#83 - Power & Privilege in Intentional Communities | Ashoka Finley

With a world on fire and a pandemic raging, it sure makes sense to want to escape into the utopian vision of an intentional community. But is that in integrity with the beautiful world we want to create? And would it even work?

Today on the show I’m talking to activist Ashoka Finley about the power and privilege inherent in creating land-based communities. We discuss the enormous grief of the climate crisis and how we might meet the world’s challenges with pleasure activism. We talk about indigeneity and whiteness, and the myth of the perfectible self. We look at conflict within communities through the lens of spiral dynamics and finally, how those of us with the privilege to escape crumbling urban enclaves might do so in right relationship.

Ashoka is an emergent strategist and complex systems thinker. He is the former Chief Anarchy Officer at ConsenSys, a leading Ethereum software company and the current Founder & CEO of Tolo, a membership-based content platform that uses a portion of funds to build effective social change strategies.

We need to compost the old world, not simply run away from it. Ashoka is here to teach us how to build the infrastructure of care for the new world that we know is possible.

LINKS
Tolo.earth: https://tolo.earth/
Adrienne Maree Brown: http://adriennemareebrown.net/
Audre Lorde: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/audre-lorde
Robin Wall Kimmerer: https://www.esf.edu/faculty/kimmerer/
“Reinventing Organizations” Frederic-Laloux: https://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Organizations-Frederic-Laloux/dp/2960133501
“The Advantage” Patrick Lencioni: https://www.amazon.com/Lencioni-Patrick-M-s-Advantage-Organizational/dp/B008EAWBXC/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
“Governing the Commons” Elinor Ostrom: https://www.amazon.com/Governing-Commons-Evolution-Institutions-Collective/dp/0521405998
“Thinking in Systems” Donella H. Meadows: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/1603580557
“Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature” Janine M Benyus: https://www.amazon.com/Biomimicry-Innovation-Inspired-Janine-Benyus/dp/0060533226

TIMESTAMPS
:07 - Ashoka’s beginnings learning about how unaccountable power has so much influence on the world.
:19 - The enormous grief of the climate crisis
:25 - Pleasure Activism, Indigeneity, and Whiteness
:36 - Ashoka’s lineage as a Black American
:45 - Dealing with trauma, and the myth of the perfectible self
:50 - Conflict in communities and spiral dynamics
1:02 - Should people pursue intentional communities?
1:04 - Privilege and the desire to escape San Francisco
1:10 - Pursuing Intentional Community in right relation