01.01. INACTION. The Generation Poetry Project
Action believes the world is full of problems to be solved. If we just keep tackling each problem as it crops up, we stay on the path to better. American ingenuity. The race to space. Can-do optimism. Revolution is the ultimate action when there is no choice but to stand together and fight.
Inaction accepts challenge as part of the human condition, not a problem to be solved. Things are complex, inter-related, always in flux. Ultimately, you can’t change anything except your own perspective. The Gallic shrug. Existential philosophy. Nihilism. Resistance doesn’t fight, it withstands, it survives. The stoic tradition.
Politics and policies accept that things aren’t perfect, but have to be negotiated. Slow and sensible change. Stability. Consensus. Channels. The System. Protest doesn’t operate through authorised systems. It gains power through symbolic action and making noise. Shaming those in charge. Spontaneous, situational. Grass roots and flexible.
Movements organise. They use hierarchy, strategy and violence to achieve their objectives. Retreat withdraws to a space of asceticism and even prayer. Change comes through spiritual journeys and personal awareness. Learning how to abstain, to withstand desire, frees one from external forces and allows you to decide for yourself.
These ways of relating to the world aren’t working for Generation Poetry. (Are they working for any of us?) Politics is mistrusted, controlled by hidden interests and easily manipulated. Movements bring too much ideology, too much shouting from a platform, too little real communication. Movements brought us fascism, terrorism, war and destruction. Revolution is bound to disappoint eventually.
These ways of relating to the world are still meaningful for Generation Poetry, but insufficient. Take a problem like climate change, the biggest threat they face in their lifetimes, if not our own. Action is necessary, but doesn’t provide much hope. The alternative, resistance, works well for some things (encrypt communication, withdraw your identity, delete the feed, confuse the algorithm) but can’t withstand an apocalypse (or can it?).
How are they trying to enact change? We see the protests - Greta, March for our Lives, Extinction Rebellion School Strikes. Protest isn’t new, but it’s effective. Particularly when you master communication and all of its channels as fluently as Generation Poetry. They have lifted shaming to an art form and can organise in the space of a Snapchat.
Less visible, more meta, we find the tools of cashmere anarchy. An obscure language of irony, quotes, memes that create ripple effects in people’s consciousness. Looking innocent, lost, disinterested, but working below the radar and biding one’s time. Whispers create hurricanes. These new ways of making change will be organic, self-regulated, and non-hierarchical, which makes them hard to see and even more difficult to grasp. Are they random or is there a point?
There is both action and inaction. It operates within and outside of the structures. Recognises the need for self care self sacrifice. Everywhere and nowhere.
There is a beauty and gentleness in the apparent chaos (the cashmere). There is neither victory nor retreat, life is no longer a battle to be won or lost. Celebrate surviving, being together, taking pleasure in what’s at hand, right now. A fluidity of thought and response that many only achieve with the wisdom of later life. What is possible when a generation starts here instead of ends here?
Every form of light casts a shadow. Every way of being in the world has consequences, most of them unintended. When we removed apex predators like wolves from the environment, we damaged the health and balance of the ecosystems underneath. What parts of the world rely on human action to survive and thrive?
What shadow will new forms of passive power cast? What new moral or ethical frameworks will we need? If we can’t see the agenda of the business meeting or cast a vote in the election, how do we make choices and decisions? Is there an alternative to structure that isn’t chaos?