Thanks so much for this thoughtful piece. I would want to add one thing to this (daunting) agenda: While we have to work towards preventing a Reform or similar government, we also have to plan for what happens if it can't be prevented. We need to look at the experience of the US and ask how the destructiveness of the Trump administration might have been made more difficult if there had been a proper plan in place before January 2025. We need to think about how the services and the knowledge that Reform would seek to destroy could be salvaged, partially or wholly. We can't wait for the current government to do this as, like most parties, Labour is only thinking about how to make a better electoral offer that would prevent a Reform election, not about what to do if they fail (and I think they will fail). That myopia is made worse by a strategy of allowing a measure of populist destruction, thinking (wrongly) that this will satiate populist desires.
Excellent. The absence of a positive narrative is stark, and one that resonates with the values held by the majority (I am struck by the resonance with the divide between what most people in Africa talk about, when I am there, and what development specialists imagine they ought to be talking about). The absence of organizations of belonging and solidarity, and yes, the lack of urgency and the ability to recognize that what is happening is happening!
This is great - having come to it in the wrong order, from reading pt 2 first! Have a few thoughts on both parts. With regards to this section, the problem, there is something important about the holistic patterns that are present right now (and have actually been present my whole adult life) -
Splitting, fragmenting, dividing, always less than the sum of its parts, this seems to be the special bane of the left, whereas the right barrels relentlessly on as a whole that reabsorbs and reconfigures itself, incoherency and inconsistency be damned. What is going on at deeper levels?
observing the nature of the mental models that professional civil society and progressive activists tend to use (speaking as a former insider/ current fellow traveller) -
they usually come from a strongly intellectual, cognitive mind, analytic mind disposition, which creates theories & frameworks abstracted from reality. Always one step removed and unconsciously disposed to understanding via breaking things down, i.e. fragmentation at basic level. Usually there is desire to understand cognitively before acting... and devaluing of what cannot be understood cognitively, through prior mental models.
Synthesis or distillation is usually laborious, lengthy and slow, often lacks feeling for the essence of the matter or important levels, as it is forced through various mental frameworks. Even systemic frameworks punch below their weight. Heart is present but not really allowed in, made to explain itself in terms acceptable to the mind, losing its strength and closing off its insight, producing a situation over time where feeling and intuition is gradually drained away. Now feeling can only adhere to the few beliefs considered acceptable by the mind - which become totemic and over-charged, again chasing out insight. Disagreements are not well tolerated, attempts to create coherence degenerate into forcing homogeneity, which then amplify into divisions, splits as the justifying, fragmenting energy of the mind gets to work (and of course blaming and projecting)
To add to this, progressives also find the shadow aspect of human nature v difficult to see or work with, almost always projects it wholly onto the right wing instead.
Before 2008, these mental model flaws were compensated by some strength in rational systemic understanding and evidence-based action for the long term, which was present as long as the mental frameworks had sufficient congruence / alignment with actual reality (!).. This current period is extremely difficult for establishment LW because none of its mental models or heuristics have a good fit with what is happening.
In contrast the RW (observed from a distance) seems much less trapped in mental abstraction and to have much less attachment to frameworks - it seems to allow more access to intuition in general (generally dark intuition, though not always) giving more direct/practical connection to reality as a result…and able to be much more opportunistic. It seems to have more awareness of shadow in general, however tends to also misuse this awareness, usually in an attempt to feed, provoke and ride the dragon to victory (which has so far worked but the dragon is steadily growing larger and larger...)
RW seems both more hierarchical and more relationship based, often a preference to rely more on personal relationships and loyalty than on formal process. Generally far more adept at emotional art and craft of politics, which LW seems blind to... Recently various crude emotional engines have been built and exploited, from 2016 inwards, basically built on the generation/ amplification of collective unpleasant feelings and the promise of release from them - a sort of temporary catharsis - however it is a genuinely felt psychological payoff. Contrast the feeling after populist wins with the feeling after labour got in recently!
Progressives really urgently need to get into the intuitive and emotional game - and I really welcome all that you're doing in this space it is very needed..
It is so easy to criticize but the real work is needed in solutions. You also can't work around charitable status, it is the law and it exists for good reason. If philanthropic funders want to win elections then they need to start funding politics and politicians, not charities. Simple.
Please have a look at the New Organising Conference - https://neworganisingconference.com. In our third year, we aim to build power in the workplace and community by bringing together people with a shared vision but who might not otherwise meet, for learning, inspiration and collaboration.
OMG Alex. I feel like you've been listening in on my life for the last two years... up to and including my fully paid-up membership of the Pedants Society. Have a peek at what we've been trying to do with the Food Conversation ffcc.co.uk
In the same vein, I was at an event on postgrowth futures where the speaker blithely said we should reduce certain values (around achievement and power), while increasing other values (benevolence and universalism). As if that was easy, ethical or wise.
The implications -- 'it is so obvious that we are right on this, and everyone else needs to change their ethics' -- annoyed me so much that I had a rather angry response:
Thanks so much for this thoughtful piece. I would want to add one thing to this (daunting) agenda: While we have to work towards preventing a Reform or similar government, we also have to plan for what happens if it can't be prevented. We need to look at the experience of the US and ask how the destructiveness of the Trump administration might have been made more difficult if there had been a proper plan in place before January 2025. We need to think about how the services and the knowledge that Reform would seek to destroy could be salvaged, partially or wholly. We can't wait for the current government to do this as, like most parties, Labour is only thinking about how to make a better electoral offer that would prevent a Reform election, not about what to do if they fail (and I think they will fail). That myopia is made worse by a strategy of allowing a measure of populist destruction, thinking (wrongly) that this will satiate populist desires.
*Totally* agree Keith - definitely going to address this in the second half of the post
Spot on. And why this project was set up - do come and join us: https://99-percent.org/projects/constitutional-reform-to-prevent-uk-democracy-succumbing-to-bad-actors-in-or-outside-government/
Thanks so much, this looks really interesting. Do you have a sense at this stage of your key asks, or is that in development?
Thanks for sharing this link.
Really glad this exists! I will see how I might get involved
Excellent. The absence of a positive narrative is stark, and one that resonates with the values held by the majority (I am struck by the resonance with the divide between what most people in Africa talk about, when I am there, and what development specialists imagine they ought to be talking about). The absence of organizations of belonging and solidarity, and yes, the lack of urgency and the ability to recognize that what is happening is happening!
This is great - having come to it in the wrong order, from reading pt 2 first! Have a few thoughts on both parts. With regards to this section, the problem, there is something important about the holistic patterns that are present right now (and have actually been present my whole adult life) -
Splitting, fragmenting, dividing, always less than the sum of its parts, this seems to be the special bane of the left, whereas the right barrels relentlessly on as a whole that reabsorbs and reconfigures itself, incoherency and inconsistency be damned. What is going on at deeper levels?
observing the nature of the mental models that professional civil society and progressive activists tend to use (speaking as a former insider/ current fellow traveller) -
they usually come from a strongly intellectual, cognitive mind, analytic mind disposition, which creates theories & frameworks abstracted from reality. Always one step removed and unconsciously disposed to understanding via breaking things down, i.e. fragmentation at basic level. Usually there is desire to understand cognitively before acting... and devaluing of what cannot be understood cognitively, through prior mental models.
Synthesis or distillation is usually laborious, lengthy and slow, often lacks feeling for the essence of the matter or important levels, as it is forced through various mental frameworks. Even systemic frameworks punch below their weight. Heart is present but not really allowed in, made to explain itself in terms acceptable to the mind, losing its strength and closing off its insight, producing a situation over time where feeling and intuition is gradually drained away. Now feeling can only adhere to the few beliefs considered acceptable by the mind - which become totemic and over-charged, again chasing out insight. Disagreements are not well tolerated, attempts to create coherence degenerate into forcing homogeneity, which then amplify into divisions, splits as the justifying, fragmenting energy of the mind gets to work (and of course blaming and projecting)
To add to this, progressives also find the shadow aspect of human nature v difficult to see or work with, almost always projects it wholly onto the right wing instead.
Before 2008, these mental model flaws were compensated by some strength in rational systemic understanding and evidence-based action for the long term, which was present as long as the mental frameworks had sufficient congruence / alignment with actual reality (!).. This current period is extremely difficult for establishment LW because none of its mental models or heuristics have a good fit with what is happening.
In contrast the RW (observed from a distance) seems much less trapped in mental abstraction and to have much less attachment to frameworks - it seems to allow more access to intuition in general (generally dark intuition, though not always) giving more direct/practical connection to reality as a result…and able to be much more opportunistic. It seems to have more awareness of shadow in general, however tends to also misuse this awareness, usually in an attempt to feed, provoke and ride the dragon to victory (which has so far worked but the dragon is steadily growing larger and larger...)
RW seems both more hierarchical and more relationship based, often a preference to rely more on personal relationships and loyalty than on formal process. Generally far more adept at emotional art and craft of politics, which LW seems blind to... Recently various crude emotional engines have been built and exploited, from 2016 inwards, basically built on the generation/ amplification of collective unpleasant feelings and the promise of release from them - a sort of temporary catharsis - however it is a genuinely felt psychological payoff. Contrast the feeling after populist wins with the feeling after labour got in recently!
Progressives really urgently need to get into the intuitive and emotional game - and I really welcome all that you're doing in this space it is very needed..
A really thought-provoking piece. Looking forward to part 2!
It is so easy to criticize but the real work is needed in solutions. You also can't work around charitable status, it is the law and it exists for good reason. If philanthropic funders want to win elections then they need to start funding politics and politicians, not charities. Simple.
Please have a look at the New Organising Conference - https://neworganisingconference.com. In our third year, we aim to build power in the workplace and community by bringing together people with a shared vision but who might not otherwise meet, for learning, inspiration and collaboration.
OMG Alex. I feel like you've been listening in on my life for the last two years... up to and including my fully paid-up membership of the Pedants Society. Have a peek at what we've been trying to do with the Food Conversation ffcc.co.uk
Excellent as ever.
In the same vein, I was at an event on postgrowth futures where the speaker blithely said we should reduce certain values (around achievement and power), while increasing other values (benevolence and universalism). As if that was easy, ethical or wise.
The implications -- 'it is so obvious that we are right on this, and everyone else needs to change their ethics' -- annoyed me so much that I had a rather angry response:
https://exploringwhatsnext.substack.com/i/163278903/if-the-transition-requires-mass-social-engineering-including-suppressing-masculine-coded-values-of-power-and-achievement-how-is-it-ethical-or-practical
This is so helpful - and has stirred me up rather than depressed me, which I feared it might have done...