The Authentic Organization

Human beings are Makers by nature, but our society deprives us of much expression of that role. That we strive toward creative endeavors despite our schooling, media, and employment is a sign of how strong that nature is within us. The authentic organization would build on that strength.

There are so many interesting questions about this:

How does being denied Making as an expression of our creativity encourage us to turn to a degraded form of creativity in consumerism? Sometimes consumerism is indeed transformed into something more by the force of creative attention, but most often it is numbing and banal.

What role do the various institutions (school, family, media, work, culture, technology) in our lives play in denying us our expression as Makers?

How utterly transformed would our world be if we were less malleable and refused to accept the boxes we’ve been given for our creativity? I can hardly think of anything that wouldn’t have to change.

How would communities change if they were based on bonds of common cause rather than on common consumption?

How does so-called consumer culture fit into this picture? How does it reflect and reinforce the anxieties that keep us separated from our nature? How does the downplay of work in everyday language support this?

Do the post-scarcity visions of the Greens, the Social Ecologists, the Hackers, and others have something to offer in the way of a solution? Must we wait for a post-scarcity world or can we create it?