ADAM OLSEN -- From my time in the British Columbia legislature, I can confirm the ideas are readily available. It's the will that is lacking

Prologue

Heads up. This post is dense.  

It might be one of my densest yet. It takes me back to high school when I was working over a few "isms" like Marxism, capitalism and anarchism. Back to the days when the school administrators called to plead with my mother to get me to stop holding "anarchy sessions" in the smoking pit. I was the kid who stayed up well past my bedtime repeatedly watching a VHS copy of Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent.

In some ways this post is a tribute to a 25-year personal struggle with the cultural and economic forces driving our decisions. Now I have the responsibility as an elected official, the opportunity to make change and to actively work to create the more just and compassionate society we have long dreamed of.

 

Re-deal

Last week, I attended the town hall discussion in Victoria for The Pact for a Green New Deal.

The Fernwood Community Centre was full, people were lining the walls and flowing out the doors. The energy in the room was electric - an excited mix of fear and optimism reverberated through the opening presentations and the hundreds of individual conversations that followed.

There is a growing frustration with the outcomes our economic and political institutions are producing. With every passing day we are learning more about the dire situation we face with global warming. People want change.

The grassroots effort of "the Pact" is to gather people and ideas to create a document of policy and principles that can help lead us through these difficult times. It's an attempt to re-orient our 21st century culture or replace it entirely with a new vision for a more just, compassionate society that looks after people and nature.

A few common themes

There were a few common themes that kept showing up. There was an overwhelming desire to stop government subsidization of fossil fuels and to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

I agree and I am on the record in the British Columbia legislature passionately advocating for both of these issues (along with many others that I overheard in the crowd). From my private conversations with my colleagues in both government and the official opposition, these are ideas that many of them support as well. So where is the action? Why are people feeling desperate, unheard and unrepresented?

These are by no means new initiatives. They have been on the table for the whole two years that this BC NDP government has been in control of the province. In fact, very few of the ideas from the town hall will be a surprise. Investments in clean energy, easier access to mass transportation, addressing inequality are obvious priorities. So where is the disconnect?

Questioning the status quo

The latest episode of the Philosophize This! podcast threw lifeline. It's a 25-minute crash course on Antonio Gramsci's early 20th century work on cultural hegemony. Stephen West highlights many important points for everyone hoping to get a result from the efforts of "the Pact".

This is not the first time we have seen this social boil. Remember Karl Marx? Remember the growing angst of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie? The former is going to rise up in revolution against the latter because they will inevitably grow tired of their social and economic imprisonment.

However, in the early 21st century, much like the early 2oth century, the social and cultural observers ask, where is the revolution?

It's at this point that I am thankful West infuses Gramsci into my mental ebb and flow. The ideas alone are not enough. From my time in the British Columbia legislature, I can confirm the ideas are readily available. It's the will that is lacking, even from a so-called progressive government that most of the people at the town hall voted for in the last provincial election.

Power and control

We have to understand how political power is exerted through the control of the culture.

How does "political control and more specifically the very important question of: when there is a dominant social group or a dominant class within a society…how exactly does that group ascend to power and then beyond that…how do they MAINTAIN that power once they’ve gotten it…especially when the social order that they promote WITH that position of power often times is at odds with the wellbeing of the average person?" [1]

This is the situation that most (if not all) of the people in the Fernwood Community Hall were in last week. The people they put their trust (their single vote) in have either completely failed their principles with fossil fuel subsidies (Site C/LNG Canada) or are dragging their feet (the UNDRIP).

Perhaps we can learn from history.

"Remember a cultural hegemon will have control over the intellectuals, the education and the philosophy of a society. The goal of anyone trying to bring about any kind of social change should be to provide alternatives in all three of these areas…they should create a counterculture…an alternative set of cultural norms and taboos reinforced by intellectuals whose job it is to actively CHALLENGE the status quo." [2]

Shifting culture

The sense in the room last week was that the outcomes need to change. I agree. However, are the people in that room willing to change the culture that produces those outcomes?

"...the proletariat continues to live in chains…because they’ve come to accept those chains as the natural state of the world that they need to come to terms with. Cultural norms become to the average person what Gramsci calls the “common sense” that they use to make sense of their place in the world." [3]

There is a big job ahead. Perhaps the increasing acceptance of the climate crisis will be the impetus we need. When I look at the list of the individuals supporting "the Pact" in Canada, I see there are many cultural and intellectual leaders. In all my recent visits to schools, I have an overwhelming sense that our public education system, our teachers, are leaders on these issues. Our youth are aware, and leading. So that leaves us with our thinking?

Through my work meeting and talking with hundreds of people from diverse political, social and cultural perspectives, I am uncovering a growing agreement that we need an economic system that does not profit from the exploitation of people or undermine the integrity of the life-sustaining ecosystems of planet Earth.

The ballot box question?

So as West notes, "very quickly the trend that emerged in neo-Marxist thought of the time was that control over a population of people extends far beyond the halls of congress or the ballot box. Political control is almost always dictated by cultural control." [4]

So where does this leave us? We have to change the culture, and the town hall on "the Pact" is a good start.

However, those people are going to be have shake loose from the political cultural narratives that has driven how they vote. In British Columbia, we must stop rewarding people for saying one thing and doing another simply because they appear slightly better than the alternative.

The intellectuals are on board, the education system and our youth get it, now we have the challenge to change our thinking and turn it to action.