As 2023 begins, we face a fundamental and unequivocal question as a society – whether we will rise to meet the multiple and coalescing crises we currently face. These crises take on a multitude of forms.
The cost of living is spiralling all around us, with an estimated one in five households in the UK facing fuel and food poverty. This is while wealth and resource distribution has never been more inequitable, with over 170 billionaires in the UK alone and the energy companies making obscene profits.
The climate crisis is becoming increasingly severe and unstoppable. In the summer of 2022, we saw a forty degree temperatures in the UK while 33m people were displaced by severe rainfall and flooding in Pakistan. Multiple climatic tipping points are reaching their point of no return.
The crisis of biodiversity collapse is very real. Globally, wildlife populations have lowered by an average of 69%. In the UK, wild pollinator populations have declined by one third since 1980. This decline threatens the food chains on which we depend for our food and habitat security.
The mental health crisis continues to worsen at a dramatic rate. We have never felt more isolated, anxious and depressed as a society and mainstream pharmaceutical or therapeutic solutions for these existential issues seem totally insufficient.
The crisis of political will and leadership rages all around us. The UK is goverened by an Establishment that has run out of ideas and direction. We have experienced years of austerity, profiteering and corruption.
There is a crisis of compassion across our society. This manifests in the normalisation of the persecution of refugees, the horrors of industrial animal agriculture and the vast volumes of waste that we produce.
Overcoming Despair and Apathy
This list of crises is long and could be significantly longer. Many people will find it pretty daunting to be faced by them and it is totally understandable if feeling despair and overwhelmed is the initial response.
However, such despair is, or should be, unfounded because all of these crises share one characteristic in common that, if adequately addressed, could result in their sustainable solution. That central characteristic is apathy.
It is simply not the case that we are all unaware of the crises manifesting around us, though it certainly may be true that the extent of these crises has been to a large extent hidden from most of us. The lack of action to address these systemic crises stems not from a lack of education but from the presence of apathy that prevents us from doing anything about them.
Synonyms for apathy include indifference, passiveness and an absence of empathy, emotion or enthusiasm. However, a fundamental difference between these synonyms and the condition of apathy is that the latter is, to a certain extent, structurally created and reinforced. The same interests that create and vastly benefit from these crises are the same ones that propagate apathy and have done so to a very considerable extent over the past few decades. To be politically active at this moment can therefore be a very draining and spiritually exhausting experience.
Our Solution
The Brighton and Hove Synergy Centre is seeking to provide opportunities, services and events that aim to weaken this structural apathy. As human beings, our intellect, problem solving and capacity to manipulate our environment are incredibly strong resources, yet apathy prevents these resources forces being directed towards social change. At the B&HSC, we will create a culture and community of engagement, passion, support and drive that will be combined to demand the social change that is needed. It will be the forces of consciousness, community and culture that will achieve the local change in Brighton and Hove that can then ripple outwards regionally, nationally and even globally.
The Limitations of Protest
Protests and marches serve a purpose, there is no denying that. But they have not spoken to, captured or moblised the imagination of the vast majority of the British public. It is exactly this imagination that is most needed if we are to tackle apathy.
We need to channel our energies to start building and being the change we wish to see in the world rather than screaming into the void of existing power structures. We therefore need to speak to the imagination and souls of people. We also cannot expect them to come to us, we must go to them, where they are.
How will we do this? We will use enteraining and fun events as a vehicle for people to access the ideas, values, passions and aesthetics that constitute social change, resistance and the construction of an alternative society.