Purpose of post- to nut out some ways of avoiding one of my facilitating blindspots/weaknesses. I just had a flash, to a truly appalling climate meeting I went to in Stirling (up in the Adelaide Hills) a couple of years ago. We were all sat in a circle – so, there’s no power or control... Continue Reading →
Fac-ego-tation? Better neologism sought for sub-type of facipulation…
Facipulation is manipulative facilitation, where you guide/channel/force people into the outcome that you want, but with the appearance of having "merely" facilitated. I probably encountered it dozens of times before the scales fell from my eyes in October 2006 in Manchester, at the post-Climate Camp 'what next?' meeting. Well, I've been mulling over a subset... Continue Reading →
Online meetings about skills and knowledge- some suggestions….
Who has what skills and knowledge in your group? What would happen if one of the person who is in charge of the website, the social media, the dealing with Freedom of Information Act requests died/left town/turned out to have been a cop all along? What would it do to the ability of the group... Continue Reading →
Who has/wants what skills and knowledge? An online workshop.
Last week I was invited to do a workshop with the South Australian branch of Citizens Climate Lobby. This blog post goes into some of the detail (tmi, in fact). I wrote it so I'd have something to refer to if/when I get the opportunity to do more, and as a way of forcing myself... Continue Reading →
Metaphors we think with – of orchards, pies, eating and energy
Somewhere along the line I learnt that metaphors are very powerful things, in shaping/directing/preventing thought. So a for instance – if you frame a crime as a virus or crime as beast, it leads people to support different sets of responses. Autocrats and demagogues know this, instinctively, of course, and those of us who think... 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 →
Elephants in the airport, aesthetic delight in our doom…
I photographed this yesterday morning, at Heathrow Airport. A friend of mine has written about elephants in the room and climate change and all that jazz. Ranciere, Badiou, that crowd. Me, I'm a Walt Benjamin man - “Mankind, which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, is now one for... Continue Reading →
“Quality” media ignoring #climate change during heatwaves
Just watched a good five plus minutes of the ABC news. After the COVID stuff there was coverage of heatwaves in South Australia and elsewhere. Temperatures of 45, 46 degrees. Warnings about swimming with friends etc. No context of how the Bureau of Meteorology has had to add two new colours to the weather maps.... Continue Reading →
Midnight Oil’s “Shakers and Movers” – a profound beautiful gem of a song
Next week Midnight Oil get a Human Rights award. David Ritter has written perceptively and with power and passion (plus some easter egg references for the nerds) about their influence. I want here just to talk about one song, an album track from the 1990 effort Blue Sky Mine. The song is "Shakers and Movers"... Continue Reading →
Whatever happened to responsibility? SAS, Covid, Robodebt; The game is rigged, y’all….
So naive, I know. There was never a golden age. But omfg it is blatant af at the moment. Nineteen Australian SAS soldiers are under investigation for murder and torture of Afghanis. You're seriously trying to tell me that nobody in the chain of command knew, and found ways not to know, to look the... Continue Reading →
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