On politics and humanity

Butterfly image by Sophie Gainsley

“When people do not ignore what they should ignore, but ignore what they should not ignore, this is known as ignorance”

- Chuang-tzu

Here at RAIN (or rather, in the head of one of the three RAIN co-directors), we believe in the innate benevolence and intelligence of humanity and also the cosmos into which we are embedded. While it is probably chauvinistic to consider our species to be the pinnacle of creation, we can only marvel at the compounded miracles of engineering that make up our bodies and collectives.

Being intelligent

For example, a simple utterance involves the manipulation of sub-cellular electrical potentials across millions of neurones that brings about fine muscle and breath control that can fill space with both sound and nuance. The modulated sound waves produced are then converted into electrochemical information in the ear of a listener, before being put through a series of circuits that generate meaning that makes possible communication and ultimately community. It is mind-blowing, even without stopping to consider the mystery of the wills of those conversing.

Then there is the question of the material passing between people, which can be of low quality (particularly during election season as powerful people exchange plans and insults). But take heart! While you share most of your DNA and physiology with politicians, and can work the same biomechanical miracles with ease, we are all different, and our differences are usually more interesting than our similarities. Which brings us to the subject of political difference.

Politics in RAIN

France just had elections, the UK is about to have elections, and the whole world knows that the US is gearing up to its showdown. Meanwhile, Bolivia just saw a failed coup and there are various wars cooking that few people in my immediate circles want to happen. Politics seems to be a serious business… so what do we believe at RAIN?

At the level of the organisation, RAIN is apolitical: we endorse no particular party. We recognise, of course, that political decisions have real world impacts on people and planet, which can be helpful or horrific. We certainly don’t endorse apathy. But we’re not always convinced that a good policy comes from good intentions, and nor are we confident that the policy of one party will be maintained or adequately managed by the next party. Given that we value long-term sustainability over short term solutions, we’d rather throw our own party and make our own plans.

At an individual level, people in our team have a wide range of political perspectives, all the way from weary cynicism to a glint in the eye that seems to say let’s-burn-it-all-down-to-the-ground-and-roast-vegan-marshmallows-over-the-flames. But we tend to keep that to ourselves. Sometimes two or three of us might share some conspiratorial banter while we’re waiting for someone else to join a zoom call, but at that point we shuffle some papers and get on with the meeting’s agenda.

Scale and movement

Reading a party manifesto is engaging with fiction, a projection of an electrochemical dream that may or may not brush with the real world. Here’s a thought to ponder: why is it so seemingly impossible for country-scale leadership to enact the changes they propose? Or even to move towards them?

Perhaps it is a fundamental opposition between the economic logic that dominates the halls of government on the one hand, and planetary limits on the other. As Daniel Schmachtenberger puts it in one of his less apocalyptic moments:

“Modern economic practices often reward environmental harm by ignoring the true costs of ecological damage. For a sustainable future, our economy must account for all forms of value, not just financial profits”

Or perhaps it's a question of scale - the truck is simply too big to turn, but blunders on under its own momentum with no regard for cliff edges, climate disasters or real-world poverty and distress. If that’s the case, then within that idea lies the kernel of the solution; work smaller. Work with less. Work with the bioregional, the micro-network, the community, the bunch of friends who have an idea and the energy to make it come alive. Work with a community that shares enough common ground to communicate.

Anyone with skin in the game knows that working within and alongside communities presents challenges - total agreement and accord are rare, and people have different perspectives and different expectations. It’s tough enough for a family to get along around the Christmas table, and maintaining harmony is a real challenge with a few hundred people involved; perhaps it is simply impossible with millions. Perhaps the most politically refreshing thing we can do is to practise community-based decision-making and action, where practice means two things (both to carry out and also to get more skilled by working at it). Leaving our destiny to the giants in power robs us of our own agency; we can regain it by talking to each other and doing the work that needs to be done.

Whoever you vote for, whatever you believe in, we ask you to join us in imagining and working towards a world where we solve our own problems and extend our support to those doing that in the kindest way possible.