Civity is all about relationships – creating and strengthening bridging relationships that connect people who are different. These relationships form the relational infrastructure that underlies the civic infrastructure. Together, relational and civic infrastructure make it possible for communities to function.
Civity relationships are relationships of respect and empathy. People “see” each other and share stories to get a sense of walking in one another’s shoes.
In our trainings and workshops, we start with intentionality – being intentional about being relational. We then move on to authenticity and how to share personal stories to move from the head to the heart to create human-to-human connection.
The final part of the Civity practice is putting difference on the table. This is where the rubber hits the road.
Most of the differences that keep people apart in communities are differences that involve one group having power vis-à-vis another group – with the dividing line being race or ethnicity, immigration status, economic status, occupational role, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
As political philosopher Iris Marion Young keenly observed, power is relational. And so people in one group having power vis-à-vis people in another group means that the relationships between members of these disparate groups are power relationships.
The evidence of power relationships is all around us. Racial disparities in wealth, health, education, and more – power – mean advantage for white people and disadvantage for people of color. Economic disparities – power – mean access to opportunity for the well-off and struggles and exploitation for people who are poor. More subtly, gender disparities – power – mean access to positions of influence and control for men and relegation to more subordinate positions for women.
These macro-level disparities are the result of social structures and institutions, which operate to produce and reproduce them.
At the core of these social structures and institutions are relationships that are, to use language from conflict pioneer Mary Parker Follett, “power-over” rather than “power-with.” And the essence of these power-over relationships is the acceptance of the idea – and therefore the practice – that some people matter more than other people. And because some people matter more than other people, it is socially acceptable to exploit, oppress, discount, take advantage of, steal from, dominate, silence, or simply ignore.
More insidiously, it is not socially acceptable to name this power-over for what it is. Power-over, especially structural power-over, commands complicity. And so we live in a world in which power-over is pervasive and also unnamed.
One way to think of this vast not-naming is as a kind of social gaslighting in which power-over need never be spoken of because its operation is so integrated into our structures and institutions.
Putting difference on the table person-to-person breaks this silence. Naming power differences cracks open the door.
In the face of the power-over that is suffused throughout our culture today, Civity’s “respect and empathy” relationships across difference are subversive and disruptive. “I see you” respect demands acknowledgement of people’s humanity and dignity. Empathy demands recognition of the complexity and infinity of people’s “other”-ness.
Having a civity conversation with another person across a power difference does not dismantle systemic injustices, and it does not magically “disappear” power-over dynamics in interpersonal interactions. But it does add a different strand to a (potentially) many-ply thread.
Over time, as civity conversations and interactions and brushes with other people multi-ply, civity grows. And as civity grows, a culture rooted in respect and empathy offered to people who are different creates a widespread experience of belonging.
As civity grows and flourishes, a “We All Belong” culture makes it possible for us to see that we are indeed all in this together.
This culture – civity – crowds out a culture rooted in power-over and Us vs. Them. Our power with each other, our power-with, offers us so much more.