Is being “punk as f*ck” really where it’s at?
By rob hopkins 15th December 2016 Culture & Society
Sam Bliss (author of the wonderfully-named blog ‘The Bliss Point‘) and Aaron Vansintjan recently wrote blog called Degrowth is Punk as F*ck which defended the term “degrowth” as “a little middle finger to the establishment” and urged the reader to “take your positivity and shove it”. It’s a fiery and passionate defence of degrowth, and contains much, in its spirit and in its message, that I agree with. But it does raise some key points that I want to explore here and to challenge.
First thing I want to do here is to challenge their version of ‘punk’. Yes, of course punk is, as they put it, “nonconforming, anti-establishment, DIY”. Amen to that. But there were always two sides to it, for me at least. I was too young to be there for punk when it happened but it shaped my music tastes and radicalised my politics. Yes there was the middle-finger-raising, brash, in-yr-face side to it. But there was also the deeper, more constructive, solutions-building, but on their own terms, side. And their music was just as good, fortunately.
Where I despair with this blog is that it rather paints itself into a corner. Let’s take the “technology adoption cycle” as a model. For any idea to take hold, first you have to bring on board the ‘early adopters’, then the ‘early majority’, the ‘late majority’, and finally, if you’re really lucky, the ‘laggards’. What the authors fail to recognize is that the us/them attitude that runs through this blog means that while they might attract some early adopters, they then pretty much close the door to anyone else, which would be a huge mistake, as degrowth is, in many ways, a much-needed and timely idea.
So here, in a spirit of deep affection for the degrowth movement (many of whom wouldn’t recognize the version of themselves painted in this blog) are six respectful suggestions that 48 year old Rob (less hair) might offer to 15 year old Rob (quite a lot more hair) which also address some of the points in this blog:
1. This is not Year Zero: Degrowth, like Transition, like permaculture, like anything, stands on the shoulders of the generation that came before, and their work. The article’s swipe at Tim Jackson (author of ‘Prosperity Without Growth”) and Kate Raworth (author of the forthcoming “Doughnut Economics”) is rather inexcusable, and reads as a bit childish. It hails the degrowth speaker at a recent event in the House of Commons, Federico Demaria thus:
“…unlike the other panelists, Federico was willing to be radical, willing to think differently. The audience loved it: he wasn’t boring. Of course, some of his very serious co-panelists patronized him as a big-dreaming radical youngster”.
I know both Tim and Kate, and they play a vital role in this larger movement of imagining, designing and implementing a new economy, a new future. They think differently, are willing to be radical, and no doubt have the scars to prove it.
While we may not all agree on different aspects of this thing, these are potential friends, comrades, connectors, mavens, allies. I doubt very much that they “patronised him as a big-dreaming radical youngster”. It’s one thing to be patronised, another to be so prickly, defensive and committed to feeling like an outsider that any feedback is interpreted as patronising.
Perhaps the authors will read this piece and think I am doing the same to them. All I can say is that on my path through activism, permaculture, natural building, Transition and so on, I have always appreciated it when an elder in this movement has given me feedback, whether I agreed with it or not, or however uncomfortable it may have left me feeling. That’s how societies, communities, families work after all. There’s no reason to discard or disparage the pioneers in our movements just because we can.
2. There are things to learn from “serious people”: throughout the blog, the authors take exception to what they term “very serious people”, un-named folks who seem to exist purely to undermine their arguments, playing the role of what in the 60s would have been called “the Man”. The article would have you dismiss everything such people say. This rather brought to mind Michael Gove’s statement during the Brexit debates that the UK “has had enough of experts”. “Serious people” is used here as a rather disparaging catch-all for anyone who disagrees with the authors.
But an openness to criticism, to people who have a different approach, is vital. Respectful debate is too. Just as some punks were happy to dismiss anyone who they perceived as being “old farts”, this piece closes the door to many potentially useful relationships. At least the “serious people” are interested enough in your ideas to engage with you, to put forward a view. That’s far more promising that all those who have no idea what you’re even talking about. Reach out.
3. Don’t be so defensive: the blog opens with a big defence of the term “degrowth”. “We actually don’t give a flying f*ck. We don’t want to be fake-nice about it. We want to name and shame our enemy”, they rail. I agree. Degrowth is a powerful term, and an important one. It has been defended before. Move on. Tell us what you’re going to do with it that’s actually going to change things. Celebrate it.
4. Common ground is powerful ground: as I said earlier, this blog paints degrowth into a very unhelpful corner, an unnecessary isolation of its own making. They write “that’s not our audience. Our sympathies lie with the misfits, the outcasts, the mischief-makers, the queers. They are our kind of people”. So degrowth has nothing to offer to unionists, single mothers, people working in call centres, people with landscaping businesses, welders, planners, train drivers?
They mention the Lakota at Standing Rock, who they see as operating in the same ‘punk’ spirit. But one of the things that has been so powerful with Standing Rock is how they have reached out, how they’ve brilliantly harnessed social media to appeal beyond the activist world, to appeal to a fundamental sense of right and wrong, of injustice, around the world. And they have done so with a degree of compassion, strength, respectfulness, patience and centredness that is conspicuously absent from this piece.
Working to do actual community-scale change in actual communities, with all their complexities, their infuriating, chaotic, charming, creative ways, requires finding common ground with “serious people”, with “normal people”, rather than being stuck in our own “otherness”.
5. Invite in the imagination: this article rather shuts down imagination, thinking, creativity. What if punk means nothing to you, or you just associate it with violence, dreadful music and yobbishness? It’s one thing to say that you draw some inspiration from its spirit, another to say that in order to play any useful role in the future of our world you need to be “punk as fuck”. Hardly fires the imagination does it?
6. Haircuts open doors, and close them too: while no-one would suggest that “tattoos and piercings and bad haircuts” should be covered up, hidden away, in my own experience, a haircut can open more doors. And at this point in time, as the Arctic melts and the deserts spread, getting behind those doors matters more than the haircuts.
Punk gave me the first big kick up the backside of my life and still propels me forward (Bill Mollison provided the second one). While it is tempting to imagine approaching our work of rebuilding communities and resilience, of creating new economies in the spirit of The Clash striding out of the dressing room with their guitars on their hips, I’m not sure that’s especially useful. Well, saying that, it works for me, but if it has the potential to exclude and isolate others, then it’s not too helpful to vocalise it.
The authors write that degrowth is “forward-looking and positive”, but then do nothing to prove that that is the case. I went to the degrowth conference in Venice a few years back, and struggled to find anyone who was translating the ideas of degrowth into real, on-the-ground projects. Indeed some were adamant that that really wasn’t the point. While I hear that that has changed a bit since, I wonder if this blog speaks as much to the experience of those within the degrowth movement, including the authors, trying to actually change things, as much as it speaks to degrowth’s relationship to the rest of the world?
I deeply share the value the authors place on “a healthy refusal of the present”. But creating something beyond that refusal requires putting less labels on ourselves rather than more, seeking what we have in common with others rather than isolating ourselves. If we have to be “punk as f*ck” to be part of this revolution, then many people I know doing phenomenal things wouldn’t be able to take part. And that’s a shame.
NB: By the way, that reason we chose to write “f*ck” the way we have here isn’t because we want to censor the spirit of the original piece, but rather because to spell it unadulterated means that it won’t get through lots of our readers’ spam filters…
1 Comment
Dear Rob,
I have to reply to your article, since I find it very exclusive and contradictory to your main claim that Degrowth should behave more inclusively and with respect to all the allies in the bigger movement. The thing is: degrowth is inclusive very much, but the claim of Aaron with Sam was, in my point of view, to hold the position Degrowth aims to develop and stand on, and not cut the hair every time we need a wider support for our actions and for dissemination.
I started my personal Transition with the permaculture philosophy and eco-communities several years ago. Today, I still give a lot of hope to these actions, learn from these people and share their ideas further. If you ask me if I belong to the transition movement, I say yes, although there is basically no action in the Transition Town network in the Czech Republic. I neither live in any eco-community today, but I study them and share my knowledge and passion for them around academia as well as in my networks. So I belong to them. Particularly I admire those who take the action and occupy some dwellings in order to set up eco-socially and economically progressive communities with a political stand, and although I personally don’t squat a place, I do belong to the movement. Finally, I also belong to the Degrowth movement, although I have not been yet to any Degrowth conference, I do follow a lot of my colleagues work. So I am inclusive and I am certainly not alone.
I would have actually included myself lot of what you have pointed at, if I wrote an article as Aaron and Sam did. I don’t even think the pieces are contradictory per se. They do complement. And also, it is good to bear in mind, that they are both blog articles with several shortcuts and shortcomings in order to perform their positions. And that’s OK. I will now also follow this logic and put my own shortcutting answer to it:
Degrowth has different starting position, audince and obstacles than for example you in TransitionNetwork have.
Transition people have built the movement under progressive yet not so controversial issues presenting it like this: “We will now start the transition to the post carbon society, join us, it’s more ecological, you will support your neighbor and yourself in the local economy and you will have more community bonds, love and passion doing it.” And it’s working well, particularly in the UK.
Degrowth starts the debate from academics perspective to address politicians, economists, and indirectly also local citizens by saying that: “It’s time to degrowth, we need less production and consumption, less work, less quantifiers of our performance, more justice, etc. There is no alternative in that, since the current paradigm is f*cking stupid, it is killing people&planet for profit, neglecting that both people and planet have their (not only) biophysical limits.” Obviously, with such statement it is difficult to have partners, neither in companies or politicians, nor around people that have not enough, and therefore it is more important to stand out and present what is wrong and what needs to be done in as concrete and critical claim as possible. Degrowth don’t want to end up with compromises and then start Degrowth 2.0 in 10 years again.
I am sure that most Degrowers acclaim work of Transition Network, they actually study it too and hope for its dissemination too. But TT is not doable everywhere and every region has its specific culture for transition, for degrowing, for changing the world to ecologically and socially better place. Degrowth has become what it is from the Southern European perspective, which is very different to the AngloSaxon. People there fight for their rights for decades and they know very well what it means to be F*cked. Like in Southern Europe (or also Eastern Europe and many other regions in the world) the question of creating partnerships with local governments or companies is so unrealistic. The Degrowth finds its way in academia – empowering the transition through a scientific approach, studying and presenting all different kinds of local actions, giving them more voice in different settings. It wants to be strong scientifically in order to be heard at the macro, meso as well micro level. It does bear in mind, that it is important to empower local people by explaining them why they are f*cked and support them to do it their way.
In my opinion the world is too messed up place, with so much anger, so that many people end up messed up and with anger. The personal transitions of many are doable, but in order to make this happen, it is not enough to respond to hate with love. It is not enough to paint our companies and governments and also local communities in green. It is important to search for realistic solutions from the ground and stay in this ground so that people know where Degrowth future stand. If they know more, they will become less messed up. Hopefully.