Theme 3: Participatory practice as the embodiment of values and

However, it is not easy to view the world in this different way. The hegemonic colonisation by the outdated worldview of our minds is reinforced on a daily basis in the stories we tell ourselves and those that others tell us, whether heard in the media or from our peers. The alternative voices required to bring about change must shout louder and more consistently to be heard above the cacophony we are subjected to.

A participatory consciousness underpinned by love creates the lens that is needed to create the change we want to see in the world and helps us to be that change with others.

Theme 3: Participatory practice as the embodiment of values and principles

Take away love and our earth is a tomb. (Browning, 1855)

If we are to succeed in co-creating new social realities, we cannot choose between love and power, we must choose both. (Kahane, 2010)

We know that it is important when working with community groups to spend some time agreeing on the rules of engagement, often called ground rules. In more formal workshops these are usually posted on the wall, and when someone strays from those ground rules a member of the group will often refer to that wall chart, pointing out gently what has been agreed. None of us is perfect, so occasionally any of us might forget what has been agreed or fall back into habitual practices that deviate from those agreed. However, the collective agreement holds sway because if the process has been truly participatory – that is, there has been participatory parity in decision-making – the rules are owned. Those ‘rules’ will be based on agreed values and principles. They are embedded in the values of those who shape their practice and act as a social bond between people. In the more informal setting, a community group dialogue as a general discussion of values is a useful starting point.

The values and principles of empathy, compassion, kindness, mutual respect, dignity, diversity, including honouring all ways of knowing, are fundamental to participatory practice.

The principles of participatory practice form the basis of the most important value of all: love. This is not being ‘Pollyannish’ in perspective; rather, we are brain-wired to love, as current neuroscience developments show us, just as we are wired to collaborate. We are not talking about love in the romantic sense but the wider concept of love which the Greeks differentiated by seven different words,1 one of which, agápe, reflects Freire’s (1972) love of all humanity. Embarrassment with talking about love is a reflection both of the way contemporary language reinforces

the current Western mindset of duality and also of how love and its associate, care, are devalued in Western society and institutions. Love and care are not acknowledged for their contribution to society, either as a skill to be paid for appropriately, or for their central role in maintaining social cohesion and connection.

If you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. But if you pour the salt into a river, people can continue to draw the water to cook, wash, and drink. The river is immense, and it has the capacity to receive, embrace, and transform. When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We can’t accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things don’t make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform. (Thich Nhat Hanh, 2014: 1)

To love is to act towards another from the heart and not just the mind. This is no mean task, given the Western pathology of cynicism. It is a skill that has to be developed. As the Marxist and philosopher Eric Fromm argues, this type of love requires deliberate practice, just like any other skill. In his book, The Art of Loving, he argues that love demands both knowledge and effort (Fromm, 2000). We only become masters in the art of love, when both the theory and the practice are blended into one. This holds true, of course, for anything: for music, for medicine, for carpentry – and also for love. Here lies the answer to the question of why people in our culture try so rarely to learn this art. Despite the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered to be more important: success, prestige, money, power – almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost none to learn the art of loving. As a consequence, we become immune to the suffering of others, and walk on by, passing shop doorways, foodbanks, hungry children, blaming them for their own suffering. Fromm (2000) goes on to explore the misconceptions and cultural falsehoods keeping us from mastering this supreme human skill, outlining both its theory and its practice with extraordinary insight into the complexities of the human heart. Love, in the widest meaning of the word, is not something that can be measured but can only be experienced.

Transformation implies a move from the love of power to the power of love.

Our values dictate how we see the world. Participatory practice requires us not only to keep these values to the forefront intellectually but also to embody them in the way we act. This requires a radical approach to kindness, one that reaches across divides and seeks healing, one that holds the space for dialogue, that listens