Last Saturday I was asked how we might turn my vision of a new City of London into a reality; for the person asking the question it was obviously impossible to imagine. My answer was that we have to believe it possible. And that to achieve that we have to tell the story that it is.
I suggested something I believe to be true. It is that life is the stories that we tell ourselves and each other. Those stories either ring true, or not. Some of them do, unfortunately, turn out to be pretty horrific. Others are just false: the story one person tells is nowhere near that which others can believe. But most of the time the story is taken on trust. And that is because most of us, most of the time, seek to tell stories that we believe to be true. That is one of the remarkable things abut being human. The plausible truth of the stories we tell might also be a way to define mental health.
But stories are not just about the past and present. And they are not just information. They are also about hopes and expectations. They are the dreams we dare to share. Some of those are, of course, just fantasies. Most of us can spot them a mile off. Others are willing to be taken for a ride by such tales: that's how lotteries are so successful. And some are rooted in the foundation of possibility.
I confess to have dreamed of a fairer world since I was quite young. I saw the consequences of what I perceived to be discrimination on those very close to me when a child. The desire to create change was sown, whether I knew it or not, by the tales others told of what was right, wrong and necessary with which I disagreed. As a result I learned that it is not necessary for us to give our assent to the stories others tell when they oppress in ways which we think unacceptable. That was probably the moment my move from childhood to maturity began.
That said, I am very often annoyed by the stories some people tell that you can be anything you want if you try hard enough. I do not think that true. We all have constraints. But that is rarely so for our ability to imagine. Look at a child and you will know that is true. And you were a child once. If you think you cannot imagine now, wonder where that ability (for that is what it is) went. A world, and an eduction system, that crushes imagination in far too many people is failing us.
I explained to the audience that I spoke to that this blog is a narrative on change. Whilst I hope it is rooted in what we can mutually recognise (although some will, of course, disagree) much of its purpose is to talk about the world we might have.
Once I dreamed of country-by-country reporting, automatic information exchange, beneficial ownership registers and breaking the secrecy of tax havens. The ideas were rooted in possibility. I am well aware that many thought them crazy, impossible, and wholly unrealistic. Others questioned their desirability. Each is developing now. The dream is not yet the reality I wished for. But each is happening, around the world.
I think I made the point then that without the story of the change this would not have happened. And so that will be true of change in the City of London, and the other issues on which I and others campaign.
It's always true that we have to imagine that another world is possible. Ten years after Lehman we must do that. Individually, collectively, and repeatedly we must imagine - even when it seems implausible - that another world is possible. I sincerely believe it is.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Dreaming that another world was possible gave us the American Revolution, so it shows the power of dreams and that they can come true. A whole country that has dreaming and ambition as a national ethos. Obviously the implementation of any dream of any scale requires getting the people with guns on your side.
We could dream of creating a world where there were no powerful people with guns. A world where people and nations decide to refuse to fight each other and instead view each other with concern and seek cooperation rather than conflict. A world where people everywhere refuse to continue with the arms race and refuse to support the war machines.
Yes, that’s my dream too, but I know it’s more of a fantasy.
Humans are animals, and in the animal kingdom, there has to be fights to survive.
Territorial fights to determine access to a hunting ground, which allows us to feed ourselves and our tribe.
If you need more, as your tribe grows, you go and fight another tribe to gain more hunting ground.
You make sure you win by improving your skills and your weapons, necessity prods creativity…
As your tribe grows in number, and wins territorial ground, it gains power.
And there we have it. The real perversion. Power.
Once some have had a taste, there’s no going back.
Fantasies can become real (a different kind of fantasies from mine) with the help of structured, organised and perverted Policy. For the few, not the many.
The only way human societies have ever got out of this jungle law power take over is by revolution and war.
It’s the way we’re wired. The only way we can control it to some extent is through reason, education, socialisation, and legislation.Humanism.
But those are also human made, so often perverted. They fail often.
Still, let’s dream and make some of it work some of the time.
We’ll get there, for a while. Two steps forward…
Always two forwards
Sometimes more than one back
But always agin two forward
Deeply moved by your ‘confession’ it chimes in many ways with my own aspirations for humanity.
I don’t suppose you get many thanks for what you do but I for one am grateful. There’s so much crap written and spoken about how to manage the economy and the consequent political solutions. I just wish you had more clout in the Labour Party – I know Chris Williamson has retweeted at least one if not more of your blogs, so I think you’ve got an ally there. But I must say I worry a lot about the Party, it’s full of so many well meaning but misguided people that really need educating about the realities of economics.
Thanks
Labour has to make it own decisions
Sometimes if has noticed
@ Charles Abrahams
“But I must say I worry a lot about the Party, it’s full of so many well meaning but misguided people that really need educating about the realities of economics.”
Its’s not just the Labour Party it’s most voters in the UK who are misguided. It’s easier I find to view the situation as one in which we may live in the Money-Age (a consequence of human beings switching from a hunter-gatherer to a farming lifestyle) but the vast majority of UK voters still live in the Stone Age. This is so because they don’t understand what money does and can be made to do nor how the country’s monetary system has had to be set-up to create the stuff. So in this country we have a situation of the blind leading the blind because the overwhelming majority are stuck in the long distant past. They don’t understand what has effectively become the “bread” of life.
In the Money Age we are also confronted with the question of what kind of human being we want to be in using money given its double-edge sword nature. Most economists don’t seem to be very good at answering this question almost as though they become bewitched by money! Here’s an attempt to redress this balance:-
http://evonomics.com/economic-man-vs-humanity-a-puppet-rap-battle/?utm_source=newsletter_campaign=organic
I’m sure we need a new world. The facts that we don’t have world peace and do have local-global precarity are strong indicators we are doing the wrong things and argue in the wrong theories. For a long time we have considered economics a science or set of logical relations a nd politics as the “art of the possible”. My view now is we have been trapped in this kind of language as much as some poor people held together by ritual religion in a menstrual blood cult. The Utopia we want is unlikely to contain the ‘elements’ we currently wave mathematical wands over, would demand a new form of democracy, public argumentation and scrutiny and the removal of current warlord practices. World peace is likely to be much more unstable and vulnerable than many think Population control, terrorism, massive inequality and similar will need new ways of dealing with myth, faith, ignorance and money to be resolved. Nearly everything we have been brought up with anywhere is untrue or in need of radical review, including much held dear. Groaf is first to go, though even making this first is likely wrong in the current power network. Once groaf is replaced by agreed sensible living, this requires pictures of full lives away from planet-burning neurosis and new freedom. Small projects would do for a start. I have footled and can say existing money is difficult to put in the models, as are current reasons for living.
Marie Thomas
What you have written seems to be driven by your own despair which I can wholly identify with and is quite reasonable given the circumstances. Having just watched ‘The Spider’s Web ‘ documentary I feel emboldened but at the same time rather angry and also strangely rather powerless as I weigh up our chances of changing anything.
However, do not forget that one of the reasons we are the top species on the planet is also because humans have learnt (being rather puny animals) to work together to survive – to co-operate. This in itself indicates that we are not just Darwinian competitive types killing each other to get to be king of the castle.
Humans are much complicated than that. We also invest kindness in each other because we expect it back – it’s a good return to have in an uncertain world. And there is evidence to suggest that kindness makes us happier. Altruism is natural human trait too.
Read ‘On Kindness’ by Adam Phillips & Barbara Taylor (2009).
We just need to try to bring these better traits out. No easy task I grant you. But they are there.
Pilgrim Slight Return,
I agree with many of your comments above.
I know we’ve learnt to cooperate in order to survive. But occasionally we’ve failed, catastrophically.
As Richard said in his response to my post, ‘always two steps forward’. I believe that’s true, that’s why I don’t despair.
We have learnt altruism and kindness serve us well indeed. But you seem to imply these are exclusively human traits, or I may be mis-reading you…?
Most animals cooperate too, either with the same species, or others, like humans. We’re all definitely linked. Sometimes cooperating in order to get some benefit, to survive, to learn from others…or we fight each other, if we’ve failed to be clever enough, patient enough, or strong enough.
Fighting is always a failure of some sort isn’t it?
As for Humans being the top species, we certainly are the most powerful, the most able to help or destroy others, but probably the only one able to destroy the only planet we have and share with all other species. Is that top? Not so sure.
You’ll think I’m despairing again, but not at all, just being lucid, I’m not anthropocentric.
I recognise also that only Humans can help other species to survive, in some cases despite themselves and their predators, with scientific research including veterinary medicine, natural resources management.
Only Humans can help other Humans survive illness, improve quality of life.
So yes, in that way, we’re top.
Thank you for your reading recommendations by the way, I shall give it a go.