Defining the value of purpose

(Text to start recent discussion Kinning Park)

Ever wondered why with all of the activity going on around us nothing much changes apart from rent hikes, more debt, lower wages, bad health and our habit of doing the same things over and over, expecting something different to happen. We need change. But, what do we mean when we say change?

When we at the The Radical Imagination Project say change we mean changing the system. That is, institutional change, not just cultural change, although that is very important in our work.

But before we can make institutional change, that is changing the banks and corporations that control our lives, we first need to understand how the system works – by looking at the whole system. How things connect up relationships between the main agencies in these systems and how they effect us.

But it’s not just about understanding the system, but about how we proceed towards changing it. Wether it be through cultural work, our day job, or however else and by how we live our lives. There is an imperative in building a vision and the conscience to determine a definite purpose towards what we need or are trying to achieve. Otherwise if we do not have this, we will continually fail and our cultural gains, again, will be erased at the next financial crisis.

So how do we engage meaningfully in these things is what we want to look at for this event, in both practical and innovative ways.

For instance how do we look past the mono value of money by embracing and sharing the ethical and moral values we use within our families and relationships. And how can we transfer these values towards others and our community in building an effort towards changing the economic systems that is constructed to oppress us by design.

These values are already expressed in community work, cultural work, anti poverty activities, asylum and many other actions in helping each other to survive as we have done through the mutual aid of the commons for centuries. The question is how do we consolidate these efforts to building a movement strong enough to challenge oppressive elite institutions and replace them with institutions of our own, that better serve our values and needs.

There are local alternatives to our formal banking education, that are more relative to our lives, that have a history, much older than banks and parliaments and in many ways have stood the test of time. We ask. Why are we not using them? The commons, the common good, the open source, place based learning. These are some of the ideas we are explore.

These ideas will not replace capitalism, but might help us to start understand processes, and maybe what needs to be looked at to go towards a much needed vision to do this. And if the change we work for is to be acceptable, relevant and sustainable to folk. It needs to be capable of winning things.

We feel it is urgent to start sharing these ideas and more importantly putting them into practice.

 

If you are interested in this kind of work get in touch.