:thumbsup:

My overarching response: broadly agree with it, but feel its critique is very focused on the public messaging of certain 'founder' types who are at this point pretty adrift from and increasingly irrelevant to XR as a living movement. That doesn't mean the criticisms don't apply to the wider movement, but I think (hope?) the underlying issues are much less entrenched in it than they may (or may not) be in the thinking of Hallam, Reed et al.

As an example of what I mean by this: the strategy of mass arrests for their own sake has very little support among not just the general membership, but among people in coordinator-type roles too. It continues to be implemented, as far as I can see, more out of sheer inertia than any active conviction among those who are actually guiding XR's actions strategy (as opposed to Hallam et al, who are no longer very meaningfully involved in this). So pivoting away from it ought to be relatively easy (if on further reflection we decide we should abandon that strategy).

Similarly, as another general response: the author of the article appears (understandably) to be under the impression that XR's action strategy is still closely based on the readings of social science that they criticise as tendentious. It isn't -- XR's action strategy is more accurately characterised as an ongoing experiment with a diversity of tactics. We try things, see what seems to work and what doesn't, design subsequent actions with those learnings in mind, and so on... In order words, in practice it's more of an empirical project than an attempt to implement an unquestioned blueprint.

Finally: the author does allude to this to some extent, but I think it's important to be clear that XR's lack of diversity (and the historical lack of diversity in the wider green movement) has its roots (in my interpretation) in the fact that humans in general are concerned first about immediately pressing problems and only if they have the luxury of not being overwhelmed by those do they have capacity to worry about problems that apply on larger timescales. Rather than some kind of causal relationship between racism / racial insensitivity and concern about the environment, white middle-class people are just more likely to have the luxury of worrying about problems that aren't right up in their faces every day, so they're more likely to become environmental activists.

The second recommendation in the article points to a way out of this trap and is very important for us I think: we need to be making clear that climate and ecological breakdown is just one manifestation of the fundamental fucked-upness of our civilisation -- a manifestation alongside others such as rampant wealth inequality and systematic racism.

Hmm.

'founder' types who are at this point pretty adrift from and increasingly irrelevant to XR as a living movement.

and

among those who are actually guiding XR's actions strategy (as opposed to Hallam et al, who are no longer very meaningfully involved in this).

my understanding is that all of us in XR (even if we want to throw Roger in the sea) owe a vast amount of the success of this global movement to him. I've sat with him and other cofounders and point people in XR UK strategy workshops and he is probably the most controversial with his contributions, but also undeniably (for many, including me) one of the most visionary, bold and well researched in the area. He's actually done social change, himself, in real life. He was absolutely instrumental in XR getting the point of an almost household name in 1 year in the UK.

I think most rebels (bloody amazing as we are, a minority especially amazing in doing the really challenging stuff like overnight lock ons in the rain, and just generally rearranging our lives to fit around several days of XR per week) still lack understanding about XR UK's theory of change. The thinkings and research that it's all based upon, which has always been openly accessible (though could've been shared more effectively) meaning we have a lot of beautiful and brave rebels but many of them are not especically effective strategists or visionaries, yet.
And until they are, I feel there's a very important role for those who've been researching, dreaming into and plotting this for many years (and their incredible lives and journies into XR; these personal stories are so much of what empowers us into world changing action).

the author [thinks] XR's action strategy is still closely based on the readings of social science that they criticise as tendentious. It isn't.

mmm... it kinda is though isn't it. In XR UK's action circle, there's a lot of looking back at what's worked and hasn't and why, and there's a whole theory of change that Actions strategy plays into (at least now there is, now SST has finally presented our national strategy) - What's your role(s) and insights into this Max? I'd like to better understand where you're seeing this all from and what bits you're most + least connected with.

I'm pretty sure you haven't seen XR UK's Action strategy guidelines from SST. Though I would definitely agree it's not adopted by everyone designing and doing actions of course! but if you look at XR UK's actions over the last year, would you not agree that the overwhelming majority of them fit the Actions strategy, which is taken directly from XR UK's theory of change?

A question around this that's been burning in me since forever is 'What do we do when rebels want to do an action the vast majority of us disagree with?' and 'What if they actually follow through and do the action, and yep, it's terrible? - How should we respond?'
I'm going to create new threads for those questions : ]

I also think there's a lot of people who have joined XR who didn't understand what they were signing up for. And there's a balance to be struck here between it being too rigid and fixed in stone, and it being too 'design by committee' which risks rebels who may be loud but aren't necessarily very experienced with how to actually change society, haven't necessarily done much relevant research and are generally just going on knee jerk responses.

Massively, massively agree with both your last points, about our lack of diversity being pretty understandable in some ways, and the focus being on root cause that makes climate breakdown more relevant to those we're not reaching so much.
I would just add that also

1. Climate breakdown and biodiversity loss are topics explored by & important to more highly educated people, because they're inherently scientific (compared to knife crime in communities for example)

2. XR's main actions in the UK happen in London, so our rebels (coming from generally much less ethnically diverse regions) appear comparitively much whiter. We're not especially middle class (data please!) and you can tell because half the critics call us the 'great unwashed' and tell us to get a job. I like to remind them that's pretty fucked up, shutting someone down because you think they're struggling with employment. But there's tons of rebels with next to no money. I'm definitely one of them!

I'm not really making a value judgement about Hallam or anyone else -- just pointing out that this critique is very focused on Hallam's conceptualisation of XR's action strategy, yet if you're thinking about, say, the action schedule for October, he had more or less zero involvement in designing any of it

mmm... it kinda is though isn't it. In XR UK's action circle, there's a lot of looking back at what's worked and hasn't and why, and there's a whole theory of change that Actions strategy plays into (at least now there is, now SST has finally presented our national strategy) - What's your role(s) and insights into this Max? I'd like to better understand where you're seeing this all from and what bits you're most + least connected with

I'm on the national actions team and was action design RSO for October (as well as action support coordinator for Trafalgar Square and London action support working group coordinator). In practice, in my experience, no one is really referring rigorously to the 'blueprint' when designing actions. Everyone has their own interpretation of the theory of civil disobedience and direct action, and each action is ultimately best described as a collaborative experiment in combining and trialling these interpretations.

Of course most people's interpretations are substantially framed and informed by the founding ideas the critique addresses. But more or less across the board, the thinking of each individual practically involved in action design throughout XR has by now diverged or evolved a considerable distance from those founding ideas.

Also I was part of the national SST process... I did not find it an edifying experience and I don't hold out much hope for the quality or viability of the result.

The reason for this is that as opposed to the Citizen's Assembly type structure where participants are all thoroughly briefed with relevant expertise and then brought into extensive dialogue with each other, in this process there was no such briefing whatsoever and each person was invited just to throw out ideas -- you could comment on other people's suggestions but that was pretty much the extent of any discussion (it was all done remotely). What this amounts to is essentially a glorified brainstorming session conducted by random individuals...

This is not correct as a description of the full process facilitated by the SST. The part you describe was explicitly designed as a) an input or "brainstorming" and feedback component, not as a forum or format for in-depth discussion and b) a "good enough" tool for movement-wide input and feedback generation as long as we don't have more formal bodes and processes for that. For processing the outputs of this component, there were four in-depth (i.e. mostly full-day) workshops with representatives from national teams. The resulting strategy document was then commented on and edited heavily before being discussed and approved by anchor circle.

As this was only the first iteration of the process, it was of course not nearly as productive and mature as we hope it will become, so any specific feedback on how these steps could be made more transparent and effective are highly welcome!

The full strategy document including a description of the process can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11VEEwXQQ3RcWRG0DKlGUteeZQl-Qjig3UJvnhhNN3LA/edit?usp=sharing

Apart from these clarifications, I agree with @Max CCT's analysis of the situation. To address it, we (the SST) are working (among other things) on a detailed exposition and critique of the different Theories of Change de facto held by rebels to begin a meaningful dialogue about them. If you're interested, you are welcome to join this discussion!

Hi Max, thank you for your insights on that, and it helped me to understand your role / where you're seeing things from. I personally feel our Strategy PANEL (not Strategy TEAM of XR UK working group reps) was brought together in quite an innovative way and I found it exciting, but I do totally agree with you about missing an opportunity to mimic Citizens Assemblies in a beautiful way, by better preparing our Strategy Team with what's not up for changing (at least in this piece) which would include the fundamental understanding of what's wrong with the world, our 3 demands, 10 values/principles, and some slightly undefined aspects of worldview, assumptions and approach.

Link to Strategy Panel 'co-creation' board

Not mentioned yet is the 'strategy houses' which we sent around (with stupidly small time frame) to all(?) local groups to fill out: Vision, Mission, Strategic pillars - which also helped form the backbone of this.

Max, can I check you were able to make the whole briefing call for the Strategy Panel? I'm aware a couple of people couldn't make all / any of it, and I suspect they went into the 'brainstorm' a lot more blind.

I would echo Wolfgang's invitation - while we'll capture this feedback here, I'd love any more involvement you might like to have in helping us improve on the next iteration of XR UK's strategy.

Thanks for those clarifications Wolfgang, and I'm definitely interested in joining this discussion -- especially the dialogue around different understandings of the Theory of Change.

The negativity of my characterisation of my experience of the SST process (as a sortition-selected participant) was largely* due to the fact that my general impression of the 'brain-stormed' ideas was that they reflected the more conventional understanding of protest/activism you tend to find among more peripheral members of XR: lots of focus on individual choice, signing petitions, writing letters to MPs, trivial actions at supermarkets etc, and strong negative reactions to the few more genuinely radical proposals (i.e., ones that represented actual civil disobedience) that were put forward.

This left me concerned that the process would -- if only out of a sense of obligation to honour the contributions from the sortition participants -- result in a watered-down, neutered strategy.

While I'm glad to hear this was in fact only a small initial part of the process, I still don't think it was the best use of sortition and would suggest that for any future things like this, it would really be worth ponying up the money to pay for participants to physically come together and work through ideas with each other and advisors who can guide the discussions.

*I may also have been in a bad mood...