Ten days ago I went to the latest in a long long line of excruciating activist events (1). I wrote a cathartic blogpost which was liked by about half the people who read it (i.e. it was liked by two people).
Catharsis is fine, but then the question comes up – what should we expect of big organisations that act (whether they understand that or not) as a Keystone Species (2)?
Before you say, yes, I know that it is dodgy af to import ideas from biology/ecology into discussions of human activities, but hey, a) we all do it and b) life is short – so here goes.
Keystone species have a ‘disproportionate’ role in the shape/size/day-to-day actions of the ecosystem they function within. Not ‘deliberately’, because (most) creatures don’t (most of the time) have intention beyond eating/avoiding being eaten/fucking. But if you have enough of the keystone members, then they create a kind of dynamic stability (3).
So, there used to be a phrase (perhaps still is?) “check your privilege” , which sought to remind people that they often walked around with advantages that shaped the social interactions they took part in (4). Anyway, privilege applies not just to us white able-bodied middle-class hetero men but also to organisations. If you are a big outfit, that has been around a long time, and has got a media profile you have a kind of ‘heft’, a kind of – well, privilege. Crucially, you may not feel this, because there are always budget worries, always policybattles you are losing because you are outnumbered and outgunned by the lobbyists for the EFTAs (Evil Fuckers Trade Association). You are always being smeared by stenographers to power in the right-wing press. It doesn’t FEEL like privilege, but then that’s the point – it never does.
So, after a decade and a half of having seen these Big Outfits put together various events and claim to be “building a movement” while absolutely failing to do so, I’ve grown a little cynical (see also “smugosphere”, the smugotariat, “emotacycle”, “ego-fodder”, “potemkinclusivity”, Sophisticated Hopium Ignoring Trajectories, etc).
The purpose of this blog post is to outline five things Big Outfits could do to be better keystone species. I am not expecting any of this to happen (see below). If two of the five happened, that would be quite amazing. I reckon if four of these happened, it would be transformative within that Big Outfit’s wider ecosystem (while still, obvs, merely being deckchairs-on-the-Titanic of a global ecosystem being apocalypsed by hairless murder apes with opposable thumbs).
So, drum-roll please.
- Set a good example
Obvious, huh? In practice this means –
- Start meetings on time. Nothing screams “unserious hippy” like unexplained delays to start-times, especially if you then cry off the advertised activities because of “lack of time.”
- Don’t waste time with endless blandishments and self-promotions. If you have specific information to impart then a) the internet and b) some dead-tree format leaflets for those who don’t use the internet.
- Keep your promises (so, to choose an example entirely at random, if you advertise something as a Q&A, then do a Q&A. This is not rocket-science
- Avoid cringe displays of emotional virtue-signalling. Especially in situations where first nations peoples are being shat on from a great height.
- I could go on. But the apocalypse is at hand.
- Convene (for weak ties)
“The less I say, the more my work gets done” Philadelphia Freedom.
Make sure that when you create an event, you are making it easy for new relationships to form, for new “weak ties” (as per Granovetter) to form.
That is to say, make it possible for various individuals to find each other on the basis of their shared interests, age, geography.
Obviously there are dangers here which need managing. Women, especially, will worry about being compelled to engage with strangers (esp male) who may then get the wrong idea. If you open a space for these relationships to form, you also run the risk of various political sects and groupuscules to try to recruit during your events. These are not, however, insurmountable difficulties.
Big Outfits could lead by example (see above) by designing events so that they are not (always) the goddam centre of attention, sucking up all the oxygen and attention. They could keep comments by their staff and guests to a reasonable length and then then implement the design effectively (there’s no point designing an event and then – because of the lack of skill/awareness of the facilitator/compere – you revert to the bullshit).
So, for example, between the end of speeches at a Q&A and opening the floor to questions you could give people two minutes to compare notes/hone questions etc and then ‘accidentally’ select some – gasp – women to ask two of the first three questions.
There is also a crying need for structured skill-audits and skillshare events, so that people who have skills can share them with people who want them, and organisations that realise they have either a single-point-of-failure or an absolute gap can get help to plug those gaps.
- Innovate
Big organisations could investigate/invent/borrow/steal ideas for better events (marches, rallies, meetings etc) and test them out. Big organisations are more likely to be able to take people a little bit outside their comfort zones.
This would require some courage (not selected for within most formal organisations, obviously) but would set the tone – that responsible innovation is essential.
- Remember the past
We live in a perpetual present, where the lessons of yesterday are forgotten, and ancient victories (the fucking Franklin Dam? Really? Invoking that in 2026? WTAF) are stripped of their context and turned into myths.
Part of the problem for social movements is that so much of what happens is never recorded, or recorded and then lost. Memories shift, fade, and useful tactics and tools have to be endlessly re-invented. Big Organisations could at least try to be a repository for broader memory work.
There are costs (not-insurmountable) and dangers, but without memory we are living in Punxsutawney without remembering the day before. That ain’t no comedy, it’s a tragedy.
Practically – this could mean digitising old posters and content, doing periodic oral history interviews. These may not hit the dizzying heights of ‘academic’ practice, but srsly, who gives a damn – is it USEFUL?
- Help people and small organisations think about the future(s)
Big Organisations could do better “horizon scanning” for the current trends, so that smaller groups/individuals get the opportunity to think strategically.
Periodic workshops involving scenarios, role-plays etc. Yes, most of the people who come will be the usual suspects, but not all of them, and in any case, skills and knowledge can percolate.
See here –
https://peacenews.info/node/8767/2019-how-we-blew-it-again
These – and it isn’t an exhaustive list – all these amount to “services to the movement.”
They are things that individuals and small organisations struggle with (or don’t even try to do).
What “we” – as social movements/civil society/a species killing itself – require is a) the repeal of some laws (mostly laws of physics) and
b) Big Outfits within the “movement” to do things that the smaller organisations – and individuals – can’t do. If they don’t do them, then these things won’t get done and you don’t have a movement, just a bunch of Brownian motion billiard balls, going nowhere fast.
The problem is – well, imma just quote myself:
It comes down to what your definition of “movement” is.
If you believe, as Adam Bandt and his colleagues seem to, that a movement is a bunch of people from a Big Organisation, jetting in from their HQ and standing on a stage, offering “hope,” authenticity and validation to ranks of people who are sat mutely in rows, wanting their (begging) bowls filled up, then Friday was another success in a long line of successes.
If you believe, as I and a few (many?) other people do, that a movement is made up of individuals, small groups, large groups, pulling mostly in the same direction, as frenemies, helping each other out, learning from each other, sharing ideas and resources, then Friday night was another catastrophic shit-show/missed opportunity in a world that can’t afford any more missed opportunities.
What is to be done?
They (the Big Outfits) are not going to do any of this themselves. There is no money in it, it’s not in their direct short-term interest, and those running the show have built careers on being on the stage doing the right talking and public displays of emoting.
There’s a hole in my movement, dear Liza.
So, if we want these big organisations to act as decent keystone species, then sorry, but it has to be persistently and insistently EXPECTED of them. Publicly. (I know, I know, “activism about activism” – as if we have time for this shit… But also, as if we can get anywhere useful without this shit. We truly are caught in a trap…)
Apply what pressure you can. Explain that you will not be participating in ego-fodder events. Privately – and publicly – call out exploitative and extractive behaviour by Big Outfits. Offer practical suggestions – training, etc etc – for how to do things better.
But dammit, this is so hard. Knowing that everything is falling about. That no matter what we do, Punxusatawney is getting warmer.
None of this will happen. It is a stupid fantasy. We are all going to die horrible premature deaths. Oh well.
Footnotes
- Living where I normally do, I don’t have many opportunities for “hate attending” (a variation on hate-following).
(2) As per wikipedia –
A keystone species is a species that has a disproportionately large effect on its natural environment relative to its abundance. The concept was introduced in 1969 by the zoologist Robert T. Paine. Keystone species play a critical role in maintaining the structure of an ecological community, affecting many other organisms in an ecosystem and helping to determine the types and numbers of various other species in the community. Without keystone species, the ecosystem would be dramatically different or cease to exist altogether. Some keystone species, such as the wolf and lion, are also apex predators.
The role that a keystone species plays in its ecosystem is analogous to the role of a keystone in an arch. While the keystone is under the least pressure of any of the stones in an arch, the arch still collapses without it. Similarly, an ecosystem may experience a dramatic shift if a keystone species is removed, even though that species was a small part of the ecosystem by measures of biomass or productivity. It became a popular concept in conservation biology, alongside flagship and umbrella species. Although the concept is valued as a descriptor for particularly strong inter-species interactions, and has allowed easier communication between ecologists and conservation policy-makers, it has been criticized for oversimplifying complex ecological systems.
NB These should NOT be confused with foundation species. Thanks to HS for the distinction, which I will try to follow-up in a different post.
(3) If we’re abusing ecology (and clearly I am) we could argue that civil society organisations have become “functionally extinct” after 45 years of neoliberalism. That is, there are still isolated shell-shocked individuals staggering around, but they don’t “do” the things they used to. But that’s another blog post.
(4) At which point, as a white hetero able-bodied man I can say “I did, it’s still there, and it’s fabulous!”).
(5) Very non-complete list of blog posts about this here –