Reasons we are fubarred #8647

So many other reasons among the 8646 others. Here’s another.

The people who study, and who think about why social movements haven’t done a better job on climate change are – how to put this – blind to the some of the reasons why social movements haven’t done a better job on climate change.

This I have known for a long time (the term ‘smugosphere’ is over 15 years old, after all).

Two recent examples

I listened to a podcast by some folks at a very prestigious and intermittently “radical” university. They had a guest speaker who talked about his book about how social movements haven’t delivered the goods. Neither guest speaker nor hosts did ANYTHING to change the drear format of 40 minutes, followed by Q and A.

No effort to get folks networking. No efforts to get them comparing notes BEFORE the Q &A. They edited out the questions, just giving the responses, but I’ll bet you anything most questions came from men.

It doesn’t have to be like this, but our soi-disant ‘radicals’ can’t even SEE the barriers they set up. I listened to a bit of another podcast by them, and it was the same, only worse, because they were enthused about a reception. You know what, not everyone can stick around, not everyone drinks. Maybe do at least SOME reception-y stuff at the outset? Srsly.

Second recent example – an interaction with someone on a social media platform recently, who seems to think that “putting the issue on the agenda” (I paraphrase) counts as success. Gaia help us.

Individual groups that call themselves a “social movement” and go up like a rocket and come down like a stick are NOT GOOD ENOUGH. They are NOT HELPING. They are – on this final bit some will disagree – WORSE THAN USELESS because they teach that it is always like this.

These people are not random participants. These people are ones who see themselves as in leadership positions, providing strategic thought.

We are so unutterably fubarred it is actually, in a weird way, funny.