I can only agree with the line of thought of this article. I lost belief in persuasion decades ago, upon seeing that almost no one, ever, changes his mind based on even excellent argumentation. All great changes of mind, almost always, are based on some personal experience, and the experiences can be imagined as well as real. There are lots of examples of this in literature, film, painting and other forms of culture.
This, in fact, is what I try to do in my two Octolution novels, Octolution 2027 and Sun City, available on Amazon (see my Linktree https://linktr.ee/erkki.kauhanen_eng). They are experiments of the mind, not pretending to be realistically achievable, but rather, see them as something to feed your thinking about animal rights.
Just shows that we can share the message in so many ways and the more we get people thinking in different environments, the sooner we can reach our goals. Always a joy to read!
The ‘The Animals’ Lawsuit Against Humanity’ is one of my favourite and most inspiring tales. It was lovely to have Animal Think Tank’s SXSW panel about a MultiSpecies city juxtapositioned with it in your article.
Subcultures are critical infrastructure for imagining, rehearsing and prefiguring visions of a future, better society that all successful movements have relied on.
Sanctuaries do this work, and artistic communities have always done it, and then brought it to the public. We need more!
Thanks Mark. Absolutely. Arten Festival in Zurich married both sanctuary and artistic practice beautifully this summer, performing a true practising utopia; growing culture in an exciting and invigorating way.
Re-reading your article has made me think three things (for now):
- that performance doesn’t have to be exclusive to the arts and cultural sector. I hadn’t realised it, but yes, prepping for SXSW was like crafting performance: thinking audience; what we wanted them to feel, imagine and take away; crafting a storyline; and the outcome being audience members who took the conversation beyond the room.
- that helping people ‘imagine’ a future possibility could perhaps be a core tenant of the movement’s comms. More persuasive and strategic than our current persuasion methods perhaps.
- that we don’t need a nailed down design of the future vision yet. We’re very conscious at Animal Think Tank that we communicate the nightmare of today much more than we share the vision of tomorrow. Designing that future is a big undertaking, but imagining it in different forms and different ways can be done right now and is probably all we need for now. A bottom up vision stitched together from a myriad of sources.
I can only agree with the line of thought of this article. I lost belief in persuasion decades ago, upon seeing that almost no one, ever, changes his mind based on even excellent argumentation. All great changes of mind, almost always, are based on some personal experience, and the experiences can be imagined as well as real. There are lots of examples of this in literature, film, painting and other forms of culture.
This, in fact, is what I try to do in my two Octolution novels, Octolution 2027 and Sun City, available on Amazon (see my Linktree https://linktr.ee/erkki.kauhanen_eng). They are experiments of the mind, not pretending to be realistically achievable, but rather, see them as something to feed your thinking about animal rights.
Just shows that we can share the message in so many ways and the more we get people thinking in different environments, the sooner we can reach our goals. Always a joy to read!
Thank you Leanne. Absolutely!
The ‘The Animals’ Lawsuit Against Humanity’ is one of my favourite and most inspiring tales. It was lovely to have Animal Think Tank’s SXSW panel about a MultiSpecies city juxtapositioned with it in your article.
Subcultures are critical infrastructure for imagining, rehearsing and prefiguring visions of a future, better society that all successful movements have relied on.
Sanctuaries do this work, and artistic communities have always done it, and then brought it to the public. We need more!
Thanks Mark. Absolutely. Arten Festival in Zurich married both sanctuary and artistic practice beautifully this summer, performing a true practising utopia; growing culture in an exciting and invigorating way.
Re-reading your article has made me think three things (for now):
- that performance doesn’t have to be exclusive to the arts and cultural sector. I hadn’t realised it, but yes, prepping for SXSW was like crafting performance: thinking audience; what we wanted them to feel, imagine and take away; crafting a storyline; and the outcome being audience members who took the conversation beyond the room.
- that helping people ‘imagine’ a future possibility could perhaps be a core tenant of the movement’s comms. More persuasive and strategic than our current persuasion methods perhaps.
- that we don’t need a nailed down design of the future vision yet. We’re very conscious at Animal Think Tank that we communicate the nightmare of today much more than we share the vision of tomorrow. Designing that future is a big undertaking, but imagining it in different forms and different ways can be done right now and is probably all we need for now. A bottom up vision stitched together from a myriad of sources.
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