In their last edition (16/05) The Independent on Sunday asked several leading ad agencies to produce mock ups that could run during campaigning in any future referendum on electoral reform (specifically the Alternative Voting system proposed as part of the coalition between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats).
I recently came across this really interesting website: http://voteforpolicies.org.uk/.
It allows you to make a blind comparison of the policies proposed by the different political parties for the next General Election and to base your vote on policies rather than on personalities or prejudices. I did the survey myself (although I am not entitled to vote in the UK) and the results are pretty interesting.
I think it’s a great tool to foster participation and political awareness, although I am not sure that if you were intending to vote for the Greens and that after taking the survey it turns out that you “should” vote for the BNP you should necessarily take up this advice…
Below is a graph showing the turnout rates of the General Elections since 1945 (http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/turnout.htm)
Author - Rosemary Randall
Psychoanalysis has a complex view of the human psyche and its motivations. Its theories assume that we do not necessarily know ourselves well, that we hide our less worthy motives from ourselves, repress our unacceptable passions and that our sense of self may be contingent and fragile. How might such theories help us understand issues of identity in relation to climate change?
The sociologist Anthony Giddens calls the current period one of ‘late’ or ‘high’ modernity, a post-traditional order characterised psychologically by doubt and existential uncertainty. It is a period in which capitalism has become intensely consumer focused, its reach and systems have become truly global and aggressive marketing techniques – often making use of psychoanalytic insights to do with sexuality and desire – have become the norm. Objects of consumer desire are created and coded around identity markers: people ‘like you’ buy this or that. People ‘like you’ will be excluded or become social pariahs if you do not. Identity appears at this level to be a matter of individual choice, selected from a range of market-influenced options.
The questions and issues that patients bring to the consulting room have changed. Although the same bedrock of depression and anxiety can be discerned, the troubles of late modernity are filtered through preoccupations with ‘Who am I?’ ‘Where is my life going?’ and doubt and dissatisfaction at what life offers.
Moral commentators might see such questions as indicative of decadence or self-indulgence. However psychoanalysis notes in them a fragility and vulnerability in the basic sense of self that has damaging consequences for the individual who suffers from it.
Such people need constant confirmation and affirmation from others, are subject to experiences of fragmentation and disintegration, and easily experience the crippling emotions of shame and self-consciousness when faced with even the mildest criticism from self or others. Their very existence can feel in doubt and this inner self-doubt is often mirrored by outer self-aggrandisement and omnipotence.
In the UK the work of Winnicott and in the US the work of Kohut have led the way in unscrambling the early, pre-oedipal origins of this vulnerability. It is well summarised in Phil Mollon’s aptly titled book ‘The fragile self: the structure of narcissistic disturbance’. While we see this fragile self writ large in the consulting room, we also see it writ small in day-to-day encounters and in the well-noted difficulties that individuals have in making the life-style changes that climate change requires of people in the developed nations. Where a vulnerable identity is supported by buying into the ‘right’ consumer options and life-style, change is hard.
Tim Jackson and other commentators have noted the complex relationship between material goods and a socially constructed sense of identity but I would like to suggest that psychoanalysis can offer help in how we try to effect the necessary social change.
If we understand the vulnerability and fragility of self that underlies the attachment to material goods then our approach to climate change shifts from a focus on engaging the public through convincing/persuading/messaging to a focus on supporting/listening/understanding.
Instead of looking for the ‘right’ way to communicate we should explore how to create social settings that both respect people’s fragile identities and establish and nurture alternative social norms. We can use both existing networks that offer alternative foci for people’s identity (for example faith groups, neighbourhood groups, cultural groups) and create new forms of support that take account of the fragile ‘I’, strengthen new social identities and break the relationship between consumer goods and a functioning sense of self.
In the ‘Carbon Conversations’ project, which I presented recently at the Manchester International Festival, we use small, facilitator-led groups, that focus on values, emotions, meaning and identity to explore how people can reduce carbon emissions.
When people have space to explore their personal relationship to a high-carbon, consumption-driven life-style and when their vulnerability around identity issues can be supported, they develop the confidence and the staying power to make significant life-style changes. Clearly good facilitation is key to such groups. Facilitators need good relational skills and sensitivity to unconscious group process combined with technical knowledge, in order to deliver these groups well. However, when these qualities are present the pay-offs for members of these groups are significant: a new-found capacity to make measurable reductions in carbon emissions and a lasting and genuine commitment to creating a different kind of society.
It is my hope that the next few years will see many more projects using insights from psychoanalysis and other therapeutic models to facilitate change in a broad range of social contexts.
I attended the UK Premier of ‘Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai’ from the Green Belt Movement. Taking Root tells the dramatic story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights, and defend democracy.
The Green Belt Movement (GBM) was founded in 1977 by Wangari Maathai (Nobel Laureate 2004). Green Belt Movement’s approach is based on the premise that truly sustainable development can only take place through recognizing the link between the environment, democracy, and peace.
Through its holistic approach to development, Green Belt Movement addresses the underlying causes of poverty and environmental degradation at the grassroots level. Green Belt Movement programmes use a ten-step development model that mobilizes communities to take action in their local environments. As a result over 40 million trees have been planted and hundreds of thousands of women in rural Kenya have lifted their families out of poverty.
I recommend seeing the film as it a true inspiration to all environmental campaigners. I believe it’s available on DVD at takingrootfilm.com/purchase.htm
The Green Awards Best Green Campaigner category is for those sorts of individuals. See www.greenawards.co.uk/categories_x_16/categories_x_16/best_green_campaigner_award We’re looking for any campaigner who has set a goal or campaign target, has set about achieving it and can explain what they were able to achieve against the odds. Campaigns can be as local as your street, school, college or company or may involve a town, city, borough or even a national campaign.
The Campaigner of the Year will be the individual who is judged to have been most creative in getting results for their chosen issue, regardless of the size of the campaign or the budget.
Wangari Maathai became the first environmentalist and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She overcame unimaginable obstacles that most of us never experience in daily life and yet still maintained a vision and reached into the consciousness of ordinary people to empower themselves to protect the environment and in doing so alleviate poverty. I think one thing I took from last night was the thought that no matter how big the problem is we face we can all make a difference and we should never just sit back through apathy when we hear of environmental degradation happening in other parts of the world such as the destruction of the forests. Because ultimately the planet will survive but the human race might not be quick enough to adapt to the changes that lay ahead because of the effects of global warming and climate change. We need to be focussed on our own survival and we need inspirational leaders to engage the mass consciousness. According to Wangari Maathai’s,Oslo, 10 December 2004, ”In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other.”
To enter the Best Green Campaigner Category visit: www.greenawards.co.uk/categories_x_16/categories_x_16/best_green_campaigner_award
For more information on the Green Belt Movement who is an Institutional partner for this year’s Green Awards visit: www.greenbeltmovement.org
