the growth and transformation that occurs within the people and in society while they attempt to achieve big societal change. It's amazing and divine. Take Flight Schools for example. I thought they were to be aimed at changing our city and our nation; tearing down the walls of discrimination and greed; exposing the underside of individualism; and learning how to organize and create plans that will change different social conditions. What we arrived at was a study group that still has some of those aims, but that also seeks to transform the individuals who participate; a study group that tries to get its participants to be better people; a study group that dismounts from its high horse and tries to humble itself with some sense of truth.
I imagine Transform America will probably take the same route. Once written, it will be a story not only of the change that it created, but the people that were created through the process: The Process Power of true commitment to a better tomorrow.
this reminds me of a great bell hooks quote from "Love Fights the Power"
"Great movements for social justice have occured, in civil rights, in women's rights, and so on, but these movements have also been deeply flawed, in that they could not sustain themselves...In the beginning, people push against an outward enemy, but once that push is over, things become like flat soda. What's needed is a Buddha-like process of self-actualizing that spreads into the political world.
Then you don't have to fall into an abyss of despair saying, 'We failed. We didn't achieve racial justice....' As we know from Buddhism, if we look for the end, we will despair and give up and not sustain our effors. But if we see it as a continual process of awakening, we can go forward."
Just curious - what is the term "Process Power" from?
Anyway, in your example about Flight Schools, I'm not sure that transforming individuals is totally distinct from the original goals that you listed. As Tiffany said, change doesn't always come from being focussed on a specific end. Change comes from people that learn about social institutions and question their surroundings; people that internalize these lessons and make an impact in their own lives.