8. The Bahá’í Experience

To illustrate an expression of radical constructive agency that is entirely uncoupled from contentious politics, we examine the experience of the worldwide Bahá’í community, which seeks to advance profound social transformation through means that prefigure the ends of contributive justice. Bahá’ís are creating new patterns of community life and new institutional structures to support them. They have developed forms of training and resilience that enable the movement to continually expand the circle of those contributing to this constructive work. Through such training, they are learning how to empower a new type of social actor who sees themselves as protagonists with a historical sense of agency, committed to the construction of a fundamentally new and more just social order, undeterred by resistance and repression. In these and other ways, the Bahá’í experience illustrates a radically constructive project of worldmaking that is steadily gaining momentum as it advances on a global scale. It demonstrates that contentious politics is not the only means of acting with urgency to address oppression, injustice, and human suffering. And it illustrates a movement that is eager to learn alongside others within a complex ecology of social learning and social change.