Rewiring How We Talk About Change – Part I

Given that all economic, political and social systems consider change their worst enemy, and considering that all forms of power eventually become incredibly corrupt, the question that comes back to haunt our civilisations, again and again, is: how on Earth does one change the system?

I have explained before why this is the wrong question to ask. Many activists make the mistake of focusing right off the bat on the tactical aspects of change-making: the actual mechanics of enacting change through either government or protest. But governments are corrupt, and the people have never been on our side. You can’t use the system to change the system. That’s just stupid.

Action is pointless when there is no underlying desire for change. The purpose of activism should never be to try and force things, but to transform the public’s consciousness on an issue, and cultivate genuine grassroots movements before even suggesting any action. Climate activism is failing to create the level of desire for change needed to avert the worst of the climate crisis. This was never going to be easy, but it becomes even harder when we talk about “power of the people”, when it is the people that we are actually up against. WE are the problem. “Revolution” strategies are not only naïve, they tend to backfire. Revolutions happen when enough consciousness transformation has happened in society, not when someone says “Go!”

When it comes to the climate crisis and overshoot specifically, I explained in my book Frankenpolitics why the environment is, and will always be, the toughest battle to fight. Going back to one of those essays, it is worth reminding that:

· It is the only movement that has zero big allies, in fact, it has enemies in every single sector of the “human system”

· It is the only movement that fights for the rights of non-humans. A long shot.

· It is the only movement which is about transforming EVERYTHING: economy, society, environment, politics, existence. This is not as easy as passing a single piece of legislation like gay marriage.

· As long as tomorrow still looks far worse than today, it is the only movement having to constantly convince people of the urgency of acting now to prevent something far worse later. The very fact that the worst is not here yet actually makes people feel complacent about today.

Frankenpolitics is my most ignored book, I still don’t know why. Maybe because the horrors I describe there sounded too over-the-top at the time. Maybe because it went into print two weeks before Trump’s re-election, when people still thought there was hope, democracy, and a social web i.e. all the things that I claim in my book have died many decades ago. Well, we are now living the nightmare I had described. One needs to become acquainted with the nightmare before they can dream up a solution, and this is why my systemic critique is always merciless. Climate activists are at war with an entire system: of oligarchs, algorithms, and sheep on drugs a.k.a. the general public. This is not a time for “action”. This is a time for re-education, the type of education that exposes so much of the filth of this system that people become anti-systemic. Only when you see the filth you live in, do you desire for change. You cannot build a desire for transformation without first exposing the conditions that make transformation necessary.

So, my two cents for today are not about changing the system, but about exposing it so that it has no choice but to transform.

1. Normalise Radicalisation and Transformation Cultures

The ruling classes normalise the fear of change, so that change never takes place. They exploit the natural fear we all have for transformation, and our automatic tendency to trust the present, however grim. In my book In the Grip of Necrocapitalism I explain the evolutionary origins of this: “Our brain has a dangerous affinity for stability: it desperately wants to believe in an unchanging world, even as the world changes. Being able to “keep calm and carry on” is not an evolutionary disadvantage: it is a survival trait, and self-delusion is the cognitive adaptation that enables it”.

Ironically, we are also a species that takes massive and irrational risks, but we only do this when there is a personal reward as opposed to a collective benefit. Elon and his buddies are huge risk-takers. We need to be taking the right types of risks: not the ones that enrich the few, but ones that benefit the entirety of society. We lack a transformation culture, even though we have an innovation culture. The two are fundamentally different: one is a mindset, the other one is a necrocapitalist business. Transformation cultures happen when people start believing in behaviour change. And like all behaviour change, belief happens through repetition. It happens through seeing change in action and believing it is possible because your community has done it, celebrated it, and broadcasted it. When transformation becomes part of culture, anything is possible.

2. System Exposure: Name and Shame the Villains

What the oligarchs don’t want you to know is what’s in it for them when the world collapses. They pretend to be saving the world when they’ve got everything lined up in order to make money from disaster: inflated prices they can rack in unprecedented profits from, your personal data so that they can use disaster as an excuse for a surveillance coup, and all the right bets in the stock market. By exposing their plan, you are pulling their pants down to ankle level. They can talk the talk, but walking it becomes harder. Only if we, the people, let them know who is really in charge, can they become afraid.

It is easier said and done given that they have a firm grip on the virtual reality that our algorithmic farce of an existence has become. Further down in the same passage from In the Grip of Necrocapitalism I wrote: “The ruling classes control the media and therefore can control the narrative: ensuring that crises are never depicted in their true colours, given their true dimension, or afforded the right level of attention. They instead become vehicles that propel other, irrelevant agendas that have nothing to do with the crisis but have been linked to it much like noisy tin cans following a couple of newlyweds driving themselves full speed into a cliff. But reality is not a cake that you choose. You will eat it, whether it is delectable or disgusting”

So how do we challenge reality when we are served a lie, and forced to live in it?

To be continued.

My new book The Biology of Collapse is out now: