Ok let's dig deeper into this theory, which is informed by the findings from the fieldwork I did for my book. https://twitter.com/RizomaSchool/status/1344287828667228161?s=20

In educated circles (that is, among college educated and higher) we are taught that social change looks like the civil rights movement: public protests, demonstrations, sometimes looting, but actively political and motivated by ideas.

Right now we are in such a complex set of crises, and power is so incredibly intrenched, it is very, very hard for most people (including the highly educated) to understand what a meaningful political solution might even look like.

We do continue to strive to imagine political solutions, but my sense of the problem with this is that we spend a lot of time in the imaginary, which can be both alienating and naïve.

That is, we need to entirely remake our system and such a project simply cannot happen in our heads. If you want incremental change, imagining how a single law or policy would fit into that system is relatively straightforward.

But building an entirely different world, which is what I believe is the correct political project of today, is simply too complex for us to create in an imaginary space. We simply cannot hold all the complex factors of a society in our heads at once.

This is why, as a political project, it makes much more sense to *test* different aspects of the world you'd like to see in the real society that already exists. There are three good reasons for this:

1. Your idea or project gets stronger by being field tested
2. You can get more people convinced of your idea if they see it working successfully in action rather than as a concept on a page
3. The work of remaking the world is fun and meaningful!

This second and third points are key to why I think this way. When I interviewed subsistence food producers in Chicago, they got into it because it was lovely and meaningful. It brought them autonomy and joy and solved so many of the practical problems of political failure.

Other people, seeing the success (point 2) and fun (point 3), joined in! Then, when a city councilperson in Chicago threatened to ban chickens, there was this naturally formed community of practice ready to get political to defend this thing they have grown to love.

I don't think people have the same kind of political will when it comes to ideas, but they will defend their right to keep *doing* things that matter to them.

Another added benefit is that communities of practice don't have to be in agreement ideologically. This can lead to really diverse sets of people working together and the barrier to entry is low.

A critique I have of the degrowth movement (and god do I really love them!) is that just to understand the words they use at a meeting requires at least a college degree. I have my PhD in sociology and sometimes I get lost!

If you want to be a part of the chicken community you just go up and say 'hey where did you get that coop?' and you are friends (this is literally what happened in my data).

The final added benefit to the 'build-the-world-you-want-to-see theory of political change' is that these communities of practice know they can rely on each other in times of further stress of crisis. They know whom amongst them has eggs and compost and veg and they share.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Yes, 100% And I also don't think these activities have to be explicitly political in the heads of those doing them. They can be entirely practical and they can become political when something threatens them. https://twitter.com/Jeffrey_Howard_/status/1344706195689377793