4. How to realize a sustainable counter-hegemony

4. How to realize a sustainable counterhegemony

1. We, citizens, who come up with and realize new sustainable ideas, are the main lever for a sustainable counter-hegemony.

Realizing a sustainable counter-hegemony requires volume: we need a mass of ideas, people, initiatives and new social organizations.

The good news is, we are not starting from scratch. There is already a basis. Parts of our thinking and acting are already sustainable or at least influenced by sustainability. However, it is by far not enough.

We will have to shift gears and come up with and implement many more sustainable ideas.

2. A sustainable counter-hegemony begins with individuals and becomes concrete through new social organizations.

A sustainable counter-hegemony begins with "how we think" and becomes concrete by "what we do."

It begins by contemplating how we can live and work as sustainably as possible and then deciding what we will do:

• When something is unsustainable, we have to decide whether we will still do it. • When we have several options, some more and others less sustainable, we have to decide which option we will choose.

But the power for change as an individual is limited. Acting sustainably individually is good ("no one is too small to make a difference"2), creating sustainable initiatives together, however, is way better. Our impact multiplies when we work together.

3. We realize a sustainable counter-hegemony together.

To realize new, sustainable ideas, we will need others. That’s when new social organizations can emerge.

While a sustainable counter-hegemony begins with individuals, only when we come and work together does change become real.

4. The building blocks for a sustainable counter-hegemony are new ecological, economic and social ideas.

Coming up with new, sustainable ideas can best be done in those domains where we, as citizens, can generate direct impact. The ecologic, the economic and the social domain provide is that opportunity. That is why we mainly need new ecologically, economically and socially sustainable ideas.

• New environmentally sustainable ideas reduce our ecological footprint and burden the ecosystem as little as possible. • New economically sustainable ideas create a fair added value for all concerned. • New socially sustainable ideas try to keep both individual and group interests in balance.

How we can save our world

But how do you create and realize new, sustainable ideas? You can find some pointers in “How we can save our world”.

This mini-manual is built around NARDIS, an acronym that enables each of us to build sustainable ideas that are new, action-oriented, realizable, (directly) democratic and impactful.

Creating and realizing a wide range of NARDIS ideas together can help us shape a sustainable counter-hegemony.

Piecemeal counter-hegemony.

Still, it is important to understand that you cannot change a complex system as a whole. You need to cut it up into better manageable smaller pieces. That’s why “How we can save our world” focuses on just the ecologic, economic and social domain.

Even though we can present each of these individually, in reality, they cannot be untangled. Presenting them separately is a blunt overgeneralization. There are even many more domains that aren’t presented. Just consider the political, the technologic or legal domains.

Because of this entanglement, a change in one domain will likely also impact other domains. Progress here can be cause for progress there. That’s one of the ways different domains within hegemony and counter-hegemony evolve.

One has to be cautious however of conflating too many different domains, as this can be cause for confusion or a loss of focus. Worse even, it can alienate the very people you’re trying to convince and win over.

5. A sustainable counter-hegemony begins with ad hoc ideas an initiatives that each chart their own sustainable path.

Initiatives that are initially separate and heading in all directions can gradually begin to come into contact with each other. When experiences are exchanged, commonalities and similarities become visible that give those involved the sense of belonging to something they’re building together: the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

Certain ways of thinking and acting are adopted or, if they are already present, placed within a more coherent framework.

What was all over the place at first now begins to move towards a particular direction. A movement can emerge.

When this continues and expands, initial exchanges between a limited group of like-minded new initiatives and organizations can begin to instigate current organizations.

When such exchanges are sustained long enough, the differences between new and current ways of thinking and doing may diminish and even disappear altogether here and there.

When the blurring of differences becomes structural, the conditions are in place to move from counter-hegemony to hegemony.

But on the way there, lots of things can still go wrong.

6. The road towards a sustainable counter-hegemony is very bumpy.

Establishing a sustainable counter-hegemony is quite a challenge, not least because we must do so within the current hegemony. When we establish new social organizations, they will stand alongside other, current social organizations and new, sustainable ideas will compete with current ones. More than once, this will be cause for tension.

7. A sustainable counter-hegemony constantly runs the risk of being hijacked by the current hegemony.

Hijacking is a normal dynamic in a hegemony: by making concessions to a counter-hegemony, hegemony can adopt parts of the counterhegemonic agenda. At the same time, the sharpest edges are filed away.

As such, part of the new thinking and acting is absorbed within the current hegemony. Not too much, because that would disrupt the current hegemony. But also not too little, as that would not remove the counter-hegemonic discontent. A hegemony thus seeks to reduce the thinking and actions of a counter-hegemony to something futile. It aims to neutralize its impact by (partially) claiming it.

These kinds of tactical moves often happen unconsciously but they are of course no less effective.

Through such forms of recuperation, hegemonies continue to evolve.

But for a counter-hegemony, recuperation can be devastating. It can choke the momentum and lead to disillusionment.

8. A sustainable counter-hegemony must arm itself against the current hegemony.

A sustainable counter-hegemony can arm itself against recuperation by the current hegemony in several ways:

• By being sufficiently radical (especially at the outset). • By realizing the new thinking as much as possible within new social organizations rather than trying to transform existing social organizations. • By operating outside existing institutions as much and as long as possible. • By simply remaining conscious and vigilant of any form of recuperation by any hegemonic actor. • By flat out seeking the confrontation from time to time.

9. A sustainable counter-hegemony will be diverse: different individuals and social organizations will realize it differently.

There is no one size fits all or uniform way to think and act sustainably. Different people and groups will interpret sustainability differently.

10. Achieving a sustainable counter-hegemony is an ongoing balancing act.

To be successful, new ways of thinking and acting must be accessible to as many people as possible.

It is a continuous process of probing and searching for the right balance: sufficiently antagonistic (clearly separate; almost confrontational) and at the same time agonistic (open to enter into dialogue; respectful of one another; seeking connections; embracing many forms of sustainability as much as possible while staying true to the own sustainable counter-hegemonic identity).

Sustainability can be a great connector: we can be sustainably connected while respecting our differences in other domains.

Across all these boundaries and differences, we can strive for the broadest possible sustainable alliance, by showing appreciation for every form of genuine sustainability.

11. Achieving a sustainable counter-hegemony requires persistence.

Sustainable counter-hegemonic thinking and acting does not happen overnight. It requires sustained effort and focus from many people.

It is continually working towards a different future along with many others within a sometimes hostile current hegemony.

The paths towards a sustainable society will be very diverse. Even though we will often try to follow in someone else's footsteps, we will never be able to travel in exactly the same way. We will all have to chart our own path.

What matters is that we embark on the journey with as many as possible, as quickly and decisively as possible and stick to it as long and consistently as possible.

Even though the chances of success are uncertain, the right direction will often be unclear, and it may feel like fighting a losing battle more than once, we must persevere.

What if we fail?

Our future will be sustainable or it won't be. It's that simple. That's the urgency of a sustainable counter-hegemony.

Every day that is unsustainable is a day lost that we can never recover. We have already lost decades. This is our decade of truth.

CHAPTER 4 | How to achieve a sustainable counter-hegemony

There are several paths that can lead to a sustainable society. When we work together to turn our sustainable ideas (how we think) into concrete actions (what we do), we, citizens, create for ourselves the best opportunities to help determine what a sustainable hegemony will look like.

We, citizens, coming up with and realizing new, sustainable ideas together, are the main lever for change. “How we can save our world” and NARDIS can help with that.

However big the effort we put in, the road to a sustainable society will likely be long and bumpy.

Not a sustainable dictatorship

We can follow different roads towards a sustainable society, but if we, citizens, want to co-determine the direction of this new hegemony, one of our better options is to work together to achieve a sustainable counter-hegemony.

Otherwise, a sustainable dictatorship may very well emerge. When the need to save the planet becomes that pressing and urgent, there may be consent within society about enforcing drastic sustainable measures.

When global warming throws our daily lives into even more tangible disarray, there is a real possibility that a majority of the population will embrace a sustainable dictatorship (enlightened or otherwise). Although such an approach could save the planet, it most likely would at the same time suspend a whole series of freedoms.

Fortunately, it hasn't come to that yet. By working together as citizens and striving towards a sustainable counter-hegemony, we can still shape our own future. We still hold the keys largely in our own hands.

The role of the media

Access to media outlets can be important to spread sustainable ideas as widely as possible. But gaining access is neither easy nor without risk.

Large media institutions are part of the current hegemony and favor affirmative voices and the status quo. There is some room for criticism and counter-thinking but only within certain boundaries. Those who draw outside the lines often find it harder to be heard. That is why we always see and hear the same talking heads.

Moreover, appearing in the current media is a form of conformity to the current hegemony. Enabling some counter-hegemonic voices to be heard within the current hegemonic chalk lines can be a way to

(partially and safely) recuperate (and thus neutralize) some counter-hegemonic thinking and acting.

For those new voices emerging from within the counter-hegemony that are featured in the media, it will be important not to lose sight of the many risks, like…

• Recuperation of (part of) the counter-hegemonic thinking and acting in order to render it harmless. • Watering down of the counter-hegemonic ideas and actions when we’re getting too close to the current hegemonic ideas and actions. • Celebrating successes that may seem impactful from a hegemonic standpoint but that are by far insufficient from a counter-hegemonic standpoint.

For those who want to follow a more radical counter-hegemonic approach by, for example, deliberately staying clear from media institutions, it will be important not to lose touch with the wider population:

• Focusing too much on one's own rightness can lead to ghettoization in thought and action, making it impossible to achieve broad support. • Holding on too tight to one's own more radical principles can make it impossible to reach the wider population. When the current media channels are excluded from communication on the basis of more radical principles, you may retain the purity of your principles but at the same time you risk reaching far too few people to be truly impactful. When you want to preserve the purity of your counter-hegemonic principles by separating yourself from the wider society, it will be nearly impossible to hoist that same society on board either.

Spreading counter-hegemonic thinking and acting within a hegemonic reality is a difficult balancing act and finding the right balance will require constant adjustment.