…the stakes of being fooled again are higher than ever…

Firstly, I will justify that subtitle. Hom. Sap. is in, I assert, a lot of trouble. Lots of statistics, lots of warnings and mostly for us in the minority world (ie. ‘Western’ culture), the shit and the fan have yet to meet with the impact that a) is coming, and b) the majority of the worlds population outside of our sheltered priveleged existence are already painfully aware of. Eight billion plus change of us are on a tightrope.

There are lots of things written about polycrisis, metacrisis, permacrisis etc… I will not go into that. Denial is part of the dying process. I have been doing my damnedest to get to acceptance so I have a sense of agency. The narrative is somehow these diverse, complex, interrelated issues can somehow be fixed without changing something fundamental. I think that is misguided; where we are is a result of how we have constructed our systems of living. Seeking different results whilst playing the same game is not going to work; it does not work on any scale.

Which leaves ‘being fooled again’. The lyrics of The Who song are on target[2]; ‘Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.’ This is a conversation all about power. And freedom.

There is a cultural conversation under the label ‘Freedom’ which has contemporary traction; mostly on the ‘right’ side of politics. The word is spoken as a rallying cry. The discussion of what ‘Freedom’ actually means and implies is absent. I argue that what is actually being communicated is largely ‘Privilege’; that people should be free to do whatever they want as long as it is legal, or they don’t get caught, or if they do that they can manipulate the system to keep working for them. Unfortunately that does not work at scale. Without honouring our interdependency things would fall apart fast. More on this below.

Our money system is predicated on the existence of debt. To service debt, people work. Often in situations that they would not choose freely. So there is a trade; freedom (ie. self-directed energy/focus) for financial gain, which can then be (largely) transferred back to keep the digits inside some computer somewhere within acceptable limits. There is a palpable anxiety murmuring underneath the surface. Few people live outside of this situation; with no mortgage, fully paid-off credit cards, perhaps even savings. And the numbers are getting worse. Yes – freedom is absolutely an issue. However projecting this onto mask-mandates or vaccine mandates is mis-direction at its finest. It distracts from what I believe to be a larger and more fundamental conversation.

Aside; During Covid, I believe most political elites worldwide panicked. There was a path that could have been chosen down which lay an open dialog and a call for individuals to step into responsibility that they could personally own; a conversation that could have created the space for personal and collective empowerment. Instead, we got an authoritarian response claiming absolute truth, making some pharmaceutical companies incredible profits and acting as a smokescreen for some spectacularly nefarious actions in the worlds of finance and corporate power. Read [1] and consider that the current responses to inflation by raising interest rates are totally off-target. Who do you know who has the surplus income or access to cheap credit to be ‘overheating’ the economy that needs to be cooled by increasing interest rates? What world do you live in? I digress.

So there is a conversation about freedom that is to be had. Let’s have one that actually transforms who we are, where we are, and what is next for us.

So what of Power? I think in common usage power is always qualified by a prefix; ‘Political’, ‘Financial’, ‘Corporate’. The notions of power being an individual, personal or collective experience do not often figure. As a result, I assert, power is generally perceived as distant and unaccountable. I think this is why ‘Take Back Control’ was such an impactful slogan in the Brexit campaign in the UK. It was meaningless – however it resonated with a deep, unmet need. Ask people in the UK if they feel more empowered now than before 2016.

I think all of this stuff is linked. And I offer this as a starting point for a different conversation (no, I do not have all the answers).

We live in a society. We are massively and completely inter-dependent upon each other to meet our entire spectrum of needs. No person is an island, and those that believe they are can only maintain that illusion with large gobs of cash. In one theory, money is what makes this all work. However even mainstream economists understand their notion of Homo Economicus is a wild fiction. In practice, money is a useful tool enabling people to exchange value. However I assert anything meaningfully only happens because, what distinguishes Hom. Sap. as a species on this ball of rock, is our off-the-charts ability to creatively co-operate in meeting each others needs. It is so much the water that we swim in that I think most of the time we are blind to it.

Which is why the propaganda of ‘survival of the fittest’ and the ‘natural order’ of the strong/privileged over the rest of us is so loudly proclaimed and reinforced. So we continue to believe in it, buy the products and do not upset the order of things.

In this context, what is freedom? Most of the time I think what is being implied is the ‘freedom to consume’ (sans responsibility for the consequences of said-consumption). Alongside this is the ‘corporate’ freedom to produce (sans responsibility for the consequences of said-production). What if we took it simply as the ability to exercise voluntary action? Then what if my actions impact others? Well – the golden rule is a pretty useful guide here. Within a social context ‘responsibility’ goes hand in hand with freedom. Through our freedom, we act. Our actions have impact; intended and unintended. And we ‘own’ (ie. are responsible) for all of it. And all of a sudden we are in a conversation about ‘Power’ which I hold as the ‘ability to influence circumstances’. We know all about ‘Power over’ (remember the Pandemic? remember how easily people (myself included) fell into line? That authoritarian impulse has been well-trained in us). What about ‘Power with’?

What would a new conversation about ‘Freedom’ and ‘Power’ look like?

I think it is overdue.

And becoming urgent.

Before the new boss regurgitates the same lines as the old boss, and nothing changes within and between us whilst everything changes around us. It is unlikely to improve matters.

I think we can do better than that. I am counting on it.

Don Goodeve

(c)2023 28Sep23

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[1] ‘Breaking Together’ – Jem Bendell, Good Works press 2023.

[1] ‘We won’t get fooled again’ – The Who – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDfAdHBtK_Q