The Movement: It’s Nested and Crossed

By Tom Peterson

Any organized effort working to bring forth justice, dignity, health, education, a healthy environment, equality, opportunity is part of The Movement. This includes every effort that strengthens the universal values recognized around the planet.

And all movements in The Movement are related in two ways: Like a “T” they are connected vertically and horizontally.

The vertical “T” connection

In A Theory of Everything Ken Wilber talks about “holons,” the “ingredients of hierarchies.” A single holon is “the whole that is part of other wholes.”

For example, a whole atom is part of a whole molecule; a whole molecule is part of a whole cell; a whole cell is part of a whole organism. Or again, a whole letter is part of a whole word, which is part of a whole sentence, which is part of a whole paragraph, and so on. Reality is composed of neither wholes nor parts, but of whole/parts, or holons. Reality in all domains is basically composed of holons.

This is true of movements. Like Russian dolls, each movement is a holon; it nests in larger movements and serves as a nest for smaller ones.

The nested aspect of movements is about their family, their rootedness, like a tree. The better nutrition from the roots and leaves from the related movements the healthier that particular movement is. In turn, it boosts those in its nesting tree. People drawn to one are also drawn to its relatives.

So, the microbrewery in your town is nested in the larger local beer movement. That’s nested in the local food movement. That’s nested in the buy local movement. That’s nested in the quit-enabling-greedy-corporate-monopolies movement. That’s nested in the empower-the-99-percent movement. That’s nested in the economic justice movement. You may not agree with my titles. But you get the idea, as holons, movements inter-nest. And in the end, they’re all nested in The Movement.

The horizontal “T” connection

Horizontally—the cross of the “T”—the movements brush into each other and even join in their edges, blurring lines.

Take the effort to fight childhood obesity in the United States. The CDC website tell us that over the last three decades it has doubled among children and increased four-fold among adolescents. One-third of children and adolescents are overweight or obese. Unchanged, this creates all kinds of health (such as diabetes) and behavioral problems, economic problems and so on. Many movements relate to this:

• The prevent childhood obesity movement

• The get-kids-exercising movement

• The last-child-in-the-woods,-save-children-from-nature-deficit-disorder movement

• The juvenile diabetes-prevention movement

• The adult diabetes-prevention movement

• The quit-federally-subsidizing-corn-and-soy-and-using-their-components-to-make-cheap-crappy-bad-for-you-food movement

• The quit advertising junk food to kids movement

• The unplug-your-brainwashing-tv movement

• The help-children-eat-healthy-food movement

• The schoolyard-garden movement

And so on. We could have listed an additional 30 sub-movements and stayed close to the childhood obesity movement. Some of these nest with each other vertically and some connect across.

The Movement: what difference does this make?

Work for one movement supports those close to it. Each movement has its own intellectual work, with experts and academic research showing the value of certain actions. Each has it’s own books and websites. Each has concerned, passionate people, groups, organizations and conferences. Each has strategies, objectives, goals. And all of the energy from one effort can help related movements.

When standing in front of the city council asking for more walking paths to increase health, it helps to present studies showing the positive impact walkable neighborhoods have on economic development. And show the bike path studies, as well.

Each movement has friends and, often, enemies. Your best allies are likely those in movements closest to yours. You already share many of the same supporters. The lines blur. Most of us engaged in a smaller movement are already engaged in a few of the neighbor movements anyway. Avoid thinking of them as competing for limited resources. Shift to how do we together increase our tribe, accomplish more?

Their enemy may be your enemy. The same company pushing sugar drinks to kids (for those fighting diabetes) will be in the crosshairs of the folks who’d like to eliminate subsidies for corn syrup and who want to eliminate harmful advertising to children. Coalitions and intelligence sharing create a stronger front.

Here’s an Exercise: Gather the friends in your particular movement and map out the nesting (vertical T) and cross connecting (cross T) movements. Know your neighbors in world change.

Photo: RK812, Wikimedia. Doll carved by Zvezdochkin, painted by Malyutin.