Hegemony, Capitalism and Looking In The Wrong Direction ….but we can reimagine
“Evolution has yet to transcend that simple barrier, we can care deeply, selflessly about those we know, but that empathy rarely extends beyond our line of sight” — Matt Damon in Interstellar
I was travelling to meet a new connection for lunch last week and as we do on the London Underground, we tend to look up at the advertising adorning the tube ceiling as a way of not looking too many humans directly in the eye!
Okay, I did try a few times to look at people directly to say ‘hi’, but I quickly reverted to ‘avoidance as usual’ on the tube as it was somehow culturally more appropriate ! :)
Support for ‘Worn Out Workers’
This newsletter update may seem a tad meandering in it’s navigation, and it is, but if you join me to the bottom, I am sure you will see the interconnections.
One of the first adverts that greeted my eyes as I looked up was as follows:
Advertisement from the company ‘BetterYou’ on the London Underground — Taken by me, Garry Turner, during Feb 2023
A number of questions arose for me immediately including:
- Why are we selling an external aid to deal with being worn out on the inside?
- What are the root causes, personally and systemically, of ‘worn out workers’?
- What thinking was the advert designer using to use a Black man as the stressed subject? (genuine curiosity). Being inclusive/representative I guess?
- The ‘full house’ of box-ticking sustainability messages are on display i.e palm-free, vegan, recyclable and planet-friendly plastics
- The organisations cited as resellers of this product are all large-scale / multi national companies all wrapped up and indeed lead propagation of hegemony, growth at all costs thinking, as we currently know it
What else would you add or indeed would you challenge about my inquiries above thus far?
If we were well
I am curious ‘if we were well’ as a society, as workplaces, as a human race, whether this product being marketed today would even be required.
Maybe it would be, maybe it wouldn’t be.
My point here is rather than just accepting that there is a product on the market ready to be consumed, for ‘worn out workers,’ I wish to invite why, as in REALLY why at the root cause level, do we have this product being offered and why are workers worn out?
Why do we deem it ok to ‘accept’ worn out workers as a demographic to sell to?
Added to this, how have we ended up that something is deemed to be of more commercial interest should it be palm-free, recyclable etc as if they are USPs or unique selling points, rather than just common sense based on what we now know around the pressures on planet, people and non-human life.
What if you believe you don’t exist or are not worthy? Could this be leading to why some workers are feeling worn out?
During our most recent Hegemony Revealed livestream, Trina Casey, Sahana Chattopadhyay and I went to some pretty interesting places as we explored why certain narratives remain dominant in our Western culture and what may need to be let go of to imagine anew.
Following my share that a peer of mine recently kept stating “It doesn’t exist,” Trina shared this golden insight.
Personally, and I speak from experience, if we live our life with the story of “I will be ok when…..(fill in the blank)” we operate from a place of lack, fear and general dysfunction/stuckness, even if on the outside we are deemed to ‘have our sh*t together’ with our decent salaries cars, job titles and accumulation of ‘stuff.’
However, could that be why such products are being marketed to ‘worn out workers’?
Because so many workers are wrapped up in hegemony’s ‘if you dont consume, you lose’ or ‘if you don’t win, you lose’ or ‘if you don’t dominate, you lose’ degenerative energy and thinking.
In the end, every time this thinking wins, this hegemonic thinking, we kill a little bit more of our soul and we are a step closer to needing magnesium to help us get through the day as ‘worn out workers.’
Side note: Over the years I have heard of executives across my global network taking sleeping tablets ‘to get by,’ that has to be deemed as high-functioning addiction?
So what is the antidote?
There are no silver bullets.
You know that and I know that.
However there are a multitude of alternative realities available to us beyond our currently collapsing ways if we could allow ourselves to be curious, to be vulnerable, to listen generatively, to reimagine with wonder and to center those most harmed by our current ways.
My invitation is to consider decolonising your mind.
What, Garry, are you going on about!?
Decolonising our minds
I have worked at the intersection of international sales, people and culture, equity and inclusion and sustainability for the past 7 years, but I didn’t always realise that.
What is so crystal clear to me following the past 7, but in particular 3, years is that in the West we are wholly looking in the wrong direction.
Below you will find some examples, and I have many more, from my lived experience and from observing across my global network a range of cultural patterns (see Tema Okun’s work HERE and hyperlinked below) that are keeping us stuck in the colonised mind in which we have ALL been indoctrinated, educated and well, manipulated for the past 500+ years:
- We are looking to ‘save’ ourselves and the world with an over reliance on technical and technological solutions (look at the fanfare around ChapGPT/AI currently) at just the time that our innate humanity could advance us exponentially (reconnection to self, others and the systems that sustain all life is a worthy antidote to explore)
- We believe (conveniently and with perceived comfort) that by having the top sustainability ratings, that we are somehow going to stem the biodiversity, societal and environmental collapse that is underway (qualification cultural pattern)
- We are running around at 100mph yet standing completely still; faster, harder, bigger, more is the dominant narrative as if we slow down and FEEL, we will somehow lose something of ourselves (progress is bigger and more cultural pattern)
- Linked to the above, I observe a multitude of especially large scale companies focusing on just gender as part of their so-called DEI initiatives, initiatives that are NOT grounded in anti-racism, decolonisation or true equity/justice. These schemes center us in the West and do not center those most harmed by our ongoing and increasingly destructive systems. All the time, despite this, the desire to stay comfortable and not do the inner work of feeling is taking us to the edge of the cliff at every practical, spiritual and existential level (Fear and right to comfort cultural patterns)
- This is a very good time to share a deep insight that Sahana shared during our recent Hegemony Revealed exploration
When the leaders and power holders within a system deem only a select few peoples ideas as worthy of being heard, you crush innovation, employee voice and the potential for reimagining (right to comfort and paternalistic cultural patterns)
So what?
I am still early in my own decolonisation journey but I can state categorically and with deep vulnerability that is has been and continues to be the hardest, deepest, most enlivening inner and learning/unlearning work I have EVER done and will likely ever do whilst I remain on this planet.
I am grateful to Samantha Suppiah my core guide for my own personal decolonisation journey so far and the wider Possible Futures crew who together are about to embark on their 2nd Intro to Decolonial Sustainability course, a course I am grateful to be a guest coach on for the 2nd time:
Registrations have just closed but please do let the crew know if you have any interest to register interest for the next cohort.
A continuous, complex, highly expansive personal reset as to what is possible is available to every single one of us if we allow it.
- You will 100% need support and guidance.
- You will 100% make mistakes, cause harm, get upset.
- You will 100% want to stop, retreat into perceived comfort and stick your head in the sand at times
- You will cry, you will FEEL, and you will get confused at times
- You will feel less need to seek out magnesium to help you as a ‘worn out worker’
An invitation to get curious about decolonising your mind.
“Evolution has yet to transcend that simple barrier, we can care deeply, selflessly about those we know, but that empathy rarely extends beyond our line of sight” — Matt Damon in Interstellar
Shall we connect?
My name is Garry Turner and I am a Disruption and Innovation Catalyst working at the intersection of International Sales, People and Culture, Equity & Inclusion and Sustainability:
- International business development and authentic relationship building human working within and across a Euro 3bn + corporation
- International speaker on topics around human-centered design, vulnerability and change is an inside job
- Support senior leaders and mission driven solopreneurs as a Thinking Partner
- Facilitator of people-centered workshops and organisational design
- Guide of 1–1 personal, transformational Exploration Spaces
- The co-creator with Jo Hompstead of Human Development Space in-person gatherings which are an emergent and co-creative space for both businesses and open groups
Digital Business Card — https://link.v1ce.co.uk/GarryTurner
LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/garryturnerthinkingpartner
Linktree — https://linktr.ee/HexoChangeGarryTurner
