Speaker by Various Artists

It’s pretty rare that I pay to see a movie twice but along with Mad Max: Fury Road the new Star Wars sequel was totally worth it! To be fair I was already a big enough fan to binge-watch the trilogy with mates before going to see it but that doesn’t even put me near the middle of pack when it comes to the Star Wars fan base.  It’s one of the rare franchises that literally has a cult following. One so large that Jedi is an official religion.  Ignoring the prequels, the franchise somehow created a world that just but want to be part of, and characters that you feel in love with.  

It’s easy to just put its popularity down to things like visual effects, space battles and lightsabres, the sexy chemistry of a young Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher.  But if we look back at when the original came out none of these are unique to Star Wars.

The original came out in 1977, almost 10 years after 2001: A Space Odyssey – a Kubrick masterpiece that broke new boundaries in visual effects and told a story that was far more nuanced and interesting than anything we will ever see in Star Wars.  And in that decade we also saw the release of other smart, well-made franchises with popular actors – from Planet of the Apes to Battlestar Galactica – yet nothing has come close the capturing the imagination and the following of Star Wars.  So what did Star Wars do so differently?

To answer that we have to go back to the 1940s, when an incredibly curious young author named Joseph Campbell set out on a journey to find purpose and meaning in his life.  He was obsessed with stories and mythology, from Native American ones, to those from India and East Asia.  And in studying the stories of mythical heroes and their journeys, he hoped to find some answers to his own purpose.  What he found was that from the thousands of stories of protagonists a single universal story began to appear. The Monomyth.

In the Monomyth, Luke Skywalker begins his journey as an outsider, out of place in an ordinary world, where he unexpectedly receives a message – a call to action from a mysterious stranger called Hagrid.  Harry then then receives a new weapon like a magical wand and/or some wisdom from old wizard like Gandalf, and sets out on his journey (sometimes with a group of friends or allies).  Rae then faces all number of challenges, traps and villains. She beats of all them until she meets her nemesis, Kylo Ren.  She is captured or has some kind of setback.   Sometimes our hero comes close to death or actually dies, only to be reborn stronger and smarter than ever and goes back into the Matrix to defeat Agent Smith and save the world/universe.  It’s actually a bit amusing that a lot of criticism of the Force Awakens is that it’s a lot like the original.  You can watch Campbell himself talk about the Monomyth in Star Wars here.

The monomyth is everywhere, and we just can’t seem to get enough.  It works because it draws from deep unquenchable and universal human needs - our search for identity, status and purpose in life.  When the hero is told they're special we project ourselves into their shoes.  When the world is split into good and evil, and our hero joins the fight, we share that feeling of having a clear purpose.  And when people look up in awe at our hero, we feel better about ourselves.

If anything, the power of the monomyth is stronger today than it ever was.  In the last 40 or so years we’ve seen the breakdown of the hierarchies and structures that for all of human history gave people a sense of identity through their jobs, religion or class.  We are now all individuals with never-seen-before social freedom.  And with that comes the challenge of finding our own purpose and creating our own identity among the infinite possibilities the modern world has to offer.

We are no longer driven by the pursuit of happiness but by the pursuit of purpose and a search for identity, and even consumerism can’t fully give us what we seek.  Which is why the idea of receiving a call from a mysterious stranger to go out onto journey to join the fight between good and evil is more than a little enticing.

Smart organisations understand this, and make it a core part of not just their comms language but of the campaign and organisational strategy.  They understand that to win, you have to grow.  And to grow you need more than people to just care about your issue.  You need a story that pulls on something deep and emotional.  You need something that allows people to project their own imagination, hopes and dreams onto the cause and make it their own.  And to do this you need to make your supporters the heroes – while you take on the role of the mysterious stranger or the wise Jedi that helps them on their journey of self-discovery and self-actualisation.

You can see a bit of this in action from the first few paragraphs of this email from “Barack Obama”. He calls for “your” help, and even touches on the shared “Democratic values we all hold dear”. 

 

Yes, after getting a 1000 calls to ‘Sign the Petition’ or “Donate just $5” it begins to sound less like a call to save the world from the Death Star and more like spam from a Nigerian prince, but just The Force Awakens, the 2008 Obama campaign was an international blockbuster hit for that reason.

If you look closely at speeches and campaign material from that time, you’ll find that he rarely talks about himself as a solution or hero. One of the most beautiful examples of this technique in action is in this campaign video from his re-election campaign.  In the space of a couple of minutes he makes himself more relatable and empowers the audience with a sense of agency, letting them feel that they’re the heroes who are going to change the world.

The monomyth is ultimately just a tool.  And that means it can be used for both good and evil.  I’m pretty sure if you scanned through ISIS propaganda you’d find it there.  As you would find it in good campaigns from every political party, religious text or cause that has ever meant anything to anybody anywhere.

There are unfortunately two Death Star-sized problems with this approach.  The first is a paradox I struggle with every day.  I studied a lot of math as an undergrad engineer and we often used simplifying mathematical models on complex problems.  And ‘The Hero’s Journey’ Monomyth does the same for reality. It takes something that’s full of nuance, contradictions and tradeoffs, and simplifies it so that people can take action without having to make a thousand morally complex decisions.  It’s efficient, but comes at the cost of nuance.  Unfortunately, reality is nuanced. And as soon as you paint the other side as the villains they bunker down and have less reason to ever come to the table to find a workable solution.

I’ve spent a decent chunk of my 20s working on climate change, and I can honestly say you don’t run into many people who are actually malicious. It’s a very small number of people who spend their time trying to deny the science. Most of the resistance to good climate policy comes from everyday folks who just happen to have different values, families to look out for, cultural differences and concerns that are totally legitimate in a democratic society. Just look at the resistance to decent public transport and higher density housing in Auckland.

Overuse of one simple story leads to your supporters seeing an issue as being ‘us’ vs ‘them’. Seeing the world as ‘us’ vs ‘them’ leads to people believing that the ends justify the means. And that I’m pretty sure leads to the dark side. The story becomes more powerful than the storyteller. There is no better place to see this play out over and over again than in the USA. Especially on something like gun ownership, where a simple story about “good guys with guns” seems immune to reality.

Which leads to the second Death Star.  Obi Wan Kenobi gave Luke more than just a lightsabre, – he gave him something far more powerful, he gave him a source of wisdom, and the ability to use the Force.  When we take on Obi Wan’s role in our campaigns, we do the same.  Whether we intend to or not – we teach our supporters how to gain and wield power.  So do we show them that to get what you want you have to always be the loudest and angriest voices? Does winning require shutting down internal debate and ideological purity?  Is it a waste of time to try and bring people together around shared values and goals? 

I’ll be the first to admit it’s not easy to decide when it’s appropriate to speak softly or use the big stick.  It’s hard to really know when you’ve gone from being the powerless to the one wielding power.  And it’s a LOT easier to get funding, supporters and media coverage when we break things down to simple black and white messages.  The actions that we ask our supporters to take do more to define the values our movements than anything we say we stand for in our speeches, websites and meetings.  And we do have to take great care that we aren’t reinforcing the values that created the problem we’re trying to fix. 

If you’re working on progressive campaigns and want to chat comms and strategy, feel free to hit me up on Twitter @kirkserpes

Movie geekery knows no season – because when you really love movies, it's always popcorn time. But some times of the year are special and, for film nerds, Christmas is most definitely one of those times. Jimmy has rounded up his five favourite Christmas films – including, er, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Digest your turkey to this lot ...

I’m one of the directors of a little publishing cooperative called Freerange Press. We publish books about the city, design, politics, and pirates. We’ve been doing this since 2007 (as a formal cooperative since 2012). We are making a book about the media in New Zealand and this is a little bit of writing to explain why we think this discussion is important now, and how you can be involved.

Contemporary society is relentlessly confusing, characterised by a lack of justice and fairness, and yet profoundly rich and vibrant. It’s this sort of messy, intriguing framing of our modern world that the cooperative publishing company Freerange tries to bring attention to.

Over the past nine years we (six directors, 20 first mates and hundreds of contributors) have focussed our collective attention on issues important to us: the city, violence and gardening, the role of the trickster in contemporary society, feminism and technology, the commons, loving our institutions - and many others.

Most recently, and I think most importantly, we have have published a number of books telling stories of post-quake Christchurch. Few places in the world bring together this confusing, lacking-in-justice and yet filled-with-promise vibe more powerfully than Christchurch. Watching and documenting a city fall apart then slowly piece itself back together is likely to be the most intriguing and difficult thing I will do in my lifetime.

The thinking of American philosopher John Dewey has become important to me: chiefly his views on the ways in which complex issues are understood in relation to the public, and what the role of a publishing company in this context might be. Dewey wrote around the turn of the 20th century, a time very different to ours but in a society sharing a similar sense of profound change.

Radio, trains, international trade and complex global wars were challenging the models of democracy on which the West is based. The idea that neighbourhoods, cities and city-states can best manage their affairs by engaging the people that live in them in decision-making processes was being challenged. Along with the young liberal journalist Walter Lippman, Dewey identified the impossibility for even the most attentive and gifted citizen of understanding the rich and complex networks affecting their lives and the world around us.

Dewey and Lippman diagnosed a feeling many of us share today. The sense of complexity, helplessness and excitement that comes from confronting difficult things.

Both suggested that "the public" is not an abstraction to be measured and polled when needed, but a grouping that could instead be better understood as "publics" that activate, agitate and spring into action when issues relevant to them emerge.

They suggest that it is issues themselves that pull publics (groups of interested people who don’t necessarily agree) together around a problem. Publics are verbs, temporary formations of people activated around something that concerns them. Issues like land rights, economic growth, post-quake housing, mental health, climate change, neighbourhood protection, cycleways, post-colonial justice.

These publics gather around the smallest of issues, like who mows berms, to the most complex problems we’ve ever faced as a species – such as climate change and energy production. From classic progressive political issues like gender equality and worker rights to conservative positions on rates, taxes and migration.

The experience of publishing in Christchurch, and about Christchurch, has forced us to start asking questions about the role of the media in how publics form. What is the role of the media in the changing landscape of the internet, global networks of ownership, and its ability to discuss, confront and provide space for the important issues of our time? This question happens to coincide with a more general turbulence in the media landscape worldwide. Freerange Press’ next non-fiction publication, Reimagining the Media, will investigate the media as it once was, as it is today, and as we imagine it to be and what it might become.

At Freerange we like to tap the wisdom of the crowd. We aim to locate and give voice to groups, expert citizens and concerned professionals that are trying to articulate and respond to the problems they see. We make beautiful and important books with writing that is easy to read. We want to be part of the very that is a public calling attention to a problem, and by doing so hopefully, in some small way, contribute to understanding and acting on it.

We are calling out for journalists, commentators, theorists and users of the media to participate in this reimagining and to examine how New Zealand understands and defines itself via the media through reflecting on issues, ideas and controversies that have proven significant in recent times. We wish to work with collaborators to build an in-depth discussion about the media and the opportunities available to it (and its users).

Through carefully themed chapters and quality writing that engages the public, the book will be a case study of a radically changing industry: the quantity of media content continues to increase exponentially; new media technologies sit in tension with an aging population; the impact of social media and of citizen journalists is on the rise. Within this ever-evolving landscape there is a (perhaps misplaced?) nostalgia for the good old days; there are questions over the standards of the profession, the role of journalists and the media’s function as a public space.

Reimagining the Media will be curated and edited and include articles, case studies, interviews and visual essays. The collection of diverse perspectives and great writing ensures that the book will be a significant contribution to this subject and a valuable resource. The book will be launched with a panel discussion and event on the last night of the WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival in August 2016.

Please send your pitches on reimagining the media (by media we mean platforms that bring information into the public sphere) and expressions of interest to  by 20 December. Pitches should be maximum one page and include a description of the idea and relevant experience. If accepted submissions will be due in mid-February. Freerange will pay  a contributors’ fee for those pieces that are accepted.

The editorial steering group for this project is: Giovanni Tiso (Bat Bean Beam), Russell Brown (Public Address), Rosabel Tan (Pantograph Punch), Sarah Illingworth (Impolitikal), Barnaby Bennett (Freerange Press), Emma Johnson (Freerange Press).

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About Freerange Press

Freerange Press publishes books and journals about cities, design and politics. Freerange has an extensive distribution network and produces high-quality books, journals and other media projects. Freerange Press has experience in carefully managing publications with difficult topics and competing interests, and has the ability to turn complex issues into cohesive and well-designed objects.

Our last two books have proved successful commercially, in reviews and through participation in a series of public events. Christchurch: The Transitional City Part IV is in its third edition and has sold close to 2000 copies. Graham Beattie, called it "an inspiring piece of publishing". It has been reviewed on Scoop, covered in The Press and has featured on numerous blogs. Once in a Lifetime: City-building after Disaster, with foreword by Helen Clark, was launched at the WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival in 2014. It has sold more than 1000 copies to date. Wil Harvie from The Press called Once in a Lifetime "the most important earthquake book so far". It has had wide-ranging coverage: TV3’s Firstline, National Radio, The Press, The NZ Herald, Idealog, Architecture NZ, Scoop.

So it's 1982 and I'm standing on the porch watching Mum move a sack of spuds out of the shed and towards the car. I can see it like it's yesterday, her with her shoulders slanted, a fag hanging out her mouth, high elbow pointed upwards as she grunts and hauls the rough fabric.

"Whatchadoin?"

"Taking these round to Trish and Tony."

"Can I come?"

"Get in."

I've grown accustomed to not talking much in the car, so we sit silently while she drives out and up to Papamoa Beach Road and along the long empty stretch of lupins and grasses out to their place. There's old pines and that half-round hay shed that's been there forever. There's graying fences and the occasional car parked up at the roadside, occupants over the at the nudey beach.

She flicks ash out the window.

When we stop the scene's reversed, with her popping fag between lips again and hauling the spuds out of the boot. She carries them across the driveway and into the house, not pausing to knock, and heads up the stairs. I follow diligently, my head popping up past the guard rail just as she's putting the spuds down in the kitchen. The first thing I see is Tony sitting there at the table.

His shoulders are square and he's sitting bolt upright, his narrow face weather-beaten and slightly strained. His forearms are resting on the table and his hands are fists. His hair has been combed to one side with his fingers. Tears roll down his cheeks.

"Ya didn't have to." He murmurs.

I look across as Trish speaks. "Liz, you can't afford those either. Take them home, we'll be alright."

She looks at me and says, "We're leaving before they make us take them."

And just like that, we walk out, and climb into the car.

So why you say? Well, "82 was the time when the government took away all the fishing rights and Tony has a boat parked up at the wharves in Tauranga that can't work. It's been months and they have three kids to feed. A mortgage to pay. And they have nothing.

But us? We have a Widow's Benefit keeping us going. The money is barely enough to keep us in clothes and shoes, but Liz takes the food out of our mouths and takes it over to their place, leaving them enough to see them through.

And we don't talk about it on the way home. I just sit and look out the window and wonder about a better time. A time when I'll understand what just happened. A time when a gift of charity like that will be more than a moral lesson for me, and more like a something I'll need do myself. A time when I'm a man who'll have an inkling of what it must be like to not have any way to feed your kids. A time when I'll remember that what I saw was the real New Zealanders, the ones who give a fuck about the pōhara because, they are the pōhara.

The strange sense that we’ve been here before is well justified, given Judith Collins’ reappointment to the role where she gained her ‘Crusher’ moniker (despite never actually crushing a car).

Her re-appointment and Sam Lotu-Iiga’s demotion is being framed to portray her as the strong-willed, no-nonsense person who can clean up the Corrections and Serco mess. This feeds into the public persona, the Collins ‘brand’, of half pantomime villain, half steely eyed Thatcher. It’s an easy narrative, the tough, no-nonsense and slightly morally dubious politician brought in from the cold to fix a problem created by a generally less hard-edged, more conciliatory politician in Lotu-Iiga.

Except that’s bollocks, isn’t it? Sam Lotu-iiga was thrown a grenade by his predecessor, Anne Tolley, but the pin on that grenade was pulled by The Honourable Judith Collins MP back in 2009. It was Collins who put the Mt Eden contract out to tender and of the three bids for it, chose Serco. it was Collins who exuberantly praised the UK company saying “Serco have a strong track record in managing prisons. I’m confident the company will bring the high standards of professionalism, safety, rehabilitation and security expected…”

And, given the direction the as-yet unpublished report appears to be leading, it was Collins and her successor, Anne Tolley, who didn’t question the self-reported statistics that emerged from Mt Eden Corrections Facility. Indeed, Tolley has some questions to answer about the deal that brought Serco into the Wiri prison in South Auckland. Because while Collins’ deal was struck before the worst failures of Serco were evident in their overseas contracts, Anne Tolley must have been wilfully blind to ignore the utter mess of their contractor in 2012.

But back to Serco. At No To Serco we expected there to be a delay in the reporting about the Fight Clubs, and there was one. Stage One of the Serco report was due at the end of October, and Serco have filed an injunction claiming they didn’t have time to prepare for the investigation that had been going on for three months and was vital to the continuation of their contract. Stage Two concerned all subsequent expanding revelations from inmates, former inmates, staff and the families of all. It was due at the end of November. So far, nothing.

The shift in Minister is a tactic employed as a way to shuck off the impact of, what is probably going to be, a very damaging report into the Government’s flagship privatisation programme. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, by starting with prisoners (who nobody cares about) it should have been possible to claim success and move on with other privatisations. That is happening, but the opposition to it is now much more coherent and with a good measure of public opinion onside.

Minister Collins will deflect questions about Serco in the same way Chris Finlayson did about the GCSB, claiming “I wasn’t the Minister”. That may be temporarily effective, but given Collins’ role in the introduction of Serco to New Zealand, it should not be too difficult for MPs, like Kelvin Davis and David Clendon who have worked so hard so far, to find cracks in her defence.

It all depends on the release of the reports. At No To Serco, in partnership with ActionStation, we have been quietly maintaining contact with the thousands of people who have made it clear they want Serco out of Aotearoa. Regardless of who is the Minister for Corrections, these reports will be released. What we are hearing right now is that there will be sufficient grounds for a termination of the Mt Eden contract.

That’s a potential win, and an important one too. Whether or not it pushes Collins or Lotu-Iiga further into trouble is relevant politically, but it’s not the whole aim of our campaign. So if Serco lose Mt Eden, then we’ll be focusing intently on Wiri and any potential bids for public services. Their proposed bid for management of Wellington’s trains brought thousands of email responses to Parliament. The public just don’t trust them any more. And that matters.

Because Key can change the Minister, bringing back the architects of disaster in Collins or Tolley, but he can’t change the absolute disaster of Serco’s mismanagement of our prisons, or our determination to see them exit New Zealand with a firm boot to their rear.

John Palethorpe is an organiser with the group No To Serco in Aotearoa.