By sirkka
Ever since I tipped over into what some call “political consciousness,” I’ve felt a fierce anger simmering just beneath the surface. Even when I feel relatively well, grateful for my community and the goodness in the world, this anger is close at hand. It whines: How dare they ruin, suffocate, destroy, what is all of ours, by right? The abundant earth, the beautiful creative potential of every person, the rich diversity of life on this planet. The injustice of globalized capitalism, of colonial violence, sickens me. Every day I feel this fury: sometimes red hot, sometimes a dull ache, sometimes quiet depression. The worst is when it hides, masquerading as apathy or brain fog, but no, it’s still there, just discouraged, confused, and unsure how to express itself.
It is hard to acknowledge (even to myself) that I don’t always know what to do with these feelings. Lately, I’m noticing a cynical pattern: I get an idea, usually while talking to friends — Yes! A fundraiser film screening, a new community space, a mutual aid groupchat! That’s surely a step in the right direction! — but then the scale of the crises we face strikes me, and I begin to worry and doubt that we will be able to intervene in a meaningful way. Then my anger loses purity; I begin to feel jaded, bitter. Ready to quit before I’ve even begun. The absolute devastation and cruelty perpetuated by the zionist entity and the u.s.a. in Gaza has a lot to do with this. It is painful to spin your wheels trying to think of how to act, how to stop the immense harm that is unfolding in Palestine and come up with little that seems up to the task. It is a deadening feeling, to be disempowered. Where is our agency? Can we find it?
We are living in wildly anti-revolutionary times. State repression is ubiquitous. The reality of surveillance means that much of what we say or do is trackable: purchases on a debit card, conversations through whatsapp, sharing news or event flyers on social media, even our phone’s location gathered near other politically frustrated people’s phone’s locations. The carceral system in this country is overwhelming, and expanding every day. So. many. people. are locked up and held separate from the rest of society, subject to the whims of a racist, settler-colonial judicial regime that is destroying their lives. On top of this, political discourses on social media and elsewhere can feel so scattered and diffuse, totally overwhelming and inconsistent. So: we are experiencing fear and confusion, distraction and state violence, paranoia. It is natural to fall into hard feelings and to feel discouraged.
I share these thoughts not to advocate defeatism, but out of curiosity. What happens if we acknowledge the parts of each other that are mad as fuck, disillusioned, and grumpy? Tired, doubtful, a bit nihilistic? Maybe from a place of blunt honesty new pathways will become visible, maybe we will feel invigorated to dig deeper and find a bit of clarity. Unfortunately, things are too dire for us to wallow – we need each other! If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed to the point of inaction, let’s start by naming that. I feel you.
If I look squarely at this part of myself, I realize that — despite fairly consistent radical study and about a decade of ‘movement work’ — my feelings of jaded passivity are stemming from the confusion I’ve just described. This indicates, to me, that I need to tend to my theory of change.
What is a theory of change, you may ask? I would describe it as an informed personal assessment of how we, the people, the earth, might get out of this shithole system of death: racial-capitalist-colonialism. What do YOU think might work? What would need to happen to make that possible? (Workers getting organized to block the global flow of capital? Militant uprisings to achieve and defend autonomous zones, where neighborhood assemblies can begin to self-govern? A collectively-tended free food forest in every community so people can quit their day jobs and still eat?)
I think there are three overarching questions to consider. First, a theory of change needs to include an assessment of power: Who and what holds the power in this system? Where are resources held, how are they managed, who decides?
Then, you consider the vulnerabilities: where is this system unstable? How could we challenge it in a manner that might be effective?
Finally: what could come next that would be better? How do we build up the habits and amass the infrastructure to support life after the fall of empire? This part is so important. We are not encouraged to develop our revolutionary imagination – daydreaming is radical praxis!
These are not easy questions to answer. It takes effort, imagination, study, and conversation to develop a theory of change. And we are up against a virulent anti-intellectualism that makes it even harder. As Assata Shakur (rest in power!) said: “no one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them.” And yet, it is essential to have a theory of change as a personal guide for action in the face of a faltering system. It is the framework through which you can assess whether certain actions will feel effective to you while you engage with them.
To add another layer of difficulty, your theory of change will itself need to change and adapt as the world shifts. Life moves cyclically. We don’t simply achieve political enlightenment and then feel oriented forever. Even if I found a clarity of analysis a few years ago, the world has changed and I have changed. And american capitalism has proven itself terribly adaptive. So, I need to return again and again and ask myself: what is my theory of change now?
A side note: It is important to approach this process with a healthy dose of humility. As I said before, it is a personal assessment of power and how to challenge it, but there needs to be space for differences amongst those of us striving for a better world. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you alone have figured it out, and need to control those around you to bend them towards your vision. Of course, we can’t actually know how the path will unfold or what will ultimately be effective. The world is too various, the terrain too diverse and forever-changing, so don’t act like an authoritarian. That being said, it is useful to discuss and even debate theories of change with your network, because we do need to be discerning. Maybe someone will confront you with an idea you hadn’t considered, or your perspective and life experience will expand someone else’s framework. Leave space for that. I believe in you, in us, that we can live with this nuance!
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
To illustrate what a theory of change looks like, I will share a few aspects of my own and how I came to them.
I have been involved with and attentive to Indigenous-led anti-pipeline movements on Turtle Island since the #NoDAPL movement in 2016 – a struggle that saw thousands of people gather for almost a year to oppose Energy Transfer Partners’ Dakota Access Pipeline. This was a struggle rooted in the long history of Indigenous resistance to colonialism, as well as the reality of the climate crisis and the absurdity of building more fossil fuel infrastructure as we tip into ecological collapse. There is a lot to say about this political moment, and I recommend Lakota historian Nick Estes’ book on the topic titled “Our History is the Future” if you’d like to go deeper. For now I will say that this movement in favor of life on earth was brutally suppressed; the clear and organized “NO” articulated by water protectors seeking to stop the violation of the earth and our communities was ignored, and those who physically took a stand were sprayed with a firehose in the middle of winter and attacked by police dogs. It was wildly undemocratic, to put it lightly.
It illuminated, to me and to many, the inability of settler-colonial governance structures (i.e. the u.s./north dakota) to break with corporate interests – the state will not be wielded in favor of Indigenous sovereignty because its very claim to power depends on Indigenous disempowerment. Relatedly, I came to understand that the u.s. will not stand against the extraction of “resources” from the earth (or lifeforce from workers) because this governmental system was formed in the spirit of imperialism: it was made by and for those who sought to profit off the bounty of the “new world.”
While these insights might seem pessimistic, they actually felt clarifying. Of course there’s some pain that comes with the realization that the governance structures we live within are designed to disempower us, but to think otherwise was a privilege and an illusion to begin with. When you begin to reject the false promises of electoral politics and reformism, you join a long lineage of liberation seekers who have sought more potent means of challenging capitalistic powers.
One part of my theory of change, then, is that we can not rely on approaches rooted in electoral politics to achieve the change we need. So, what comes next? This is the work of our lifetimes, and there is no easy answer. But, staying with the example of Indigenous-led anti-pipeline movements, we see that these struggles are not just a negation of the fossil fuel economy, they are also an affirmation of long-lived lifeways that center community care and deep, reciprocal relationships with the world. The resistance encampments that emerge through the course of opposing pipelines are spaces where these lifeways are practiced. A place (a physical place, importantly – the land is involved!) where people of any background that feel called to oppose capitalistic-colonial domination are welcomed, carefully, at the speed of trust, into conversation and the work of collective upkeep.
Drawing from these experiences, I am heartened and guided by the concept of revolutionary prefiguration. The idea that we must practice, in the here and now, the world that we want to bring about. One thing that electoralism does is it takes you out of the scale of your local community, into the abstracted world of federal or even state politics. Further, it takes you out of the present and into a rigid framework of time structured by an election cycle: wait and see, it might go your way, then things might be better! I reject these alienating concepts in favor of living in my body, with my community, within a specific ecology, facing the unacceptable violences that are happening right now. How do we stop them? It seems to me that a self-sustaining physical intervention has to be a part of any effective strategy. So this is another part of my theory of change. I don’t claim to know the way out, but I have some ideas – I hope you do too.
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
We need to take the challenges of our time seriously. The feelings of overwhelm, time scarcity, and nihilism that crop up are not accidental, they are the outcome of a truly harsh economy and are methods of social control. If we are all tired and grouchy with no time to spare, then who is going to challenge globally ascendant fascism? I say this to remind myself as much as anyone. Staying focused on what we actually think might be effective and engaging in work that is sustainable for us is key in the face of a chaotic media landscape and accelerating global crises. Consideration of your theory of change is one way to gain that clarity. It is a tool worth considering and returning to.
To conclude, I want to briefly discuss fascism. I’m sure, as a Slingshot reader, you’ve been hearing this word a lot lately. All of our alarm bells are ringing, and not without reason. What does fascism actually mean, though? We can’t find our way out alone or in a vacuum, learning from history and radical theory allows us to be discerning: it can inform how we might imagine political openings in the face of contemporary conditions.
Fascism is something specific. It is not another name for any type of dictatorship, or an oppressive society in general. Drawing from black and indigenous radical traditions (which provide greater insight than euro-centric histories of fascism which have blinders on from operating within the heart of the empire) we can understand fascism as an intensification of the tendencies that are already present within the form and practice of colonial rule and capitalist imperialism. It is a “mode of punitive governance … animated by a politics of fear, cruelty, racism, and heteropatriarchy that serve as screens for insatiable demands for unobstructed access to land and labor,” (“For Antifascist Futures” p. 6). A feature of fascism is that it is bolstered by a mass movement, usually propelled by the middle class, but the key point is that this is a massive, violent, scare tactic to prevent people from understanding that there is a wealth grab going on – the same impulse towards the consolidation of wealth that lies at the heart of capitalism.
To imagine the defeat of fascism, we must understand what it is and where it is coming from. There is no end to fascism without the end of capitalism and its outgrowth, imperialism. How does this affect our strategy as we move towards liberation? What does this allow you to dismiss as distractions? How can this inform our theories of change?
Don’t forget the love that is underneath the righteous anger that is underneath the nihilism and depression. Our experiences of passivity and confusion are a result of purposeful disempowerment, and that’s another reason to get angry all over again! I am with you in despair and hope. Solidarity forever!