luka

Well-known member
There are all sorts of reasons people have been trying to minimise their reliance on Strong Leaders and Inspired Individuals of course, all of them fairly obvious but the chopping the head off the snake thing is pretty central.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
These left critiques of XR based on some of the people involved being investors in green tech sounds, if I were to be harsh, like a prescription for luxuriating in ideological purity while doing absolutely nothing.

Perhaps some of the people making the criticism are not doing nothing (besides writing blogs) but whatever XR's shortcomings, they've got people talking and thinking about climate change and the environment generally in a way no other group has in a long time. So even if substantive and meaningful change eventually comes from another quarter, they will have done some good just by 'raising awareness' (ghastly cliché, I know, but it's hard to do anything about a problem you're not aware of or don't care about).

And yeah, it's difficult to put any kind of positive spin on the forced migration of hundreds of millions.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
And I can't help but picture the Koch Bros rubbing their hands with glee at the idea of anti-fossil-fuel advocates being torn to pieces by antagonists on the left, thus saving them the bother of doing it themselves.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
These left critiques of XR based on some of the people involved being investors in green tech sounds, if I were to be harsh, like a prescription for luxuriating in ideological purity while doing absolutely nothing.

Most criticism that I've read (or that I took seriously) originated either from those who had engaged with XR, or from those involved in long-term activism (mostly environmental, but other stuff too).

The whole "you can't criticise XR because at least they're doing something" is mindblowing to me given how mild and (mostly) fair the criticism is compared to that levelled against most other protest movements in recent history.
 

other_life

bioconfused
And I can't help but picture the Koch Bros rubbing their hands with glee at the idea of anti-fossil-fuel advocates being torn to pieces by antagonists on the left, thus saving them the bother of doing it themselves.

perhaps your most on brand post
 

catalog

Well-known member
There are all sorts of reasons people have been trying to minimise their reliance on Strong Leaders and Inspired Individuals of course, all of them fairly obvious but the chopping the head off the snake thing is pretty central.

There's all sorts of newer theories on leadership doing the rounds, like 'distributed leadership' and even 'followership' but i think it is a central issue with humans, that we require a single person to be in charge...
 

catalog

Well-known member
but they only work on a small scale right? i mean, co-ops and collectives, they only work where everyone knows one another face-to-face?
 

sufi

lala
I reckon that demonstrating that non-hierarchical structures work should be an objective of movements like this,
but then i'm always full of fine ideas like that
 

ome

Well-known member
no more heros

These people are heroes.

These people are heroes.

i knew i’d find some high-value gibber-jabber on this topic here.. yr lovely peeps you knows.
long grime dissensus lurcher here. (my spelling/grammar/humour sucks i know.)

I think extinction rebellion would be keen to not be thought of as heroes. Their psychedelic ngo corporate psychobabble looks like it would avoid such ‘drama triangle’ divisions. lol. (i spotted references to this in gail’s old youtube talks - she was previously a ngo freelance advisor). XR’s official values are non-blame, non-violence, non-politics and international inclusivity, achieved through systems of regeneration and holacracy,. This appears to then wrapped up in a stereotype of empirical middle england postwar conservative ‘britishness’ but with an emotionally sensitive upper lip. i.e. Doing your bit (sacrifice), and defining power externally in a pre-marxist social sense, or internally as a group sourcing power from an internal sense of doing the right thing. all appear to be at play.

I’m all over this like a rash. My self induced 5year psychosis, with subsequent religious faith in a headless no-thing, being of refugee grandparents and having the luck to be able to represent my self as a parody of white toff genteel-man, aligns nicely with xr... but then i think that their value system and apocalyptic branding is designed to fit with as many people possible init.

I joined xr by accident. on the way home from pedalling expensive patriarchal narratives to children, I heard one of my favourite dj’s coming out of a pink boat. I stopped.
When over the pa they asked if anyone could lock on as a barnacle so some demonstrators could take part in an action deciding people’s assembly... i nievely raised my hand. The next two hours was spent being attended to by tea-makers, ciggy rollers (i only have one hand free), legal advisers, first-aides and official blue sash’d wellbeing hug givers. My crusty lockon partner requested that i was to not let go if we got pulled apart by the police even if he cried out in pain. and i did the same. We discovered that we attended the same strawberry fairs in the 90’s).. so we sang culture shock songs together while above us the orb(egg) attempted to board the boat.

Xr as far as i can see are in the PR/education/recruitment stage of development. And i really wish them well so they hold thier shit together to finish off what i guess will be an highly audacious prank, immeasurably more ambitious than what anyone expects, with the clout to halt china & the usa’s emissions (we live in that self-administered placebo called hope). Personally i can’t stop crying so now i’m trying to get thier leaflets translated into bengali, arabic, gujarati and urdu. PM me if you know anyone that might be able to help out.

p.s. the orb never played, the solar charged batteries ran out of power.
 
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sufi

lala
i knew i’d find some high-value gibber-jabber on this topic here.. yr lovely peeps you knows.
long grime dissensus lurcher here. (my spelling/grammar/humour sucks i know.)

I think extinction rebellion would be keen to not be thought of as heroes. Their psychedelic ngo corporate psychobabble looks like it would avoid such ‘drama triangle’ divisions. lol. (i spotted references to this in gail’s old youtube talks - she was previously a ngo freelance advisor). XR’s official values are non-blame, non-violence, non-politics and international inclusivity, achieved through systems of regeneration and holacracy,. This appears to then wrapped up in a stereotype of empirical middle england postwar conservative ‘britishness’ but with an emotionally sensitive upper lip. i.e. Doing your bit (sacrifice), and defining power externally in a pre-marxist social sense, or internally as a group sourcing power from an internal sense of doing the right thing. all appear to be at play.

I’m all over this like a rash. My self induced 5year psychosis, with subsequent religious faith in a headless no-thing, being of refugee grandparents and having the luck to be able to represent my self as a parody of white toff genteel-man, aligns nicely with xr... but then i think that their value system and apocalyptic branding is designed to fit with as many people possible init.

I joined xr by accident. on the way home from pedalling expensive patriarchal narratives to children, I heard one of my favourite dj’s coming out of a pink boat. I stopped.
When over the pa they asked if anyone could lock on as a barnacle so some demonstrators could take part in an action deciding people’s assembly... i nievely raised my hand. The next two hours was spent being attended to by tea-makers, ciggy rollers (i only have one hand free), legal advisers, first-aides and official blue sash’d wellbeing hug givers. My crusty lockon partner requested that i was to not let go if we got pulled apart by the police even if he cried out in pain. and i did the same. We discovered that we attended the same strawberry fairs in the 90’s).. so we sang culture shock songs together while above us the orb(egg) attempted to board the boat.

Xr as far as i can see are in the PR/education/recruitment stage of development. And i really wish them well so they hold thier shit together to finish off what i guess will be an highly audacious prank, immeasurably more ambitious than what anyone expects, with the clout to halt china & the usa’s emissions (we live in that self-administered placebo called hope). Personally i can’t stop crying so now i’m trying to get thier leaflets translated into bengali, arabic, gujarati and urdu. PM me if you know anyone that might be able to help out.

p.s. the orb never played, the solar charged batteries ran out of power.
did you get nicked ome?
 

sufi

lala
yes indeed, thanks, fascinating contrast, the connections are obvious in hindsight

i'd quite like to hear Gail on strategy of activism and Roger on psychedelic/esoteric spirituality (especially as he's quite unendearing - he's got this detachedness about the movement like he'd sacrifice the minions without a 2nd thought, & meanwhile he's teflon)

the anti-leftism is really concerning, wai gets his biggest laugh mimicking jordan peterson "ironically" :( that lack of political engagement is a dangerous cop out, especially when you're talking about building a popular movement

tealism is a fun thing tho - the psych soc/uncut lot are also into that iirc
 

luka

Well-known member
Yes the psych society has a big overlap here. Ideologically, if you can call it that....
 
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