One of the things I find most interesting about solarpunk is that it embraces technology. Not any technology, mind you; people are very critical of mere greenwashing, crypto-nonsense and the like. But compared to other ecological movements, it does embrace the potential current and future technologies yield for a better world. There is, however, a type of technology I feel is somewhat neglected. For lack of a better term, I’ll call them soft technologies — non-material ways of achieving certain results. You could also call them interpersonal or cultural technologies, but I’ll stick with this term for now.
Post-Hierarchy
A core goal of solarpunk as I’ve perceived it so far is the distribution of power — or, to put it differently, the dissolution of hierarchies. This is a massive undertaking, given that hierarchies play such a dominant role in today’s societies, as well as throughout most of human history. Hierarchies may be stiff and unnecessary, but for many people they provide order, certainty and stability at the expense of the freedom of those lower on the hierarchical ladder. Most people can’t even imagine a world without them — hierarchies seem natural as well as necessary.
Now, as we all know one of solarpunks main perk is doing just that — enabling people to imagine different futures. And in terms of technologies like robots, airships, greenhouses, drones, agrivoltaics, fusing of plants and buildings… it has done a great job. Soft technologies are a lot harder to depict — how would you draw a picture of a consensus decision, for example? In my opinion, we need to find ways to do just that — display all the awesome soft technologies that are already available in niches — like consensus decisionmaking, mediation for conflict resolution, tools for community building, restorative justice and many more.
Examples in Literature
There already are a few good examples of such tools in Solarpunk literature (mild spoilers in this part). In A half-built Garden, the protagonist realizes she has neglected to connect with her new co-parents, and this lack of a deep relationship creates a lot of problems in times of conflict. Ruthanna Emrys then beautifully describes the heartfelt and emotional talk they have about their feelings, their needs and how their past shapes their perspective on the conflict at hand.
In The Terraformers, Annalee Newitz describes the decision-making process of the rangers, whose job it is to take care of the planet’s ecosystem. Although they use majority-decisionmaking, the minority in turn always gets to choose an important concession, which is a great way to avoid alienating them and potentially splitting the group.
One of the more humorous examples in Cory Doctorow’s Walkaway is the convention to not place blame on individual people when something goes wrong in collective projects. Rather, the walkaway communities routinely attribute even obvious human errors to technical bugs so people aren’t driven to defend their egos and start conflicts to justify their choices.
The protagonist from the Monk&Robot books by Becky Chambers is another great, albeit more individualistic example — they are a tea monk, traveling the world and offering people a soothing, personalized cup of tea as well as an open ear for any trouble they might have. This can be considered a widely accepted and normalized, low-key version of therapy, available to anyone who needs it, and not just after this need has become unbearably urgent.
Let’s Paint a Picture!
In my experience, very few people outside of activist circles and social movements are accustomed to such technologies, especially the more collective ones like consensus decision making. But if solarpunk is serious about dissolving hierarchies in favor of a more egalitarian and just society, soft technologies like these need to become a lot more widespread, and a good start for that would be to find new ways of depicting them in art.
What does a group making a consensus decision look like? How can we paint a liberatory center for mental health and self-care? How do we convey the fact that a community thrives without (or with an acceptable minimum of) hierarchies?
Ideally, this should be done in a way that makes their adaptability obvious: They shouldn’t come across as mere properties of individual characters (benevolent leaders who let others take part in their decision, for example), but rather processes anyone and any group can learn to use. This replicability is obvious in hard technologies — if one village manages to be powered by solar panels or grow buildings from trees, any other should be able to use that, too — but not so much in soft ones: just because a group is able to settle conflicts in an egalitarian way, people will still doubt that this would work with their neighbours as well.
As is the case with hard technology, the soft tools to build a solarpunk society are already out there — it’s just a matter of replacing the old systems and making the new ones the norm.
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