Understanding How Occupy Works

To even better understand how the Occupy Movement is organized, here is an email another friend sent me.  He is retired from the US army and is quite philosophical.  He attached a link to an article from a magazine and said, “Please pass this along to the organizer of Occupy Toronto.”

I replied, “As you know, there are no Occupy organizers.  Whoever shows up can voice their opinion.” 

He replied:  'As to no "organizers," someone or a few must hold the centre and focus.  Therefore the concept of "No Organizers" is flawed logic'.

Wow.  For the logical part of the brain, all this seems flawed.   But I suggest that, for people who think cosmo-logically, or in terms of the wholeness of a system, this idea of ‘no organizers’ is not flawed at all. 

A cosmos is a whole system.  It is naturally occurring and therefore self-organizing.  The basic challenge that society faces is that we are moving from looking for logical solutions to becoming cosmo-logical adaptations.  And I like the idea that we need to 'become the change we are looking for'.  

My friend liked my email response so I want to share it with you.

At Occupy I believe we are talking about self-directed action in an expressive movement, rather than managed action in a one issue movement.  

That requires self-organization, and coordination of emergent solutions that arise from the grassroots and gradually catch on.  

True, not everyone is sufficiently self-aware all of the time, to know what we want to express or do next.  So at times we may decide to follow someone else's lead rather than taking initiative, being enthused, following ideas and impulses that derive from our own centre.  (En = inside, centre.  Theo = god.  These are the roots of 'enthused').

Nature is all about self-organization.  Unless we think that only fairies and devas make flowers and pumpkins grow we have to open up to the idea that everything that surrounds us that is not hand made or technological has self-organized.  

If you wanna peek at who or what's organizing Nature or the Occupy movement I believe that to some degree it’s the Self, an archetypal pattern that the psychologist, Carl Jung writes about.  Some call it the Great Spirit, the Shakina or the feminine aspect of God.  Or it could be the goddesses Shakti, or Quan Yin.  These may be very real individuals or merely terms that were intuitively arrived at to account for the fluidity and beauty that happening all around us as a result of self-organization.

The Self is the pattern about which things organize. You self-organized in your mother's womb for sure.  You didn't come from on high by Federal Express.

As a chemist I've studied those simplest of self-organizing systems called atoms for years.  Each atom has a centre (nucleus) that arises naturally.  Social movements are similar, just way more complex.  

What makes human life weird is that when we choose to collaborate we soon begin to 'organize ourselves' rather than self-organize.  Organizations are not really organized at all.  They are orderly structures that we build from the top, down.  We impose order from the top, down.  This orderly approach defies life.  

When we get busy and 'organize ourselves' we instill our ideas and values on the outcomes which is terribly limiting.  Whatever regime we choose contains tyranny and oppression within the structure.  This limited approach is how we've managed to produce so much misery and tedium.  Darkness and distrust are dispelled from how we collaborate because fluidity and beauty come included with self-organization.

At Occupy we are not in corporate America or in the army.  In fact we're not trying to be life destroying and self-oppressive at all.  Delegation is 'out' and values-based action is definitely on the increase.  Think 'creative, responsive and lively'.

It’s a funny way to run a universe, I know.  But I actually prefer to align with life and the self-organizing principles that run the show. The pattern we call the 'self' is what's at centre.  

Hoping this makes the idea of "No organizers" clearer and easier to live with.

Andrew.