I have seen it so often - a meeting that could ("should") be about "what can we DO" instead becomes a "the world is so unfair" kinda thing. Don't get me wrong, people need to be able to vent, to feel recognised, to have their anger and pain acknowledged. Trouble is, in the absence of... Continue Reading →
No numbers, no infrastructure, no clue – the death of XR
Various people have called me several shades of cunt for my take on XR. They either ignore, or never bothered to find out, that back in 2019, when it was kicking off, I conducted and posted interviews with participants on Manchester Climate Monthly, offered to put together a private event with old and new activists... Continue Reading →
City Green – Manchester Green Party newsletter. Copies from 1987 to 1992
The Working Class Movement Library is a fantastic place (does precisely what it says on the tin). It's in Salford, about 20 minutes cycle from where I currently live with one wife, three cats and several thousand (10? 15?) books. Last June I went on a bit of an archive binge at the WCML, tracking... Continue Reading →
Brilliant 1991 book about sterility of left culture and what to do instead…
We've all been there (or been it) - the tinpot little dictator who wants to enforce the One True Way of Thinking about issue x or y or z, and the dictator's followers and enablers enthusiastically enforcing that OTWOT in order to a) prove their reliability and b) suppress any doubts they may have c)... Continue Reading →
#Community and 3 unspoken theories of change – Our mental models are Jeff Winger wrong…
““There's no such thing as "Single Malt Platinum Boobs and Billiards Club"? Aw, I guess I never said it out loud.”Jeff Winger in the Community episode “Remedial Chaos Theory” (1) We bumble through life like a blind drunk bull in a china shop. We have un-examined and under-examined assumptions about how the world actually is... Continue Reading →
“Welcome to the Smugosphere” – a two page bluffer’s guide/warning
What would you want to tell a new member of a social movement (organisation)? My two pager below - comments in the comments pls. A couple of years ago (god, it feels like a million years) I wrote a piece called "Dear New Climate Activist", which largely stands up, I think (genuinely interested in folks'... Continue Reading →
“Big Fish, Little Fish, Box”: Social movement organisations and their lifecycles.
What goes up must come down. Sooner or later, the laws of political/social movement (1) gravity re-assert themselves. Your movement organisation goes from big fish to little fish and then, unless it can institutionalise itself (i.e. get charitable status, and carve out a niche in the existing ecosystem that it came to overthrow) it simply... Continue Reading →
Which Deus? From which machina? Or ‘Can “the state” save us? From what? Under what circumstances?’ #climate #transitions #sustainability
Marc Hudson reflects on two academic events, and wonders if the right questions are being asked, or if "we" are pootling along happily in our comfort zones, slouching towards tenure (well, he's not) and apocalypse (well, all of us are). Over the last 24 hours I've "been" to three online seminars. The one in the... Continue Reading →
Transrupting the Emotacycle, the Smugosphere and ego-foddering – more ideas
In which I spitball about the mechanics of how you transrupt ego-fodder, the emotacycle and, the Smugosphere in some detail, (but duck the question of what are the success metrics, how you would know you were succeeding in each of these.) And ultimately, in all of this, the most important thing is not to exhort,... Continue Reading →
The emotional dynamics of ego-fodder
I've written plenty about ego fodder since I invented the term almost ten years ago. I have even managed to slide it into various things I have written elsewhere (e.g. here). What I haven't described - or if I have haven't done recently - is the emotional dynamics within this notion of ego fodder. These... Continue Reading →
marchudson.net 