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... Continue Reading →
The Pitt, Black Liberation, and what we are not told.
The Pitt, the medical drama on HBO, lives up to the hype. It is worth, as was The Wire, your time and attention, for the questions it raises about how we live (or don’t live) now. The two shows are both about, well, people of good intent (the metrics may vary) doing the best they... Continue Reading →
“There’s a hole in my movement, dear Liza…” (aka “caught in a trap, can’t walk out…”)
A good friend recently pointed me at a very good (imo, ymmv obvs) article "education for democratic resilience." It's full of quotable bits but for now Imma riff on this - "I believe one reason is that too few Americans understand the nuts-and-bolts of associations. An initial meeting often draws many concerned people, who may... Continue Reading →
The (jaco)binfire that is the “left” – aka “extortation” (#ShoddyNeologism#094)
Climate change is bad, but for now I can cope (no kids, no expectations, no flooding where I am). Fascism is bad, but for now I can cope, because it is at least another six months until Starmer and Cooper extend the proscription to include the words "genocide" and "Palestine." Technofeudalsim is bad, but for... Continue Reading →
J.A.B.B.E.R.W.O.C.K.Y – tortured retronym for a social movement (well, civil society actually) pathology
I found some old scribbled notes - see photo. I can't place the when or where (possibly Adelaide during a 'Festival' of Ideas) , but it doesn't matter, because the pathology is there in Australia or the UK or - my hunch - any other "advanced" Western "democracy." People get together for what could be... Continue Reading →
Post-mortems that are deadening…
We're now at the stage where "movement" "intellectuals" are willing to say in public what anyone with two brain cells (#NotAllMovementIntellectuals) has known for years - that the GretaXR 'wave' of climate concern is well and truly dead. And since we're talking about the Last Great British Wail, let's quote Lou Read - "Stick a... Continue Reading →
“Two kinds of people” – fundamental attribution errors, shaping the rules and “the clap clinic”
Okay, so this cartoon below is amusing, but also limited. It's limited because it assumes that behaviour is mostly shaped by "what kind of person you are" (this is known in the trade as the fundamental attribution error). The problem with the FAE (or one of them) is that it leads to fatalism/shoulder-shrugging by people... Continue Reading →
We don’t wanna talk about it, how we broke our hearts: climate, failure, “democracy” and all that jizz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwTP9AJObSY Ever get the feeling nobody wants to talk about what you want to talk about? (1) Ever get the feeling that there are herds of elephants in the room, and everyone is studiously ignoring their trumpetting, as you would if your boss/king/Prime Minister had just let rip with with a loud and evil-smelling fart?... Continue Reading →
James Baldwin, the UK climate “movement” and the Safety Dance – what is to be done?
James Baldwin was a very smart guy. For the purpose of this blog post, the key insight is from a January 1962 New York Times column, in which he wrote "not everything that can be faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." And so on to the UK climate... Continue Reading →
Compulsory (institutional) optimism – or “from straws in the wind to dust in the wind”
I just read an article on a newspaper website about a New Politics that is apparently coming. The article came recommended by people I (still) respect, and was written by a commentator who is sincere, diligent and intelligent. And you know where this is going.... The article was, if not actually pants, then, well, pants-adjacent.... Continue Reading →
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