Genership "describes the practice in which humans collaborate with one another in generative processes - activities that foster creativity. Genership enables productivity; it brings into existence the desired materials, services, technologies, and energies that benefit the group as a whole."
Does that sound like how our present government works? Does that sound like how Donald Trump wants things to work? (#makedonalddrumpfagain)
There are three words in that definition with which American government and politics are certainly struggling, and have been for some time: collaborate, creativity, and productivity. Just look at our deeply entrenched two-party system and see how collaboration is a lost concept. As a country, we have become very Us vs. Them. While attempts at bipartisanship have been stirring for years, they never really seem to get anywhere, because our leaders in the Senate take issue with our leader in the White House, who takes issue with our leaders in the House of Representatives, who take issue with our leaders on the Supreme Court, who take issue with...
How many leaders was that?
Simply, there are too many leaders to accomplish anything. Castro argues leadership skills include projecting, arguing and persuading, manipulating and politicking, and winning conflicts. If all these leaders we have leading us are trying to assert all of these things, with their separate beliefs and goals, no wonder we get nowhere. Maybe we need team players, not leaders, in these governing positions.
By contrast, genership skills include "listening, cothinking (thinking together), covisioning (envisioning desired futures together), building productive relationships, and mastering and ultimately transcending prevailing systems" (my emphasis).
Our Founding Fathers utilized genership when they broke free of England and created our system of government - a system new to society. Castro refers to this as "normative work" which "find its justification in the human capacity to change itself and the world." What we have fallen into is descriptive work - "if we observe the laws carefully, we can describe them and employ them in our work." (Think science.) Think about how we regard the constitution, often as a document to be thought of how our founding fathers might have thought of it, instead of thinking about our country now and thinking about how to possibly change the system totally. We need to be normative again. We need to work together to build relationships and bring about true change.
Maybe, a president - a leader - is irrelevant now. Maybe the entire structure of our governmental system needs to be adjusted. Maybe we don't need those running in this election to be the Hero or the Messiah they preach they are. Maybe we are the ones who actually need to do something, and what would it look like if that civic duty was fulfilled through some activity other than a vote for one person? One person who is working with a "team" of people who think of themselves as one persons. Whose voice is truly being heard in this din?
To truly change would be a massive shift, obviously. But perhaps the key take away is to vote for the person who doesn't claim he or she can change things, but that he/she can help US - the people - to be the vehicles of change. To generate. Perhaps we should not vote for someone who can restore us to something, for we can never go back. We must learn from the past and move forward. Rather, vote for someone who says "I'm listening, America. Let's think together." For we must act out of thoughtfulness, not fear and ignorance. Only then will America truly be great continuously, not "again."
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