As the mid-term elections approach, my feelings keep fluctuating between hope and fear. I see many glimmers of hope, and yet, I must manage the fears that are stoked by the news headlines and the endless stream of social media.
What’s helping me now is returning to the perspective I gained in one of the best books I read this summer: The Beginning Comes After the End, by Rebecca Solnit, a feminist activist focused on protecting human rights and our climate. Her book inspired me by providing me with an essential shift in my perspective. It is getting me to take the long view on making transformational change and seeing the seeds of progress despite significant setbacks.
This is a short, beautifully written book. Solnit draws from many fields, including biology, ecology, and sociology, as well as her own experience as an activist. In a series of connected essays, she provides hope by amassing evidence that shows the power of ideas that are too great to fail. She weaves together many disparate elements across disciplines into a coherent narrative of how transformational change happens.
Her proof points include many of the changes that have happened since her childhood in California in the 1960s. (Her past mirrors my own, so her perspective deeply resonates.) The degree of change since then has been profound – civil rights, women’s rights, gay marriage, to name a few. We’re experiencing a backlash to this change, and the resulting pain, right now.
And yet, there’s hope. It lies in her core idea that “the beginning comes after the end.” Drawing on many of nature’s metaphors, including the caterpillar that transforms into a butterfly (through the crucible of the chrysalis) she writes that, “The beginning – the next era – comes after the end of the last one, and in between comes a lot of falling apart.”
Pushing through the pain of transformational change isn’t easy. But it’s possible. How is it done?
Solnit identifies many of our strengths as a species, including our interconnectedness, our strong desire to save ourselves, and the tremendous energy that comes from collaborating to do so. She demonstrates how we’ve harnessed these strengths over the decades to protect the planet, human rights, democracy, and our collective health.
She shows what a difference small groups of activists have made – many of whom are women without formal power. Her examples range from Indigenous people who persisted against the odds to protect land in northern California to anti-nuclear activists in Seabrook, New Hampshire who didn’t prevail but inspired others to activism which succeeded elsewhere. Their activism had lasting effects, that rippled through time and space.
None of this happens automatically. It takes activism that builds over time and turns into collective power. There are many ways in which we pull together to survive – sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly, and often imperfectly. It can be difficult to see the impact we’re making in the short term. But the seeds are being planted, and the currents of change are strong. The genie is out of the bottle. You can take away rights, but not the belief in those rights.
Solnit’s book is timely, as we hurtle into fall and the uncertainty of another election season. I hope it will inspire you as much as it’s inspired me.