Taken from a speech from a university climate rally in Cambridge U.K. in May 2023.
Mark Fisher famously said that it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism. Looking around me, I can see that an act of imagination is happening here today. It tells us that things can be different, that a better world is possible. It tells us that it is possible to live with the world rather than against the world. Yet a different act of imagination is happening outside this circle, happening all around us. It tells us that this is all there is, that everything is going to be fine, that we just need to keep our heads down and work for a good retirement. Capitalism is being sustained by this monstrous and unethical act of imagination, which is an active choice.
But I do not believe that we will have a retirement. I don’t think that the system we have today is sustainable. And I want to call attention again to that Mark Fisher quote. If he did believe that it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism, well, I hope we can prove him wrong.