“History is a living weapon in your hand"

"All for All," a new video series on Democracy at Work.

I’ve been invited to provide weekly half-hour commentary to Democracy at Work, the website and YouTube channel created by Professor Richard Wolff. The series is called “All For All” (you can bookmark the video playlist here). The premiere episode (above) is called “History is a Living Weapon in Your Hand.”

The purpose of this series is to help all of us (especially me, I guess) think more imaginatively and radically about how to forge a society that works for everyone. The theme is based on the idea that our social imaginations must catch up and surpass our technological imaginations.

We’re in a disruptive moment in history. Our many crises and catastrophes are signs of a global system that is breaking down. It’s a time to challenge the assumptions that have shaped the world—to break free of the patterns of thinking that poet William Blake described as “mind-forg’d manacles”—to see and think in new ways so we can organize and act in new ways.

There’s an old saying: “The devil’s greatest trick was convincing us he doesn’t exist.” The global financial system’s greatest trick is convincing us that we don’t exist—that we’ve never lived cooperatively or communally and never will. They want us to believe we only exist as isolated individuals in a lonely struggle for survival.

Global society is fracturing under the pressure of worldview, torn by war, inequality and ecological disaster. Luckily, we’re surrounded by signposts and artifacts that can inspire new patterns of thinking: in history, culture, science, social movements, political philosophy, and so much more.

I'll talk about what I learned working for Bernie Sanders, but I'll also talk about 19th- century anarchists and utopian experiments. I'll talk about why artificial intelligence is actually digital socialism, but I'll also discuss the subversive roots of country music. I'll talk about the cities of the future, but I'll also talk about Rastafarian socialism and the mystical politics of the 1600s.

If all this sounds overly ambitious—well, it probably is. I’m counting on your feedback to guide me and make me do better than I ever could on my own (which is, after all, pretty much the point). I hope it will be a process of exploration.

But why “radical” ideas? We’re facing an interlinked web of catastrophes that demands a radical response. And as we speak, tech oligarchs and right-wing ideologues are rolling out their extremist vision of the human future. (Or should I say, “the inhuman future”?) What Elon Musk is doing is only the tip of the iceberg.

The best way to resist their dark and antihuman vision is by providing a better vision—one that’s bright and beautiful and profoundly human.

The title for this episode comes from Diane di Prima’s poem, “Rant,” which includes several other lines I like to quote, including:

“The only war that matters is the war against the imagination
No one can fight it for you/and no one can fight it but you.”

and

“There is no way out of the spiritual battle
There is no way to avoid taking sides”

A final thought: Radical change is not only possible, it's inevitable. It can benefit the powerful few, or it can forge a future that works for everyone—a world created by all, for all. The choice is ours.