The Queen's death, book bans, the attack on Salman Rushdie, and Patagonia's big announcement

TWS Notes on the News #2

Welcome to the second edition of Notes on the News, where we try to bring a big picture, “whole society perspective” to some of the headlines from the past month (drawing, as usual, on social threefolding — the social thinking of the 20th century philosopher Rudolf Steiner).

There were a number of fascinating stories to choose from, but the ones below seemed to choose themselves as they all gathered around a shared theme, what might be described as “material wealth and spiritual poverty.”

Hope you enjoy.

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The Queen’s death and the future of the monarchy

Elizabeth II, Queen of England, died on September 8th. She reigned for 70 years, the longest in British history, but what exactly was the nature of her role and what does her death mean for the future of the monarchy? Will the United Kingdom remain united?

Much of Elizabeth’s reign was concerned with stabilizing British power as its empire shrunk — she was the kindly mother, then grandmother, overseeing her political (and personal) family’s quarrels and disputes. With her gone, people are asking, How long will the family stay together? Will Northern Ireland leave and reunite with the rest of Ireland? Will Scotland go its own way and rejoin the European Union? And what of the larger commonwealth — will Canada, Jamaica, and Australia want Charles III as their new head of state?

It’s understandable that the role Elizabeth played seemed necessary for British stability, but is it still? And what exactly is that role? She ruled for 70 years, but of course she never “ruled” anything — the “head of state” is only a title. She was not the captain giving orders at the helm of the ship, but the silent figurehead on its prow.

When commentators speak of Elizabeth’s long life of duty, they speak of her tireless traveling, how she showed up all over the kingdom to shake hands at galas and cut ribbons at the openings of new libraries. But why was she everywhere? As she said of herself, “I have to be seen to be believed.” Her function was purely symbolic.

Of course there’s nothing wrong with being a symbol for people. Not at all. Symbols point to that which inspires people, that which gives their lives meaning. But what does it mean that one of the world’s most important symbols only points to a past we intentionally broke with centuries ago — a time when there was no social mobility but your position was determined by who your parents were? Because it’s that which made Elizabeth Queen. It was not her special virtue that won her a crown and riches, but the happenstance of her birth. Is anyone actually inspired by this idea today?

The fact is, we hold on to such symbols because we’re losing our capacity for new inspiration — for creating new symbols and stories, new solutions to our social dilemmas. Our films and TV shows are almost all reruns and prequels of earlier stories, a practice so ubiquitous that there’s even a new show, “Reboot,” mocking it. It seems all we want to do is look back.

And the future is understandably frightening. Why would it be better if the monarchy was disbanded? To many, it would mean being orphaned, being alone with no one to take care of us. As Tracey Crouch, a conservative MP in the British Parliament, said in her tribute to Elizabeth:

Last night, as we sat as a family and watched the news break of her death, tears openly rolled down my cheeks and those of my other half. Our six-year-old took my hand in his and said, “Don’t worry, mummy; the King will look after us now.” He is right. God save the King.

It’s painful to have to step forward on our own, to become co-responsible for our shared social life — terrifying, really, in a world with so much instability. Is it really possible for us to start a new chapter, to find new meaning, to create new social structures? It often doesn’t feel possible, but all we can do is take courage and turn ourselves to those places where we sense the potential for true change.

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Book bans and the attack on Salman Rushdie

The topic of free speech has been all over the news recently, especially after PEN America released a September 19th report that showed the continued rise of book bans in the US. What’s the cause? The bans are largely due to groups of conservative parents (with conservative advocacy groups behind them) forcing school libraries to take race- and LGBTQ-related books off their shelves. All told, over 1600 different titles were removed in the past year.

In addition, last month saw the attempted murder and hospitalization of the author Salman Rushdie who, in 1988, published The Satanic Verses, a novel considered blasphemous by many conservative Muslims. While the book was heralded in the West as a great work of art, in Iran the supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to kill the novelist. Rushdie has lived with a bounty on his head ever since.

Such attacks on free speech follow a once familiar pattern — progressives push the envelope of what’s considered acceptable, then conservatives push back. Free speech, though heralded as a universal value in American society, was often most cherished and protected by progressive organizations like the ACLU. But values around free speech have shifted in recent years and the ideal is no longer as cherished as it once was.

This was the central focus of a major PEN America gathering in early September, an event that drew some of the country’s most famous authors to discuss the state of free speech in the US. Much of what was discussed was the attack on free speech now coming from the left where there’s little tolerance for alternative perspectives and where voicing such views can lead to cancellation — the loss of friends and jobs. As PEN America CEO, Suzanne Nossel, described the current free speech climate: “Young people have been alienated from the idea of free speech and see it as a smoke screen for hatred and bigotry.”

And young people aren’t wrong: free speech is a smoke screen for bigotry. Free speech allows for white supremacy — for neo-Nazis to parade through Jewish neighborhoods. Free speech is a wall that others can hide behind in order to say the most offensive things, to question your core, fundamental identity.

But it’s also a smoke screen for blasphemy. It’s a wall that allows you to question ideas and beliefs that are fundamental to others — to ask if there’s really a god, if a person deserves to have so much property, if the state’s laws are just. And without free speech, there’s no conversation at all. Nothing moves.

Though progressives have in certain ways lost sight of the value of free speech, they’re also bringing up an essential point that’s rarely addressed: free speech isn’t only about fighting censorship, but also about empowering the silent to speak up. Those who have been historically marginalized haven’t been able to make their voices heard, they haven’t had the position and resources. So much still depends on where, and to whom, one is born — on the color of one’s skin and the wealth of one’s family, and not one’s individual capacities.

This is why people feel so strongly about equal access to education — we have to break the privilege of pedigree somehow. If people are going to have anything to say in society then they need to be able to explore their own mind and learn to express themselves, regardless of their background. But what if the educational system is designed to make everyone think the same, believe the same history, practice the same medicine, read the same books? Can we really claim we want people to speak their own mind when we’re trying to create a monoculture in the realm of ideas? Book bans and cancel culture aren’t the only expressions of shutting down speech, our very educational system tells teachers exactly what to say in the classroom, regardless of whether they believe it or not. And almost no one questions this.

This is the major reason for the narrowness of our thinking today, for our lack of inspiration and creativity. Whenever we try to make the whole world conform and think like us, then we’re all the poorer for it.

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Patagonia’s big announcement: “We’re ‘going purpose’”

One of the most exciting headlines this month was the announcement by the outdoor clothing company Patagonia that they’ve converted their ownership model to what’s commonly called steward-ownership. Instead of ownership being held in a few hands, the company placed itself into the hands of a trust that will ensure that it always sticks to its mission. In the process, those that owned the company — the founder, his wife, kids and grandkids — have all given up their golden ticket to endless wealth.

In the steward-ownership model, profits can’t be siphoned off into the pockets of the super rich, but are either reinvested into the company or donated to nonprofits who share the company’s values of preserving the natural world. Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard, put it this way, “Instead of ‘going public’, you could say we’re ‘going purpose’.” (This larger emphasis on the mission and purpose of a company touches on the centrality that ideas and inspiration should have in social life.)

The model came into existence in 2015, and since then there have been at least 100 companies that have taken the plunge. A New Yorker article from last January described the plight of one entrepreneur, Kate Emery, who was facing the same problem that all mission-driven founders face when looking to retire:

As long as Emery was running the company, swimming upstream against the imperative to maximize profit was possible. But her looming retirement posed a seemingly insurmountable problem. How could she preserve the distinctive culture of her business after she was gone? Prospective buyers might profess to admire her values, but nothing would stop the new owners from abandoning them.

The article goes on…

In 2018, while researching succession options, Emery read about an organization called Purpose Foundation… Its ambitious goal is to dethrone shareholder primacy and profit maximization as defining features of capitalism. To do this, Purpose Foundation has created a new kind of corporate ownership structure. It’s a kind of legal hack, based on rules in an obscure corner of trust law. Normally, trusts have human beneficiaries. But it’s also possible to create what’s known as a perpetual-purpose trust — a trust that exists not for the benefit of particular individuals but to fulfill some purpose.

Steward-ownership is still in its early phases of development, so it’s yet to be seen how much of an impact it will have. But it is a significant development — an attempt to shift one of the most harmful dynamics in the economy. That dynamic was described a century ago by the social philosopher Rudolf Steiner who pointed out the importance of not allowing businesses to swing from the social into the antisocial, of not allowing them to move from being a mission-driven company (concerned in some way with benefiting people and planet) to becoming a purely profit-driven company.

It’s wonderful that Chouinard has taken this step, and hopefully he’s one of a growing tsunami of owners who will do likewise. But ultimately society will also need to change how it works with ownership on a more fundamental level. It can’t remain a “legal hack” by well-meaning companies, but needs to be incorporated into our legal and cultural systems more broadly.

Because ownership is not a “natural right” — it’s not some eternal Truth that people can buy a piece of land or a factory and do whatever they want with it, regardless of how it affects others. Our rights are decided by the community, and it’s time we took a hard look at which aspects of ownership serve the community and which don’t. It’s time we got more inspired, more creative, in the realm of the social.

For more on Purpose foundation, see their website. Also, to grasp their principles, I highly recommend the fantastic Ted talk by one of their founders Armin Steurnagel (who, I should mention, is also well-versed in social threefolding).