From Complicity in Destruction to Participation in Regeneration

We have reached the dire point in civilisation where the majority of our daily actions are bound up in a destructive and extractive economy. Whether we know it or dislike it or ignore it, the fact is that most products we use, foods we eat and actions we take are complicit in the very opposite of what we believe in. This manifests in more obvious forms such as fossil fuel dependency, daily plastic use and industrial food diets. But the complicity in destruction plays out in much more powerful, insidious and hidden ways than we might imagine, even for those who consider themselves out the system. This post aims to bring to the surface honestly the ways we are all complicit in the ‘Windigo’ (extractive, greedy- see Kimmerer 2013) economy of yesterday/today, and to bridge towards a new economy of tomorrow that is decentralised, regenerative, collaborative and bioregional (Raworth 2016). It’s entirely possible; ‘the economy’ is in many ways a social construct reflecting where we place value, with very real physical consequences for people and planet - it has been designed and implemented by humans in a short-term time frame, so we can radically re-design and re-distribute our way out of it into tomorrows decentralised economies of place.

We need to challenge our own perfectionism that pretends to be innocent or separate from the destructive economy, a tendency which curiously operates both in greenwashing and environmental purism - two paradoxical sides of the same coin of disingenuity. The environmental moralism and superiorism that calls out anyone not acting perfectly, blind to their own complicity but quick to judge others imperfection, or to dismiss or ‘cancel’ a person/project because they found some conspiratorial link to something that is not aligned in their bible. Any narrative that solely places systemic issues on the individual is part of the problem. We need individual and collective accountability, alongside the ability to move forwards with our authentic imperfectness, in active hope of a better world for future generations. The purity, when it comes from real integrity and humility, is applauded, and of course we need the radical edges and model behaviour (especially from our elders) to keep us to the values, to keep the movement of movements aligned in means and ends as much as possible, rooted in principles and integrity. But to qualify for this integrity, it needs to also be practiced not just preached and called out; its easy to be critical, or to be stuck in the academic objections, without real life experiences of what its like to try and implement systemic solutions in todays world of contradictions. We see this calling out and blame games in so many forms and its causing myriad rifts in movements, from the animal activists calling out farmers without lived understanding of what its like to make those decisions of survival & trade-offs amidst the economic, consumer and policy pressure cooker. River activists calling out the staff of a water company, without understanding what its like to manage the populations poo every day. We need the speaking of truth to power, holding accountable, and willingness to shake things up to change things – but this speaking the truth to power comes not from calling out blindly, social media remarks, or uninformed stabs at farmers, utilities staff or imperfect projects or solutions. Some of the actors in the grey middle ground, in companies that are imperfect or in people that are ‘part of the system’ (which we all are essentially), these very actors that are often called out by the purists may well be on the cusp of waking up and changing things from real places that could make a systemic impact, if they are called in and invited into this work rather than villainised.

Likewise the calling out of well-intentioned people and projects about boycotting and divesting on social media has a tragic irony, whereby the users of these social media platforms are automatically complicit themselves in that which they critique - the platforms, financiers, tech and data companies dominating the online world are the ones most complicit in the destructive activities. As are the phones we use, the banks we hold money in, the insurance companies, pension companies and any wealth inherited – almost every pound is used dynamically in huge global investment portfolios that make money from investment in the most profitable parts of todays economy – which is still unfortunately coupled to environmental and social degradation (and wars). This is shifting, as some regenerative economics, renewable technologies and genuine enterprises are making other forms of ‘regenerative investment’ attractive, and funnelling money into new activities that restore life rather than depleting it. But in the meantime we have a long way to go, and need to channel much more money from the destructive paradigm into the regenerative futures unfolding in the now.

We need to honestly and soberingly realise how embedded we all are and collectively dream a way out. And we can/must use parts of the current system to overcome it, which might be a challenging provocation for purists to accept. From doing a rather depressing but informative degree in economics I’d estimate that at least 99% of global capital flows to the destructive economy today, and we’re not going to ‘create the new systems in the shell of the old’ unless we re-direct that energy, resource and support the everyday people bound up in a bad system. Calling in rather than calling out. Learning from natures generosity and forgiveness, and taking a leap of trust in humanity however difficult that seems today. Nature does not love conditionally, she does not give the blackberry only to the ‘perfect ones’ (if such a thing exists); she does not judge and ‘call out’ from the wild strawberry patch, giving only to those that have had the privilege to find themselves woke and put their morals above others, instead she gives generously and trusts that the sweetness of fruits in time will be returned, knowing that it is only through the love of a mother that we come back home, not through rejection or shackling.

As healthy individual and organisational practice, we should all face up to and reflect on our complicities, but not be then paralysed by perfectionism that breeds inaction and blame/shame games. There can be an element of projection when we see something blossom that we’ve dreamed of creating, and in our dreams of course its perfect – in reality we see a flaw in the plan and compare it to our ideals – and we channel the root of our envy into a regaining of control and high ground through critique, often behind the safe anonymity of a keyboard or screen. When we should be supporting, and calling in, giving feedback lovingly and supporting with the refinement and continued success of all the myriad solutions that take us a step closer to our ideals. I’ve had to personally confront this recently, accepting funds for a project from a non-ideal funding source, that I had concerns about but also didn’t look deeply enough into their complicity in environment, arms and occupations. Despite being relatively food sovereign growing my own, energy sovereign with many solar panels on my river boat home, and banking with ethical providers etc, I have had to confront the reality of my own complicity in destruction and oppression globally, albeit at a minimised level. This might be through website providers, the data hosts of the laptop I write this on, the social media I share it on, the funds some of my projects have received or items I buy that haven’t the full traceability of source consequences. We externalise responsibility and most subtle day to day consumption is blind to the consequences of it. We offshore accountability and thus colonialism and extraction continue. Not because of the fault of one individual, but a systemic design that isn’t built to regenerate or redistribute… The hardest hitting of all was realising that many of our day to day activities indirectly fund the violent occupation of Palestine where I have visited, volunteered, farmed and made many friends, a situation that still brings me grief on a regular basis. The UK is central to this, both in the government policies that allowed oppressive occupation and the City of London financial centres that now fund it, using all of our money every day.

I’m left in a paradoxical situation, an almost helpless feeling whereby one decision (e.g. withdraw complicity completely) leads to a paralysis and inaction, and continually shrinking my impact and work in the world, and probably then falling into the blame/shame trap when I see others choosing differently. And the other choice to continue leads to compromises, non-alignment and non-accountability for the consequences of all my actions (direct and indirect). There is a third way, and its tricky to walk, because it involves holding multiple truths, that we must walk forwards in todays world, and we must redirect the forces of destruction, composting capitalism and midwifing a new society in the shell of the old. In the example of accepting grant money from a funder that has some unsavoury investments, I choose to take it and redirect it in the context, need and urgency of the situation. If I had the privilege or financial abundance to decline such money for regenerative activities that need to happen yesterday, I would simply reject any imperfect funding on the principle of not giving the old systems any air time. But I took the difficult decision to compromise, and to call in rather than call out. Perhaps even use this as an opportunity to spread more awareness about just how complicit we all are and open the conversation about how we might transform this story, channelling capital away from destruction and towards life’s regeneration. The majority of financial transactions we make on card or online, all of our data, insurance companies, most banks, technology we use and the companies that we have come to rely on for daily needs – most of these are invested in and reliant on profits from extractive and exploitative industries. The financial, data and tech worlds that dominate our daily lives, including social media platforms and website hosts, are bound up in military arms investments, occupations, climate destruction and continuing fossil fuel investment. When any individual or organisation looks honestly at their own affairs there are very few that are disentangled from this grip.

Digging deeper into this is a sorry story, revealing that most activities in todays ‘modern’ world are complicit, and directly or indirectly feeding into the Windigo of endless consumption and growth that is depleting our resources and fuelling violence in all forms. Financial flows are complex and every pound that flows in global finance has literally hundreds of layered investments, bonds, allocations in the capital markets. What are we to do, as ‘ethical consumers’ we can of course boycott and withdraw our support, but I’m yet to meet anyone that has disentangled themselves fully from the spiders web that is global neoliberalism (capitalism on ketamine); it’s so pervasive in our daily lives in ways incomprehensible to most, hidden from view yet impacting our world in plain sight. Furthermore, simply withdrawing a small minority of funds hasn’t really made a dent in corporate profits or changed the systems of extraction (with a couple of notable exceptions of successful boycotts for individual items). I’d love to learn about an example of when one of these campaigns has led to truly dismantling the destructive capital flows, and maybe there could be the occasional case of this – but too often a boycott leads to reinvestment elsewhere in a place there’s less media attention, or bides its time until the spotlight is off. A company takes funds out of Israels occupation but puts it into the occupations and genocide in east Africa where there is less social media attention for example. Ultimately the investments follow profit, and profit is still largely coupled to extraction, until we redistribute finance flows and create new, decentralised, bioregional economies of place, alongside the myriad other solutions and systemic actions that are needed.

We are launching such a bioregional vision that operates from new/ancient circular economics, called We Are Avon. And we will not be afraid to channel funding from the old dying economy into this new regenerative era. We will focus on grassroots funding such as crowdsourcing (to regenerate our river for everyone), community shares models (to launch the regional land trust with community ownership), and ethical regenerative enterprises (to fund the producer’s cooperative for example). In the longer term, we envision bioregional financing facilities where completely new currencies and economics can flourish; this is the way to truly remove and replace the destructive global capital flows, and to shift £millions value into circular economies of place that really benefit the people and nature most in need of our support now (see https://www.biofi.earth for some examples and models). Once we take back sovereignty of our basic needs of life – food, water, and shelter – away from the windigo economy and towards communities of place acting in reciprocity, we will find ourselves no longer dependent on a system that acts out of alignment with our values. More on this bioregional economics in the next blog post !