Are We Just Mitigating?
Let’s start with a spectacularly unwieldy term: critical consciousness.
It frustrates the hell out of me, because it represents a really handy idea in the clunkiest of shells. So let’s break open that shell: related to the Portuguese conscientização (conscientisation), it’s most often associated with the Brazilian educational theorist Paolo Freire, and it revolves around:
- The process of having critical conversations, where people begin (or are encouraged to begin) thinking critically about what’s happening in their lives or community, and the political or social forces behind them.
- But it also implies the state of permanently and irrevocably having that raised consciousness.
- And it therefore also implies doing something with those new critical perspectives — acting to address the wrongs, contradictions or opportunities that have come into view.
So critical consciousness wraps together the flicking on of a light-switch, but also the situation of light flow, and the realisation of what we can do in the light. It’s the whole process. Handy, right? And yet oh so clunky.
It’s sometimes translated as conscientisation, but that’s even lumpier and I don’t think it gets to the heart of it. I prefer “looking up”, but I know that’s imperfect too because sometimes we need to look down, and around, too. Anyway, we’re somewhat stuck with it. And for Freire, every educator, organiser or activist must work towards critical consciousness — indeed, it’s the core of their work.
You dream you’re in a labyrinth. You try to find people who are lost and lead them to safety. In doing that, you undoubtedly help them: they were in a bind and you sorted out their immediate problem. But what if… you could meet them and explain the way out, so they could get themselves to safety? Well, that’s better, but what if… you could meet them with a pair of jetpacks, and you both strap them on and take to the skies? You could show them the shape of the whole labyrinth, point out the other people just like them who are as lost as they are, point out the people who are NOTHING LIKE THEM who are just as lost as they are, highlight the people making money off the maze, the people who allowed it to be built, and the vast legal, political and moral architecture behind the whole, grisly thing. Now we’re getting somewhere! You both land, and what if… they know how to use a jetpack now, so they go back in for other people, developing this growing movement.
What if… they source a bunch of more jetpacks?
What if… they build a fucking jetpack factory?
And that’s consciousness-raising. Going beyond dealing with a situation, towards changing the situation, for good. Because once your view widens, it’s hard to lower the gaze ever again.
It’s a beautiful dream. But dreams can haunt too.
In my community work, I sometimes worry that all I’m doing is leading people out of the labyrinth one at a time. And I’ve crystallised that worry into the short question that’s the title of this piece: “Are we just mitigating?”
Perhaps I’m being too harsh. The fact is that when you’re with someone who needs something in the here and now, they undeniably need it right here and right now. It could be a meal, equipment, a hug, whatever, but if you’re the potential bridge to it, you’re going to be that bridge. No question.
The worry creeps in when you’re too busy or stressed or distracted to do anything but help out in the here and now. You can deal with the immediate situations but fail to meaningfully change those situations. Extrapolating that a bit, the deeper concern becomes that you’re doing austerity’s work: it’s easy to imagine a Boris or a Cameron saying “yup, we cut those services/restricted those benefits/defunded those facilities and these oh so good people plugged the gap.” It’s the big bloody society in action — you’re papering over the cracks they made, filling the holes they left… whatever metaphor works for you.
Congratulations. You are now a poster child for the Tories.
Yeah, dreams can haunt.
When our Food Not Bombs chapter was just getting back after a hiatus, the group did mobile “distro” where we cooked food and went out on the hoof to get it to the people, which was absolutely the first thing we could do when we were short on time, space and cohorts. We now run a thriving, joyous static stall where we combine food-sharing with putting out the message of what we’re doing and why — the consciousness-raising bit — but that takes more people and effort, so when we were finding our feet it was simply a far-off aspiration.
And so were we (busy activists, community workers or educators) just mitigating?
Honestly, the answer is probably “at least sometimes, yes”. And there’s no shame in that. People need food, support, shelter. There are 100% going to be times when a lecture on capitalism or a pamphlet on mutual aid are not just unwelcome but hugely counterproductive for everyone concerned. And frankly, if it’s a choice between doing nothing or something imperfect, it’s not even a choice. I’m sure loads of people in my situation have similar thoughts.
One framing I’ve heard for this juxtaposition is that those best efforts are “necessary but insufficient”. Jeez, that accusation of insufficiency is harsh. And it’s key to realise that when you’re hard on yourself, you’re also being hard on people you’re collaborating with and anyone else across the globe who’s doing similar things. Even if you’re not minded to cut yourself a break, be a good comrade, k?
Let’s unpack the question “are we just mitigating?” It’s clear that the word “just” is doing all the heavy lifting there. It’s the word that diminishes all that necessary work. It’s the word from my subconscious that cries out “insufficient!”
But that word “just” can work two ways: it can mean “merely” or “only”.
“Merely” is dismissive. It’s cold, miserly and judgemental. “All you’re doing is mere mitigation.”
“Only” is a bit kinder, I think. It gives us something to work towards. “Are we only mitigating right now?” It grants that we absolutely can and must do the needful in the present moment, while also acting to raise our consciousness, asking us as activists to look up, prompting us to both see and share the view of the maze before us.
If “merely” is the stick, then “only” is the carrot.
So when — not constantly, certainly not during bouts of angst or insomnia, but when we’re meeting, plotting, aspiring, dreaming — if in those moments, we ask ourselves whether we can go further than mitigating, the question becomes an open invitation for us to do so, on the days we can.
It’s consciousness-raising.
It’s the key to the jetpack factory.
