THE
COALITION
OF
ORDINARY
RESISTERS

COOR Mindset

This list is not an agreement or a set of rules enforced upon the Coalition. Instead, people join the coalition because they already have this mindset or aspire to.

  1. The society will only change as much as we are willing to change ourselves.
  2. Being ordinary is our goal, not a stepping stone to being extraordinary.
  3. Everyone has something to contribute to each discussion and each action.
  4. We use the shared space for shared purposes. We take the personal thoughts to personal spaces.
  5. We learn to do, not learn about doing.

Annotation

  1. The society will only change as much as we are willing to change ourselves.
    1. A society is not an abstract construct. It is made up of individual persons. Social changes comes entirely from changing people.
    2. If we cannot change ourselves, it is arrogant and audacious to think we can change anyone else.
  2. Being ordinary is our goal, not a stepping stone to being extraordinary.
    1. One person being extraordinary is a failure at building People Power. Success is if everyone is brought along so no one is ahead or behind.
    2. If you find yourself having an extraordinary skill or knowledge, make others’ access to it ordinary.
  3. Everyone has something to contribute to each discussion and each action.
    1. If you do not know anything about a topic, you are very valuable as a proximation of people whose minds we are trying to change.
  4. We use the shared space for shared purposes. We take the personal thoughts to personal spaces.
    1. We quietly process upon learning something new.
    2. If something was new, then the next thing that comes is also likely new. But engaging with your personal reaction stops that flow.
    3. A lot of people feel the urge to speak in a moment of reaction. But what comes out of our months is often what relieves our anxiety not what advances the discussion.
    4. Each time you speak, there was someone else who could have spoken in that place.
  5. We learn to do, not learn about doing.
    1. We value experience, no matter how small.
    2. A person who got flexible hours implemented at work has more to contribute to COOR than someone who wrote the textbook about the labour movement.
    3. A person who got the bigoted uncle to use the correct pronoun has more to offer to COOR conversations than someone with a Ph.D. in the harm of transphobia.