Hope Punk 2022

11 comments on “Hope Punk 2022 ”

• Comments are now closed

1. miravox 1

   1 January 2022 at 3:01 pm

   Thanks for this beautifully written post weka. Just the content I needed at the start of what seems to be a nervously unpredictable year.
   • weka 1.1

     1 January 2022 at 8:28 pm

     thanks miravox. Uncertainty does seem to the be a theme.
2. Dennis Frank 2

   1 January 2022 at 4:03 pm

   Hope as precursor to attitude, and attitude as energiser of activity. Necessity being the mother of invention, we need to invent nonlocal community. I put up a website for that purpose in 2011 but folks are slow to catch on.

   I've been brainstorming three presentations for a permaculture hui since I attended the one at Waihi Beach three years ago where discussion pointed to social/political permaculture as the next trend. I was actually scheduled to deliver the first at the Whanganui hui but it got cancelled in spring due to the pandemic. Title of that is Recycling Ancient Wisdom – how useful stuff from the past can provide resilience nowadays. I realised that a lifetime investigating it ought to be put behind me – via a switch to provision.

   So whereas permaculture focused on land usage, then branched out into habitat, it ought to shift up a gear again. We need mental tech to regenerate community. We know that because our default to inherited culture combined with sociobiological internal programming is producing a toxic stew. Social media makes this obvious.

   Since permaculture is design-based, we need to identify relevant design principles. I took a look at Holmgren's list from 20 years ago, found several that were convertible, converted those into language appropriate for social & political contexts, and decided that the next best place to look was the past and what worked there.

   However a lateral thinker can also spot useful patterns of behaviour that pull folks together in common cause in contemporary society. So my other two presentations (almost worked out) head down that path. Contemplate, for instance, the confluence of psychodynamics that make a rock band into a social organism. Notice the role of context (audience as community). Then the intellectual challenge becomes one of abstracting the operative principles, and then articulating those as design principles.
   • Robert Guyton 2.1

     1 January 2022 at 8:37 pm

     Hi Dennis – at Waihi, did you meet/hear Robyn, from Riverton? She pitched for the following hui in Riverton, which "happened" here in our forest-garden. I wonder if you 2 spoke together?
     • Dennis Frank 2.1.1

       2 January 2022 at 6:02 am

       Not that I recall Robert. I recall an excellent talk on the building of earth ships by a young kiwi woman who had been building them both here & various places overseas. I met Robina & Lillee & Fiona & they crashed overnight at my place on their subsequent tour. Had a good catch-up with Nandor Tanczos too.
3. Blazer 3

   1 January 2022 at 5:01 pm

   'hopepunk'…how very simple…let's hope it goes…viral!
4. Robert Guyton 4

   1 January 2022 at 7:30 pm

   I like this, weka. Despite the detail, I see it as a finger-post to … something, somewhere…

   And that's a good thing: as good as it can be, imo.

   I found a bit of grit though, in your quote from Barry Lopez on murmuration and the behaviour of birds in swarms –

   " Each bird looks to the four or five birds immediately around them to coordinate its movements".

   Rupert Sheldrake addresses the same issue, but provides a "morphic resonance" explanation, which I favour: no matter, your post is in the stream that's flowing in the direction we need to be launching our thoughts. I'm ruminating on it now and hope to comment after my meal is had.
   • weka 4.1

     1 January 2022 at 8:29 pm

     cheers Robert. Writing in the stream that's flowing in the direction we need to be launching our thoughts, a good beginning. Appreciate the encouragement.
5. Blair Camplin 5

   1 January 2022 at 9:57 pm

   Starlings are a scourge to the native environment in New Zealand. Why would you consider them as a hope symbol when all they do is tear down our conservation efforts?
   • weka 5.1

     1 January 2022 at 10:37 pm

     Did you read the post Blair?
6. Dennis Frank 6

   2 January 2022 at 6:22 am

   The Hidden Tribes of America is a year-long project launched by More in Common in late 2018 to better understand the forces that drive political polarization and tribalism in the United States today, and to galvanize efforts to address them. The Hidden Tribes of America study forms the initial phase of the project.

   More in Common works on strengthening societies against the increasing threats of polarization and social division. We aim to build more united, inclusive and resilient societies in which people believe that what they have in common is greater than what divides them.

   We work in partnership with a wide range of civil society groups, as well as philanthropy, business, faith, education, media and government to connect people across the lines of division. Our work includes research into public attitudes, communications initiatives that resonate with a majority who are currently being targeted by populist narratives, and projects that bring people together in ways that counter the forces of fracturing and fragmentation.

   Stephen Hawkins is the Director of Research for More in Common. Since 2016, Stephen has led More in Common’s studies on polarization and division in the United States and across Europe. With a training in polling and public opinion research, he has advised partners and clients on five continents. His clients have included political candidates and movements, Fortune 100 companies such as Ford and Microsoft, and United Nations agencies. He received his Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

   Daniel Yudkin is the Associate Director of Research at More in Common and a postdoctoral researcher in the Psychology Department at Yale. His research focuses on how people assess and influence their surroundings, including how they decide between right and wrong, compare themselves to others, and explore new spaces. He received his PhD in social psychology at New York University, was a Fellow at Harvard University, and has been a contributing writer to the New York Times, The Guardian, and Scientific American.

   I cite the above to demonstrate that this is serious social science research by academics with relevant expertise.

   Why seven groups or tribes?

   America is a complex and diverse society of 325 million people… In reviewing the groupings that emerged from multiple iterations of the hierarchical cluster analysis process, we found that seven groups were distinct enough from each other to be worthy of presentation as separate groups. If we had presented more than seven groups, some of the groups would be so similar to each other as to be hard to distinguish.

   Presenting fewer than seven groups would have resulted in members of some tribes being too different from each other to be accurately placed under the same label.

   Here's a quick snapshot of each group:

   Progressive Activists (8 percent of the population) are deeply concerned with issues concerning equity, fairness, and America's direction today. They tend to be more secular, cosmopolitan, and highly engaged with social media.

   Traditional Liberals (11 percent of the population) tend to be cautious, rational, and idealistic. They value tolerance and compromise. They place great faith in institutions.

   Passive Liberals (15 percent of the population) tend to feel isolated from their communities. They are insecure in their beliefs and try to avoid political conversations. They have a fatalistic view of politics and feel that the circumstances of their lives are beyond their control.

   The Politically Disengaged (26 percent of the population) are untrusting, suspicious about external threats, conspiratorially minded, and pessimistic about progress. They tend to be patriotic yet detached from politics.

   Moderates (15 percent of the population) are engaged in their communities, well informed, and civic-minded. Their faith is often an important part of their lives. They shy away from extremism of any sort.

   Traditional Conservatives (19 percent of the population) tend to be religious, patriotic, and highly moralistic. They believe deeply in personal responsibility and self-reliance.

   Devoted Conservatives (6 percent of the population) are deeply engaged with politics and hold strident, uncompromising views. They feel that America is embattled, and they perceive themselves as the last defenders of traditional values that are under threat.

   Democracy imposes a banal binary framing on society, inherited from the 18th century. Better to discover what is actually happening.

   Seven is the magic number. The fact that it emerged empirically from the science ought to be considered along with the possibility that the framing was tacitly prompted by the number seven archetype doing its thing in the group mind…

• Comments are now closed

• Log in
• Donate
• Contribute post

• Articles RSS