The current status quo
People give me wildly different answers when I ask them: "Looking back on your primary school education, what would you like to have been different?" There are people who suggest shifting focus: either to more physical play (usually boys), or to more arts and crafts or whatever.
However, at our dinner table, my mother would always speak loudly about all the things she would like to change in the education system. There were conversations about shorter school days, mixing school levels together, what a star-track would look like for gifted kids, or integrating more real-life scenarios in our school exercises.
It makes sense that these conversations about system change are not common for people. We probably haven't experienced something else, which makes it harder to think about how things could be different. People tend to judge ideas for future change based on the present. Elena Vasileva mentions this in her Substack about The Colonisation of Imagination:
The colonisation of imagination happens when dominant systems become so embedded in everyday life that their logic starts to feel inseparable from reality itself. Economic systems, technological systems, educational systems and cultural narratives do not only organise institutions. They also shape perception. They influence what people expect from the future, what kinds of change feel achievable, and which possibilities appear serious enough to pursue collectively.
We are so used to education systems being the way they are, or the economy to revolve around capitalistic choices, that we literally cannot imagine anything else. Mark Fisher wrote a book about the concept of capitalist realism: the widespread sense that the current system is not only dominant, but the only realistic one available. Fisher captures the essence of capitalist realism by writing that it had become easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
This leads to the decrease of anti-capitalist ideas and challenging the status quo. There are less and less coherent alternatives being presented. The solutions people seek for the problems in the world are focused on consumption-based solutions. According to Fisher, there is the idea of "business ontology" in which purposes and goals are only understood when they are explained in business terms. It makes me think of the questions on why we should do a certain improvement in health care if it only costs money to a country. It completely undermines the other effects and goals of why health care is important, which isn't easy to take into account if you're only viewing things from a capitalistic lens.
"Let's be real"
Thinking realistically isn't neutral. It carries assumptions about what and who is important, and which systems are allowed to continue unquestioned, and what forms of life are considered practical, responsible or mature. As Elena mentions, the following things are usually seen as unrealistic: universal (health) care, shorter work weeks, collective ownership models, radically different educational systems, cultures organized around interdependence rather than extraction. Even though the current way of doing things in the world is leading to loneliness, drastic climate change, and increasingly more poverty - even though there's no need for this if we would just share a bit more.
The algorithms and technology that we are using only intensify this.
People become highly informed about collapse while feeling increasingly incapable of imagining transformation.
Let's tell our stories differently
Elena places an importance on speculative storytelling, in which the stories distance themselves from the current status quo in terms of power, gender, ownership, hierarchy and human relationships. There are stories in which we can explore radically different ways of organizing society.
Elena mentions the work of Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia Butler, but as a Dutch person, I'm immediately thinking of the book "Kinderen van Moeder Aarde" by Thea Beckman. This is a trilogy in which we are situated in Greenland after a third world war, where the characters live in a society run by women, a matriarchy. Only women can have functions in power, there's no poverty, and there's an immense respect to nature. There are of course also struggles that are being worked through when the son of the highest woman in power starts rebelling. The radical different way of humans living together in a society in this story had an immense impact on me as a little girl.
Or we can have fun
What if we would center our societal goals around having fun? The Instagram account @zeikschrijft inspired me We are used to people saying that you have to be serious, work hard, and only then you can achieve things. The left political side is focused on themes such as affordable groceries and minimum wage, but what does that lead to? Fair en social politics can lead to joy, happiness, fun, community! What if we encourage people to have fun community events without having to spend long evenings requesting permission from the municipality - even if it is a bit of a convenience for cars. People having fun makes them more generous, it frees them from hustle culture, it enables empathy and creativity. Why? Because people don't have to work very long hours in order to make ends meet. Centering politics around fun is about also about solidarity, so more people can have a good time. Current economical inequality excludes people, while democracy and economic fairness leads people to have more free and social lives. Reframe cheaper rent, childcare or public transport to having time to pick up hobby's, spending more time with family and celebrating the victory of your favorite sports club.
I can image that raising this story about valuing fun more than material possessions will lead to lots of "but..." arguments, which are, of course, not all unfounded, but the point is that we should be able to take a different perspective and talk to each other about these "radical" ideas.
There's power in doing some collective imagination of how things can be different. Let's rephrase the stories we tell ourselves, our friends and family, and our children.
Related
- The radical economic changes Thomas Pikkety suggests: working less so we can decrease our need for industrial productivity, and therefore we relieve some of the pressure on the climate; etc (Financial Times, NRC, De Correspondent)