Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The Simpler Way is an ‘eco-anarchist’ vision of a world where self-governing communities live materially simple but sufficient lives, in harmony with ecological limits. Central themes discussed in the following pages include a radical critique of consumer capitalism; the need for fundamental system change; and a transition theory based on building a new society from the grassroots up.
In his new book Internationalism or Extinction, Noam Chomsky traces the duality of existential threats from nuclear weapons and climate change. He argues for the urgency of international climate and arms agreements, and shows how global popular movements are mobilizing to force governments to meet this unprecedented challenge to civilization’s survival.
Like the White Queen in Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, I have been practising, doing my best to believe impossible things before breakfast. Could these experiments with slower, deliberative modes of democracy carry the currents of indignation, transform them into a turning aside from business as usual? Could there be political leaders who come around to the need for such a turning, in the face of the enormity of the climate crisis?
When I asked Barábas what his party’s main messages were in the election, he was able to recite three immediately: a green city (more green space, fewer cars), spend money on healthcare not more of Orbán’s endless stadiums, and a wealth tax to redistribute the proceeds of corruption into healthcare – which allowed them to talk about Orbán’s oligarchs. Surprisingly few progressive parties have such good message discipline.
When looking for solutions to climate change, this case reminds us that we sometimes already know what we should do, but are reluctant to choose options that involve cultural or behaviour change or challenge deep-seated social norms and practices.
Henry David Thoreau said: “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” And for that we need books, newspapers and other print media that esteem the truth and with it, create new generations of readers, writers and listeners.
Restorative justice, which baliga teaches, leads, and advocates for, is a huge component of this new vision of justice. As a practice that facilitates conversation, restorative justice allows a crime survivor to explain what they need to make things right, and then holds the guilty party accountable for doing it. It’s a victim-centered process in which everyone is treated with dignity and no one ends up incarcerated.
Here, surrounded by fellow mobsters, John Ball, Gerrard Winstanley, Martin Luther King… we appeal across the fences – by all that’s holy think about what you do! But we speak from the heart, from the ancestors, from the secret commonwealth and loved ones at home – without reason; without peer review…
This remark, made by a member of the Extinction Rebellion (XR) Citizens’ Assembly Working Group, is met by a spontaneous flurry of jazz hands from everyone in the small Kings College London meeting room. No, we’re not all frustrated musical theatre performers; waving ‘jazz hands’ are used in XR, and other activist groups, to express agreement during a group discussion. I can’t resist pointing out the irony of our reaction – we’re all agreeing we need to be less cult-like by raising our hands in unison and waving them about. Everyone laughs, but it strikes me that this points to a deeper challenge in our work.
For those tired of the fake news and play hate, who are convinced by Austin and their own better natures that accomplishing something better is actually still possible within the American system, Hersh provides a new, detailed, 21st-century appropriate set of adaptable “rules” for us all, radicals or otherwise.
Future Shock skates across the surfaces of the world that it describes, piling up anecdote and data, playing fast and loose with timescales. This may be the reason for its success; the single idea about “future shock” morphs endlessly, shape-shifting as we go through the book. Does it have a theory of change? Arguably, it is that everything is accelerating, and that this will then have deep and drastic social consequences.
As one Ojibwe cultural leader recently told me, after a berry fast, the young woman is looked up to as a “leader” by her peers. It is “a beautiful and intentional year-long consideration of the power of womanhood,” she said.
