Rabbit Holes 🕳️ #35 | Special Edition
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Rabbit Holes 🕳️ #35 | Special Edition
From the cult of creativity, to the westernization of the world, and the potential of non-profit businesses.
Today I’ve got a special edition of Rabbit Holes for you!
Instead of me curating things, I asked some of my favorite creators to share a perspective-shifting idea they’ve recently come across. Today’s Rabbit Holes will feature three of these creators, their ideas and a spotlight on their work. You might actually know some of these people, but if not, do (!) check them out and make sure to follow their amazing work!
This is only the first special issue out of several. On Friday, I’ll send out the next Rabbit Holes special with ideas from three other amazing people and in a few weeks, there will likely come another one. So stay tuned! 😉
Two very quick things, though, before we get into this week’s Rabbit Holes special:
#1 My Visualizing Brand Pivots work was exhibited at the Tate Modern Museum in London – yep…that Tate Modern 🤩 – as part of the Good Life 2030 Exhibition and the Earth Day Advertising Summit. Thanks so much again to subscriber Lisa and the entire team at Purpose Disruptors! Spot my AI-generated brand pivots in the picture below:
#2 // A LinkedIn post of mine became my most viral yet, with over 90,000 impressions 🤯 (so far). Seems like the topic hit a nerve, so if you haven’t seen it, make sure to check it out.
But enough derailing, let’s finally get into today’s special Rabbit Holes issue:
Rabbit Holes 🕳️ SPECIAL
Three perspective-shifting ideas from Tara McMullin, Erin Remblance, and Oscar Haumann & Marcus Feldthus:
🗨️ TARA MCMULLIN
“I’m a writer, podcaster, and producer who explores the future of work through critical theory and making the familiar unfamiliar.”
“[…] our contemporary idea of creativity is really a product of the shift to a consumer economy and a core component of ‘the new spirit of capitalism.’”
What’s a perspective-shifting idea or rabbit hole that you’ve recently come across?
Tara: "I recently read The Cult of Creativity: A Surprisingly Recent History by Samuel W. Franklin. In it, he traces the origin of this ubiquitous concept of “creativity” to a bunch of psychologists and management experts in the 1950s. Of course, creating, making art, producing new ideas—those are concepts as old as time. But the idea of creativity as a skill or the “creative” as a specific type of person are about 70 years old. Wild, huh?
Franklin echoes what I’ve encountered in labor theory and media studies a number of times, which is that our contemporary idea of creativity is really a product of the shift to a consumer economy and a core component of ‘the new spirit of capitalism.’ He writes, ‘...the efforts to understand creativity were always about the ability to increase it. And this was, at heart, a managerial concern.’
Creativity was a way to produce new ideas for the market and produce marketing that got consumers to buy those ideas. As the long 20th century progressed, creativity became so entrenched in culture that we stopped noticing how much it was connected with work and capital.”
Why is this interesting?
Tara: “I’m fascinated by the systems and stories that are wound so tightly to our concept of reality that we never stop to think about how or why they were constructed. When we make those systems visible, they often become uncanny—weird and disorienting. What seemed so obvious and unobjectionable just moments before is somehow made strange
Those are the moments we learn quite a bit about ourselves, our culture, and our options.
Franklin’s history of creativity is an extended moment like this!
🗨️ ERIN REMBLANCE
“I have co-created the (re)Biz ‘(re)connecting business to Earth’ workshop with Ra James to help people embody the personal, understand the organisational, and push for the systemic changes we need to make if we are to ‘create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.’”
“Our current state of ecological overshoot cannot be separated from the Westernisation of the World and the power relations that sustain the current system.”
What’s a perspective-shifting idea or rabbit hole that you’ve recently come across?
Erin: “I’m not sure the term ‘rabbit hole’ does the topic justice, but at the moment much of my reading is focused on inequality, colonialism, imperialism, racism, capitalism, and how these relate to our current ecological crises.
I’ve been left reeling when reading Africa is Not a Country at how Africa was divided into various countries based on agreements reached by 14 nations (predominately European nations and the USA), where Africa was essentially segmented by drawing lines on a map. Lines that were convenient to their colonisers with no thought for the languages, cultures or religions that were being either grouped together or torn apart and the difficulties that may result from such a dismissive attitude to the people’s who occupied the land at the time. It’s important to note that African leaders were not invited to the Berlin Conference in 1884 despite their requests to attend.
I’ve felt physically ill reading Cobalt Red and learning about how the Congolese risk their own safety to dig by hand for the metals we need for our electricity and electrical storage, often times not having electricity in their own homes. For their backbreaking efforts earning around $1/day.
When reading The Divide I learnt that for 99% of the population to be lifted out of poverty via the current strategy of economic growth it would take more than 200 years, we would burst through all of our ecological boundaries in the process and the median global income would be $1.35 million just for the world’s poorest to be able to earn just $5/day. It doesn’t sound like a wise strategy to me. I also learnt about the horrific lengths western powers have gone to to maintain access to the labour and natural resources of the global south to ensure growth in the north, via coups and assassinations.
Reading The New Age of Empire I’m learning how the exploitative practices of colonisation were baked in to late 20th century global trade agreements, ensuring that the West maintained its power imbalance into the future.
Our current state of ecological overshoot cannot be separated from the Westernisation of the World and the power relations that sustain the current system. We need to face into these, and the way we currently benefit from these harmful practices, and ensure that global justice is incorporated into the climate movement.”
Why is this interesting?
Erin: “These are important topics to understand because they underscore the need for decolonisation. They relate to degrowth - a topic I’ve been interested in for some time - because degrowth implies a “decolonization of the imaginary and the implementation of other possible worlds”. This recent interview with Jason Hickel about degrowth and global justice really brings this point home. Essentially any continuation of economic growth in the global north is achieved at the expense of the global south, and I think we really need to ask ourselves ‘is this something we want to be a part of?’”
🗨️ OSCAR HAUMANN & MARCUS FELDTHUS
“We, Oscar Haumann and Marcus Feldthus, have spent the last eight years helping 30+ green startups outcompete conventional alternatives. In 2022, we wanted to go further, from working with 'conventional sustainability' to degrowth/post growth activities, but we couldn't find any resources for companies like ours or our clients. So, we decided to downsize our agency, fire clients and employees, and move into something smaller to enable ourselves to create a guide on how to do post-growth business, which we have named: Post Growth Guide.”
Check out the Post Growth Guide
Marcus’ LinkedIn and Oscar’s LinkedIn
“Non-profit business is an already-existing cornerstone in the transition to a sustainable and just economy because it removes the corrupting financial incentive to exploit people and resources to create a surplus of profit.”
What’s a perspective-shifting idea or rabbit hole that you’ve recently come across?
Oscar & Marcus: “Non-profit businesses: Hugely important, and widely misunderstood.
Non-profit business is an already-existing cornerstone in the transition to a sustainable and just economy because it removes the corrupting financial incentive to exploit people and resources to create a surplus of profit. But it is a widely misunderstood phenomenon.
A non-profit business is neither capitalistic nor socialistic, neither privately owned (and for-profit) nor an NGO (funded by grants and other funds).
It is a self-sustaining business, generating revenue by selling goods and services on the market, but it is not privately owned, and profit cannot, by legal agreement, be paid out as dividends, and shares cannot be sold for profit. Ownership structures can differ from being cooperatives to foundation-owned. Look at examples like Ecosia, Andelsgaarde, and Radically Open Security.”
Why is this interesting?
Oscar & Marcus: “This is extremely interesting because we already know how to do non-profit business: 20% of global GDP comes from non-profit businesses, according to research from the Post Growth Institute. What we need to do is to (1) better understand how this way of doing business differs from for-profit businesses and then (2) raise awareness about this for entrepreneurs, owners, and executives.”
That’s it for this first special edition of Rabbit Holes!
Huge thanks to Tara, Erin, Oscar and Marcus for taking part in this! 🙏
Please check out their profiles!!! They’re all doing super interesting and important work!
And stay tuned for another special Rabbit Holes coming to your inbox this Friday!
Thanks,
Thomas