Outside In and Inside Out
Unless you have chosen to build our own anarchist commune somewhere in the countryside (and well done to you if you have) we all live our lives within a variety of systems and structures that society has built for us. We pay for things using money. Most people attend school. We go to the doctors when we’re ill, where we can get prescriptions and referrals. You get the gist.
Some of these systems may feel, to us, relatively non-controversial. I like the fact, for example, that the highway code exists and we have an agreed side of the road to drive on, rather than a free for all on the motorway. Others, though, might strike us as ill thought through, not fit for purpose, or even damaging in some way. There are also systems where, whilst many would agree on the underlying principles, the execution leaves something to be desired - many of us are passionate advocates of the NHS, but a lengthy night in an overstretched A&E can quickly leave us lamenting how it’s been reduced to the state it’s in.
Another example that’s interesting to reflect on is our education system. There are clearly some major issues - as any teacher will tell you, it’s an incredibly difficult job, made harder by chronic staff shortages. But beyond the practicalities, I sometimes wonder whether the school system that so many of our children go through is really preparing kids for the world as it now is - as Sir Ken Robinson describes so brilliantly in this TED talk. Maybe we should burn it all down and start again?
This desire to reimagine entirely new systems and ways of doing things often lie at the heart of protest movements. Occupy, Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil - all seek radical shifts in some of the fundamental ways that our society operates. These movements are seeking change from the outside in, using protest and/or civil disobedience to force those in power to pay attention and to act.
Alongside this, you have other groups who also have visions of a system that works differently - perhaps the Green Party might fit into this bracket - but whose route to realising this is via the structures and pathways that already exist. Whilst the Green Party’s view of what society should look like is pretty different to most, if not all, of the other parties, they are using the same mechanism (a political party that stands for election, gets votes, has seats in the House of Commons) by which to try and realise it.
These two approaches to change can, to my mind, be powerfully complimentary, but, too often, people in each camp regard each other with suspicion. Some protest groups view any involvement with the current system as inherently questionable and even corrupting, with the only true, deep solution to society’s problems being to replace those systems wholesale. For those who seek change via existing routes, the demands made by those who protest or lobby from the outside can feel disconnected from the practicalities and realities of making things happen, and calls for radical change can often feel unrealistic or even obtuse.
So to go back to my education system example - I may be someone who thinks you should scrap the whole thing and start again. My ideals might be that kids don’t start school until 6 or 7, that they have a wider and more varied offer, that the focus shifts to solving problems rather than learning facts, that we do away with exams entirely, that different learning styles and preferences are inherently built in to the way that teachers teach so kids who are neurodiverse or learn differently aren’t disadvantaged by a system that doesn’t work for them. I am not well-informed enough to know whether there is data to back up any of the above, but let’s imagine there was - that these approaches all have solid indicators that kids who experience schooling in this way would thrive.
The difficulty here is that, because I’m not someone who is intimately involved in the education system as it currently stands, I can’t necessarily see all the issues and challenges that these kinds of changes might bring and the other knock on effects. If kids don’t start school until 6 or 7, where does that leave working parents who now need to find a year or two more of childcare? Scrapping exams would have a huge knock on effect for higher education - if you’re applying to study medicine, say, you’ll have no grades to offer up to universities who, understandably, might want to know how good at science our future doctors and medical researchers are. A headteacher might look at a list of proposed radical changes and like the sound of all of them, but, considering where the school system is at the moment, may also find it impossible to imagine how you could ever get there.
Right now, in the arts sector, there are calls for radical change from a number of quarters - freelancers who feel like the existing power structures of venues and companies don’t serve the very people who actually create the art; groups calling for the refusal of certain corporate sponsorship deals; people who think that the sector’s programming should be much bolder and more diverse than it currently is. At the same time, there are those within these organisations and systems that are trying to tackle some of these issues with integrity, but who are also faced with the realities of rising costs, shaky audience numbers, more competition for funding, and a wide range of different people demanding a wide range of different things.
Ultimately, I think you need both approaches to find better ways of doing things - people who demand radical shifts from outside of the current system, and people who are committing to changing that system from within. Whichever camp one might fall into, we would do well to remember and respect the importance of the other. For those on the outside who wish to see radical change - remember that most people are basically good, and are not merely serving their own ends but are trying to make the best set of choices they can in what these days can only be described as impossible circumstances. And my reminder to myself, and to others like me who sit within the existing power structures, is to see calls for seismic shifts as positive provocations that should have cause to make us think and question, to give us a moment to lift our heads up from getting stuff done and wonder if there isn’t a better way to do it after all.