"So long as no-one is hurt…”

Chris Packham’s urgent, intimate and political appeal in ‘Is It Time to Break The Law?’ (Channel 4) is profoundly uncomfortable and rousing viewing.  A necessary and landmark piece of television where politics and the deeply personal are vividly intertwined. Reviewed as “beyond merely thought provoking” (Jack Seale, The Guardian) Packham wrestles with his frustration that a life’s work as a conservationist has fallen on deaf ears and urges us to find new ways to act as, his desperation laid bare, he seeks to do the same. Perhaps it is in the face of his vulnerability that I feel able to expose myself and raise my voice publicly in writing for the first time. Psychoanalytic ideas offer a perspective that is underexplored in mainstream media and so it is here, in this (re)quest for new ground, that I feel compelled to share a perspective and response to his central question “Is it time to break the law?”. When, like Packham, we seem to be going round in circles, psychoanalysis can offer an interruption, a space for something new to emerge. And we must find something new. We must interrupt this deathly inertia.

“Men have gained control over the forces of nature to such an extent that with their help they would have no difficulty in exterminating one another to the last man. They know this, and hence comes a large part of their current unrest, their unhappiness and their mood of anxiety” (Freud, 1930 “Civilisation and Its Discontents”)

Packham is at times dumbfounded by the brick wall he is banging his head against. The programme opens in silence, his face in close-up, an opaque curtain of thick oil slowly obscuring his fixed gaze. An arresting and somewhat grimy spectacle, culminating in his open mouth filling with the excess. A deluge that drowns all previous words into inky silence and leave no space in his oleaginous cavity for new ones to emerge.  He later describes a depression taking hold after Cop 26. Perhaps this is what his depression looked like. Faced with too much, he sank beneath it, neither able to see or be seen as his words lost their grip, powerless to make an impact in society’s slippery, oil slicked terrain.

Presumably he, at least temporarily, managed to wash away the blackness because for the rest of the programme he talks to us, and other people, about finding an act that might set these stalled words into a new kind of motion. Packham does his best to do away with the idea that there is some ‘beyond’ where the action will happen and dedicates himself to an exploration of what he and we can do to unrest the political stagnation. His eschewal of the ‘beyond’ is critically important because it lands a powerful left hook square on Capitalism’s thus far unbreakable jaws. And let’s be clear here, any fight for climate action is a fight with Capitalism, its intrinsic relation to power and the apathy born of its delusion of somewhere better to get to. Some-thing beyond to aim for, some-thing just out of reach, is a tenet Capitalism absolutely relies on. For Packham and many others living apathetically in delusional hope is impossible. We bear witness to him repeatedly asking himself and others how far he and they should go. He scrubs away at the question, interrogating ideas of the law, morality and ethics, and challenging the efficacy of the familiar, peaceful activism he has dedicated his life to. The depth of his struggle to countenance more antagonistic action is palpable and is wrought out in a series of reflections and interviews. “I got my first pair of binoculars in 1970” he recounts, pleading with us to see the horror up close like he does, desperate to find a way into the indifference. One of the remarkable realisations of the documentary is Packham’s lack of immunity to the powerlessness and submission Capitalism demands. One might expect his status as a celebrity and white man, revered in his field, to protect him somewhat from coming face to face with the same horror of immobilisation we witness in the other activists he passionately engages with. But this is not so. Whilst Capitalism stays true to its patriarchal power structure, it suffers no fools. There is no get out of jail free card for those that fit the bill but won’t stand in line. Capitalism has no lack and so nothing to defend. It is indiscriminate in its zero tolerance for anyone that opposes its regime.

Watching the programme left me with the uncanny feeling we are living in a real-life sequel to John Carpenter’s ‘We Live’. This time round, we all have the glasses, binoculars in fact. The two-faced political game is playing out right in front of us, magnified in all its g(l)ory but some people, most of us, remain resolutely blind. So what is it we don’t want to see? And what is it that Packham can’t do? The interview with Conservative Peer and Chair of the Climate Change Committee, Lord Peter Lilley is excruciating. I want Packham to physically fight this fuckwit into submission in a scene to rival the film’s legendary tussle, but life isn’t quite like the movies. At least not yet…

All this apathy and refusal begs the question of what is just so difficult to encounter? We don’t need Packham’s binoculars to witness the footage of floods and fires, to see people losing their homes and families, or to know about the devastation of the coral reefs and other lost species. We’ve all seen the news, heard the political spin and shed a tear watching Attenborough on a bleary eyed Sunday. But the horror of all this destruction we can see doesn’t seem to factor. There must be some other horror at stake. One that is quite literally blinding, binoculars or no binoculars. For this we must look elsewhere.

The relentless drive for more, for excess, for the illusion of immortality and power is perhaps where the horror really lurks, buried deep in the environs of the vulnerability underpinning this quest. Whilst there may be some truth in saying people cannot bear to acknowledge the potential of humanity to destroy, it leaves what cannot be tolerated elsewhere, ‘in humanity’, as if it is not us. It is what the alienated subject can’t abide about themself that really matters here. Capitalism’s super egoic reign demands a repudiation of vulnerability and along with it the hatred and aggression caught up in this perpetual blind spot. In order to love, and to connect, both of which will be central to a radical change of position in regard to Capitalism and the climate crisis, we must come to terms with our hatred of our vulnerability. If not, the hatred will just keep on keeping on, killing off everything in its wake.

The focus of Packham’s enquiry is whether breaking the law is necessary. He is deeply conflicted by this particular point but perhaps it is not the law as such where the intensity of his struggle lies. Whilst the line of the law may well be a critical threshold, I am left wondering about his internal hard line, that which marks a boundary of his aggression and terror at potentially hurting others. As he uttered his parting words (or is it Channel 4’s caveat?) “so long as no-one is hurt… then you’ll have my support” I felt crushed by the impossibility of his request. No wonder he is so anguished. 

I am not suggesting Packham’s action should take the form of wilful violence to those who oppose his views (though the thought of Lord Linney being roughed up a little does, I admit, do it for me) or that he should disregard hurt that is caught up with any action. But that there must be an acceptance there will be hurt and a sense of responsibility for it. It cannot be disavowed as someone else’s attack. We must take responsibly for attacking society as it stands, from within, to open space to form new bonds and learn to live together again. To act means to act in relation to others. Even lawful action can have deleterious effects. Packham interviews one of the Dartford Crossing climbers imprisoned for three years for ‘significantly affecting people’s lives’. However much we need this chaos to interrupt the ennui and recognise the horror of this imprisonment as immobilisation of power, the judge was not wrong in his summary. The activist’s serious action, in the face of a serious situation, most likely did cause some people serious harm. A harm that cannot be shoved elsewhere, away from the place of action. But one that is endemic to it. To act is to affect. Perhaps someone was prevented from getting to the bedside of a dying parent. Perhaps a child was subject to domestic violence in the absence of a carer. Perhaps someone couldn’t get the urgent medical care they needed. And perhaps all these people were climate activists too. But there is real pain and real hurt that can come from even the most intentionally peaceful action in a quest for protecting life. There are no innocent bystanders. We must all be culpable participants. It is something we must learn to accept as part of the fight for change.

And the climate emergency is now a fight. To enter the fray is to know that people will not only be affected but seriously hurt. We know this because people are already dying from the physical and mental impacts of this crisis; from floods, fire and suicide. The stakes are very high. People and animals are being displaced from their homes. They are being forced to give up everything. They are in pain. And there will undoubtedly be much more pain and loss. If we refuse to acknowledge this, then we will be paralysed from action. We are all vulnerable and share our human capacity for hatred and aggression. This is what we must get up close to, so that it does not wreak havoc without witness and responsibility.  By failing to see the hurt caught up in peaceful action we are inadvertently playing right into the stasis. The bad guys remain the bad guys. The aggression is perpetrated elsewhere. And so critically the hurt remains elsewhere too, in areas of the world and marginalised communities that do not factor as immanent to us or our action. The abandon with which we have let animal species die out is testament to this hierarchy of vulnerability. Something Packham is undoubtedly all too aware of. This is not discreet from that of human life but part of the same continuum based on power relations.

And so we must all be stopped in our tracks and faced with both our vulnerability and aggression. We won’t like it. Some of us will shout and hurl abuse at others. Some of us will try to turn it in on ourselves to negate its horror. But we must refuse these tactics and come to realise our propensities. We need to expose our vulnerability because only then will others be able to witness their own. It won’t be easy. We will not like it. We will fight back or cower in the corner. But we must stand firm. Most of us want to believe we are the ones being reasonable, that at heart we are peaceful. We must eschew this image in favour of a less salubrious savage in order to find a more harmonious existence alongside others and our ailing planet. Perhaps for many of us, the powerlessness and anger is rising to the surface. It certainly seems to be something Packham is wrestling with. But for those at the very top of Capitalism’s army the illusion is harder to dispel.

Sunak’s devastating U-turn on climate legislation was announced the morning after Packham’s programme aired. The Guardian blog headline read “wishful thinking for Sunak” (Chris Stark, Chief Executive of the Climate Change Committee) but this is to miss entirely what Sunak wishes for. He wishes for economic growth and to remain content with the all-powerful image patriarchal Capitalism furnishes men like Rishi Sunak with. If growth is his cake, then net zero is eating it. He might publicly nibble at the edges to give the illusion of enjoying it thus satisfying Capitalism’s bid that we can indeed have it all, but the truth is he doesn’t seem to have much of an appetite for anything that might mess with the cut of his jib. Or suit. And to eat it would be to suggest he has a hunger when Sunak is always well fed, with eyes only for the excess beyond.

A ‘net zero growth plan’ is quite literally a contradiction in terms. As his U-turn confirms, it is one or the other. The issue is this choice requires loss - money or the planet - and loss is a word that does not feature in Capitalism’s or Sunak’s vocabulary for it exposes vulnerability. Perhaps Sunak believes he will eventually gobble the cake enthusiastically but by then it will be too late. It will be past the ‘sell by’ date. To label Sunak’s decision making as “leading from the front” (Conservative Party leaked what’s app messages) is laughable given the form his power seems to take is that of a little puppy wagging its tale to Capitalism’s manic tune in return for a hypnotic mirage effacing vulnerability and bestowing power.

The stream of adverts in the commercial break of Packham’s programme were a shocking addition to this question of power I was already wrestling with. Hiding in plain sight as the premise of four commercials in a row, were all the makings of Capital’s hypnosis. The angle? The power of the consumer. Each advert hysterically presenting an illusion that the people are in control, that they should get what they want and not have to give anything up, not have to pay. The big corporations satisfied with merely serving a demand. This is the very tactic that pervades the refusal to wake up to our vulnerability and aggression. We are getting what we want. We are giving others what they want. We are all happy and in control. No-one is suffering. No-one is losing. Everyone is winning.

The Tesco advert shows a man gleefully zapping away at his clubcard to reduce the shopping bill. He finds himself unable to engage with the checkout assistant because he is uncontrollably breaking into song. The connection with another human severed by maniacal outbursts of Snap’s iconic “I’ve Got The Power”.  The man looks possessed and the shopping assistant offers a bemused expression as the tagline “Feel the Power to Lower Prices” fills the screen. It seems it is important we no longer think of Tesco as “Every Little Helps” for it would suggest too much of the vulnerability at stake and precarity of the power relations at play. This must be obscured in the realms of what is a collapsing Capitalism. One that is at risk and pushing back even harder to resist ruin. The Shreddies commercial offers the same thing. A hypnotic voice chants the affirmation “You are strong. You are unbreakable. You are uncrushable. You never flake.” It’s tagline, “Shreddie for anything”.

Except we are really not ready. Not even slightly.