Chasing legitimacy and clout is NOT the problem in my eyes, fwiw. It's the lack of critical literacy and intentionality about where clout structures can or should shift to. It's related to "Expert Writing" in the classic Larry McEnerney sense; the work of right now is how to train people to be rigorous and shift the expert circles McEnerney talks about. But the longer term plaining and aiming for where and how to change those structures seems lost, or, just relegated to 'wishful thinking' and something we can't talk about because the world is on fire in 2025, and we'll "come back to it later." I don't think it's going to wait for us.
Times are changing. I've been exposed to a lot of clout-reaching and legitimacy-hoping that continues to fall increasingly flat. As builders, teachers, educators, and empower-ers-of-others-doing-the-work, I think we need to center this topic, or at least be aware of it as we help folks transition to dealing with 2025, and prepare for 2026, 2027, and the critical decade ahead.
Chasing legitimacy and clout is NOT the problem in my eyes, fwiw. It's the lack of critical literacy and intentionality about where clout structures can or should shift to. It's related to "Expert Writing" in the classic Larry McEnerney sense; the work of right now is how to train people to be rigorous and shift the expert circles McEnerney talks about. But the longer term plaining and aiming for where and how to change those structures seems lost, or, just relegated to 'wishful thinking' and something we can't talk about because the world is on fire in 2025, and we'll "come back to it later." I don't think it's going to wait for us.
Times are changing. I've been exposed to a lot of clout-reaching and legitimacy-hoping that continues to fall increasingly flat. As builders, teachers, educators, and empower-ers-of-others-doing-the-work, I think we need to center this topic, or at least be aware of it as we help folks transition to dealing with 2025, and prepare for 2026, 2027, and the critical decade ahead.