I’m writing this because I may be wrong.
Of course, that doesn’t narrow down the things I could write about (I mean, everything, other than that I exist: merci, Rene!).
Specifically, then. A couple of days ago one of those ‘things could be much much better than they are’ reports got released. And the Guardian, bless its centrist socks, ran an op-ed by the authors.
I did a keyword search for ‘movements’ on the latter, which came up blank. So then I wrote a two-part thread on BSky.
It ran thus-
Another day, another worthless (worse than useless?) ‘The cat should wear a bell’report about how everything can be wonderful.
No mention of social movements.
Apparently the state and corporates will do all this wonderful stuff un-bidden. Because some academics wrote a report.
1/2
And part two
I can’t take this shit seriously, and I would encourage other people to do likewise.
I search “hey, we can save the world, here’s how” articles for the word ‘movements’. No mentions gets a hard pass from me.
Saves time/bandwidth.
2/2
By my pitiful engagement standards it did well.
The first post got 5 reposts, on quote post, 16 likes and a save.
The second one got some comments, a repost and 4 likes.
It is to these comments that I now turn.
One person on Bluesky typed
How to make it happen is the next step not a replacement step.
There were several things I could have said. I chose to keep it relatively neutral –
In my experience these reports never have an “implementation” sequel. Happy to be proven wrong…
To which came
*We* need to be the implementation sequel.
A map isn’t worthless just because it comes without a car.
To which I replied
A map tells you the terrain. A castle in the air doesn’t.
I suspect we agree on a lot, and could/can fruitfully disagree.
This platform isn’t the format, imo. So I will write A (sic) post and you can respond if you like.
Which brings you up to speed, if you’re still here.
Life is short and there are moorhens to say hello to (it’s been far too long), so I will frame this around a series of questions. (These may be leading questions, they may not be the right questions, and I am happy to be told they are not, and to be told what ARE the right questions.)
Did the report (which you can read here) have anything new about new strategies for a world where hope is dying, where our situational awareness is being destroyed not merely by accelerating corporate propaganda and government secrecy but also AI slop?
Nope. I am sorry, but having only one reference to social movements, and quite a glib one in the introduction, is just not on.
(“civil society” appears not at all. Apparently this is all going to be done by technocrats in bureaucracies. Yeah. Sure.)
Are vague invocations of “we” “being the implementation” helpful?
No. If anything, that sort of statement is more likely to have us staying within our smugospheres, doing things that make us feel good/give us status (or continue to deprive us of status perhaps?) and are easy because we’ve been doing them for ages, independently of their actual or likely success.
Why might someone push back against my performative world-weariness?
Nobody likes some smug performative world-weary asshole who pisses on everybody’s chips and apparently has no solutions of his own. (Actually, I have plenty, at a microlevel, which is what is required to make the meso and macro happen. But I totally understand how somebody might assume I don’t, either because they don’t know my stuff, aren’t interested in finding out or wouldn’t find it convenient to find out because then I would be less easily chided/dismissed).
I keep meaning to put all this shit together in one place, but never do. Anyhoos, one the social movements, incentive structures and our inevitable doom, see here.
Is this report much of a map of the existing terrain?
No.
You haven’t read the whole thing, how can you be sure?
I brown M&Med it.
Eh?
The Van Halen test. I asked some specific questions via my old friend Ctrl F.
Will you find any of these words? (Spoiler: no, so, not much of a map, imo)
- Advertising
- Artificial intelligence
- Buen vivir
- Permaculture
- Positional goods
- Predatory delay
- Propaganda
- Repression
- Veganism
- Vegetarianism
Only two mentions of capitalism, and one of those is a reference.
“More generally, the development of Western industrial capitalism since the 18th century is closely linked to a system based on the international division of labour, the mobilization of natural and human resources at the world level, and the European powers’ military and colonial domination over the rest of the planet.” (p.115)
and
Nogues-Marco, P. (2021). “Measuring colonial extraction: The East India Company’s rule and the drain of wealth (1757–1858)”. In: Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics 2.1, pp. 154–195.
Does this report, coming in at 136 pages, have anything other than another international body that will be instantly captured/de-fanged to suggest?
No. I don’t think it does (but I have yet to read all 136 pages)
Do these authors give any indication at all of knowing what a car is?
Not to me they don’t.
Are our metaphors all outa whack?
Why yes, yes they are.
What, ultimately, is the responsibility of intellectuals?
“There’s a huge cultural, intellectual, political battle that is going on. And we all have a role to play,” said Thomas Piketty, a co-director of the WIL and a professor at the Paris School of Economics.
Well, sure. But for me, you can’t go past Noam Chomsky – it is the responsibility of intellectuals to expose lies and tell the truth.
And the truth I keep coming back to is that ”we” (note the quote marks) are losing, and have been losing quite badly since the 70s (not that before then was exactly great).
And if intellectuals are going to spend the bulk off their time building these probably necessary “visions” but NOT offer a fair assessment of how “we” have been failing on these questions for well over fifty years, then I do not think they are either exposing lies (sweet little lies we have been telling ourselves) or telling the truth.
James Baldwin said it best – “not everything that can be faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
The report doesn’t help us face our failures since (before) the 1972 Stockholm conference, at a state, corporate, civil society or social movements level.
This is by technocrats, for technocrats, and will sink without trace. Meanwhile, the emissions will climb, the impacts will hit ever harder.
We are near the beginning of the Fafocene. Buckle up, mofos.
That report, btw –
Chancel, L., Mohren, C., Moshrif, R., Odersky, M., Piketty, T., Somanchi, A., et al. (2026), The Global Justice Report: A Plan for Equality & Prosperity Within Planetary Boundaries, World Inequality Lab (gjp.wid.world).