MC work at the first level is about
basic awareness of two groups in multiple variables on multi-levels. The groups
I refer to is the seemingly powerful and their relationship to the seemingly
powerless groupings that we see in a specific culture.
Look at our culture : Classism,
Racism, Sexism, Heterosexism, Ableism ...
I am just talking about the news
THIS WEEK!
The way the training is structured
and the way that its effects are seen in the organization are the product of
what I would call the culture of the Apologist where we sit in guilt for our
part in just being who we are and what we believe.
Now emboldened by this awareness
we as an organization are hesitant to hold historically excluded men accountable and, where
differences become stated, we will begin to defer to the culturally oppressed groups and
dysfunctionally grant them a pass while we continually ponder the part of powerful in the
dynamics. This is the Age of the Apologist.
It seizes the process into paralysis. Men will gratefully sit in
guilt as a black man, an Indigenous man, a gay man, or a woman teach from that place of
the Aggrieved without really showing the promise on the other side.
They might do that because they think it might serve them somehow. In that place they are not modeling the potential growth in this process. They may believe that the invitation to operate and get buy in from the Aggrieved space is their way forward, but at the core is a heavy dose of shame that, while impactful, is not proven to be sustaining from a relationship standpoint.
Men do the training because it is
required of their leadership and then rebel against it slowly because the
message is incomplete.
The original promise was for the man
who sits in an internalized sense of oppression, either culturally made real or
manifest in his own mind, to emancipate himself from the bondage of his
oppression and step up further in his growth.
Likewise a man who sits in his
internalized sense of dominance, either culturally made real and/or manifested
in his own mind may be emancipated from the castle tower of his dominance and
become more connected to the core of humanity.
And, from one variable to another, we are both. We have ALL been party to a sense of better than/ less than in parts of life.
People who do both sides of the work can look each
other in the eye and fully recognize the differences and not let it stop them
from fully operating as agents of change in the culture just by being more
authentic than before.
It's one of those things in the
matrix that cannot be explained on paper. You would have to see it and feel it.
It truly is self-focus and loving feedback, and trust at a level I didn't
experience before I met up with another like-minded individual and did the work,
filtered through with a tough love that can hurt sometimes, but will never
abandon you.
If it fits for you I would take this
conversation further, for now I just want you to consider that I say all this
without regret or resentment. They are projections and hard lessons I have
learned. These are also lessons that many may not want to hear because they
somehow believe that they have arrived and that THIS IS IT.
I know it is not.
I remember when the process was
referred in terms of the Matrix. From
that I found an alternate ending to the movie that goes as follows:
At the end of the movie,
Neo says to The Matrix:
"I know you're out
there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're
afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I
didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you
how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm
going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to
show them a world without you, a world without rules and controls,
without borders or boundaries, a world where anything is possible. Where we
go from there, is a choice I leave to you.".
As Larry and Andy Wachowski say in The Art of The Matrix
(Newmarket 2000), the shooting script for The Matrix is
"... not exactly what people saw in theaters. ... An example
... is in the final speech by Neo(scene 219) which was altered when test
audiences didn't know the word "chrysalis".
...". At the end of the shooting script, Neo says to The Matrix:
"Hi. It's me. I
know you're out there. I can feel you now. I imagine you can also feel me. You
won't have to search for me anymore. I'm done running. Done hiding. Whether I'm
done fighting, I suppose, is up to you. I believe deep down, we both
want this world to change. I believe that the Matrix can remain our
cage or it can become our chrysalis,
that's what you helped me to understand. That to be truly free, truly free, you
cannot change your cage. You have to change yourself. When I used to look
out at this world, all I could see was its edges, its boundaries, its leaders
and laws. But now, I see another world. A different world where all things are
possible. A world of hope. Of peace. I can't tell you how to get there, but I
know if you can free your mind, you'll find the way.".
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