Atelier WeekNotes w/c 2 Oct 2023
Climate thresholds. 'What did you do in the culture war, Daddy?'. The 'Depth of Change' Spectrum. New releases (Powerful Times and ReadingNotes). Bit of background: 'Steps' and 'Themes'.
I am writing newsletter of #weeknotes of starting the Atelier of What’s Next (What’s needed, What’s ready? What can we do? What next?). For my rationale for starting the Atelier see here.
Something of a bumper issue this week, as I get pretty scared by climate change, and pretty annoyed by the Conservative Party conference.
This week covers:
Could we have gone through a climate threshold already?
'What did you do in the culture war, Daddy?'
Formal Politics: giving Labour a backbone.
Cultural life: Living in truth.
WIP: The 'Depth of Change' Spectrum.
New releases.
Powerful Times E40. Amy Twigger Holroyd.
ReadingNote: The Art of Possibility by Zander and Zander.
Bit of background: 'Steps' and 'Themes'.
Could we have gone through a climate threshold already?
Step: 0/DETECTING. Theme: climate.
One day this week, the lead story on The Guardian website was “Gobsmackingly bananas’: scientists stunned by planet’s record September heat”. (The piece was the leading item for about 6 hours, and not in any other major news outlet, as far as I can make out. Which is its own kind of scandal.)
The story wrote up what a lot of the climate scientists I follow on Twitter had been saying for months: there has been a significant uptick in the effects of climate change this year. Temperatures are up. Ice melting is up.
Zeke Hausfather pulls a few charts together in this thread, which also gave The Guardian piece its title.
As things stand, no one I know is saying in public why the long term trend has jumped this year. It is just a temporary extra, brought on by an upcoming El Niño? Is it a one-off increase because of the one-off reduction in emissions of NOx and SOx from shipping, reducing the counter-effect of those pollutants?
The unspoken fear hit me on Thursday. Perhaps we have gone through one of the numerous physical thresholds that, “if crossed, trigger large-scale and potentially irreversible changes in a particular part of the Earth system”:
In July I wrote about attending an event for international activists trying to drive greater climate regulation. A point of contention was whether to keep the mantra “1.5 to stay alive”. This was important in the dynamics of getting to the Paris Agreement. It is also important to people now, a symbol of not giving up.
For me, it is a symbol of not accepting reality, and hiding from people the depth of our predicament. We need to deal with our climate grief. I worry that the perfect is the enemy of the good in this. And that, if you give people actions they can take, then a greater understanding the depth of our predicament needn’t overwhelm people with doom. That understanding can motivate through anger. A recent summary of the academic evidence on fear-based environmental messaging, by Dr Jan Maskell:
"The issue is not as simple as whether a message of fear or hope is more effective. Messages need to create sufficient awareness of the issues avoiding admonishment, anxiety, or guilt framings. The required action needs to be simple and clear, include a positive and fair narrative which emphasises the co-benefits of climate action, and be delivered by the right messenger."
Back to the current reality. We don’t yet know if we have gone through a threshold. But it is already likely, and it is of increasing likelihood, that we will go through at least one of these thresholds soon. Possibly before the end of the next UK Parliament or the next US Presidential term (both 2029), perhaps even before the fixed rate on your mortgage comes to term (if you have one).
Are you ready? Is your local community? Your country? Our world?
No.
(If your answer is yes, please get in touch. I’d love to learn what you’ve done. And, on the off-chance you really are ready, probably move there.)
I know I’m not ready. I have not ruggedised my life (as Alex Steffen advices). Despite having spoken about the possibility of going through a threshold fo years, I can’t claim to have fully absorbed that into my life. Part of me still believes the effects will be off in the future, and that we will adapt without having to change too much.
But, to misquote Hemingway, how does a society collapse? In two ways: gradually, then suddenly. Yes, there’s a lot of ruin in a nation, but goread Ugo Bardi’s ‘The Seneca Effect: Why Growth is Slow but Collapse is Rapid’.
I’m still absorbing for myself what to do in anticipation of a climate threshold being traversed soon (even if one hasn’t already, and even if traversing one does not necessarily lead to sheer, vertical cliff-edge societal collapse, but it a turbulent bouncing down an escarpment instead).
But this week I felt the cold fear go down my spine.
WHAT NEXT
Do the 'inner work' of processing that fear, and moving through to more grounded place for action.
Look into ruggedising my life.
Do ReadingNote on Bardi’s book. (There are lots of books and papers on that list.)
Explore if there is an inquiry to be had with a partner (as part of the Atelier strategic questions, see below). Get in touch if you want to inquire into this in an Atelier way (riffing off: ‘What’s needed? What’s Ready? What can we do? What next?’).
'What did you do in the culture war, Daddy?'
Step: 0/DETECTING. Theme: Politics. Societal transformation.
Source: wikipedia
What's happening?
The Conservative Party had their conference this week. It is clear they have decided to go all culture war, all the time. The Tories and the 'party in the media' will spend the time to the next General Election saying ever-more ugly things about refugees, immigrants, transpeople, people who don't drive cars, human rights, people who believe in the rule of law, ...
Actually, Colin from Portsmouth has the list:
Incidentally, the list is also available as a T-shirt:
Apart from giving good fodder for satire, the next 12 months or so are going to be awful, especially for those on the Woke List who are marginalised and at risk of bullying and violence. I'm particularly thinking of transpeople and anyone of colour.
Even for people like myself (white, male, financially-secure, part of mainstream, middle-class metropolitan culture), I will be safe but it will be thoroughly depressing. We are going to feel let down by the significant minority of our fellow Brits who resonate with blaming The Other for troubles we have caused for ourselves, and who find authoritarianism appealing.
Of course, this is part of a wider pattern in the world, and over history. One friend of mine lives in (Redacted Country), which is moving rapidly from imperfect democracy to populist autocracy. As a minority in the country, they fear for their family's safety, and for their future. They have witnessed violence against their minority and wondering if they need to leave the country.
I've also been listening to The Rest is History's episodes on The Birth of British Fascism in the 1920s. To be clear, there are big differences. Then there were lots of people who had recently been in the military. Then was more militaristic, and greater push of violence.
There are strong parallels on the rhetoric and vibes to 1920s early-stage British fascists. For 1920s 'flappers', read 2020s 'trans'. Middle-aged, white men from the Home Counties saying nasty things about people different to them, especially refugees from violence (then: Jews settled after fleeing pogroms; now, well, anyone on a small boat).
As the hosts keep saying about the 1920s and 1930s, people then didn't know what happened next. At that point, fascism wasn't seen as an evil, or support for it didn't put someone out of bounds of normal society.
We don't know what's going to happen next here. Certainly, the current Tories are not fascists. It is far from inevitable they will become actual 'capital-F' Fascists. But It is clear the next months and years they will use nasty rhetoric to cover their incompetence since 2010. They are playing with fire.
A fire which is smouldering or burning elsewhere. The winner of the recent Slovakian election was a pro-Putin populist. Next year Trump is the likely Republican Presidential candidate.
As to why it is happening, back in 2019 I did a talk on 'Our Digital Future: Getting Ready for Everything' which argued for the West, our past is ending (of cheap fossil fuels, Western dominance and more). In this speculative fiction I imagine how, under the pressure of the Shocking 2020s, the world divides into those trying to keep security through protection (which leads to failing authoritarian government) or through renewal (which can succeed). For a big picture on what needs to be done, I did a talk at UCL (slides here) and a broad brushstrokes of the direction of 'security for all through renewal' here.
Some might say this is all just a polling game. The Tories spin to the right, they lose next year, the UK moves on. Fingers crossed on lots of that. But there can be lots of enduring damage done in the meantime.
For instance, one of my local pubs had a monthly drag queen story time. It has seen protest and counter-protest, which have got violent. People come from at least as far as Manchester to hold up signs saying that the drag queens are grooming children. (Evidence for which, there is none.)
This is not just a game, or spin.
Even the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, named after the person who coined the term genocide and set up to fill a gap in global prevention governance, has voiced its "concern over the growing number of laws introduced in the United States that target transgender individuals and the transgender community".
This is very serious.
What's needed?
Formal politics: giving Labour a backbone.
I am a member of the Labour party. I am disappointed with the Labour Party. I understand that Starmer has to appeal to the centre, which includes many socially conservatives. So, being too radical makes it harder to win.
But, right now, I experience them as just accepting the framing the Tories give issues, which then helps them control the debate now, and the agenda going forward, even if Labour get into power.
For instance, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper's response on Twitter is big on "knife crime, shoptheft epidemic, fallen prosecutions or 1,000 arrivals by boat this wk" but provides no pushback on anti-immigration or anti-multiculturalism.
The same is true, but more so, on the Net Zero announcements.
I'm pretty worried about Labour after winning the next election. They will have a very tough inheritance from 14 years of Tory incompetence (borrow to invest when the interest rates are low, you idiots), plus a very turbulent external context (on-going invasion of Ukraine? More climate extremes affecting food production? Trump Presidency?). Combine that with how the Tory party dominates the UK media.
It is not a landscape for being more progressive. The pressure to deliver certainty for the 'centre' (as defined by those on the Right) is a good set up for lowest common denominator. Not only does that barely deliver, but it excites no one. So, then winning the second term, against a hard-right full-culture-war Tory Party, becomes a lot harder.
So, one thing for me to do is to push back on the Labour Party. Ideally, not as just one person, but part of a concerted effort. Starmer needs to be go beyond having people vote anti-Tory, into being excited at his government-in-waiting. Plus building the outriders who can provide political cover in the tough first term.
Cultural life: Living in truth.
A more generative way of addressing my sense of powerlessness in all this comes from thinking about Vaclav Havel, writer and political figure.
His book Vaclav Havel’s book The Power of the Powerless, written while living in communist dictatorship. He argues (quoting Wikipedia) that the oppressed always contain within themselves the power to remedy their own powerlessness. Havel argued that by an individual "living in truth" in their daily life they automatically differentiate themselves from the officially-mandated culture prescribed by the State; since power is only effective inasmuch as citizens are willing to submit to it.”
Now, our circumstances are different. We do not live in an authoritarian State which has an officially-mandated culture. We live in a pretty-open democracy, where the ruling party and its media allies are trying to influence the cultural life.
But then so is everyone else. Arguably, one part of what's going on is a very understandable anger at how much the UK's cultural life is driven by London and the main metropoles, which have different values. Those people feel left out culturally, left behind economically and let down politically.
For me that implies different tracks:
'Be fun to be around'* and being kind. Not avoiding the weightier emotions. But not being weighed down by them either. Lots of little acts of kindness have zero cost and the potential for upside.
Safety, acceptance and celebration for those on the receiving end. Obviously, I start here in Honor Oak Park. But I wonder what I can do so that those who feel attacked by the right-wing culture warriors feel safe and accepted by thinking of my children.
Connecting beyond my progressive bubble. All necessary and defensive. But. Those who resonate with those rightwing attacks themselves are feeling something; I assume at least ignored and left out. We need imagined communities which extend beyond our bubble. I don't what to do there, but something is needed.
That’s what I could think of.
What would living in truth, in a time of culture war, mean for you?
WHAT NEXT
Explore if there is an inquiry to be had with a partner (as part of the Atelier strategic questions, see below). Get in touch if you want to inquire into this in an Atelier way (riffing off: ‘What’s needed? What’s Ready? What can we do? What next?’).
WIP: The 'Depth of Change' Spectrum
Step: 4/DEVELOPING. Theme: Atelier management. Societal transformation.
These last few weeks I have been working on the Atelier's strategy. One question, inspired by the very brilliant and very challenging Hospicing Modernity, has been about the relationship with reform. That book proposes a four-point spectrum: no reform; soft reform; radical reform; beyond reform.
I was playing with that but found, despite being the work of more brilliant practitioners, it didn't express the nuances of what I needed. So, I have built on it to produce this:
The idea is that you get more 'radical' as you read across (ironically from left-to-right).
Soft reform. Minor institutional changes. Example: much 2000s and 2010s corporate sustainability.
Strong reform. Major changes. I've also called this 'thin transformation' because this is what the mainstream corporate sustainability field means by transformation. Much of what is called systems change fits here. Example: Mazucatto's Mission-Orientated Innovation approach.
Recognise epistemic hegemony. Realise all you know (and how you judge knowledge) comes from the frame of modernity.
Radical resistance. Those who put at the centre getting rid of one or more aspect of modernity (which then creates its own trap of defining everything in terms of the thing you are trying to get rid of). Examples: degrowth and XR movements.
Deep transformation. Instead of centring the problem, centre the positive beyond the problem. Examples: rare!
Recognise ontological hegemony. Realise all your ways of being (and how you understand them) come from the frame of modernity.
Prepare good ruins. Step away from creating a known better future. Salvage what you can, mourn what you cannot, discern what the bad, learn from the past. Examples: Dougald Hine's At Work in the Ruins.
Recognise metaphysical entrapment. Only cosmology have access to comes from modernity.
Metamorphosis. Have a different way of being based on a different cosmology and utter shifted belief set. I deliberately chose a word beyond 'transformation', which is getting diluted by current usage. Example: parts of FIndhorn?
Each of these has its shadow side (see the last line in the table).
I think I want to position the Atelier from 'Strong reform' to 'Prepare good ruins'. Which is still quite a wide spectrum. It does feel to me the 'deep transformation' is under-explored. Not just reforming modernity nor resisting modernity, but actively crafting something new and not leaving the directional agency to some future generation.
This is very early thinking. Which means it is definitely wrong. But hopefully in useful ways.
WHAT NEXT
Get in touch with your feedback and comments, positive or negative.
Use for Atelier and in the Atelier.
New releases
Powerful Times E40. Amy Twigger Holroyd
Powerful Times are my interviews with brilliant on what they are doing and why, all to inspire others (like me) through stories grounded in experience. There has been a bit of gap since the last one, but did manage to release this episode this week.
Amy Twigger Holroyd is Associate Professor of Fashion and Sustainability at Nottingham School of Art & Design (website, university page). Our conversation covers:
How fashion (the clothes people wear, and how those are created) are an expression of society.
Her motivation: using participatory fiction to expand the sense of possibility, because so many people feel hemmed in. See: Fashion Fictions.
She’s currently excited by the realisation that we can write stories, and then, by enacting them, we can make them real. It is a sort of magic.
WHAT NEXT
Another episode out next week!
ReadingNote: The Art of Possibility by Zander and Zander.
The Art of Possibility by Zander and Zander argues for creating the conditions for possibility through 12 practices. These draw on the experiences of the authors, a well-known conductor and a psychotherapist.
It is a seriously inspiring book. I read it 2 years ago, and have integrated the notion into my daily mantra (accepting today’s realities, growing tomorrow’s possibilities). There is more integration to be had.
Full ReadingNote here. It is part of the #ReadingNotes series, see here for more (including format and use of bulletpoints).
WHAT NEXT
I had said I would review the ReadingNotes series at the end of Sep. I've pushed that back to the end of Oct. I'm very aware there is a necessary discipline to ending things which are not working. But I still don't feel like I've tried this approach well-enough. And I can see the value. If I can but make the time.
Bit of background: 'Step' and 'Themes'.
For each heading, I give two dimensions:
'Step'. This is roughly where in the Atelier process backbone we are. The backbone is a modificaiton of Rowan Conway's sue of the Design Council Double Diamond. My version has:
0/DETECTING. Sensing what is going on to identify possibles.
1/DESCRIBING. Articulating a challenge to explore.
2/DISCOVERING. Generating insight into the challenge.
3/DEFINING. Boil down the overwhelming complexity to critical features in a diagnosis that aids action. Find areas to focus on, often expressed in one (or more) ‘How might we…?’ questions.
4/DEVELOPING. Create interventions and solutions that deliver on one ‘How might we…?’ question.
5/DECIDING. Get approval and resources for one or more interventions.
6/DELIVERING. Implement interventions that work. Keep iterating and improving.
7/DRIVING. Keep developing, adapting and improving as you keep scaling and growing the impact.
n/DECLINE. At any point, if the circumstances are not right, then stop developing the What's Next.
Themes. These are tags for the specific activity. They cover both content (eg climate) and methods (eg futures). So far I’ve not tried to create a definitive list of these. Just tagging as I go. At the end of the year, I will review and consolidate.
WHAT NEXT
Review of the process backbone (how am I using it? how can I use it better? etc). Timetable that for end of Oct.
Collate the themes. End of Nov.
Edited Sun 8 Oct. Corrected the first heading to make sense.