
- How to Build a New World in
the Shell of the Old - Prefigurative politics, direct action, education
- If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.
Emma Goldman - Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage
Lao Tzu
One of the oldest ways of thinking about large scale change in a complex adaptive system is, “Build the new within the shell of the old”. It recognizes the need for change without requiring us to embrace either of the macro revolutionary strategies (change through total governance or breaking down governance and starting from scratch). It also requires us to genuinely struggle with how we use the current system as we move forward.
But building the new within the shell of the old is tough if we are to avoid the horrors of building from scratch or trying to force the existing governing levers to embrace radically new values. We have to balance what we are trying to create, with all it’s fits and starts, with the necessity of our continuing, if evolving, dependence on the current system for our everyday existence. Nowhere is this necessity clearer than it is for the disability community.
The current reality will undermine our ability to change largely through forcing us to repeat habits acquired over long periods of time.
To avoid these barriers, we need to have social networks committed to change, and we need to embrace a new set of assumptions about how change is possible.