About 15 years ago I went on a training day (it didn’t work – I stayed a douche). It was union steward training. Mostly those days were death by powerpoint, info-deficit tosh. This one thing I am about to describe, though, it stands out. It was a card game/exercise. Each individual was given a card... Continue Reading →
Desolation angels
She had been asked to attend a shit meeting, at which one of the blithely ignorant assholes the electorate seems to love was talking among his friends. She was sent on an intelligence-gathering effort, for an environmental pressure group. And she told me, fighting back the tears, that it had been a truly awful, traumatising... Continue Reading →
The need for/inevitability of magical thinking
We can laugh at the people buying their Make America Great Again hats (made in China) and chanting at Trump rallies for the return of a mis-remembered past. It’s easy to see that they want something that is difficult (impossible) to deliver and that they want it with no particular effort on their part, beyond... Continue Reading →
Why we are doomed: of meetings, ghosts and the QWERTY keyboard
So, I wrote this over a year ago. Nothing I have seen from the "new" organisations on the scene gives me any cause to revise what I wrote back then. I am less prone to flounces and resentment grenades, but only marginally so. There's a much shorter (and life is short, so read that instead?)... Continue Reading →
Perm or Perineum? Of social movement emotions, retronyms and… sexism.
We’re all going to die. And we’re all going to die in large or small (1) part because social movement organisations run on emotion rather than anything approaching strategy. And they spend all their time trying to get the next hit (2), rather than getting folks to do the long, slow, boring work of social... Continue Reading →
Anything but the E word. Holdfast Bay council rejects #climate emergency motion
"The shit is hitting the fan," but it’s not an emergency, according to Holdfast Bay Councillors Holdfast Bay’s elected members have overwhelmingly rejected a bid for the council to declare a climate emergency. In front of a packed public gallery of young and old, councillors were at pains to display their environmental concerns and credentials,... Continue Reading →
Expect (lots) more magical thinking, from eco-types as well as reactionaries
Easy it is to see the dynamics playing out in people we don't like. Easy it is to see how the complexities, ambiguities and downright extra-messiness of Modern Life can lead people to reach for simple(minded) "solutions" and slogans like "Make America Great Again" and "Take Back Control." Not so easy to spot it, or... Continue Reading →
The morality of morale maintenance – of days off, nihilism, 4/1/23 and #oldfartclimateadvice
I One of my go-to Nietzsche quotes is the one where he says "when you look long enough into the abyss, the abyss begins to look back into you". And for years I had a get out (a CVE, for the classic Doctor Who geeks) from this - I could be climate activist/abyss-starer at night... Continue Reading →
Two simple questions, zero bloody ideas. wtaf we’re toast
Asides from other frustrations ("250, 150, 100, 65 and oblivious" is all I will say right now) there are a couple of deeper ones. Or rather, one beast, two heads: what is the actual point of academics and think-tankers? Seriously? What is the point of them, for progressive social movements? Yesterday I asked a simple... Continue Reading →
Activism and the #emotacycle: opinions/suggestions sought.
Hello everyone, In July 2019 I will present a paper at an academic conference entitled “Political Emotions.” The abstract is below. I’m posting a very first draft/series of thoughts in the hope that I can stea… sorry, borrow, insights from smart people. Let me know what you think of the emotacycle concept, the details. What’s missing,... Continue Reading →
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