{"id":15075,"date":"2011-04-07T02:48:40","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T07:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=15075"},"modified":"2011-04-07T10:06:18","modified_gmt":"2011-04-07T15:06:18","slug":"forms-of-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2011\/04\/forms-of-agency\/","title":{"rendered":"Forms of Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

Agency is closely linked to power. Without power, we cannot make choices, and without choices we have no agency. It is by our power to help, to learn, to build that we exercise agency. Each of these — helping, learning, building — are forms of agency. (Agency is also closely linked to work and value, but I\u2019ll come back to those later.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019m fascinated by the idea of \u201cforms of agency\u201d. Most of us tend to exercise agency in only a very few forms, limited by our ignorance of the options available. For example, if you decided to bake muffins, you could exercise your agency to choose between several \u201cforms of muffins\u201d: blueberry, bran, orange, etc. But how about pepperoni muffins<\/a>? Even if you had all the ingredients for pepperoni muffins in your kitchen, you could not have exercised your agency to bake them; the thought wouldn\u2019t have entered your mind (at least not until you\u2019d read about them here. Now when you bake muffins, your agency will be expanded as a result of having read this post — and that\u2019s what Times & Seasons is here for: expanding your culinary agency :) ). In other words, beyond requiring just resources and skills, agency also requires awareness of the available options.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019ve created a framework of forms of agency. Each form is labeled with an archetype. I\u2019m going to explore seven of these forms in a series here, starting today with \u201cKnight\u201d. My hope is that through discussing these forms of agency we might discover whole swaths of our lives that we miss exploring, just because we\u2019re unaware of them.<\/p>\n

\"SevenFormsofAgency\"
\n Knight (popularity, achievement, recognition, leadership)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like I mentioned, each form of agency is tied to a specific type of power. The power represented by the knight is the power of gathering, organizing, and directing people. It\u2019s the power of popularity. (Like I said, my ultimate goal with this exercise isn\u2019t to just abstractly enumerate powers, but specifically to do it with an end toward making people aware of powers available to them. Is \u201cpopularity\u201d something that you\u2019ve ever exercised? We talk about it as though it were something you either have or you don\u2019t. But if we have agency, then it makes sense to me that popularity is a power you can choose to develop, like skill in music or programming.)<\/p>\n

A lot of the knight\u2019s power derives from his or her crowd. In fact, that\u2019s the reason I chose the term \u201cknight\u201d. The knights in modern stories go on mystical quests and holy crusades. However, that\u2019s not what historical knights are about at all. Historically, knights are about noble status and recognition, securing position, and building and protecting a manor (their \u201cin\u201d crowd).<\/p>\n

Today, knights are the popular kids at school. They maintain an \u201cin\u201d circle, and there are benefits to belonging to a knight\u2019s \u201cin\u201d circle. The knight is about making things happen. Knights are fun, but they\u2019re not necessarily nice. (In fact, studies show that popularity is correlated with aggression<\/a>, except at the highest levels of popularity. An easy example is the bloggernacle. The most popular members of the \u2018nacle aren\u2019t its nicest members.) Professionally, the agency of the knight is exercised by managers and executives, celebrities, activists, and clergy. These are all jobs where popularity and social influence lead to success.<\/p>\n

Popularity isn\u2019t a form of agency especially encouraged in the church (in fact, it\u2019s probably the least encouraged of the seven forms of agency in my chart), but it still affects us<\/a>. Generally the church encourages us to exercise agency in terms of obedience (the Monk) and service (Healer), and to a lesser extent through provident living (parts Merchant and Artisan). Along with popularity, creative expression (Muse) and learning for learning\u2019s sake (Sage) also get short shrift. However, the church does encourage us to develop leadership skills, and popularity is an effective tool in leadership.<\/p>\n

So how can you develop your \u201cknightly powers\u201d? I can’t say that I know. It\u2019s not a form of agency I\u2019ve explored much. But, from the outside looking in, here are my observations on what works:<\/p>\n