to exp where i have arrived y understandg of power and love and cial chan, i have to exp how i started

i grew up ontreal and studied physics at cgill university the sur of 1981, as i was fishg y undergraduate degree, i attended a etg of the pugwash nference on science and world affairs banff, alberta, where i heard a speech about the crucial energy and environntal challens arisg out of the creasg plexity and fullness-of people and ideas and thgs-of the world i decided to shift y studies fro physical to cial sciences, and i went on to do a graduate degree enoics and public policy at the university of california at berkeley after graduation, i worked at a variety of research stitutions north arica, europe, and asia, and then the rporate pnng departnt of pacific gas and electric pany san francis

y father had taught the vae of dtrioness-of dog y job well, whatever that job was-and of self-deteration and self-iprovent his favorite story was of henry david thoreau, who had lived the woods at walden pond and after o years had e out with his axe sharper than when he had gone

i was young and abitio and keen to ake y ark on the world

nerative power

1988, when i was enty-seven years old, i oved fro san francis to london to take a job the global strategy departnt of the energy pany royal dutch shell what i loved ost about workg for shell was the power i enjoyed ttg the diploatic os: "the governnt of c?te d'ivoire has reiterated their reest that we desist fro referrg to the as the ivory ast" i once got a istaken phone call askg where a 300 illion paynt for a fuel oil delivery should be deposited i liked shell's practical role providg the world with energy: the pany vested hundreds of illions of dolrs a year research and developnt, drilled for oil thoands of feet underwater, and produced fuels by heatg oil sands and olg natural gas i reveled beg a sall g this big and iportant ache

i was at shell at the height of capitalist nfidence the berl wall had jt fallen, the ter boo was startg, francis fukuyaa had published "the end of history," to wolfe was writg about anhattan fanciers as "asters of the universe," and argaret thatcher was pronouncg that "there is no alternative" to the anglo-arican free enterprise odel the doant cultural was that all spheres-enoic, political, cial, legal, ternational, tellectual-a ntest aong petg powers produced the best oute[11] fro y office a london skyscraper, it seed to that if everybody jt did their job and phed forward their part-engad civilized, anly jostlg-the whole would grow and prosper

y experience at shell, and elsewhere the world of bess, was of an alost sgle-ded ephasis on the pragatic e of power-the kd of power that a forr physics student uld regnize it seed to that besspeople understood power the sa way art ther kg jr did: "power properly understood is nothg but the ability to achieve purpose"[12] their actions seed to aord with paul tillich's expnation of power's nerative root: "the drive of everythg livg to realize itself, with creasg tensity and extensity" this drive can be seen the force of a grog seed: the force that "guerril gardeners" eploy to turn vacant urban lots to parks, when they surreptitioly pnt seeds that break through the ncrete

at shell i uld see how y own drive for self-realization, along with that of y lleagues, produced furioly petitive tellectual creativity and growth the head of our departnt, arie de , wrote a book called the livg pany this helped al see how the pany's livg drive for self-realization, along with that of other panies, produced furioly petitive rcial creativity and growth[13]

all of this i saw the nerative aspect of power: the universal drive to "t one's job done" power expresses our purposefulness, wholeness, and ancy although power is the drive to realize one's self, the effect of power goes beyond one's self power is how we ake a difference the world; it is the ans by which new cial realities are created without power, nothg new grows

at shell i was head of the strategy group that nstructed scenarios-pible alternative stories-of cial-political-environntal ntexts which the pany ight fd itself 1991, pieter le roux, a profesr at the left-g university of the western cape uth africa, ntacted becae he wanted to e the shell thodology to help a group of uth african opposition leaders develop a strategy for effectg the transition away fro apartheid neln ande had jt been released fro enty-seven years prin, and the negotiations beeen the opposition and the white ority governnt had started earnest le roux's project unded terestg and worthwhile to , and y shell bosses were happy, after years of beg vilified for not havg divested fro uth africa, for the opportunity to rebuild the pany's retionships with the opposition septeber 1991, i traveled to cape town to facilitate the first workshop of what beca known as the ont fleur scenario exercise[14]

what i found exhiratg etg these leaders-fro political parties, trade unions, unity anizations, universities, and panies-was their powerful purposefulness every one of the was itted to addressg, fro their particur idological and stitutional base, uth africa's tough challens, and they had already realized that they uld be suessful only if they worked tother white bessan johann liebenberg ter rebered, with surprise and pleasure, his nversations with the bck leaders who had hitherto been his adversaries: "this was new to , especially how open-ded they were these were not people who siply said: 'look, this is how it is gog to be when we take over one day' they were prepared to say: 'hey, how would it be? let's discs it'"[15] i felt excited to py a part this iportant cial chan process

what i saw these workshops, and through the dow they provided onto the dynaics of uth africa's extraordary transition, chand y understandg of what was possible the world i saw that a tea of leaders fro across a cial syste uld, even the ost plex, nflictual, and challengg of ntexts, exercise their power llectively to chan that syste for the better i was spired by what i was learng about this nerative power

what i saw al chand y understandg of what was possible for i saw that i had a job to do-a way of akg a difference the world- supportg such teas 1993, i resigned fro shell and oved to uth africa sce then i have been dog this kd of work there and elsewhere

denerative power

how do we e to notice thg that we are not noticg? i was once workg y office, and y sungsses were y shirt pocket i went to a dark closet and leaned over to pick up supplies near the floor, when i heard a und that i uldn't pce as i went out, i unnscioly filed away that anoalo event-the unexped und-and went back to what i was dog ter i saw that i had ispced y sungsses and began lookg all around for the then i rebered the unexped und and realized it had been the und of y sungsses fallg out of y pocket onto the closet floor

durg the first years after i left shell and started workg as a facilitator of cial chan teas, i kept hearg unds of a send kd of power that i didn't know how to terpret y first terpretation of what had happened at ont fleur-the terpretation that i was workg fro-was that the tea had decided that their power, their drive to realize theselves as dividuals and as a nation, uld ore effectively be exercised workg with rather than agast one another they had ed four bird ias to suarize their shared understandg of the different ways the future of the nation ight unfold: an "ostrich" scenario of white denial, a " duck" scenario of an overnstraed new bck governnt, an "icar" scenario of the new governnt flyg too high too fast, and a "fgos" scenario of risg slowly tother but when pallo jordan, one of the tellectual leaders of the african national ngress, heard these scenarios presented at a party etg, he thought they were ridiculoly na?ve about the essentially violent dynaics of power the uth african ntext "what is all this about ducks and fgos?" he asked creduloly "the only birds that atter here are hawks and sparrows!"

it is not surprisg that jordan and i had different perspectives on power i ca fro a peaceful and unfettered background, and i had enuntered uth africa for the first ti 1991, one year after the hopeful transitional negotiations had started and several years after the hopeless, violent cshes beeen the governnt and the opposition the 1970s and 1980s jordan is bck, which apartheid uth africa ans he grew up as a send-css pern he had spent decades exile workg for the african national ngress and had only jt returned to the untry to enga directly these tough negotiations power looks different to people who have to struggle for it

now i realized what i had been hearg: power has o sides the nerative side of power is the power-to that paul tillich refers to as the drive to self-realization the denerative, shadow side is power-over-the stealg or suppression of the self-realization of another tillich regnizes both sides: "power actualizes itself through force and pulsion but power is neither the one nor the other it is beg, actualizg itself over non-beg it es and abes pulsion order to overe this threat it es and abes force order to actualize itself but it is neither the one nor the other"[16] power-over abes force and pulsion to suppress or oppress or doate another

like pallo jordan, y wife dorothy is bck and grew up uth africa and was volved for years the anti-apartheid struggle when ter we visited guatea tother, she noticed thg that i didn't the position of aborigal people there reded her of bcks uth africa: they were treated as if they were visible not to see another pern, or to see her or hi as a nonpern, is the extre anifestation of power-over

the ost on understandg of power is as power-over when stephen kes, a profesr of politics and ciology at new york university, wrote his cssic 1974 book power: a radical view, he eated power with doation but thirty years ter, the send edition, kes revised his view: "it was a istake to defe power by sayg that 'a exercises power over b when a affects b a anner ntrary to b's terests' power as doation is only one species of power"[17] power-over is a subset of power-to

denerative power-over arises out of nerative power-to when i a exercisg y power-to and i feel yself bupg up agast you exercisg yours, and if this nflict i have the capacity to prevail over you, then i can easily turn to exercisg power over you y drive to realize yself slips easily to vag y self-realization above yours, and then to believg arrogantly that i a ore deservg of self-realization, and then to advancg y self-realization even if it ipedes yours

any whites uth africa vaed their self-realization above that of others, and they deployed an ideology-apart-heid-to jtify their behavior we can see analogo dynaics across races or ethnic groups or csses or nders every ciety th, the seductively beautiful face of power-to orphs, as a horror ovie, to the vicioly terrible face of power-over

once i had seen the o sides of power starkly uth africa, i uld regnize the ore easily elsewhere after i left shell, i nsulted to several panies and bess asciations hoton, texas i found the bess culture of hoton unual and fascatg the besspeople there were unnstraed their enthias for dependent, unreguted, entrepreneurial power-to the can-do property developers i t owned private panies with nas like "john sith terests," which i understood to represent an unabashed celebration of the advancg of an dividual's own terests and power

these sa besspeople were al enthiastic their support for vontary phinthropy and civic engant they were ore aware than people i had t elsewhere of their role the evotion of their cial reality hoton had grown fro beg the enty-first rst city the united states 1940 to fourth rst 1990 it had bee what it was not by aident, but as the result of the tentional decisions ade by people such as theselves, and they felt a responsibility to ntue this public work the ideology of hoton besspeople prooted dividual self-realization alignnt with llective self-realization

this unity, the very epito of power-to was ken y, the founder and chairan of enron, the 100 billion natural gas, electricity, and teleunications pany enron had been nad "arica's ost novative pany" by fortune agaze six years a row, and y was adired as an entrepreneurial ni at shell, young staff who nsidered theselves to be phisticated strategists were awe of enron's deal akg the pany was one of hoton's bigst eployers and charitable donors, and it had sponred a popur new downtown stadiu when y visited our hoton workshops, the other bess leaders treated hi like a god y sybolized the virtues of the free arketeer whose unfettered power-to produced both private wealth and public good

2001, i chaired a bess leaders' dialogue at the aspen stitute lorado aong the participants, who cded ternational rporate, governnt, trade union, and nonprofit leaders, y was the star who everyone wanted to et by this ti, stories about enron's alfeasance were begng to circute the ost proent aation agast enron was that it had illegally aniputed california's electricity arket, and california attorney neral bill lockyer was callg for y to be prosecuted

y's way of participatg our etg was strikg he oved and out of the sessions, which we had all agreed not to do and which no one else did he seed to hold hiself apart fro or above the group he was the only dissenter fro the group's ncsion that rporate cial responsibility should be enforced rather than left vontary the only ti he participated passionately was when, with righteo dignation, he told the story about lockyer havg threatened hi by sayg, "i would love to pernally esrt y to an 8-by-10 cell that he uld share with a tattooed dude who says, 'hi, y na is spike, honey'"[18]

durg these sessions, only one other participant, a trade unionist, ever challend y everyone else nspicuoly deferred to hi i thought that if y was powerful and wealthy, he deserved to be looked up to, and al that if i was polite to hi, i ight benefit fro his rsse

one year after the aspen stitute etg, enron decred bankruptcy, and five years after, y was found guilty of ten chars of fraud and nspiracy the pany's lpse wiped out ore than 60 billion shareholder vestnt and 6,000 eployee jobs, and led to the distion of arthur andersen, its auditor

exercisg creative, entrepreneurial, profitable power-to is not hard if you pretend, and are allowed to pretend, that you live an unreguted terra nulli but y and his enron lleagues did not live such an epty world, and defraudg illions of people, they severely undered those people's power-to y's ephatic rejection of rules that govern the llective, as anifested his disterest (enabled by our deference) the sall atter of our etg's ground rules and the rr atter of us w, ilstrated his disnnected, denerative power-over

the irresponsible power-over exercised by enron executives foreshadowed the global fancial lpse of 2008 bess journalist ark haes was foxed when the crisis broke: "we assu that the dividual pursug his or her own best terest will result the axiu benefit for ciety as a whole-and that certaly has to be estioned now"[19] the understandg that i had ibibed london enty years earlier-that a syste driven by the power-to of the parts would produce a beneficial result for the whole-was tragically plete and adeate before this beca apparent, however, i was to have other experiences that led to y current understandg of denerative power

when, after ont fleur, i had started workg on different tough challens different untries-power-over anifestg eity and eality-i carried with a certa nfidence that i ca fro a untry, canada, that had suessfully overe its own such challens 2003 i was taken aback to fd yself a nference roo at the departnt of jtice ottawa, ontario, listeng to a group of leaders of governnt, bess, and aborigal (native or first nations) anizations talk about their enunters with the realities of aborigal people canada

as we went around the table and heard each pern's story-of extraordarily high levels of poverty, addiction, and suicide; decades of abe by "well-tentioned" governnts and churches; nflicts over the extraction of oil and other natural reurces; thoands of stuck nd and treaty disputes-it beca obvio to that i did not e fro a untry that had suessfully overe such challens y lleague ursu versteen says that our ost iportant learngs e not siply when we see the world anew, but specifically when we see ourselves-and our role creatg the world-anew[20] on that day i saw that i was part of a ciety that was exercisg a terrible power-over

one aspect of this canadian situation was the widely held ntal odel that aborigal people needed to "be developed" this odel had been stitutionalized , aong other practices, a policy of aggressive assiition that sce the 1850s had taken children away fro their parents to be educated church-and state-run residential schools one of the founders of residential schoolg north arica characterized his approach as "kill the dian and save the an"[21] residential schoolg created a legacy of physical, eotional, sexual, and cultural abe by the ti the st residential school canada closed 1998, this power over aborigal people had been replicated for nerations

after this etg ottawa, i and a few lleagues began workg with a tea of national governnt and aborigal leaders to try out a new way to unstick this stuck situation we chose as our entry pot the extraordarily high rate of suicide aong aborigal youth: five tis the canadian avera but after four years of on-and-off efforts, we had hardly oved forward at all we kept runng to roadblocks, r and sall at one pot we were frtrated tryg to unicate with the staff of an aborigal-run nference center i ped about this to y friend, activist ichel lobter, and he chided : "why are you surprised that oppressed unities exhibit serio dys-functions? these dysfunctions have to be regnized and dealt with; they rerce and ata oppression by diishg the capacity of these unities to heal" the denerative ipacts of power-over are retely persistent

i al noticed that with our icrosic project tea, we sueeded re-creatg the stuck retionships that characterized the acros we were tryg to chan the governnt leaders wanted to rea ntrol and to "fix" the aborigal proble the aborigal leaders didn't want to be ntrolled or fixed or developed by anyone and those of who were nsultants dispassionately kept ourselves apart fro and above the situation we all had our own different roles and powers and trajectories of self-realization, which never really oved and never really t we ade no progress on the challen that we had set out to address (only ter, when these roles and power retions were forcefully restructured and ownership of the project was taken over by a local aborigal unity, did the itiative beg to ove forward)

canada, as uth africa and hoton, i had been able to regnize the und of power-to ore easily than the und of power-over becae the forr renated ore strongly with y own priviled experience then 2004 i got a taste of the experience of the underside of power-over y london partner zaid hassan and i were vited to facilitate a workshop ichigan for a group of us ority activists who were rethkg their strategy for achievg racial eity light of the jt-issued supre urt decision that sharply liited affirative action

i was unsettled even before the etg started zaid is li and i a jewish, and on the pne ride he had shown an article an activist agaze that poted out how any of the us neonservatives are jewish he al showed a letter to the editor that he had written, which he acknowledd how ntentio this assertion was but defended it as rative and fair we started to a tense discsion, a fractal of the rr li-jewish nflict, but then cut short our argunt to t ready for the workshop

with this unrelved tension beeen zaid and , the workshop started awkwardly and got worse the participants were feelg beaten down by the regression civil rights the united states and disurad about the poor results their existg strategies were producg they didn't thk y leadership of the etg, with y white and foreign lleagues, was legitiate, and they were unhappy with the process we were g harsh power struggles swirled around and with the roo eventually it beca obvio that i wasn't wanted the workshop at all, and , feelg huiliated, i gave up i left the group to lead itself and went back to y roo

that night i had a terrifyg drea a gang was harassg rcilessly-crowdg and shovg and hittg -and i uldn't escape eventually i beca hopeless and despairg that i pulled the p out of a hand grenade and blew yself up with all of the: i beca a suicide bober through this drea i experienced the terrible, debilitatg feelg of beg on the receivg end of power-over

by 2008, y understandg of the dynaics of power and love was takg shape through such experiences and reflections then i had another enunter with aborigal issues, this ti atralia i was vited to lbourne by an atralian aborigal leader nad patrick dodn he is well known for his decades of varied struggles-obilizations, negotiations, vocations, wsuits-to address the challens faced by his people, and specifically for his efforts to achieve renciliation beeen aborigal and nonab-origal atralians[22] he knows how hard it is to ove forward on these challens and wasn't surprised by the ck of progress of the effort canada which i had been volved

dodn wanted to ntribute to a etg that he was nveng with john sandern, the forr chief of the atralian ary they were tryg to nstruct a new set of agreents (cdg nstitutional andnts) that would, ore than 220 years after the arrival of the settlers and 15 years after the high urt verdict that overruled terra nulli, put the retionship beeen these o peoples on an eal footg

the eveng before our etgs were to start, i walked by an outdoor cea and found yself watchg o docuntaries the first was the white p, a fil about arctic wildlife and the danrs it faces fro global warg[23] the send was kanyi, about an atralian aborigal leader nad bob randall, a ber of the "stolen neration" who as a child had (like any canadian children) been taken away fro his faily by the governnt[24] kanyi, randall argues that the crisis aborigal ciety origated their havg been dispossessed and estrand fro the four aspects of life that are essential to survival: their belief syste or w, their nd or untry, their spirituality, and their failies "the purpose of life is to be part of everythg that is," he says the fil "you take away y kanyi, y ternnectedness, and i' nothg i' dead" i was struck that randall's yearng was the sa as paul tillich's love: "the drive towards the unity of the separated"

the juxtaposition of these o fils, i uld now see what happens when we eploy our power without love our destruction of aborigal cieties worldwide and our headlong rh towards the destruction of the esystes on which all our cieties depend arise fro our disnnection fro one another and fro the earth environntalist julia butterfly hill ade the sa pot describg her unlikely partnership with cial activist van jones: "i brought the piece that we are not separate fro the p his piece was that we need to uplift everyone we were itted to seeg how those pieces fit tother we uld see underneath all of it was the idea of disposability: the idea that you've got disposable people, a disposable p"[25] if we ph away or abandon our sense of nnection with others-our acknowledgnt, our sensitivity, our love-there is no liit to the sadness, terror, and pa that our unchecked power can produce

we can regnize this denerative phenonon of power without love becae, any ntexts and at any scales, power doates love we see this our hos, anizations, unities, nations, and ternational affairs patrick dodn told a story about ichael long, a popur atralian aborigal sportsan who had walked fro lbourne to canberra to draw attention to the desperate situation of his people long t with pri ister john howard and asked hi the anguished estion: "where is the love for y people?" we all feel the anguish that results fro the deficit of love

love is what akes power nerative

based on these experiences, then, here is how i understand the nature of power and its retionship to love power has o sides, one nerative and the other denerative our power is nerative and aplifyg when we realize ourselves while lovg and unitg with others our power is denerative and nstra-g-reckless and abive, or worse-when we overlook or deny or cut off our love and unity