WEBVTT - Crafting a Citizen Story (Jon Alexander) 0:00:01.960 --> 0:00:05.000 We just can't solve the challenges we face from within 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:08.719 the story that created them, right like we We can't 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:13.360 solve a crisis of loneliness and mental health from within 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.799 a story that says we're independent isolated individuals. Can't You 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.720 can't solve across of inequality from a story that says 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:22.200 that the society is a lot of you climb the 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:25.200 most important, like most viscerally to me. You can't solve 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.040 an ecological crisis from a story that says we're separate 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:35.479 from nature. Welcome to How does Citizen with Baritune Day, 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.800 a podcast that reimagine citizen as a verb, not a 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:43.280 legal status. This season is all about how we practice democracy, 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:45.640 what can we get rid of, what can we invent, 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:48.440 and how do we change the culture of democracy itself. 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:51.600 We're leaving the theoretical clouds and hitting the ground with 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:55.600 inspiring examples of people and institutions that are showing us 0:00:55.720 --> 0:01:06.080 new ways to govern ourselves. If you're new to this podcast, Welcome, 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:08.560 make sure you check out the first episode of this 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:12.440 season with Adrian Marie Brown, the organizer, facilitator, and artist 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:14.920 who shared ways we can deepen our citizen practice and 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:18.280 bring it home In this episode, I'm joined by someone 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:21.640 who has spent a lot of time thinking about stories, 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:26.440 how they come into being, what they mean, and how 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:30.399 they informed the way we live with each other. The 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:33.479 first time I met John Alexander, we were both guested 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:36.080 on a podcast called From What If to What Next 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:40.920 with Rob Hopkins. Like me, John was also using citizen 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:46.360 in this inclusive, participatory sense, and we just clicked. He's 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.720 the author of citizens Why The Key to Fixing Everything 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:52.360 is all of Us? And he's also the founder of 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:56.320 the New Citizenship Project, a social innovation lab that works 0:01:56.360 --> 0:02:00.440 with organizations to shift their culture and practice by helping 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:04.760 them think of people as citizens. First. It's one thing 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:07.960 to catalog projects. His book does that, and so do 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:11.000 we with this podcast, but it's a completely different thing 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:15.320 to have a staff, facilitators, workshops, and clients who are 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:18.959 really trying to implement things. I mean, there's no how 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:24.120 to citizen institute, not yet. I respect that. While John 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:28.400 is talking and writing about making citizenship a practice, he's 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:32.400 also practicing it himself, and it's a far cry from 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:41.359 the work he was doing before this. John Alexander is 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:44.760 a former admin. During his time in that world, he 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.120 won awards for telling the consumer story until it made 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:53.880 him sick, actually physically sick, and he couldn't continue selling 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:56.840 a narrative he didn't believe in, so he decided to 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:59.960 fight for a different story. John is helping us take 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:04.040 a narrative turn toward the citizens story, one where we're 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:09.359 not simply independent, but interdependent. We don't just compete, we collaborate, 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:14.200 and our leaders don't just serve, they facilitate our participation 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.880 in democracy. How would we show up? What would we 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:22.040 build together if we told ourselves we were citizens not consumers? 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.080 To find out, I met up with John in Los 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:28.480 Angeles along with our live studio audience. Be a zoom 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:30.000 who you are here from? At the end of the 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:39.040 episode After the break, John Alexander on why being a 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:45.840 conscious consumer is not the same as being a citizen y'all. 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:49.680 John Alexander is the author of Citizens Why the key 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:52.880 to fixing Everything is all of Us. He's the co 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.560 founder of the New Citizenship Project, a book and a 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:58.120 company that works to shift the dominant story of the 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:02.080 individual in society from consumer where two citizen. He began 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:04.840 his career with a decade in the advertising industry, so 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.400 he knows exactly what's wrong, and I'm so excited to 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.320 have him on how the Citizen. Welcome John, thank you 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:15.040 so much for having me. Let's start here. Your work 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.800 is about analyzing and reimagining the narratives that inform how 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:21.600 we live and relate to the world around us. And 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:25.719 you identified three stories. The story of the subject, the 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.080 story of the consumer, and the story of the citizen. 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:31.000 I want to start with a focus on the first two. 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:34.280 What is the subject story and where did it begin? 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.359 The subject story begins all the way back with the 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:40.760 first name king in Sunario in two thousand BC. And 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:43.279 with the first king came the first wolves came, the 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:45.600 first writing that was initially used to time to track 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.720 how much people owed tax and these kinds of things. 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.960 And that story started with this idea that the god 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:55.440 given few no best and if the rest of us 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:57.479 keep our heads down there's we're told, get what we're 0:04:57.480 --> 0:04:59.800 given and do as the God given a few tell us, 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:02.600 then that is how the best society will result, the 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:06.440 best benevolent dictator idea. But we all know where that 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.559 usually ends up. Ultimately, this is the story that leads 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:13.320 you into colonialism and patriarchy and all those big things, 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:15.560 and it goes a long way back, and it was 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.840 dominant for an awful long time. And when we are 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:23.320 in times of uncertainty, in times of chaos, in times 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:25.760 when we don't know exactly what to do, then the 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:29.680 subject story has a powerful attraction, right because we want 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:31.880 to find some safety, we want to find some securities 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:35.520 and certainty. Well we might think we want someone to 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:38.000 tell us what to do. And in those moments like 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:40.960 the possibility, the promise of the kind of strongman leader 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:43.960 vibe is really strong, and I think that's a big 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:45.800 part of what we're seeing in this moment in time. 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:48.960 So the subject story lasted an awful long time, intensified 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.880 around the world. Really only became properly dominant in the 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:55.160 kind of sixteen hundreds with the age of Discovery, and 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:57.920 then after the Industrial Revolution, the rise of the middle class, 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:00.120 that the idea that there were a god given you 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:01.680 who knew best and they would tell us what to 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:05.440 do kind of fell in on itself, and in many 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:07.760 ways I believe that the two World wars resulted from 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.400 that breakdown of story, resulted from that kind of collapse 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:13.200 of the systems and structures by which we organized ourselves 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:15.919 and out of them we stepped into what was a 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:19.239 better story, right Like from the subject story, the consumer 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:21.960 story is a liberating shift. So the subject story and 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:24.479 effective goes to a made up sounding king and a 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:28.160 made up sounding place argon of Sarka had or something 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:32.520 like that. What is this consumer story then, and so 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:35.279 when does it emerge? The consumer story is the story 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:37.839 that's I think still dominant in our world today. The 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:40.760 consumer story is the story that says that, actually, the 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:43.080 right thing to do is to pursue self interest on 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:46.039 the basis that if everyone pursues self interest, if everyone 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:48.120 chooses the option that suits them best from those that 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:50.800 are offered, that will add up to the collective interest 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.680 that by pursuing self interest we will create the best 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:57.000 society that's possible as a whole. I mean the Milton 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:00.200 Friedman famous Milton Friedman is and the social responsibilit te 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.400 of businesses to maximize its profits is a perfect articulation 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.320 of of consumer morality. Actually, like it's saying the right 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:09.760 thing to do really explicitly, the right thing to do 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:12.280 is to pursue self interest on the behalf of the corporation, 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:15.160 on the behalf of the individual, because that is what 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:17.680 will add up to the best society. Yeah. So it's 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:20.960 not just an economic incentive. It's a patriotic incentive, right, 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:24.679 you serve best, you support your nation best by buying stuff. 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:26.320 I mean, you could even say it's a kind of 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.200 human incentive. The reason why I went into the advertising 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.200 industry in the first place. I was nineteen at university 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:34.160 trying to figure out what to do with my life 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:37.320 when the World Trade Center came down yea, and the 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:40.360 leaders of the free world came out and told us 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:42.680 to go shopping right, right, And at some level I 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:46.720 think I went into the advertising industry thinking unconsciously, conscious 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:50.520 that I was making a contribution. Wow. The kind of 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:54.080 key moment actually was my first boss described my job 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:55.600 to me by saying, what you've got to remember, as 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:59.240 the average consumer see something like three thousand commercial messages 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.360 a day. This was back in two thousand three, and 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:04.280 he said, your job is to cut through that. You've 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:06.320 got to make yours the best. And did you feel 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.240 motivated by that? Was it to do that? Yeah? And 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:12.480 it's hugely intellectually stimulating, right, You're like, oh, there's all 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:14.880 this stuff out there, there's so much noise and I'm 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:16.840 going to make mind the thing. I mean, I'm look, 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:19.600 I'm a six ft athletic white guy, Like that's what 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:23.280 I like to do, right, It's another conquest and attention 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:27.880 conquest a man. And then over time and probably it 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.160 took me longer than it should have. In retrospect, I've 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:31.880 started to ask what are we doing to ourselves when 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.160 we tell ourselves we're consumers? Three thousands of times a day? 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:36.959 What does that do to us? What does it do 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:39.280 to our relationships with one another? What does it do 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.160 to what we think is possible, what we think humans 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:44.840 are capable of? Yeah, what are the sort of products 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:47.640 and services you were advertising? All sorts of stuff, man, 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.199 I mean I worked on big brands in the UK, 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:54.200 particularly like Cadbury and Orange, like a big phone company. 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:57.800 Was at the agency where we we produced the Cadbury Gorilla, 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:00.599 which was like a big moment, a grilla playing the 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.520 drums to Phil Collins. That was we go. My friend, 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.559 I worked on Sony like we were Agency of the 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:09.400 year a couple of years that I was there, Like, 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:11.440 these were the big brands, This was the big stuff 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:15.199 in the Consumers story. You point out the four was 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.480 a key moment. What was it about? I mean? And 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:21.599 it starts with the launch of the Apple Macintosh with 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.000 the most famous ad in history, which is the takeoff 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:27.320 of All Worlds eighty four, like troops training down a 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:30.160 corridor and Big Brother's voice and then a woman in 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:33.440 glorious technicolor runs onto the screen, smashes the screen big 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:35.920 Brothers talking from and you get this voice over that 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:38.160 concludes and I'm going to do a horrendous American accent 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:42.079 in the US here it comes. On January, Apple will 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:47.120 release Macintosh and you'll see why four won't be four 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:50.800 this moment. But also that year you had two other 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.880 of the great super brands arrived. So Nike sold the 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.800 first pair of Air Jordan's Virgin Atlantic, so the virgin 0:09:57.880 --> 0:09:59.960 brand arrived on the global stage. But then the pick 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.520 your thickens because you get body Shop floated on the 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:04.640 Stock Exchange, bringing the idea you can buy stuff to 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.320 save the planet. You get band Aid that year, the 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:10.000 idea you can buy stuff to solve global poverty. You 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.880 get the minor strike and the first privatization in the UK. 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:16.880 So politics shifting in this kind of consumer direction. And 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:20.000 my favorite actually of all of them, the l A Olympics, 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:23.600 which were the first Olympics ever to be funded by 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:27.040 commercial sponsorship. L A was the only city to apply 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:29.520 to host the eight four Olympics because other cities have 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:32.360 made such a financial loss, and they had the IOC 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:36.360 over a barrel and the rules changed and suddenly you 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:38.720 could buy stuff to fund global sporting culture. So that 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:42.600 consumer story is winding its way into so many different 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:46.400 areas of our lives. We're liberating so many of our 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.559 activities allegedly through this, and you're involved in it, right 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:52.679 and later in this timeline, you're involved in crafting these 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.520 stories and selling these products, and there's an adrenaline rush, 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:59.040 and there's excabining, there's true creativity, and it's exciting until 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:03.640 until it is it right? So when did your excitement 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:06.959 to get involved and serve in some way through advertising 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.720 start to crack? I remember being in a meeting talking 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:15.640 through hero products for a big retailer's Christmas advertising in May, 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:19.000 which was a bad start, and we got to the 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:23.360 one pound Christmas tree bary tune day here with a 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.680 very quick explainer. Tunday, we're talking about pounds as in 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:31.199 the British currency, not the way now back to John's 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:34.440 story and we got to the one pound Christmas tree 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:37.319 and someone at the table said, the one pound Christmas tree, 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:42.120 you can almost smell the exploitation, and everyone laughed and 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:44.160 it was and it was just this moment of like 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.520 feeling the flame inside you turned down. Like it was 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:51.000 really like a series of kind of investigations. I worked 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:54.120 on her on a report on ethics and advertising. Um, 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:56.320 I pretty much got sacked off the back of that, 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:00.520 but really interrogating this question ultimate of what are we 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:03.400 doing to ourselves when when we're surrounded with this story 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:07.240 and coming to the understanding that actually I was essentially 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:09.520 kind of preaching up what's the religion that I didn't 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.800 believe in? Not championing values that I did. And I 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:15.320 went through a like super dark period at this time, 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.520 and I wasn't the most constructive individual around this period. 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.640 Like I sometimes think if I started a company at 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:23.760 this point, it would have been called the Consumer Doom Project, 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:26.079 not the New Citizenship Project, right, Like I was staring 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:28.120 into the chasm, which I think so many of us 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:30.839 are trapped doing now in these darker period was this 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:34.560 physical you were you ill? Where was the behavior that 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:38.000 you weren't proud of like what did the manifest? But 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:40.160 there was a day, there was well there was a week, 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:42.800 actually week I ended up resigning where I stood on 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:46.240 the platform Oxford Circus tube station and in my office 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:49.320 and just watched tubes come and go and like felt 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:53.000 this like revulsion inside me. I honestly don't remember what 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.240 exactly I was. And then I was physically sick, like 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:57.840 I threw up on the platform and it was just 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.960 like this feeling of of just I mean, I guess 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:04.320 kind of self hatred actually, like a real kind of 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:06.760 rejection of the role I was playing and what I 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:09.120 was doing. And I kind of had to get out 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:13.040 at that point. It sounds like an overdose almost like 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:15.679 you over you oded on the consumer story. Maybe you 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.480 got high on your own supply, right, and some part 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:21.120 of your body maybe new this isn't for me anymore. 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:23.680 I can't, you know, I can't separate the kind of 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:28.040 intellectual journey from the from the physical rights. You're asking 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:30.000 deep enough questions and you've just got to a point 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.920 where I was overwhelming. But yeah, I was a difficult 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.079 guy to be around all that time. Can I talk 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:39.040 to those people? Yeah, Well, you know that some of 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:41.319 the best of them are are still closest friends now 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:43.040 and some of them are still working in the ad industry. 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.320 And look, I'm not trying to demonize all of those guys, 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.480 Like I think the the important thing to recognize when 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:51.880 you start to see these as stories, when you start 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:54.120 to see it in this way, is that you're not 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:57.640 just talking about like it's the problem is consumption, The 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:01.240 problem is advertising, Like, it's much more about the storytelling 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:03.520 of our society. It's the fact that what I would 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:05.880 describe what we live in today as a consumer democracy 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:08.440 where our only agencies to choose between a fix set 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:10.800 of options that are offered to us, where we're actually 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:12.720 encouraged to make that choice on the basis of our 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.160 own individual self interest. Like it's infused that that story 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:21.880 is pervaded everything. And I guess I focus on advertising 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.560 because it was the part I played, and your focus 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:27.400 on advertising it resonates with me because I spent a 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:30.920 lot of time in media and in advertising, which is inseparable. 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:34.760 And I remember realizing at a certain point that the 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:38.400 folks who were making the ads felt as legitimate as 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:42.200 storytellers as the content they were sitting next to. And 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:44.680 it's true. I mean they're selling and telling the story 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.240 of who we can be through our purchases, and there's 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:51.000 so much more money in that than just the art world. 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:52.760 So you are I think we're at the kind of 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.920 the eye of the storm for the story, because ads 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:59.520 are little stories that try to nudgest into thinking differently. 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.160 We're behaving differently, and all of them have that kind 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:07.640 of underlying or overarching kind of meta frame that you 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.880 are a consumer, you are an individual. Your agency has 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:14.360 to choose between things in these choices. And in one 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:17.720 meeting years ago, I remember stopping and saying, can we 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.840 just call them people? Just that the links on the 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.080 slides on the wall. It was just like consumers consumers 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:26.400 and the conductingsumer wants this and the consumer wants there. 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.760 And when I repeat that word, it consumes me. It 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:33.880 makes me think of consumption, not the active eating food, 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.280 but the disease and as we used to refer to it, 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:41.960 and so we will devour ourselves by referring to ourselves 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:44.080 in that way. And there's actually a heap of evidence 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:48.400 that even the word is damaging. Right. So there's a 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:50.760 couple of different studies, one one where you were involved 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.200 in replicating where like, So you give two thousand people 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:56.480 of resourced dilema scenario. You say you're one of four 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:59.120 households depending on a single wealthyr water supply and the 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:00.760 world is starting to run dry, so you need to 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:03.560 use less water. Okay, So you're asked two questions, to 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:05.880 what extent are you prepared to use less water? And 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:07.840 to what extent you trust the other three households to 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:11.120 use less water? Clever bit is, for half the sample, 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:14.640 the word household is replaced with the word consumer. And 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:17.520 for people for whom the word is consumer, to what 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:20.000 extent you prepared to compromise, to what extent you trust 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:25.160 the other three consumers? That's lower, significantly lower. So when 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:27.560 we use that language, even the word and it's not 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:29.680 again it's not just the word, it's the story. But 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:33.320 the word carries the story. Right, when we use that 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:38.440 word inside organizations were effectively I think of it like 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:40.920 as the scaffolding, right, like or the or the train 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:43.600 tracks or something like. There is no other possible we 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:47.640 are thinking, right, that's right. We limit our imaginations, right, 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:51.040 and we can only see a person as this subset 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:53.680 of themselves, this function and the only path we can 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:59.160 imagine to a better society is channeling people's self interest 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:03.120 in the service of because we assume people are only 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:05.520 capable of that. I've come to think of consumers and 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:08.280 essentially as a kind of species level self hatred complex. 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:10.720 It's like, it's like we're telling ourselves we're not good 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:13.879 enough to deal with this stuff. It's giving away some power. 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:16.440 It's like, all I have is this right, I'm gonna 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:18.320 I'm gonna do. I'm gonna lean into this. I'm gonna 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:20.760 be the best version of this I can. But I'm 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:22.040 not going to think of it all the other things 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:25.920 that could be because I don't have the language for it. Language. 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:31.399 A third story. We've talked subject, we've talked consumer, the 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:35.879 citizens story. When does this as an alternate frame occur 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:38.600 to you? The citizens story occur to me personally? And 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:40.639 what does it? What does it mean? Give me a 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:44.280 brief overview, and then tell me when it enters your mind. So, 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.119 in the subject story, people are dependent, they have stuff 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:50.080 done to them. The role of organizations and leaders us 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:52.240 to come on them, and the role of subjects is 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:56.040 to obey and receive. And the consumer story, people are independent, 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.560 they have stuff done for them. They demand and choose, 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:01.880 and the role of organizations and does is to serve them. 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:05.879 In the citizens story, we're interdependent. We do stuff together 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:10.119 with and through organizations. The role of organizations and leaders 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:11.959 is to facilitate and hold the space for that. And 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.120 what we most deeply want to do and are capable 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:18.320 of doing is participate and create and that structure. When 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:21.320 you start to see that and think like that, I 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:25.280 think you start to see this story everywhere, like just 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:30.320 beneath the surface. But to your question before, like living 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:32.560 and working in the ad industry, I couldn't really see 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:36.840 it because I was so in so in frame, and 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:39.159 so when the first place I came across it was 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.280 weirdly like an ideal we came up with. I'm still 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:43.760 not sure quite how we did. And this is the 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.000 idea that one that creative idea of the year old, 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:48.320 which is an idea called my Farm, where we tried 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:50.720 to hand over decision making on a real working farm 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:53.960 to the public by online voting debate. This is back 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:59.119 in nearly killed me in several animals. Maybe what's interesting 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.080 about this is it is it did actually come out 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:05.320 of trying to think of ways to build an organization, 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:07.919 ways to sell an organization. Oddly, I was working on 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:10.919 the National Trust, which is a big conservation organization in 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:14.359 the UK. They own and run five odd places of 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.240 historic interest and natural beauty all over the country, and 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:19.560 we were going like, how do we how do we 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:23.640 get people to understand and value this organization and sort 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.679 of accidentally stumbled into this idea before I have this 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:30.040 language of consumer and citizen that was like, what if 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:33.280 we involve people in it rather than just do it 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.359 for them. Let's not just sell people sustainable food, Let's 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.359 involve them in sustainable food production. And the model and 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:43.680 the approach. I mean, we've had crowdfunding, crowdsourced ideas, we've 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:47.240 had participatory all kinds of things, but in that world 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:51.000 like inside the consumer story, that's a very radical approach 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:54.439 because you're seeing people as something other than purchasers. You're 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:57.679 seeing them as producers and contributors and creators and collaborators 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:02.359 and just competitors right in testing. Are there villains and 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:09.679 heroes in the citizens story? I think there are, but 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:14.159 I think they're more people who are an organizations who 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:18.560 are co opting the the modes of the citizens story 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:22.280 and service of something else example, what does that mean? 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:28.000 So one of the like craziest experiences of the research 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:31.679 for the book was I went not very deep, but 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:34.240 deep enough into the into the q and On world. 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:40.280 And the starting point of that journey is we need 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:44.919 you mm hmm, come help. Yeah, we need your energy, 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:48.840 we need your resources, we need your ideas. And I 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:52.080 mean that's coming from that's coming from subject story world. 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:55.159 It's coming from a desire to take charge and create 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:58.600 tribe and tell people what to do. But it's wearing 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.879 the clothes of participation. And I think that speaks a 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:04.640 lot to the moment in time we find ourselves in. Right, 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:07.879 Like the way I would describe it, I've already mentioned 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:11.040 this idea of like consumer democracy, like I think, I 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:13.520 think too many of those in the positions of parent 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.640 influence in our society today can only see two stories. 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:21.280 They can see the consumer story as the status quo, 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:24.199 and they can see the subject story rising and they 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:28.760 see the authoritarianism. But as a result, they see their 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:33.679 role as being to defend the consumer story. And the 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:37.960 danger of that is that we just can't solve the 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:41.320 challenges we face from within the story that created them. 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:46.240 Right like we we can't solve a crisis of loneliness 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:48.880 and mental health from within a story that says we're independent, 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:53.040