January 6, 2021
The work of a beloved writer, Octavia Butler, was proven to be more prescient than ever on January 6, 2021. Over two decades ago, she wrote of a 2020s in which a “…Zealot Elected to ‘Make America Great Again’” would come to power among social, ecological, and political collapse and fueled white nationalist to create disorder, fear and death. Many would recognize that foresight was realized on this day in the US capitol.
The power of that foresight was deeply grounded in her power of hindsight and insight. Her characters were based on many patterns of human behavior that already existed in our history, including previous leaders that took extreme measures to secure power and wealth by stoking complicity through narratives of fear and promises of security or excess. We can also assume she observed the incarnations of those patterns in her own time.
Her correct projection is an accomplishment, but the true sign of her brilliance is that she did not allow her protagonists to cede our future to those patterns of tyranny. She also offered us characters that had not only the audacity of hope, but the determination to overcome impossible odds to firmly establish exceedingly better futures. For example, Lauren Oya Olamina, in the Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, does not hope to see her people emerge from the rubble and go to the stars, she is assured of it and is determined to do the work to get there. Many would recognize that foresight was also realized on this day in Georgia.
That is the work of future architects at this very moment. We are being called to respond to the onslaught of negativity, hatred, and disintegration, while making bold designs for our future. These are parallel processes that we negotiate with courage and creativity. We can not be intimidated from the work of designing new systems by those whose imaginations are corrupted by fear of change. However, we also can not ignore them. We must invite them to expand their imagination beyond what they know from the past and beyond their own fear. We must encourage them to feel a sense of agency to help shape a future that resolves injustice, but also assures them a place as a positive contributor and beneficiary.
How can we create those spaces of shared and respectful imagination? How can we develop intimacies of collaboration that unveil the false narratives of misinformation and optimize our potential for designing better systems? How can we inoculate ourselves from those who pray on our weak ties to divide and conquer for their own sakes? These are some of the critical questions we are being called to answer through our actions.
In the short term, we have to mitigate the most critical impacts of long standing social and ecological injustice. However in the long term, we have to surpass the goal of just righting wrongs and achieve future systems never before seen on this planet. We have always existed in a condition in which significant portions of human potential were locked away in systems of oppression. What if we had the same assured determination of Octavia’s Lauren Oya Olamina about establishing an exceedingly better future in which every human being’s potential was nurtured and unlocked? Instead of fearing others’ fulfilling their potential, assuming it would give them a competitive advantage over you in a world of scarce resources, we would relish others fulfilling their potential, knowing it would mean they contribute a unique value to the commons we all benefit from.
As our present is rocked by a pandemic, social unrest, violence, and the disintegration of antiquated systems, we might take solace in the knowledge that we too can decide to emerge from the rubble and go to the stars.
