What I am observing at this time, as are so many of us, is a lot of protesting and activism on behalf of something or other. There are a lot of reasons that everything all over the world seems so chaotic at this time, but change is in the air and it is not going away. The way we have lived for the past 80 years (and much longer actually as it is a whole paradigm shift that is occurring) is about to deconstruct as we begin the reconstruction process of a new kind of society. How that future looks is yet to be recognized as the deconstruction-reconstruction events unfold right before our eyes. The greatest problem we face now is not that change is happening but how we are reacting to that change.
The many protests that are currently going on in major cities around the world are typical of ‘Reactionary Activism.’ This is more about how people have an emotional and physical reaction to something that they observe happening in the world that requires a reaction to make it better or to get more people to become aware. Most environmental and political issues usually derive from this kind of activism. It tends to be focused on a loss-gain or good-bad kind of perspective with a struggle or a fight being expected to topple the regime that perpetrates the negative outcomes being observed. Reactionary activism inevitably comes from a place of oppression where one group is seen as oppressing another group or a whole ecosystem and only some kind of force seems to be the only solution. The trouble of fighting fire with fire is the same as thinking you can fight your way to peace. Whenever there is conflict, there is inevitably a loser that feels angrier than they did before the conflict. Any win-lose situation is only a short-term solution until the issue that spawned the conflict flares up again.
Think about how South Africa (SA) handled the end of the Apartheid era. The majority people of SA could have rebelled against the European colonialists in a bloody feud of retaliations and triumphalism that would have left the country reeling in chaos for decades. President Mandela opted for a more peaceful solution, that of ‘Reconciliation.’ After more than a century of one-sided policies towards the peoples of SA, removing the barriers of Apartheid and government control could have unleashed a wave of violence, but reconciliation was in many ways part of a ‘Visionary Activism’ approach. Reconciliation is much more than simple forgiveness, simply because it involves you and other party’s involved. The pain of the conflict cannot be easily forgotten, but it can be healed. Visionary activism is far more effective because it focuses on the desired outcome with a win-win perspective.
Activism is all very well, but good intentions are not enough. All too often, protesters march to prevent something that is happening, and are willing to get physical to prevent it, yet, I see them wanting a change without really knowing what it is they want to happen after that change has been created. For instance, there is a big global push to stop using fossil fuels and to go with renewable energy technologies in order to cut pollution, carbon dioxide and methane emissions. The activists can be characterized in may cases as reactionary because they are reacting against what they perceive are the corporate interests causing the problem. They see the renewable options as benign and so forget that they are seeing one big piece of a large picture but are blind to the whole picture. What visionary activists see is the whole picture and what is required beyond the simple ‘get rid of fossil fuels’ campaigning.
Visionary activists recognize how we are all part of the problem, and that beyond removing the damaging issue, there is a lifestyle change required. Visionary activists promote a vision of what comes after. A future of collaboration and other needed changes to promote a better and more equitable world. Both kinds of activists use civic agency and solid leadership, but by far the biggest difference is that of empathy and an ability to see what a positive future can look like.
I have spent over 25 years promoting a new vision of what sustainable living could look like and in 2012 wrote a book outlining the principles that I saw as necessary to create that future. Here we are in the chaotic times of 2020 and our focus is still based on conflict reactionary activism. How easily we get distracted. Visionaries have all but been ignored as the Cabalistic forces seeking to control us completely have created even more divisions and separation. Just look at the crapola coming at us from all aspects of the mass media and social media – whether it is vaxxers versus anti-vaxxers, Black lives Matter versus All lives Matter, etc., all I see is people getting angrier as more and more they position into their little smaller and smaller boxes of differences with activists defending their minute piece of ego-identity.
What separates us is minor compared to what connects us all. Please go read my previous blog post (Manifesting a New Global Society while keeping our diverse global cultures 4 – Earth our only Home) or google the Carl Sagan long quote about ‘The Little Blue Dot.” I particularly like the piece from that quote: “The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.” I once read somewhere in an environmental sociology text that humanity shares 95% of its thoughts, feelings, and dreams of a positive planet where families, friends and strangers can live in peace and harmonywith each other and the natural world. That means we have spent millennia fighting over the 5% of differences that actually make us unique!
I applaud the activism I see going on all around the world. I recognize the forces trying to have us imprison ourselves in a self-made prison that we justify and fight to maintain. I also recognize the tens of millions of people that share the dream of a true sustainable future. We need leaders that embrace empathy and demonstrate it for those who look to them for guidance and direction to swing away from the abyss to show us the glowing castle on the hill that marks the way forward.
“Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, feeling with the heart of another.” Anon
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