CATALYSM
Subversive, evolutionary Catalysm is the art of figuring out how to make major social change within the system. Often without anyone noticing, or without anyone caring. Ideally, the system cheers that you've figured out a way to change it. Often the system is waiting and wanting change, but just doesn't know how to start. Ideas for change are met with resistance unless they come from the inside... So if you're on the inside...let's get started.
The Idea
A catalyst in science is something that you add into a system to spark change in the system. [Catalsym] has become known as a large disasterous situation. BUT Subversive Catalsym is the idea that major productive change can be made without actually "breaking" a system, but rather injecting ideas to invoke large desired change.
Examples, in story form.
Both of these examples are from government experiences. But point can be applied to any organization. If you have an idea whose time is right, you can do it too.
- GREENING ORGANIZATIONS. Years ago, in a fairly large sized town in Massachustets, we asked why we didn't recycle in our town. We met with all of the reasons. It's too hard. It would cost too much. The world isn't really burning. We protested. We brought petitions to the town. The government got all uppity that we were insane and did all they could to fight us. And we lost. Over and over and over again. Then it occurred to us to take a different tact. I went to a Selectman's meeting. And said, "do we want to be more green?" The answer yes. "Do we want to stop spending money wasting things?" Yes. "Then what's stopping us?" The first answer..."we don't have the staff to look into the options". So we offered to develop "a committee" to study the issues. This took months. But we went along with the process. We ended up with the EXACT PEOPLE who were fighting us for years...were now ON THE COMMITTEE to make the town more green. We also called for volunteers in the local paper. Now that we were PART OF THE SYSTEM...that the committee would be "part of the government", like 20 experts stepped forward, engineers, scientists, etc. THEY figured out how to save millions of pounds in carbon/waste, AND millions of dollars in savings. We would have DOUBLED our efforts thus far, if we had started along this path, instead of going head to head with the government.
- LOW INCOME HOUSING. Years ago, we identified that the suburbs low-income housing strategy wasn't actually for low-income people. They had redefined the police to include "moderate-income" housing, so the developers would make enough profit that they'd build some houses that weren't for rich people. Trouble was that this distracted town resources into housing that low-income people couldn't afford. Way out of their price range, because you had to make $40,000/year MINIMUM to participate in the 40B program (what it became known as). So we protested. And complained. And wrote letters, and blah blah blah. THEN we decided to actually get ON the committee. Work out the numbers and voila. Now, we're working on housing collective and condo-buy-down strategies to actually help people that make less than $40K/year.
We have a ton of examples like that. Examples of how to make major change in corporations...where you have an inside track. Talk to your friends. See if people are interested in change. Then contact us. We can show you how to convince management to make social change right inside existing companies. Not all companies. But you'd be surprised at how many are waiting to change...waiting for you to start creating "the silent revolution".
volunteer@occupyboston.org