SECTION 1: ENERGY
CHAPTER 24 - SEEDS ARE FRUIT
Jump forward and backward in time to ensure you’re acting for the long term.
Many Indigenous communities across North America use “seven generations thinking” to make decisions. They think about how their actions today will affect the next seven generations of people.
Focusing only on the short term is a big problem not just in capitalist systems but also in the efficacy of campaigning. For example, the campaign to end the slave trade took decades, and some forms of slavery still exist today. The Chinese government has a 100 year plan. But many organizations, coalitions, and leaders only plan for three or four years, and some make long-term plans without clear steps to achieve them.
So, we come to the third question of reflection: “What now?” Once we understand how the system is changing (Chapter 20), and who and what is contributing to that change (Chapter 21), how do we plan our next steps to reach our Guiding Star and Near Star (Section 2)? We need to consider both:
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Long-termism: Predicting and planning for the future based on rapid and sustained developments
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Long-timism: Cultivating an attitude of care for the world beyond our lifetimes**
It is important to consider what will be needed in seven generations from now. How many people, how much money, and how much effort will it take to change the system over this period? How can we keep the energy and commitment in our community to continue pushing for change? How can we inspire future activists and campaigners to keep the pressure on?
As with all the tools we propose, you will get better results by doing this in community with people you work with and for, and outside with the element of this chapter.
There are three stages to this process:
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Immerse ourselves - Imagine the people we care about and how the world changes for them, in the past and future.
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See the forest for the trees - Consider the long-term and short-term impacts across the system.
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Draw out new paths - Put ourselves in the others’ shoes to find ways to a better world.
Footnote: **We have borrowed the methods here from a Long Time Project practice created by Ella Saltmarshe and Hannah Smith. For more on long-time thinking see their toolkit here: https://www.thelongtimeproject.org/s/Long-Time-Project_Long-Time-Tools.pdf
“In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”― Iroquois Proverb
“To use an agricultural metaphor, the current system [of movements attempting to build narrative power for justice] is focused on generating and cascading seeds of knowledge, but overlooking the soil where it is hoped that this will flourish.” - Global Narrative Hive
“We can’t build what we can’t imagine, so it is imperative for us to create spaces that allow us to infinitely stretch our understanding of what’s possible.” - Walidah Imarisha
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tool: human layers
(with thanks to the longtime project)
Step 1: As a group, stand in a large circle 12 feet across, in a room or outside in a good amount of space. Close your eyes and feel your feet on the ground. Breathe deeply.
Step 2: Think of someone you love or admire of your grandparents’ age. Focus on what it is in them that evokes warmth in you. It could be their smile, something that made them laugh, their hands, anything.
Step 3: Take one step behind where you are and imagine being with that person 40 years in the past. How is that same quality that evoked warmth in you?
Step 4: Take another step back and imagine being with that person another 30 years in the past, at their ninth birthday party. Where are you? Take a look out the window - what is it like? How are people behaving?
Step 5: Now return to the spot you started in and imagine a small person (child, grandchild, niece) who you love or admire, and focus on what it is that evokes warmth in you.
Step 6: Step forward one step and imagine being with that person 40 years in the future.
Step 7: Step forward one step again and imagine you are at their 90th birthday party. The guests toast you. What are they choosing to toast you for?
Step 8: Step back to the place you started in and take two deep breaths, opening your eyes again. You’ve just time traveled almost 200 years. Share with the group how you feel. What’s coming up for you?
tool: human layers
(with thanks to the longtime project)
Step 1:
Go back to your fire chart from Chapter 20. Take 2 sets of Post-Its, each in a different color. Ask the group to write down on the different colors, and place on the chart both positive and negative examples of:
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Long-termism in the system
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Norms, relationships, narratives, processes and outputs that are driving short term results
Step 2:
As a group, discuss how the most critical changes to the system are connected to long-termism and short-termism, and to different stakeholders and efforts that you and others you’ve consulted, have identified. Could you focus your efforts on strengthening or weakening those efforts with the greatest long-term effects?
Step 3:
Return to your overall plan. What changes might you make to your Guiding Star, Near Star, or to your targeting in order to have these greater long-term effects?
tool: human layers
(with thanks to the longtime project)
Part 1:
Go back to your fire chart. In your group, allocate to individuals in your group key stakeholder relationships (not individuals) in the system. These could be human or non-human, e.g. a river with connected ecosystems / a child and their mother in an affected community, the President and the World Bank.
Part 2:
Ask them to consider the implications of your updated plans in terms of:
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Time: What might their needs be in 5, 20, 50 years time? How might your campaign affect them?
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Assumptions: What assumptions about these stakeholders are we making in our plan? Why might these stakeholders question them?
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Practicalities: What constructs do the stakeholders need to know in order to do what we want them to do? How might this stakeholder themselves approach this differently?
Part 3:
What longtime changes in focus do you need to make to your plan to future proof it? Think of these areas:
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Guiding Star and Near Star
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Critical relationships and deep loop
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Target audiences, narrative and activities
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Prevention of and preparation for storms
