I’ve been part of a book club for non-fiction for a while now, and the group wanted to read more books with a positive message. So I suggested From What Is to What If by Rob Hopkins, and finally got round to reading the book myself. Was really impressive!
I knew Hopkins from my time in the UK and even attended an event with him there once. Originally a permaculturist, he is fairly well known as the founder of Transition Towns – a network of local initiatives where people from a neighbourhood work together, ultimately to combat climate change. Their common goals are: „cutting fossil fuel use, boosting local economies, and strengthening community connections.“ Read more about how they work here.
The book builds on these experiences and explores how the world should be changed to make it a better place to live.
Above all, Hopkins diagnoses a crisis of imagination (in German I would say Fantasie) and shows how, from primary school right through to the world of politics, imagination is curbed and opportunities for creative activity are restricted. This is partly due to „neoliberal economics and growth-based capitalism“. On the other hand, we need more imagination than ever to cope with rising global challenges.
The book presents a series of initiatives from around the world where local people are countering this and have thus created spaces for imagination. Some ideas:
- make art! In Dundee, Art Angel helped young people learn decision making again. Also tell stories and devlop big dreams
- go out in nature! E.g. around sunrise in summer to hear the „dawn chorus“ of birds greeting the sun.
- reclaim your attention – especially from digital devices (right after you finish reading this…)
- create communities – have spaces to talk with others, foster citizens‘ assemblies, …
In the end, it’s not so hard to create better conditions for fostering imagination:
But we do know that in order for the imagination to flourish, a person needs to feel safe, relaxed, connected to other people, be nourished with good food, surrounded by hopeful narratives of the future, invited into what-if spaces, exposed to art in all its forms, not feel under surveillance or time pressured, in as equal a society as possible, able to make meaningful contributions and exposed to nature as often as possible in their daily lives. (p. 161)
However, this sounds at the same time really nice and really far away from most people’s reality today.
So what?
Transition Towns are still around and seem to be doing well in general – although the website says that less than 50% of 961 local groups are „recently active“. There is, however, a conference coming up for the German speaking countries. Shall we go?