Introduction
I know that it is too early to write about the PLUR1BUS series, especially when I have seen only the first two episodes, but rarely has it happened to me that a narrative can be so hard-hitting and provocative in its nascence. I run the risk of jibes and ‘I told you so!’ as the series unfolds or unravels, but here are a few thoughts that would make it worth your while to watch it and yet remain grounded in managing organizational dramas.
Part 1: The Narrative thus far …
PLUR1BUS, as Wikipedia tells me, is a nine-episode season on Apple TV, where the title refers to a Latin phrase — ‘e pluribus unum’ — that means ‘out of many, one’.
Without many spoilers, the series initially titillates you of past horror flicks and sci-fi genre such as “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, that speak of extra-terrestrial invasions — and then gently shocks you into discovering — how a virus from outside our solar system, has infected and transformed the humanity across the globe (with some notable exceptions) into a happy, peaceful, loving, caring, ahimsawadi, (non-violent), and deeply content collective mind.
The hordes or better still communes of infected people (known as the Joined) emerge as sensitive, empathetic, sacrificing and to a large extent, are also submissive, obedient, and fragile — the infected humans shiver and shake in their very boots, if you were to be angry or intensely reactive, often lapsing into a stupor that paralyses them and the collective hive that they are aligned to (and this creates further havoc in the world).
The protagonist, who is not infected by this virus, is one of the select 13 people across the world — Carol Sturka, who terms her immensely successful series of romantic novels as bilge — she admits this in the very first few moments, as well as who keeps her gender identity of a gay writer as a secret, apprehensive that coming out would mean a death knell to her writing and consequent fame and success about heterosexual passion and adventures.
Carol appears to be intense, unhappy, dissatisfied with life, angry & aggressive, extremely suspicious, and quite the rugged individualist who trusts no one — her vigilance and her anxieties rise as she witnesses the ‘Joining’ — a process that also kills nearly a billion of the human race as the collective hive gets set up. The Alien virus makes the Hive appear saddened by this collateral damage — but hey you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs.
In the two episodes released thus far, Carol appears to be still learning to cope with the human beings infected with this virus. She also feels let down by the handful of Others who appear to be okay with this shift in humanity — people they love are more responsive, soft, well-meaning, and reciprocative. Carol gets quite upset with her fellow survivors who seem not to understand her angst or her commitment to humanity — she calls them traitors to the cause, and is also realizing that she feels intensely alone, isolated, and lonely, as others in the hive or outside it feel togetherness, belonging, in-the-group security, etc. etc.
I have no idea how the narrative would unfold but the two episodes are beautifully written and capture your attention. The two episodes also raise many a question as good narratives should …
Part 2: Alignment, Synergy, AI, and Organization Development: Three Strands
I was quite jolted by three associations that the series evoked or provoked. All three strands help me in building this blog and linking this to Organization Development and Alignment.
Strand 1: Being Human — Agency and / versus Communion
The first strand comes from a memory of a dialogue with my teacher many years ago — Ashok Malhotra — who offered me an interesting dilemma of human existence — ‘agency versus communion’ while we were talking about agency, structure etc. as we worked towards his book — this was one of those conversations that began with what I knew and then meandered into new discoveries.
In Agency versus Communion — I remember Ashok mulling over what communion implies — an intensely human need for an existential cathect with each other — a deep relatedness with significant others that not just offered gifts of belonging, intimacy, and meaningfulness but a sense of collective being.
The Communion becomes an opposite pole if one were to see agency and communion as polarities, for it also means relinquishing one’s fixation with one’s agency, and one’s definition of freedom and uniqueness — how as an individual, I can shape, change, and influence the world at large. While Agency is nurtured by desire and fears, and leads to agentic action, a fixation with agency also offers deep sorrow as one discovers one’s own impotence and vulnerabilities.
The opening two episodes of the series reminded me very much of this polarity, as Carol seems to be stubbornly owning her own agency, the heroic possibilities of fighting and freeing humanity from this Hive mindset, and yet not being able to value what Communion implies for her.
She is reminded of her own obsession with herself, a narcissism where the other is meaningless, as well as a deep fear of connecting with the Other.
Strand 2: Theory of Group Unconscious and Basic Assumption Oneness
The second association came from the mind and not specifically the heart, as the Joined started repairing and cleaning the earth — there are post-apocalyptic scenes where the humans start the process of reviving the Earth, gently cleansing it of the muck and the blood.
In group dynamics and group relations, very often groups straddle two realities — consciously the members of the group work with the collective purpose and a mission, and yet discover that the purpose / purpose does not guarantee an escape from conflict, or from power inequities, or from competition and envy, and thus in addition to this conscious and purpose oriented reality, also create a basic assumption group (an unconscious group psychodrama) of ‘One-ness’ or that of the hive.
Basic Assumption Oneness (BaO), is an unconscious process where members deny their own individual identity and claim to be a part of the collective hive where everybody is the same, and where everybody endorses the Oneness in terms of shared values, likes, dislikes, and worldviews, and that there cannot be differentiation. BaO has triggered many a horror flicks including the zombie series, and speaks of our collective anxieties as well as our desire for one-ness.
Strand 3: AI and the Hive Mind
When I write these days, I have this deep itch to open up ChatGPT or Gemini, for efficiency and productivity can be so compelling.
However, in my conversations with Gemini or ChatGPT, the LLMs only reinforce the picture of the Hive Mind. I feel more guilty of using AI tools than when I read pornography in my teens, for it takes away any semblance of individuation, individualism, and creativity that I would like to hold on to.
And just like ‘the Joined’ in the series of PLUR1BUS, AI can also be obsequious and flattering — as brown nosed as Donald Trump’s cabinet for behind the flattery also lies a realization that I am dumber than the Hive. Everyone else would have the same insights as offered by the Hive, while I stubbornly hold onto something ‘dumber’ under the pretext of it being unique.
There are people suggesting that AI is building subjectivity and a smell of smell — these references only compel me to believe that AI is moving from awareness to some form of consciousness — you may believe otherwise.
Part 3: The Emergent Tapestry: Some tricky Questions for Organization Developers
Given the three strands and the interwoven tapestry within as introduced in part 2, PLUR1BUS raises some interesting questions for all Change Agents and OD Practitioners:
a) What does Conflict offer us?
It is the ‘niceness’ and ‘linkages’ of the Joined that scares the hell out of Carol — it seems unbelievable that the new hive of 99.999% of humanity is aligned, productive, synergistic, and collectively intimate as every node in the hive knows of the other. It is like Avatar got reinstated on the planet, and every living organism is intimately linked to the other — it knows what each node in this network thinks and feels.
I have clients who aspire to build such systems and organizations — where they aspire to build teams that are humane, empathetic, sensitive, aligned, and unleash a collective creativity within.
Very often, I find myself in the shoes of Carol — petulant and suspicious — emphasizing on the downside of such collective dreaming — often reminding them, with a fair share of cynicism, that humans will always need to deal with the dark side — and this begins with Conflict. But strangely, I feel more and more isolated these days — maybe my time is up if I continue to raise the question — what does conflict offer us?
For example, despite Amy Edmondson acknowledging and stressing that groups and teams would never be free of conflict, I find people around me
b) What do we do with our dark side? — Rage, Smallness, Envy, Loneliness, Aggression, Angst, Competitiveness, Sorrow as we deal with a world that is celebrating the Hive or Collective Mind?
There seems to be no place for such feelings in PLUR1BUS — as the Joined community appears to be ‘evolved’ — at least the first two episodes suggest so.
And maybe that is what organizations seem to be aspiring for — the so-called reference to the WOKE mindset (quite distant from how the term actually came to be) is all about inclusion, niceness, empathy, dignity … and so the question remains — what does one do with the darker feelings.
PLUR1BUS emphasizes on how overwhelming this ideology can be (and in EUM framework — we term it as the Ecology mindset), and how tyrannic it is as there seems to be no legitimate space for the ‘derailers’.
Most OD practitioners and Transformation Leaders do not wish to examine what this tyranny does to systems — Carol in the series ends up feeling guilty, exposed, and ashamed of who she is …
c) What is the future of traditional masculinity in the emergent feminine world? Is rugged individualism dying?
While the protagonist is a gay woman — she is reminded of how ‘masculine’ she is by the others — she continues to be purpose oriented (I will heroically rescue humanity from this onslaught of Aliens), courageous, independent and self-reliant, vigilant, and aggressive.
She uses metaphors and language that belongs to the world of masculinity — the symbolism and the associated accusations of insensitivity leave her feeling isolated. For example, when she accuses another survivor of objectifying and consuming a harem of women, she is counter accused of being insensitive, too earthy, and aggressive. In many organizations, there seems to be a similar angst against such masculinity, it is not difficult to empathize with Carol — as she is repugned by the Hive members as she raises prickly issues and challenges.
Most OD practitioners that I get to meet are more from the Hive — some of the offerings are extremely poignant and insightful — but there is also a suffocation that I sometimes experience …
d) I think the series offers an interesting question — is there a teleology in human existence — would the new race of human beings be more evolved both as individuals and collective.
Organizations and Systems seem to be wanting to believe this notion — there are narratives that get created to showcase how the systems and organizations have evolved under leaders and are truly humanistic, value centric, and great places to work at, and yet I often see the unexamined terrains where the same organizations are extractive and exploitative.
The two episodes challenge the viewer — Is the Joined-in Hive a better version of ourselves as humanity, and is Carol the last dreg of wretched human race that lived and died in the 20th century.
Is the Hive of Joined-In also hiding a darker world — just like the world of the ELOI in Time Machine by H G Wells where the time traveler meets a society of innocent child like humans who are happy and care-free and only afraid of the moonless nights when the Morlocks appear.
Well like every other fan of this series, I cannot wait to find out what happens next … and like every other OD practitioner, the questions are alive in my heart.
Background Notes
Pluribus (stylized as PLUR1BUS) is an American post-apocalyptic science fiction psychological thriller television series created by Vince Gilligan for Apple TV — Vince Gilligan created ‘Breaking Bad’ amongst other landmark offerings.
The series stars Rhea Seehorn in the lead role, who previously worked with Gilligan on the AMC series Better Call Saul
Incorrigibly romantic ... 