If we think of changing the world, and how big the changes which are needed are, it feels like a huge undertaking. It feels impossible: from where we are now, how could we possibly get there?
I often feel this, as I think so many of us do. However: there is one thing that makes me feel more optimistic, or at least less abjectly bad about this undertaking, which is that we do not live in a static world but a dynamic, constantly changing one.
As is said in the Earthseed book in Octavia Butler’s book Parable of the Sower, “The only lasting truth is Change.”
Putting aside the change of the pandemic, because it is too obvious an example, if we think back ten years, twenty years, thirty years, comparing each decade to now, we can see how much has changed. I don’t just mean technological development, but politically, socially, culturally, economically. So many aspects of our way of life have gone through a huge shift.
Not all of this change is good. In fact, much of it isn’t. To pick one example, from 2005 to now, our society is more individualistic, more racist, more anti-expert and anti-knowledge than it is now. In terms of political futures, 2005 was in the era that was the ‘end of history’ in which there was a general feeling that our liberal society had reached its final form, before the 2008 crash and history that followed this both confirmed and disproved parts of this sentiment in different ways.
So, our world isn’t a static thing that needs changing. It is a constantly changing thing. It is like a rock rolling and bouncing down the side of a hill. It is a new stream flowing, exploring different directions to flow in and changing direction as it meets different rocks. It is a river changing course over time, as some rock is eroded and some silt deposited.
When we think about changing the world, is it about changing the flow of the changes. Individuals can have big changes, in the way that one rock can set off a landslide; but the landslide needs to be structurally ready to slide when a rock hits it. Society has all of these latent possibilities, and when they are tapped into, so much can happen. Jeremy Corbyn tapped into a latent sentiment in both the Labour party and wider society that nobody knew to be there. When he entered because someone from the left had to enter, nobody expected him to come close to winning, let alone the election result of 2017 that followed even in spite of so much opposition from establishment media and many at the top of Labour. Similarly, anti-lockdown and Brexit sentiments have been tapped into, which looking back we can see origins and ’causes’ of from 2000-2015, just as there were potential left-wing social pressures which weren’t tapped into since the start of Covid too.
History is can unfold in many different ways. There is so much that is possible, all these different potentialities contained in the current moment. I like the way Murray Bookchin talks of potentialities, how various social forces put pressure in certain directions, but nothing is pre-determined. Our work is to try and influence this unfolding in a more positive way, to increase the likelihood of a better worlds in our future. Good change is very much possible, and it is worth working towards.
I like your consideration of our capacity to go against determinism. This reminds me of an African proverb I read earlier about Exu, the spirit of movement and transformation:
Exu matou um pássaro ontem com a pedra que jogou hoje.