Céline Keller on "Who is afraid of Degrowth?" January 31st @ 12pm SLT
And here is another topic that splits the "left" but really does NOT HAVE TO!
Céline is an amazing graphic artist and climate activist, and she uses her skills to sort through the absolutely insane clutter of mis/dis/un-informed takes (concerning climate justice but also a wide variety of other related issues) that litter social media and RL conversations alike.
She caught my attention through her excellent comic “Dawn of the ECT” in which Céline demystifies the latest dangerous neoliberal absurdity known as the Energy Charter Treaty.
Strange, simplistic, sometimes bizarre “opinions” on current affairs, and all of these affairs are admittedly complex and require a lot of scrutiny/media literacy to decipher, are often shared among friends/family with glee and dopamine induced frenzy on Facebook, Insta, etc, and I do certainly have a level of empathy towards folks who arrive at these BS opinions via consuming media all day that do one thing and one thing only: manufacture consent …
Now be that as it may: sometimes one gets exposed to this unsolicited “analysis” IRL, more specifically: in the neighborhood park. I am speaking from experience because as a seemingly benevolent extrovert with a dog I do talk to everybody, and yesterday I have learned - according to a Munich-area woman of affluence, approx 65 y/o, white, very angry - that former German chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision in 2015 to “let in the flood of migrants that we now pay for and are therefore hungry and poor in old age, and have to collect bottles just to stay housed coz Merkel let in the hordes …” was in fact a LEFT-WING COMMUNIST PLOT (and not what I had assumed: a centrist politicians calculated move to get a handle on sinking poll numbers among other tactical considerations)… go figure …
But I digress: let us welcome Céline Keller to the SL Book Club (she is very new to Second Life but seems to very much like her avatar which was created by Arietu Kiyori) …
… and her BRANDNEW work on the topic of degrowth, a topic which is, unbeknownst for the longest time to yours truly (maybe living in a virtual world fulltime made me ignorant of actual REALITY?), a very controversial one on the Left?
What?
Why?
Spoiler alert: I am firmly in the camp of folks who think the capitalist mode of production is not only harmful to the lives of every wage worker on the globe but is also destroying this same planet.
Duh!
Hence I am totally for trying out degrowth concepts and I don’t find it hard to walk and chew gum at the same time: degrowth does NOT mean having developed countries “dictate” how developing nations should conduct their economic planning. It does NOT have to become a concept to restrict poor countries’ attempts to achieve equitable living conditions/prosperity for their citizens.
One more duh!
I can think of (and so can Céline and many many other smart peeps who read books rather than post on Twitter all day) any number of strategies how to restrict harmful ways of production, put laws into place to regulate the profiteering from goods that are destroying the environment, and all this could be done while putting global justice up front and center.
Maybe colonial attitudes by former and current “superpowers” and their toxic corporate (unofficial in terms of being unelected, yet nonetheless influential, since neoliberalism rules us all) spokespeople - sorry, spell that “mouthpieces” (can you spell “Elon” and or “the Zuck”?) - prevent the Global North from realizing their utter hypocrisy? Prevents them from LISTENING to strategies put forth by thinkers from the Global South, who are disproportionately harmed by the climate crises?
Anyways: come to the show and chime in. Let’s make this a lively discussion and hopefully we are exiting the virtual realm with new found context that can be spread around in the physical world as well?
Change minds and all that? IRL?
Side project: convince Céline (after her funding campaign for the degrowth book is successfully completed) to make a Machinima in Second Life as alternative to her excellent animated video projects 👇
We could become an antidote to the deliberate deployment of confusion that leads to in-action/resignation which seems to be THE desired mode for the folks in power?
Not holding my breath that I’d ever be able to convince that lady from the park I referenced above but there are plenty of folks who still have retained their basic empathy for other human beings and therefore can be “rescued” from bad bad BAD actors manipulating them, bad actors from all sides of the political spectrum!
Let’s do good, and let’s do it with COMIC BOOKS !!!!
See you in-world !