#Seed035: Rethinking Community Organizing

From Plastic Words to Regenerative Needs

Source: Mycelium: The Wood Wide Web — Kauai Seascapes Nursery

Over the years, I’ve come to notice that community building often falters when organizers misunderstand the needs of the people they aim to serve. Too often, hubris leads us to start imposing what we think people need, rather than taking the time to participate, listen, and observe. This article examines how community organizers tend to fall short in understanding the needs of their communities. Quite often, we think we know what people need because we place ourselves outside of the community we are serving. Doing so, not only leads us to make major assumptions about others, but breaks down trust, reciprocity, and relationships. Alternatively, if we start recognizing that our own needs, even as organizers, are deeply connected to those we are serving, then we start adopting a more holistic and regenerative approach to community building.

Plastic Words

Uwe Pörksen, in Plastic Words: The Tyranny of a Modular Language, studied the instrumental use of language. He popularized the concept of plastic words, words that are vague, abstract, and malleable. These words are usually used in governments, bureaucracies, academia, and politics. They are woven into the very structure of our language. Pörksen writes, “Language is a partially autonomous power that shapes reality as well as reflecting it, and these two functions interact. Countless diffuse expressions are squeezed into one concept and fastened onto one name, and this name gains a certain independence. One forgets that it contains only a bounded view of things; one confuses the name with the thing itself. The name achieves the inertia of an established institution. Words are channels that run ahead of history, and history follows them. They should be questioned constantly; but out of complacency, fear, or plain stupidity we allow them, again and again, to lead us.”¹ So many of the words we use are inert. As community organizers, we often spell them out for people, and hearing nothing bu positive feedback. At the outset of a community project, we may yell out: We need progress! We need to be sustainable! We need growth! While this sounds universally appealing, it lacks a precise definition. If we need progress, does that mean we are discrediting the past? Does it mean that we want to adopt novelty for its own sake? Does it mean we believe morals and values necessarily change wit the times? Without clarity, the term becomes a catch-all phrase that appeals to everyone yet commits to nothing. It's a false solution to a perceived problem.

Plastic words, as Uwe Pörksen describes, are vague, abstract, and malleable terms that seem meaningful but lack substance. Common examples include words like progress, development, equity, inclusion and sustainability. They have these key characteristics:

1. They are vague and ambiguous, sounding familiar yet hold no common definition.

2. They have universal appeal, meaning that they aren’t open to critique or debate, and appeal to everyone and anyone.

3. They are empty of substance because they don’t actually signify anything.

4. They are exploited for a purpose such as amassing wealth, power or validation.

5. Because of their universal appeal, they are culturally and linguistically homogeneous, contributing to a globalized standardized language that flattens local, nuanced, or culturally rich expressions.

Community organizers often used plastic words because of their appeal to those being organized. For example, a program aimed at promoting resilience might mean something different in a flood-prone rural area than in an urban neighborhood grappling with food insecurity. Without specificity, such terms can fail to inspire meaningful action. But within a few years, the community realizes that the emperor is wearing no clothes. The solutions that were brought forward to address the said needs lacked substance. Building community requires an alternative. It requires a deepened connection to local, nuanced, and culturally rich expressions. It requires a humility to truly participate and live within the community ecosystem. This is the only way one can really know what people need. It cannot be imposed and cannot be plastic.

The Pitfalls of Community Organizing

Once we’ve avoided plastic words, it’s important for community organizers to ask themselves why they are building community in the first place. They are often driven by genuine care and a desire to make a difference. However, unchecked ego or hubris can lead to missteps, such as assuming we know what others need without engaging in true dialogue. The demise of the community organizer is the untamed ego. And that inner work leads to delusions of grandeur and a “I am better than he” attitude. Through consistent inner work, this attitude can be shed. But what about during this process, does that mean only the enlightened should be doing community work?

The inner work must be consistent but by its very nature is gradual. This does not necessarily mean that one has to wait before acting in the world, but rather one must recognize their own hubris during the process. Instead of assuming what people need, community organizers must participate in community life. They can do this by practicing active listening and humility, regularly engaging in self-reflection to recognize biases, and participating as equals within the community rather than imposing solutions.

What Does a Community Need?

When it comes to needs, Maslow’s hierarchy usually comes to mind. American Psychologist Abraham Maslow argued that only once people fulfill their most basic needs can they move on to their safety needs, social well-being, self-esteem, and finally self-actualization. Maslow’s hierarchy provides a useful starting point for understanding human needs. However, its linear and individualistic structure overlooks the interconnected and cyclical nature of community well-being. It assumes that needs are linear and progressive, falling in the similar traps that plastic words make us fall in. The trap of thinking we actually need progress and development.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Community organizers often look at their community in this way. This isn’t necessarily a wrong approach, however, it is very limited especially when it comes from a place of limited to little inner work. Maslow’s hierarchy neglects the collective nature of needs and that people are interconnected, not just with others but with the living world as a whole. When community organizers separate themselves from the community they are serving, they unconsciously replicate individualistic approaches, focusing on solving problems rather than facilitating transformation through collective processes. They may not be thinking about how they are included in the community fabric. Community organizers must avoid adopting a rigid, top-down approach, assuming communities cannot engage in broader cultural or ecological care until all material needs are satisfied. We all need to remember that human beings are inherently creative and resourceful.

The community organizer’s inner work requires a deep recognition that he or she is deeply entangled within the community ecosystem. The community organizer has the same needs as the community, and is part of a cyclical web of needs. This is why I propose rethinking needs as a cycle rather than a pyramid. This encourages a relational, systems-based approach that integrates the ecological, social, and spiritual dimensions of human existence. Community organizers are then called to do the inner work, enabling them to foster deeper connections with people and the planet, embrace complexity, and co-create regenerative pathways that honor the interconnected realities of the communities they serve. By viewing needs as cyclical rather than hierarchical, we can better address the ecological, social, and spiritual dimensions of community life. This is the foundation of the regenerative cycle of needs.

The Regenerative Cycle of Needs

The regenerative cycle of needs offers an alternative to traditional, linear frameworks like Maslow’s hierarchy. This model emphasizes interconnectedness, showing how ecological health, social resilience, and personal well-being are deeply interwoven in a community ecosystem. Our needs span multiple generations. Anyone who has planted a tree as an adult knows that. Furthermore, community organizers must recognize what they inherit, especially from their ancestors and their elders. As G.K. Chesterton writes in Orthodoxy, “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.” The cycle has no starting point, because our lives begin before we were born.

I propose that a regenerative cycle of needs must include the following:

1. Ecological Health: forms the foundation of all other needs. Without healthy soil, water, and air, communities cannot thrive. For instance, a polluted river affects not only local biodiversity but also food security and community well-being.

2. Food and Resource Security: dependent on the quality of the soil, the air, the water cycles, we require access to food and resources, including nutrition, shelter, clothing, and energy.

3. Health and Wellbeing: the connection between soil, food, and health cannot be overstated. Anne Bikle and David Montgomery’s What Your Food Ate: How to Heal Our Land and Reclaim Our Health is a great book that highlights this connection.

4. Community and Social Resilience: both the health of our planet and our own health sustain regenerative communities, and ensure we are safe from ourselves and each other.

5. Purpose, Contribution, and Planetary Care: our culture, stories, myths, legends, shape who we are, preserve our traditions, inculcate our values, and continue our legacy. If our virtues encourage addressing the above needs, then we can continue to thrive as a species.

Unlike a pyramid, the regenerative cycle recognizes that these needs do not have a fixed starting point. They are interdependent, forming a dynamic web of relationships that sustain communities across generations.

To build truly regenerative communities, organizers must move beyond plastic words and linear models of needs. By doing the inner work to recognize our interconnectedness and embracing the regenerative cycle of needs, we can foster communities that are resilient, inclusive, and ecologically vibrant. Let us rethink how we approach community organizing—not as a task to impose solutions, but as an opportunity to co-create with the people and ecosystems we serve.

1. Pörksen, Uwe. Plastic Words: The Tyranny of a Modular Language. Translated by Jutta Mason and David Cayley, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995, p. 6.