Ch17 What is “Cultural Work”?
Serializing Insight Colleges, how Women In Congress re-invented liberal arts college curriculum and teaching methods to produce graduates capable of redeeming-restoring SpaceShip Earth.
Women’s Summer Conf., June 2031 — Days one and two 2,500 women attending live. 7,000 attending online worldwide
Day Two, Friday morning ~
The facilitators of the large group session addressed the confusion many were feeling, “How do we conceive of the real work of re-making colleges? In big projects, it’s easy to become lost in the details and lose sight of the Big Picture Vision. Enrollment, salaries, budget — these are all real concerns; yet, in the bigger scheme of, “Why offer anyone a four year college experience?,” those are minor details.
Cultural work: How do we conceive of it? How do we define it?
To get to what we want for New Colleges, one has to explore and unpack, “cultural work.”
Lecturette ~ Facilitator: “Who can tell me what the biggest cultural project Women in Congress, or anyone, attempted since WW II?” The audience, shouted out several suggestions: the Berlin Airlift, the Civil Rights epic, the war on Poverty under President Johnson, the war on drugs (laughter), Bill Gates New World Order (more laughter).
Facilitator: “Yes, all of these were big projects. We’ve consulted with a few historians. They suggest re-making liberal arts colleges is perhaps a bigger, more complex — and meaningful project — than any of the legitimate projects you just named.
Let’s also recall, “pop culture” is not “culture.” Even if “pop culture” dominates public attention and commerce, “pop culture” is only a sub-set, a fraction of what we need to call “healthy culture.” Authentic, healthy culture is not distraction, not mere novelty, nor entertaining. “Healthy culture” is the values and Best Practices in works of art; and, other human achievements, expressing truly human values, regarded collectively.
“Pop culture” rarely stands for, nor expresses, truly human values, the core values we hold deepest and innermost to our hearts. Why? Because “peace is present” is one of these human values. Pop culture hates peace; it loves only drama and conflict. Why? Because pop culture out-pictures “the war within” each person, each viewer, the unresolved issues and internal conflicts people need to process. This will remind some of you of all the wise people who conceive of pop-culture as a society’s “shadow self.”
“I invite you to make another crucial distinction. Before women took over, for earlier male leaders, “cultural work” was simple. You made money and built elite family and political dynasties. The only culture most men conceived of was variations on the game boys age 9–13 play, King of the Hill.
“The difference with re-making colleges is which do not regurgitate the past is looking forward to envision what culture we want seven generations from now, a new cultural mainstream. So for today, we’re going to need a new definition of “cultural work. This Conference session is to crowdsource — from you attending today — better definitions of “cultural work.
The endgame? To learn what consensus is emerging on what culture we want seven generations from now. What are the big ideas you believe should be our focus? Out of this will also come language to invite the general public; and high school seniors, into the vision we are bringing forward.”
No restrictions set in advance on how to define “cultural work.” This was today’s task for attendees.
The lecturette led into a large group milling process. When the chime was rung, the instructions were to find a new person you have yet to meet. Person with the longest hair asks first, “What is one word for the culture you wish us to have seven generations from now?”
After the milling, a dyad process followed. “Find someone brand new to you; or who you know least. Get two chairs and sit facing. Listen for the chime. Taller person asks first. Each person has two minutes to express, “The culture I want seven generations form now is ____.” After both have expressed, there is three minutes for sharing and conversation.”
Groups of five “jigsaw process”
Then attendees were split up into groups of five. First each group of five identified a Clerk to scribe all useful words and thoughts. Each group of five was tasked with coming up with a workable conceiving of “cultural work” useful for re-making colleges.
When the large group reconvened, one by one, the Clerks reported their collected ideas. This gave on-stage facilitators a good sense of what consensus was present and emerging. Similar and contrasting ideas were noted. This is how a “jigsaw process” can help a large group make useful distinctions on a completely abstract topic. Among useful definitions uncovered:
- Cultural Work needs to change, to support the next seven generation of learners and workers on SpaceShip Earth,
- We need not concern ourselves with the needs of the 1%. Cultural Work provides measurable benefits for the working class and the 99%.”
- Cultural Work supports and expands evidence-based, proven Best Practices, in any and every field,
- Cultural Work is two things: the sum of proven Best Practices, in any and every field; and, and the work of spreading these more widely to a world audience,
- Since Cultural Creatives are the Leading Edge of cultural change — positive or negative — Cultural Work is everything and anything, spreading positive Cultural Creative, Team Human values,
- Cultural Work is inviting more people to identify with positive, Cultural Creative, Team Human values.
Unexpectedly, the above led into questions from the audience like this, “Are Cultural Creative values always good? Always positive? How do we know this?” This led into a lively discussion of whether Steve Bannon, Tronald Dump’s speechwriter for his 2016 presidential campaign, was a Cultural Creative or not. He was definitely creating new culture, right?
The discussion came to this conclusion. Yes, Steve Bannon was a Cultural Creative. However, he was an over-charged, negative one. Steven Miller, the architect of Dump’s anti-immigrant policies, was another one. Both were Cultural Creatives creating new dystopias, new culture based on us-vs-them anger-porn, designed to separate people, the opposite of Team Human values.
Still, the Steve Bannons of the world are a force to reckon with. So Cultural Work was expanded to include this:
- Cultural Work is also anything supporting Cultural Creatives to face up to their own “shadow side” and unburden internal parts expressing-promoting againstness, separation and win~lose.
New Colleges gave Women a big canvas to be creative with all of this.
“Put the big rocks in first” demonstration
Day Two after lunch ~ A facilitator performed the following demonstration on a table, before a live audience and all live videos feeds.
dg-rocks pebbles sand 1 2 3
Here’s the script used.
There once was a middle school teacher who wanted to demonstrate something to his students. In front of him, he had a big glass jar (2.5 gallons), a pile of large fist-size rocks.
He started off by filling up the jar with the big rocks. All the rocks barely fit in together. When they reached the rim of the jar he asked the students, “Is the jar full?”. The students all looked at each other and all agreed, there was no more room to put more rocks in; it was full.
Is it full?” he asked again.
He then picked up from out of sight, behind the table, a bag of marble-sized pebbles. He poured these into the jar around the much larger rocks. He shook the jar so the pebbles filled the space around the big rocks. He asked the students again, “Is the jar full?”. The students all looked at each other and all agreed, there was no more room to put more rocks or marbles in; it was full.
Again he asked, Is it full?”
He then picked up from behind the table, from out of sight, a bag of sand. He poured sand into the jar around the much larger rocks and pebbles. He shook the jar so sand filled the space around the big rocks.
He asked the students again, “Is the jar full?”. The students looked at each other and all agreed, there was no more room to put more rocks, marbles or sand in; it was full.
Is it full?” he asked. “He then picked up from out of sight, behind the table a gallon jug of water. He tipped water into the jar until it soaked up in all the remaining space in the sand. The students laughed. He shook the jar so water filled all the spaces.
Is the jar full now?” he asked. The group of students all looked at each other and agreed the jar was now completely full.
Then the teacher asked, “What does the big glass jar represent?”
For middle school children, beginning the part of their life where they form their own character and life directions, the jar represents “life,” one life.
For us here today, this 2.5 gallon container represents the New Colleges.
What do the rocks represent?
The rocks represent the Big Ideas, the values we hold deepest, innermost to our heart. These are the most meaningful, valuable aspects of the project, New Colleges as a way to pass on positive values to the next seven generations and beyond.
Rocks represent the things which, if everything else (the pebbles and the sand) was lost; and, only the rocks remained, your life would still have meaning and purpose.
What do the marbles represent?
The pebbles represent less important considerations, things in your life which matter; yet if you had to, you could live without. Marble-sized things are less critical to a meaningful college experience. These things come and go somewhat; they are less permanent, less essential to the overall well-being of New Colleges.
What do the sand and water represent?
They represents everything else — the small stuff. Material possessions, chores and social time, watching television or browsing social media. Relative to the rocks and pebbles, these things rarely determine the quality of your college experience.
The lesson here is, if you start by filling the jar with sand and water, you never have room for rocks or pebbles. This holds true with what you allow into your life. If you spend all of your time on the small, insignificant things, you can run out of energy for the big goals you wish to achieve; and, the big talents you wish to cultivate.
Make room for what’s important. Be clear on your priorities. Thank you.
To Learn More
The demonstration was well-received. In the full group debrief, the big question was, “For remaking colleges, what are the rocks, pebbles, and, sand?” Attendees raised their hands to respond and were called on to stand up so a live mic could be handed to them. After hearing several responses from the audience, the audience learned — there was no easy, ready answer to this.
Finally the main facilitators spoke. The demonstration was not to provide answers. It was to direct attention to asking the right questions. Consensus on what aspects are rocks, pebbles, sand, will take time. We have to hear from ALL of you.”
This led into another group process exercise, groups of five again; where, each group was tasked with conceiving of just what were the “rocks” of New Colleges? These work products were gathered in a whole-group debrief and jigsawed together.
The same group process sequence was done two more times (more briefly), for pebbles and sand. The purpose? To educate all 9,500 women attending live and online with the process the New Colleges Committee wished support on. In the months which followed, this proved to have been an excellent way to focus women on the same task, with common language, so their contributions could come together in consensus about “what to do.”
The bigger a project is, sometimes the most you can hope for at the start is to get everyone dancing on the same foot first and to the same rhythm. Some women started to say fixing colleges was a project comparable in size and scope to the Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic bomb.
Next ~ Learning from 100 years of fruitful cultural work: Waldorf K-12 education