From July 17-19, The Action Lab gathered our Art of Purpose and Strategy School cohorts. Building on the foundation established during our Cohort Launch in April, where participants learned about the foundations of capitalism, the State, and strategy of the moment, the July convening challenged program participants to strengthen their understanding across each of those subject areas. We did this by focusing primarily on the concept of contradictions, which we defined as an opposition between conflicting forces or ideas.
The core contradiction we examined was between forces on the Left and Right of the political spectrum. Our goal was to build participants’ capacity to consistently identify and analyze this contradiction in a deep way. We challenged participants not to simply resolve issues as being either “good” or “bad,” but to ground their analysis in their understanding of capitalism and the State, for the purpose of creating a liberatory strategy.
For the first portion of each day, Art of Purpose and Strategy School had collective political education sessions. On Day 1, we covered class contradictions and explored the challenges and successes organizers face when attempting to build a shared class consciousness in a campaign, project, or movement. On Day 2, we covered contradictions of the State and built our understanding of liberalism and fascism; we noted how these forces interact and shape how we live, think, and organize. And on Day 3, guest speakers Fahd Ahmed (Desis Rising Up & Moving), Zohran Mamdani (New York State Assembly), and Sandy Nurse (New York City Council) visited to discuss their assessments of the current political landscape, contradictions, and strategy.
For the second part of each day, Art of Purpose and Strategy School cohorts separated and engaged in their own learning sessions: Art of Purpose explored the concept of contradictions as applied to the (politicized) body, self, and relationships; Strategy School continued to sharpen participants’ strategic acuity and practiced strategy in action through a series of games, exercises and discussions.
We look forward to more convenings in the fall!
