The Pivot to Civity

Hi, this is Palma. I’m one of Civity’s co-founders and our Research Director. For me, civity is the essence of what our world is calling out for today.

This book is very much a work in progress, and I invite you to reach out to me if you’re interested in seeing more, if you have insights to contribute, or if you simply want to have a conversation.

Here’s the ten-word summary: We can relate so as to overcome Us vs. Them.

Here’s a slightly longer version:

We – the United States, and with us Western Civilization and most of the world – are caught up in a perfect storm of extractive mindsets and practices: economic inequality, racism, patriarchy and misogyny, threats to democracy, and climate change. These stories and culture grow from an Us-vs.-Them frame in which – as aboriginal writer Tyson Yunkaporta puts it – some people believe that they are “more important than everything and everyone.”

We see, every day, that by internalizing and acting out of these stories, we are bumping up against human resistance and the natural limits of our physical and biological environment.

This is the water we swim in.

We know that we can’t continue on our current trajectory, and we also know that we don’t want a crash landing.

We need a new story, a story that will call to us in a way that inspires and empowers us to reorient and reorganize ourselves. We need a story that reminds us that we have agency address the challenges we face and not just adapt to but thrive in the world we have made. We need to pivot to civity.

We’ve been fed the line that humans are intrinsically, inherently, inevitably tribal – that being divided amongst and against ourselves is “just the way it is.” In reality, though, humans are flexible and adaptable. It’s our evolutionary superpower.

There are so many different ways that people can choose to be with each other. We can cooperate; we can pull together. We can conduct ourselves according to the conviction that everyone matters, that differences are a community strength, and that regeneration takes priority over extraction. But to make this change, we need to build the trust in each other that makes collaboration possible.

There are already many, many people envisioning, acting into, and beginning to create this different reality. I meet them – I meet you – every day. They/you/we are already reimagining the story we’re in and by reimagining it, bringing it to life.

With this pivot to a civity story, to a civity culture, the tide can turn and we can see a waterfall of possibilities for new organizational arrangements, transformed institutions, policies and laws that are designed to enhance everyone’s well-being and resilience.

Reimagining the story we’re in and reimagining where that story can lead us is the first, essential step.

— Palma Joy Strand (palma@civity.org)