Why Urgency Alone Can’t Drive Systemic Change

In times of crisis, I think there’s a voice that gets amplified in our culture and in the minds of many of us.

The voice says “change must happen right now, quickly, and it must be systemic.”

It’s a voice of urgency and of desire – which can be a powerful engine in organizing people to take action.

But this voice can also lead us to thinking we need to go-big-or-go-home with our change-making: to disregard the person we see struggling on the street because we need big, policy-level change; to ignore the challenges of our neighborhoods while trying to stay on top of the issues in Washington D.C. (Hello, fellow Politico readers.)

When we give ourselves fully to this voice, our desire for speed often crashes into the slow reality of systemic changework, resulting in burnout, exhaustion, overwhelm, or even a failure to ever truly shift from theory to embodied action.

There’s a painful paradox here – perhaps you’ve felt it, I certainly have: the more urgently we feel change is needed, the more paralyzed we can become by the enormity of the task.

And fascism thrives in this gap between our awareness and our capacity to act.

But there’s another approach to activism – one that adds texture and depth to the first.

It is relational, intimate, often-quiet, and always available to us.

Douglas Rushkoff writes:

“I’m less confident in the impact my activism might have on policy than I am about the impact my care may have on other human beings, as well as how they might trickle up to the systems that need changing.”

This approach responds to the voice of urgency by saying, “I will care a new future into being – slowly and with persistence.”

This, of course, doesn’t disregard the need for systemic change – but it invites us to embody a different theory of change.

Instead of focusing all our energy on changing the minds of “those in power” (which is often the crux of policy work and large-scale protest), we emphasize ​community care​, trusting that the ripples of our effort will embolden our society forward.

During the Pandemic, this approach to change-making showed up in the over 400 mutual aid networks that sprouted up across the United States. Folks supported each other by driving groceries and medications to one another and organizing childcare collectives and direct cash assistance when it was needed. Communities across our country (and our world) decided to take seriously the vision that we belonged to each other.

And this is the core of this relational and intimate approach:

We begin with the impacts being felt right where we are.

Today, this might start with:

• Introducing yourself to your neighbors.

• Attending community council gatherings.

• Volunteering with your local mutual aid network.

• Sharing your tools + time with your local Tool Library.

• Joining a community garden and giving produce away.

• Inviting neighbors to pick up trash with you in the neighborhood.

These two approaches – of urgency and systemic focus and of slow community care – are not antagonistic to each other; in fact, we need both. The first helps broaden our perspective and understanding of context; the second centers us in a community of folks with whom we can build power and take focused action.

So if you’re looking into the world and listening to that first voice, but finding it hard to move, try listening for that second one.

Perhaps there is an invitation to care for your communities awaiting you just beyond your doorstep.

As Rushkoff writes, “There’s enough to do right outside our windows, whether or not we watch the things on the screen.”