In 2019, Institute for Polarities of Democracy established the Desi Benet Social Change Fellow to honor the role that Desi played in the formation, promotion, and application of the Polarities of Democracy theory. The Fellowship is awarded to a woman PhD graduate who used the Polarities of Democracy as the theoretical framework for her doctoral studies and who is committed to applying the Institute’s tools to further social change.  In 2019, Dr. Nicole Hayes, Lt. Colonel US Army (retired), was selected as the inaugural Desi Benet Social Change Fellow.

Desi was Bill’s partner for almost 46 years, from 1973 until her passing in December of 2018. Throughout that time, she and Bill worked as political and social activists to seek racial, gender, social, and environmental equality and justice.  Desi’s passionate pursuit of applying the theory to practice, led to the establishment of the Desi Benet Social Change Fellowship.

The Polarities of Democracy theory grew out of Bill and Desi’s efforts and studies as scholar-practitioners seeking to use democracy as a solution to the problem of oppression. For Bill, this included 28 years as a member of the Monroe County NY Legislature, including five years as Majority Leader, while Desi served almost 30 years as a Child Abuse Prevention Specialist with the Monroe County Department of Social Services and as a community activist.

But by 1996, despite many victories as both practitioners and scholars, they were frustrated by their ultimate lack of success in using democracy to overcome oppression and build healthy, sustainable, and just communities. They found that despite holding local positions of power and prestige in Rochester, NY, and although they had many successes, they were not able to fully realize the promise of democracy.

It was then, while Bill was preparing to pursue his PhD and Desi was completing her Masters Degree in Social Work at the University of Toronto, that through her program she was introduced to Barry Johnson’s seminal work on Polarity Thinking. According to Dr. Johnson while there are some problems that can be solved through either-or thinking, there are other problems that go on forever because they consist of polarity dilemmas with two interrelated poles. When these polarity dilemmas exist, each pole has both positive and negative aspects and you must use both-and thinking to leverage the polarities to maximize the positive aspects of each pole while minimizing the negative aspects. Desi was drawn to the theory and introduced it to Bill as a possible concept that might address the frustrations that they had encountered.

In 2001, Bill was approved to pursue a theoretical doctorate at the University of Toronto, where he would apply Johnson’s both-and thinking to address the fundamental values required to realize democracy as an either-or solution to oppression. Through his doctoral and post-doctoral research from 2001 through 2012, Bill developed the Polarities of Democracy theory with Desi fully engaged with the ongoing critique of his emerging concepts.

The Polarities of Democracy theory was then published in the Journal of Social Change in 2013, and Bill and Desi began work on its use and application. While Bill focused on refinement of the theory and research, and how to introduce it to doctoral students as a theoretical framework for their studies, Desi passionately pursued the question of how to apply the theory in the real world. For several years, they worked together to promote both the theory and its application. Then, in 2017, with Desi’s encouragement as a way to marry the theoretical aspects of the Polarities of Democracy theory with Barry Johnson’s real world application tools developed through Polarity Partnership, the Institute for Polarities of Democracy was founded

The Polarities of Democracy theory falls within the critical theory paradigm of pursuing positive social change by overcoming the forces of institutional oppression and violence (racial, gender, social, environmental, economic, militaristic, etc.) that threaten the survival of the human species.