How do you change the world? Are the words enough? Or are they just icing on the cake?
How do you change the world? Are the words enough? Or are they just icing on the cake?
from of“I have a dream” of“Ask not what your country can do for you”, Greta Thunberg’s of“You let us down” by Tony Blair of“Educate, educate, educate’, we know words can change the world and have an impact for years to come. These talks hope to persuade, inspire, win – but most of all, they tell a story and hope people will Be moved and join in the fun.
Rebecca Solnit writes hope in the dark:
“Changing the story itself is not enough, but it is often the basis for real change. … This means that every conflict is in some way a battle over the stories we tell, or who tells and who gets heard. “
Stories can build and nurture hope, pave the way for action, reinforce those actions and spread messages that build and create change. Stories are inextricably linked to power: Your story is more likely to sell when your voice is the loudest in the room.
While observing a focus group recently, we were struck by how much fear dominated the opinions of those around us. Too often, we allow fear-inducing narratives to run rampant in our politics, our public debates, and our lives. Sometimes this takes the form of stories of villains—migrants on boats, people in need of Social Security, workers on strike, or young activists worried about the future of the planet. Other times, it’s a story about scarcity or impossibility—how little our government should be spending on the things we all need, or how a better world would be wonderful, but just not realistic. When you think about these stories, and how often you hear them, you start to really understand the power of storytelling.
When fear is used as a motive in a story—big, dark, scary protagonists—people tend to become more isolated. Fear triggers people’s instincts. Their focus narrows from the wider community to their own and their family’s survival. It personalizes problems rather than prompting people to think about how to solve their problems with others. But for the scale of change the world needs, people must come together, think together about the challenges we face, and work with each other to solve them.
The climate crisis is a good example. Images of people’s homes burning in wildfires or devastating floods destroying entire towns can generate strong emotional responses, but at best they cause this view to narrow down to a personal level. At worst, they run the risk of paralyzing people with fear, or making them feel like the problem is too big to overcome. Well-intentioned individuals cannot solve the scale of the climate crisis challenge. It can only be tackled through massive collective and global action — something we can hardly do by scaring people into action. Hope, on the other hand, is a very different dynamic.
When you talk to basically anyone for five minutes, you realize how simple we all are. We are social animals and want to love, be loved, and spend time with our loved ones knowing they are safe and happy. It’s not a feeling of fear or hatred, it’s what connects us all.
Are progressives doing enough to make this happen and put hope first, promoting and building happiness?Remain movement branded during Brexit referendum of“Project Fear”. It tries to use hard, rational facts to of‘Win an argument initiated by the other side using emotions.
What if we could build a less scary world where people don’t look outside, communities can thrive and germs of positive change can grow? This starts with the stories we tell and the words we use – because even with the best idea or the most ingenious solution, you still need to tell their story and engage people.
When thinking about how we communicate, there is a lot to be aware of. Some of these are big, strategic things like: Who should we talk to? How do we contact them? Others are less obvious. We need to be aware of unconscious things like the cognitive networks of related words, thoughts and feelings that people draw upon when they hear a word or phrase, the unintended consequences of using a particular language and what motivates people on a fundamental level.
This issue of New Economic Magazine A look at words, stories and how we use them, whether we’re talking about the climate crisis, our working lives, taxes or abortion. Across the country and around the world, many people are fighting to make things better. The right words are not enough by themselves – but when we look at campaigns that have been won, we can see that words do matter.
We hope this question contains important insights and advice and gets us all thinking about how to tell stories and persuade others. Funmibi Ogunlesi explains why words matter and how progressives can use framing tools to fight for a better future. But messaging isn’t a panacea — we can’t just wave a narrative wand and expect everyone to agree with us. So Sho Walker-Konno warns against the pitfalls of sloppy reliance on message passing.
We are not a blank canvas when we come across a new story, fact or idea. We all already have a mental frame from which we weed out these thoughts. In Our Set Designer, Dora Meade looks at how the British think about what the economy is, how it works, and where those ideas come from. Paul Hebden looks back at the 2008 financial crisis to examine how our views on taxes were shaped.last decade of language of‘Beggars, poverty and welfare are the subject of an article by Tamsyn Hyatt. Nadia Hasan argues it’s not enough to express outrage at the treatment of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants trying to make their home in the UK – if we’re going to change people’s minds we need a new kind of method.
Creative framing and messaging has delivered big wins. Karen Hand joins the Irish Together For Yes abortion movement and shares how they won a victory for reproductive rights in Ireland – critical wisdom at a time when access to abortion is under threat around the world. Jillian Marcellus gives us an American perspective, explaining how a new story called the racial class narrative is being used to win elections for Democrats across the country.
We can use the knowledge gained from these past victories to plan for the future. Back on this side of the pond, Ayesha Balloch writes about how we use the racial class narrative in the UK – and how it can be used to fight back against the culture wars being waged by some politicians and pundits.
The words we use can provide people with a mental framework of concepts that may seem too large and frightening to comprehend. The best example is the climate crisis. With some malicious actors blaming our soaring cost of living on our green policies, how can the climate movement ensure their message isn’t drowned out by the noise? Steve Akehurst View the latest research. Diyora Shadijanova explains how organizers and activists should fight back that our climate has become a culture war topic in the UK. We shared an excerpt from Katherine Hayhoe’s book on how to talk to the people in our lives about something as big and scary as climate breakdown.
Finally, as we leave a year marked by Covid-19 and skyrocketing prices, Charlie Hertzog-Young offers a beautiful comic that reflects on this year, with a message of hope for 2023.
As we move into a new year, things will undoubtedly continue to change, as old challenges exist and new ones emerge, and we hope that the content in this issue helps foster hope and inspire ideas about how we can work with each other to achieve all that we have. People’s thoughts of change need to be. With words and stories that inspire us, let’s come together and help us win an economy that works for people and the planet.
This is an excerpt from Issue 5 of New Economic Magazine.Read the full article here
