No More Don´t Ask, Don´t Tell

My biggest awakening of this year has been on the political aspects of food. I blogged earlier about Pollan and Safran Foer as some of the people kicking the discussion food going. Having now finished Safran Foer´s Eating Animals, it is becoming more and more obvious that we need to treat food more as a political issue. We´ve kind of let ourselves be swept away by nutritionists and health advocates.

Never have we Finns spent such a small part of our income on the things we eat. What we eat is making the planet and ourselves sick. We push stuff down our throats without a faintest clue of what it contains. Food comes increasingly from the Alepa shelf, not from the field. We´re like that awful Clinton policy on gays in the military: we pretend that there are no problems by not asking any questions. When something goes wrong, we say it is an individual mistake.

EU governments and the EU itself spend an insane amount of money on subsidising and promoting food. Just last year the Finnish government spent 257 000 euros on promoting diverse eating of pork (result here). Let me say that again: 257 000 euros on diverse ways of cooking pork. Honestly.

We have elections in 2011. I want the next government to take food seriously. I want better consumer policy, better ingredients and food produced closer to where I live. I want agriculture policy that takes climate change seriously. As a consumer and citizen I want to know where my food comes from, how its been grown and how ethical it is. And yes, I am willing to pay a bit more for the things on my plate.

I want better and more sustainable food. I want exciting food policy. I want beets of different sizes, big and dirty parsnips, uneven carrots and local bread in my grocery store. I want less of those soggy mozzarella-tomato paninis and more root vegetable delis. I want more publicity to proud farmers like Janne Länsipuro who gets excited over a pumpkin and a burdock. I want to take my nephew to a farm for a weekend to see how flour is made and where herbs come from.

But we also need actions by local and national government. Schools and lunch cafeterias are great places to teach people what good food tastes like. These are also excellent places to create sustainable ways of cooking for instance by diversifying the vegetarian meals.

People need incentives to make right choices. Food if anything can be a political issue that is truly participatory. Good food is a fun issue.

Pursuit of Happiness

Richard Layard
Originally uploaded by Andy Miah

This blog has been rather quiet - or to be more honest - dead for some time now. My apologies for that. One of my New Year´s resolutions is the following: one post and one post only per week.

The new focus: things making us happier. That takes me back to the name of this blog. My favourite word in the Dutch language, kiplekker, basically means chicken licking good.

I finally made my way through economist Richard Layard´s (pic) classic Happiness: Lessons from a New Science (2005). Layard´s basic argument is that the obstacles we once had for using people´s feelings as a measure of societal success are more or less removed. Brain research today gives us enough evidence to measure happiness and well being. This provides us with an opportunity to move further from economic growth and behaviorism that have driven politics for ages now.

Layard stresses one of the things that we work with a lot at Demos Helsinki: that even if all the material things are well, we are more affluent than we have ever been, that does not result to happiness. In a way we as societies are failing the ultimate test: are we building societies where people do well? Every day greater numbers of people feel like they lack a sense of self, skills to deal with their feelings and a sense of relevance in relation to others. Layard puts special emphasis on issues such as helping the poor of the world, reducing unemployment, treating mental illnesses, finding new measuring criteria next to economic growth and supporting family life as ways to happier societies.

So the blog goal is now set for 2010: once a week a post over a phenomenon, project, advertisement, person, website, sports club that is enough reason to get excited about. There´s one more criteria.

The things covered need to answer YES to the following:
Does it create happiness?
and NO to the following:
Does it harm others?
And finally YES to the following (question taken from Charlie from Make Nubs):
Is it fresh?

More to follow.

Immigration is a question of resources

We at Demos Helsinki (together with the centre liberal think tank e2) organised this week a future course for Finnish decision makers on immigration policy and the future of Finland. By focusing on the year 2030 we wanted to stress the fact that diversification will happen and it forces the society to rethink both cohesion and welfare. Detaching the participants from the current challenges, starting from 20 years from now and then counting backwards demonstrated well to them that change is possible as well as needed. Already in 2025 Finland is expected to have 500 000 pensioners and 300 000 immigrants more than currently.

We asked the twenty participants to narrow the outcomes into statements, which will be developed into a larger publication during the fall. Here are the outcomes:

It´s about resources.
Immigration cannot be solved purely as a question of attitudes and tolerance. It is fairer for all to talk about resources and needs. Immigration is already part of Finnish reality. Immigration will not save nor destroy Finnish welfare state but it offers a possibility for starting a rethinking process on welfare.

The work place needs to change.
Change is needed more in the work place and in professional communities than in the individual immigrant. Transformation training is needed in organisations faced with diversity. In order to open up the strong Finnish social networks we need financial support for extracurricular activities (sports, hobby clubs) around and within culturally diverse companies and public organisations. In order to speed up change, affirmative action can be used as a tool in recruitment for professions such as police officers and teachers (encounter professions).

We need a joint, hopeful future.
There is need for an inspirational concept of a Finnish future that is based on rights, responsibilities and goals of a better shared daily life. The best possible brand for Finland is created through happy people and communities. We need stricter equality politics in order to build a shared and fair future.



We need to learn Russia.
Understanding Russia and Russian are crucial for understanding immigration. Finland has already loads of unused competence on the issue, mutta purely mobilising that is not sufficient. There is a need to update the stuffy and narrow ideas of Russia into more exciting ones.

Politics of experimentation
We need courage to live with uncertainty. We need to openly acknowledge that we do not know what works. We need more research and more experimental politics. We need to support also unclear organisations.

Good Finland, happy families

We need to bring families to the core of diversity politics. Finland needs to strive to be the place for the happiest childhood on the planet without forcing families into uniformity. Schools need to be used as buildings and communities for parental volunteerism and non-governmental work such as hobbies, sports and clubs. Taking part in pre-school education only part time of the week needs to be possible in order to support various ways of combining work and parenting.

Demos Helsinki

Demos UK, Demos Helsinki´s sister/brother/associate in London, just turned 16 and celebrated this with a new video on their focus on power and with a new website.

What Did You Do Daddy? from John Belflower on Vimeo.

I have been looking for a brilliant video blog and now I found it. Charlie and others have put together a great blog gathering Nubs. For those who don´t know what nubs are (me an hour ago), here´s the Make Nubs description: Nubs are short videos that explain or bring an idea to life. Check the blog for more, great stuff. For instance the Obama music video from MC Yogi is brilliant.

Once Were Consumers

olimme kuluttajia
Originally uploaded by amsterboy

The pamphlet Olimme kuluttajia (We Were Consumers, Tammi) published yesterday by Aleksi Neuvonen and Roope Mokka of Demos Helsinki lays out four scenarios for 2023. The book takes scarce resources and higher price of energy as matters of fact and looks at our future within this context. It quotes on one hand Hannah Arendt in advocating that true freedom is not the freedom to own but the freedom for meaningful and public action and on the other hand scientists that we have reached the climax in the amount of core resources. If we do not change our way of living, in 15 years the climate has warmed up to the extent that certain parts of China and the American East Coast are starting to be unbearable to live in. The book follows the line of thought in the public debate now that the recession could actually be an opportunity to reboot.

The theme spreading across the book is the way we tackle climate change. According to Neuvonen and Mokka, most of us wish that there will be a day when we will be told by The Leader what not to do and until then most of us continue flying and buying in the current accelerating speed - fully aware of its consequences. The reaction is the same as a child who covers his eyes and ears to avoid the bad news. According to the book we need to recognise our role in change for as long as we wait for our elected leaders to make that switch, we are somewhat doomed. Over the last few years politics has actually taken its lessons from consumerism - politics is more a service industry answering people´s wishes than about ethics, ambitions or doing the right and responsible thing. This is very clear in political rhetorics of today. Therefore that SUV will only be banned when the big middle class takes another turn in its consumption. The book is a rare but realistic call for individual responsibility together with others.

The scenarios see control rising as we fight for limited resources. Control is also one of the ways to make people change. Rather than listening to our neighbours through the wall, in 15 years we can follow the ecological footprint of our neighbours from a public record Wastebook. In a world of less, we will surely make sure that our neighbours will not be free riding the system. This has been happening already in some countries in smaller scale for instance by people reporting their neighbours to the authorities when they do not recycle their trash.

The book claims that have moved from Social Democratic I Need Politics to more Centre Liberal I Want Politics. We are seeing the emergence of I Can Politics but the true change happens when we make a shift to We Can. When the media, corporations and governments take a bigger role in showing us the interconnectedness, we move from rights and responsibilities to virtues and pursuing truer happiness through responsible action and more meaningful human relationships. It moves discussion from what I want to what we can do.

This liberation from consumerism and move towards citizenship is quite inspiring and Case Obama is a good example of how it functions as a rhetorical tool. But I end up thinking, after reading the book, what happens when the resources really start running out. What are the arguments for building trust? The book paints a relatively beautiful picture of collective action but I feel it slightly - maybe for the argument´s sake - downplays the conflict and difference of opinion on the tools to make the switch. Politics is about deciding on those alternatives. It is not a question of The Good vs. The Bad but different strategies maybe even towards a shared goal. Does the urgency make our political system more responsible or more vicious What kind of leaders to we get, wish and deserve?

Olimme kuluttajia makes a convincing case that we have no alternative but to change. But I recognise I am already somewhat in the inner circle of this stuff. Reading it makes me reorient my professional focus to enhancing those positive developments and using my writing skills to formulate those attractive arguments to convince ever bigger parts of the population. This requires reaching over the aisle and bringing the engineer, marketeer and politician to the same table to build that map of interconnectedness. And yes, this is terribly exciting.

Face The Music

Great ad by Demos Helsinki and advertising agency PHS as part of Ilmastotalkoot (Climate Action) on the impact of travelling. Apparently Finnish TV stations did not want to show the ad due to the risks it could cause for travel and airline ads. The advertisement won the Audience Prize in the Voitto competition for the Best Ad of the Year. (Source: Markkinointi ja Mainonta)

We The Republic

Industrial Documentary: Video Killed The Radio Star
Originally uploaded by Vincént

Demos report called Video Republic was just launched at the British Film Institute. The report is fab and written by superb people. Highly recommend refreshing your insight on young people and video. The report makes fascinating recommendations on the way we need to engage with the video republic of the young, what kind of media literacy skills young people need and how we need a serious readjustment of the copyrights system. The project used the StrangerFestival and especially workshops in Romania, Turkey, Finland and the UK as their case studies. I am very proud that it was linked to our initiative.

And all this with just a click - for free. And we even got into The Guardian.

The Video Republic

On Monday we launch together with Demos a report on youth and video which has been carried out associated to StrangerFestival. From Monday 6 October the report is available for downloading at www.demos.co.uk. I highly recommend reading it. But here as a taster, a video building up the excitement. The report is funded by Helsingin Sanomat Foundation.

Collaborative Production of Meaning

nautablog
Originally uploaded by amsterboy

On Thursday I attended the launch event of PICNIC, the Dutch Cross-Media Week where we shall be publishing our research on young people and expressive democracy. At the launch, Programme Director Monique van Dusseldorp quoted my favourite innovation philosopher Charles Leadbeater and his new book We-Think where he talks about collaborative production of meaning. With this he means processes such as Wikipedia or certain online games where collaboration is required to create, archive, file and check content. I found it highly exciting.

My personal modest input in this respect is joining Frans Nauta´s blog Excellent Government. Frans is the founder of Kennisland think tank, a lover of the Finnish innovation policy and currently Professor of Public Sector Innovation in Arnhem. I met him in 2003 when I was invited to a Kennisland event in the Netherlands to talk about how a Finnish university student experiences the Finnish innovation wonder. I like Frans´ enthusiastic, critical and exploratory tone which is why it is a pleasure to co-blog. I did my first dip today on the latest Vanity Fair and on my political idol Bobby Kennedy.

Top of the class

Working with video and youth, you get to see a lot of good stuff. But there are very few videos that would beat Francis Luke Wasser from Dublin and his video 24/7. Have a look. This makes me think of a basic premise of the Demos research we have commissioned around StrangerFestival: these are not expressions of who they are but these cultural expressions are tools for becoming who they will be.

New Folk Culture

StrangerFestival is proceeding. First videos are coming in and the workshops are currently going on in Slovakia and Finland. Romania has already finished their first two workshops, so has AT5 in Amsterdam. And the quality of the videos is brilliant which makes me extremely happy. This video is a good example of a clear message. Although it has been fascinating to show this in different settings and realise that people read different things to it. What do you think the maker is saying?

More videos available at www.strangerfestival.com.

More of this analysis will be done in the research we have commissioned the British think tank Demos to do. They are openly developing their project online which I think is a great way of keeing the ball rolling.