There are no winners
Every crisis demands that we provide an answer. The very nature of a crisis, whether it’s a pandemic, or a flood, demands a response of those who, like me, hold a public role. Internally though, it demands an answer of each of us, even as we struggle to be good neighbours or watch the waters rising.
What would we do? What should we do?
What if there are no answers?
For the last eight weeks of this pandemic I’ve been working in an environment where, as a professional, I believe I understand one way of tackling the consequences of the pandemic for public space and places. There are other schools of thought that don’t agree with me. In the universe within which I work, I do not have the final decision, nor even a level platform from which to speak. As a result, my remedies are not being implemented in the way I’d like them to be.
If I allow the binary to prevail as a method, then I have lost. I’ve pitched my ideas, marshaled my evidence and not persuaded the audience. My problem is that I don’t believe in the binary. My experience of the world is that it’s complex, multi layered and rich with intersections and connections that refute simple binary explanations. Meg John Barker’s Beyond The Binary is a fixture on my office bookcase. If it’s the case that the world isn’t binary, then even if I have not persuaded the audience of stakeholders I’ve addressed, I may not have lost.
Let me explain why.
Decision making by acclamation has an unhealthy history. Shakespeare hinted at its weaknesses in the key moments of Julius Caesar, a play that amongst all else is a master class in the weaknesses and dangers both of populism and conspiracy. For all Caesar’s achievements and triumphs, he is brought down by others who see his ruthless ambition as legitimizing their own ambitions.
Roll the tape forward from Shakespeare by three hundred years and Carl Schmitt was effectively arguing for populism as a principle, with decision making reduced to a process of acclamation, in language that made him an easy bedfellow for the early Nazi party. The weakness of any binary decision making, whether by acclamation or referendum, is that it’s impossible to include a third option, the one representative democracy was supposed to fix; the box that says ‘it’s a bit more complicated than that.’
When I think about leaders who rule by executive force, and depend on acclamation to give them legitimacy, there’s a common thread. They feature in tragedies, not triumphs. Churchill, who wasn’t above a certain blend of pompous populism of the kind adopted by Boris Jiohnson, lamented that all political careers end in failure. Resisting the binary idea that all there can be is success or failure isn’t just an intellectual nod to the reality of complexity or intersectionality, it’s self care.
It’s not just in my specialist field of place management that the pandemic has been a learning experience about resisting the binary. Every argument about whether we should police others or lead by example, every discussion about facemasks to protect others, not us, every discussion about social distancing and care for our communities has been an opportunity to move the Overton window.
Today the national papers are disclosing that the Prime Minister is rumoured to be preparing for an investment in cycling infrastructure as a public health intervention. If it’s true, it’s an example of a government being pulled by the persistent pressure that has moved the Overton window. In a tiny way each voice raised in favour of a different way or working or travelling moved the window and highlighted the greatest peril of being a populist. Sometimes, as a populist, to find the acclamation you seek, you have to follow opinion, not lead it.
There are no winners in those sorts of situations.
