Reading this @ConversationCA article on the late Erik Olin Wright & his vision for real utopias. Dual meaning of "vision" here. 👁️👁️ His remarkable VISION includes not just seeing future socialist utopias, but existence of such within the present. theconversation.com/envisioning-re…
Erik Olin Wright and seeing the utopias already present
9 tweets · February 2019 · 12 likes · 0 retweets · read on Twitter
I'm noting that his book is called "Envisioning Real Utopias" and feeling pretty confident that he was deliberately using this dual meaning of the word "vision". How do we get better at seeing what is already here? What's already working?
It's important to point out the extent to which we don't do this by default...
...and the extent to which it makes a difference
This approach of seeing and exalting what is already in line with the longer-term vision, connects with this abstract "Towards a Concept of Normative Incrementalism: One Prospect for Purposeful Non-synoptic Change In Highly Fragmented Social Systems" repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/…
The connection there is that by seeing what is so and nurturing it to grow more of what you want, you avoid conflict with parties who would feel defensive if you were to issue a critique of what you *don't* like about the status quo. "Non-synoptic" means "not shared view" btw 👁️
What originally brought me to twitter though was a remarkable parallel between two quotations, the first from the @ConversationUS article about Erik Olin Wright, and the second from an article by @MicheleZanini & @ProfHamel where they quote the CFO of the Chinese company Haier:
"In the case of Wikipedia, one finds highly collaborative practices between a core of paid employees and volunteers." “The border of the company is not important. If you can help create value for users, it shouldn’t matter whether you’re an employee or not.”
Source for the second quote: this article hbr.org/2018/11/the-en…