Sensing Harm by Design

Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures

The usual premise is that there is a problem with the current system that needs to be solved, or the system itself needs to be replaced and the “good people” (most virtuous, woke, moral, righteous, deserving, enlightened) are the ones to do it. We start from a different premise. Our premise is that the current system requires harm by design.

The system requires violence towards other beings and the planet in order to exist, and thus it is intrinsically harmful and unsustainable—we have reached the tipping points and we are headed to the end of the viability of the current system. We are both harmed and implicated in reproducing harm, consciously and unconsciously. This happens because the current modern-colonial system:

• has kept us tied and addicted to its promises and comforts;
• has limited the ways we can see, feel, relate, desire, heal and imagine;
• has led us to deny the violence and unsustainability that are required for it to exist, as well as our interdependence and the depth and - magnitude of the mess we are in;
• has encouraged us to create narcissistic delusions about our sense of self-importance and our perceived entitlements, keeping us in a fragile and immature state that leaves us unequipped to face the challenges of our times; and
• has untethered us from the realities of the planet, and the fact that our modern-colonial mode of existence can cause our own extinction.

It is immensely difficult (but not impossible) to interrupt these patterns and let go of the harmful attachments and co-dependence we have developed with the system itself. Without doing this, we will only be able to want and imagine different versions of the same modern-colonial system.

This course offers a container and methodology for developing this—identifying and interrupting the usual patterns, and committing to a process of cognitive, affective, and relational “decluttering”—as a continuous practice.