by Shaun Chamberlin | May 19, 2014 | All Posts, Cultural stories, Economics, Philosophy, Transition Movement
This post was originally written by me as a guest post for Rob Hopkins' Transition Culture blog, but I have kindly given myself permission to reproduce it here ;)
by Shaun Chamberlin | Jan 20, 2013 | All Posts, Climate Change, Cultural stories, Favourite posts, Featured, Philosophy
When environmentalists argue amongst themselves, whether at some formal debate or late at night over a few drinks, I confidently predict that the argument will go like this.
One will say (in one form or another):
"There's no time to wait for radical change or revolution; the crisis is overwhelmingly urgent, we simply have to act within the frameworks we have now".
The other will argue (in one form or another):
"But there's no point in acting without radical change or revolution; without that we are only addressing symptoms and not the real problems".
by Shaun Chamberlin | Dec 21, 2012 | 21st December, All Posts, Climate Change, Cultural stories, Favourite posts, Philosophy, Transition Movement
Let me tell you a story.
It’s a story about our land – our home – and our ability to live peaceful, harmonious, respectful lives upon it and in partnership with it.
And it’s a story about the big bad political structures and corporate institutions that conspire to stop us doing so, using the unspeakable, impenetrable black magic of bureaucracy and backhanders to bind our best efforts with frustration and fatigue.
Oh, you already know that one?
~~~~~~~~~
Ok, then maybe you’re ready for the next chapter, about what comes after?
Fine. Sit down, make yourselves comfortable.
But you should know that this isn’t a Hollywood story, about a heroic individual battling the faceless hordes of bureaucratic ennui and struggling towards an inevitable triumph.
No, this is a collective adventure, and a story I have to try to tell from the inside, as it occurs. Although perhaps it could be all the more powerful, for that?
This story really matters to me. To us.
It is the story of our lives. It seems you know the early chapters. The ones where the twisted power of the demons seems unstoppable, where calling the future uncertain sounds recklessly optimistic, where our humble efforts seem insignificant, and where our all-powerful superhero is nowhere to be seen.
And you know too that, as in the most gripping stories of our childhood, the stakes are higher even than death. Though death is at stake; for us, for our loved ones.
Higher than the destruction of our entire communities. Though their destruction is ongoing.
Maybe higher, even, than extinction: that death of birth itself. Though that too hangs in the balance, for us and for others.
~~~~~~~~~
Here I sense some of your eyes widen. What could be worse than that?
But some of you nod sadly, knowing that I speak of ‘undeath’. That living death that hollows all joy, pleasure and meaning from our souls even as our bodies continue to feast on all around us. The realm of zombies, of vampires.
This is our story, so we all know it is no fiction. Rather, it is the true story that some of us don’t dare to tell our children, because we know they will be scared, and that we may have no honest way to reassure them.
~~~~~~~~~
You should know that I do not speak of death lightly. Two years ago I lost both my closest partner and mentor, and my fiancée, both suddenly, and within a few weeks of each other. Shortly afterwards, my father suffered a double heart attack and barely survived.
I am coming to know a little of death, of its causes, and of what it leaves behind. And I am learning a great deal.
Eventually, painfully, I am beginning to learn what Nature tells us so clearly, and what our culture fights so hard to ignore.
That death is not evil. That death has its rightful place, as the partner of life, and it always will.
But that undeath does not. Undeath is the enemy of nature and of life. The enemy of art and of love.
It is the hollow-eyed, insatiable hunger that works to consume all that we hold dear, and takes no pleasure in that work.
But I am getting ahead of myself...
~~~~~~~~~
Instead, let me speak a little to those who feel their unity with their lover, Earth.
Those who step into the wild from which we came and can feel the terrible grief that she herself carries.
Unending, as all grief is. As all relationships are.
But who also feel something more from our wise, wise, deep lover.
That grief too has its place.
That feeling the loss of life, aching over it, is, truly, a triumph for life.
Grief cannot – stubbornly will not – overcome death, but it vanquishes life’s true enemy.
This is the gift we can eventually bring back from our time in the underworld, clutched tight against those from whose realm we return.
The gift of the tingling intensity of full life – the simple joys of a path untainted by despair, corruption or surrender. The exquisite tastes of food, the truth and beauty ringing in the music and, for me, always the dancing; my wild, beloved dancing. The aliveness that grief works to return us to - in its agonising, unhurried way - in the aftermath of beloved death.
~~~~~~~~~
And, possibly, the gift for which environmentalism hungers.
So often, when I hear the learnéd speak of environmental collapse, ongoing or long done, all I can hear is their pain - sometimes articulated, often not - lurking among the figures and statistics. Unresolved..
I hear a zombie speaking.
It is no great wonder that when a man seeks a podium to speak of his pain, the audience is limited.
Most flinch before this uninvited onslaught, are put out, offended, impinged upon.
~~~~~~~~~
Yet we can - I can - learn to speak from the place beyond agony.
Joy.
The place that faces down death, even the death of birth, and finds life beyond that. In this world.
In that place I find the other voices, the non-human and the no longer human. The others who share in the life of this planet, and those who no longer do.
All speak in this place.
And those dread, tender voices speak of death. Shatter undeath. Bring life.
~~~~~~~~~
epilogue
There is a time for everything – a time for grieving, a time for reflection, a time for action, a time for silence. I feel that the time for storytelling, and for sitting comfortably, is drawing to a close.
On Dark Optimism I sometimes speak of the paths I am choosing to walk, and if they seem a little inadequate in the face of the big bad, well it is because they are. But they bring me life – true life – and a little voice whispers to me that that is enough. That that is everything.
I know that voice, and I love her.
in memory of Maria Elvorith, 13/06/82 ~ 21/12/10
by Shaun Chamberlin | Apr 2, 2012 | All Posts, Cultural stories, Economics, Philosophy, Politics
My hero Enric Duran (AKA Robin Bank) has posted the below new video explaining his legal situation and inviting others to join his radical action against the banks.
For those who haven't seen it, I strongly recommend watching his inspiring 2008 video first.
What I find particularly fascinating about this new video is Duran's statement that "I know speaking of the extension of disobedience, of the risks of detention and prison, brings up our fears and insecurities. But I also know from experience, that the experience of freedom, understood as the consistency between thought and action, generates a feeling of well-being that 1,000 bars cannot block."
This echoes the account of another hero of mine, Tim DeChristopher, now in jail, who recently said,
"I went into this thinking, 'It’s worth sacrificing my freedom for this'... But I feel like I did the opposite. I thought I was sacrificing my freedom, but instead I was grabbing onto my freedom and refusing to let go of it for the first time, you know? Finally accepting that I wasn’t this helpless victim of society, and couldn’t do anything to shape my own future, you know, that I didn’t have that freedom to steer the course of my life. Finally I said, 'I have the freedom to change this situation. I’m that powerful.' And that’s been a wonderful feeling that I’ve held onto since then."
Perhaps these inspirational people are not simply calling on us to show the same level of bravery that they are in defending our collective future, perhaps they are actually inviting us to share in the joy and aliveness that they have discovered?
"I prefer dangerous freedom to peaceful servitude" - Leszczy?ski Stanislaus I
by Shaun Chamberlin | Jun 15, 2011 | All Posts, Climate Change, Cultural stories, Favourite posts, Philosophy, Transition Movement
Last night I went to the première screening of an excellent new film called Just Do It. It's a record of the direct action climate movement - Climate Camp, Plane Stupid et al. - made with the full cooperation of the activists, and it's worth checking out, especially if you've never been directly involved yourself.
It is a story of people responding to the threat to their future with courage, determination, humour and camaraderie. It's also a film that I remember existing only as a flyer, asking whether we would like to see a truly independent film developed outside mainstream production models and distributed for free. Hundreds of us donated, and I was keen to see the result.
After the screening, there was a Q&A session with the director, Emily James, but I found myself sitting there with a question in my head that was prompted by the film, but was refusing to form itself into anything concise and coherent. It was connected with that dreaded thought that everyone involved with any form of heartfelt climate action knows only too well - but what if it's all too late?
Let me explain. The footage in the film is from 2009 - the buildup to the Copenhagen climate conference in December of that year. It briefly reminds its audience of all the climate science that was marshalled back then to make clear that this was our last hope at curbing emissions to prevent the climate system hurtling off into unstoppable destabilisation. And then, of course, it reminds us of the abject failure this grand conference produced...
One of the most affecting moments in the film was the close-up on one inspiring activist's face as she is asked "but does all this actually achieve anything?" She searches her mind, begins to speak, hesitates, starts again, and stops. Then her eyes seem to look into her heart and soul, and maybe even to shy away from some of the things they see there, before, as I remember, she settles upon "well, it's better than doing nothing".
To me, it was a sad moment, and a question that seemed unresolved, even as the film ended by reminding us that the Heathrow runway expansion has been cancelled, that the Kingsnorth coal power plant plans have been scrapped, and that projects like the exciting Transition Heathrow are growing up where only tarmac and fumes would otherwise have been.
As the deserved applause rang to the credits, I tried to figure out how to formulate this sadness into a question. Eventually, as the Q&A session moved towards its end, I gave up on producing any pithy question, but resolved nonetheless to share the journey I had personally been taken on by watching the film.
And as I spoke, I realised that there is a better answer to that question – does all this actually achieve anything? – than the one spoken in the film. It is the one that is lived by the people portrayed in it.
As my mess of a question/journey/statement tumbled out, and this realisation took form, I found myself ending with a quote from Paul Wellstone, “If we don’t fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognise that we don’t really stand for them.”
This seemed to ring true, with Emily James responding that she was glad that this question had been asked, and that that quote reflected her experience - that even if we were to lose our struggle for a future, we would want to have lived our present honestly as who we are. In my imagination, it seemed as though she were saying that we sometimes have to put our bodies on the line to save our souls.
The next question from the audience was a response to this, and a simple and interesting one - "so is activism therapy then?". The response from Emily was an enthusiastic "yes", and an explanation of how the process has helped many people to rediscover themselves and their joy in life, and of what an exceptionally supportive community there is among activists.
But I felt that this perhaps wasn't the most interesting thrust behind the question. To me the question hit home more as "so is activism only therapy then"? In other words, are you activists only pretending to be doing this to change the world, when really you're just trying to make yourselves feel better about the understanding that you can't?
And to this, as to all the best questions, the answer seems to be "er, yes and no. It's a bit more complicated than that"!
Because of course we act in order to change the world. And change it we do. Indeed, as a friend says, we cannot not change the world, whatever any of us choose to do. And as we change it, it changes us. And as it changes us, we change it. We are all activists.
And if the story we tell with these changes is one that we are proud to be telling, to the very core of our being, then activism is certainly therapeutic. But that kind of activism is not 'only therapeutic', it is spiritual. It is simply an expression of what we believe life to be for.
So the thought-provoking activist in the film was right - acting in some way to reflect our beliefs in our actions is indeed better than quietly dying inside, no matter what the external consequences. Perhaps Wendell Berry said it best,
“Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success, namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one's own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence.”
But this is different from those times when activism is based on a lie - when acting is simply easier than admitting that you don't really believe that these actions can create the change you want to see. This kind of activism probably deserves to be challenged as 'only therapy', and a dangerous, deceitful kind of therapy at that.
...And of course there's only one reason why that audience question struck a painful chord for me, and prompted this rare blog post. It's because I've indulged in a bit of that in my time - ignoring the quiet inner voice that whispers the truth, telling me that the course I have chosen is futile, or counter-productive, or simply no longer a reflection of my highest truth. As Vanessa Spedding has it,
“It would be interesting if all campaigners did this: stopped, went home, and considered what we are really doing with our time and our ideas. Striving to be true to ourselves would seem to be a sensible first goal.”
This is exactly what I am trying to do at present, hence the lack of speaking, writing etc of late. I am very much in a listening phase, rather than a speaking one, and that feels very right. After last night's interesting excursion, I have just ordered a copy of the provocative Deep Green Resistance, and will also be keeping an eye on the blog of one lady who is trying to find something more effective altogether than resistance. I will let you know how we get on.
by Shaun Chamberlin | Sep 29, 2010 | All Posts, Cultural stories, Favourite posts, Philosophy, Politics, Reviews and recommendations
I have just spent an intrigued couple of hours musing over the outstanding new Common Cause report, which explores the battle over cultural values that underlies communications and marketing, while keeping one eye always on our environmental challenges.
The report has both stimulated a fair bit of controversy (as I will explore below the cut) and, excitingly, provided an answer to a question that has been bothering me for many years now, since reading Edward Bernays' influential 1928 book Propaganda.
(full text available online here or here)
First, then, a little history. Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, and the pioneer founder of the industry now termed "Public Relations" (the "Propaganda" name being discarded due to associations with the German war effort). Building on his uncle's ideas about subconscious urges and desires that drive our decisions, Bernays argued that:
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society… We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society...In almost every act of our daily lives...we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses."
To my mind this is pretty distasteful stuff, but it has undoubtedly proved a significant force in shaping the consumerist society around us. We may disapprove of the marketers, PR men and spin doctors invading our minds at every opportunity, but we cannot deny the power of the techniques Bernays developed.
All of which brings us back to that uncomfortable question: given the urgency of the peril facing our biosphere, and the potency of this approach, is there a way to justify such manipulation for the sake of preserving a future for all (as indeed many are trying to do)?
On those terms, I have always leant towards the answer "no". But Common Cause offers a potential way to harness this potency without being manipulative: transparency.
By all means understand and utilise all the power inherent in your messaging, but be explicit about the values you are trying to promote, and explain why.
Like most important insights, this solution is simple yet powerful, for by this one act you not only bring integrity to your efforts to spread the values you believe in, but also simultaneously open up an important debate over the desirability of those values AND shine a light on the dubious morality of all those doing similar work from the cover of darkness.
For me, it is a great relief to see a niggling question laid to rest in such an elegant way, and I am grateful for it.
Yet in reading around the report, I discovered that others, such as Solitaire Townsend of Futerra, disagree, and forcefully so. She writes:
"The notion of changing the audience rather than the message is at the heart of (this) concept. It argues that we shouldn’t accept the basic psychology of our audience – but seek to change it.
This means re-programming people’s values away from consumption, status and selfish desires and towards collective awareness and a closer relationship with our place in the natural world. Actually this drives us (at Futerra) bonkers, especially because implicit is the message ‘if only everyone else thought and acted like us everything would be okay’.
That makes our skin crawl a bit, and we know the majority public audience hates environmental worthies suggesting there’s not only something wrong with their footprint: there’s something wrong with their personality."
I have often felt myself recoil from Futerra's approach to "promoting sustainable development", and this helped me to put my finger on why.
As report author Tom Crompton pointed out in his response, all messaging changes the audience. While I agree with Solitaire that this fact is in some ways distasteful, for me the appropriate response to this distaste is not to pretend that one's own messaging is somehow exempt from having such influence, but rather to explore the reality behind this dangerous power, and to seek a way to use it in an honest and beneficial way.
Common Cause's radical transparency provides exactly that and, promisingly, the report is supported by five influential NGOs (including, incidentally, some that I have personally decided to stop supporting).
But I think there is a wider issue rearing its head here too; a logical flaw that underpins much modern discussion, especially when it comes to our environmental challenges.
When Solitaire goes on to argue that "we don't have time for a cultural shift" and so that we must engage with people where they're at, her argument is that approach A can't possibly work, so we must try approach B.
We see the same form of argument all over the place. Renewables can't scale up quickly enough to replace fossil fuels so we must have nuclear power. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats aren't running the country well, so we must vote Labour. And on and on.
But the premisses and the conclusion do not join up. Even if we accept that A doesn't work, it doesn't necessarily mean that B will. Indeed, B could be far far worse, this argument just doesn't tell us. This much is evident at a glance, yet still this form of argument is everywhere, and generally treated with respect.
The alternative is to face the possibility that maybe none of the options presented are satisfactory. Maybe we truly don't have time for a cultural revolution AND 'ethical consumerism' truly can't save the world. Maybe neither renewables NOR nuclear can sustain a consumerist society over the coming decades. And so on...
It is when we explore this space - when we consider the evidence on all the propositions, rather than assuming that the last remaining option simply MUST work - that we start to consider reality, and thus open the door to true creativity.
Perhaps none of the mainstream parties are satisfactory, so I should support a smaller one, or not vote at all, or start my own, or work to change the political system, or...
Perhaps none of today's technologies can power a consumerist lifestyle for all the world's people, so we need to accept vast inequalities, or reduce our energy demand, or redefine our idea of a desirable lifestyle, or...
Let's not assume that the truth must always be found laid out among the presented options.
As I mentioned in response to comments on an earlier post, I believe that refusing to flee to quick, unexamined answers is one of our key strategies at this point in human history, as the limits of our current paradigms loom ever larger. We must explore new stories.
As Rilke so beautifully put it:
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers.”
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