How did we get here

Author: Alicia Hull 

We are animals. Our behaviour is controlled by the interaction of instincts, or instinctive drives, and learning, and is affected by environmental conditions. We are hard-wired to pursue immediate pleasure and avoid pain.

We learn naturally from experience, our own or others. We learn quickly from painful mistakes, avoiding fire for example. Where trouble is delayed or in entirely new conditions learning is much more difficult. Which is why we have not tackled climate breakdown, plastic pollution, or AI.

When things seem OK there is no incentive to change. Those not suffering from a situation, or profiting from it, are unwilling to act, even if convincing arguments support action. The present advantage outweighs future trouble.

Pursuing pleasure is similarly easy when the effects are immediate, less easy when they will follow later. The pursuit of immediate pleasures can become addictive. History has shown too often how the pleasure of power leads to tyrannical leaders. We do not even notice small changes, so gradual decline or improvement is not recognised. We habituate very quickly and forget how things were, including past knowledge.

The most common way to learn is by copying others, as the young learn from their parents. Other animals copy actions. The critical difference is that people use language. Advice is given. Ideas are explained. Language and writing have dramatically increased our experience and ideas to enable a flowering of cultures, both benign and excessively cruel, with countless ways to control, subjugate and punish. Language has also enabled massive developments in science, technology, and the arts.

Language (or ideas) to a large extent controls our behaviour so that across the world and across centuries, we have conformed to a range of very different, often opposing, cultures. One cult shows that words outweigh experience. When the world didn’t end as predicted, they found an excuse for their ‘mistake’ and redoubled their proselytising. They gained members. People agreeing with them confirmed that it was true.

So we are in a paradoxical situation. An idea can be widely accepted because it fits with our experience and so really seems true. Or because it is promoted fiercely by some for their own interests. The more often we hear a view, whether accurate or absurd, the more correct we assume it to be. This is our most dangerous thinking habit.

It has been used by the advertising industry. Decades of research into lies that appeal to our animal aspirations and fears, our herd instincts and tribal feelings, have increased individual consumption to a scale that threatens our survival.

Exactly the same tactics are used to promote policies. Previously unacceptable ideas, when repeated often enough become the norm. The opposite is also true. Ideas no longer expressed lose their power. Controlling the agenda has been a successful deliberate tactic. Equally effective is the style of advertising. Snappy misleading slogans have destroyed the sensible debate in public life which is essential for democracy.

Once we have adopted an idea, like cult followers, we are tenacious in supporting it. Most situations allow for very different explanations and interpretations to support different views. So, in general, people interpret events to suit their prejudices. Our memories are no help. They fit with our current views. People remember events quite differently according to their personal biases. While we respect logical, reasonable thinking, we can also hold incompatible religious and magical ideas.

Our behaviour and ideas are strongly influenced by two opposing tendencies - to cooperate and to compete. For success both are essential. Competition starts early. We compete in physical strength, speed and agility, in friendships, in finding a mate, in social status, just like many other animals. Excessive competition in political and social systems leads to dominance and exploitation, rulers and the ruled.

Cooperation is also shown from the start by the devoted care parents give to their young worldwide. Friendly mutual support in local neighbourhoods is common. In times of crisis, all sorts of people cooperate to survive, and this friendship is highly valued. We are only just beginning to understand how widespread physical cooperation and interaction are across very different species and organisms, including in our gut microbiome. All life we are learning exists in an interactive, symbiotic, homeostatic web, which can be and has been disrupted by invasive science. ‘Progress’ has too often turned into time bombs.

In society, cooperation is linked to ideas of equality, justice, democracy, kindness, altruism and even self-sacrifice. It has to be worked at. Bonobos, peaceful apes, spend hours grooming each other. People's regular social activities, eating together, dancing, and music, all help to keep communities cohesive and peaceful. Religious differences have often been a source of division -leading to persecution, violence and war. But different religious groups can and have lived together in peace, sharing many festivals and enjoying the diversity.

The history of social and political changes can be seen as a struggle between competitive, exploitative systems and cooperative, fair, democratic systems. Both systems can make mistakes, but with competition comes the temptation to win by cheating. Individually being able to lie, keep secrets and trick others is an invaluable step in developing an identity. Among other animals, simple tricks work at the individual level. Language using lies takes competition to the national and international level.

Our most dangerous animal habit is the tendency to fight and kill. Carnivores have to learn to kill to eat. Competitive fighting is pervasive among animals, giving dominance and survival to some and their families for a while, and death or exclusion to others. It is at the scale of family or group life.

Our use of warfare to compete with other nations is the greatest threat we face. For centuries waging war brought rewards for the victor – new lands to exploit and slaves to work. But always at the expense of death and destruction, social disruption, trauma and boundary changes. Today’s war-torn, divided world is paying the price for earlier wars and exploitation.

Language has played a large part in encouraging and justifying war; demonising the ‘other’, and lauding the victor. It has led to more damaging weapons, new tactics and new excuses. War is always a failure. Our most damaging activity, bringing death, destruction and trauma. It increases the dangers of irreversible global heating and nuclear annihilation and the hatred and fear that bring more wars. But ideas about war are now so warped that ‘offence’ is misnamed ‘defence’; attacking other lands in the interests of big business, or destroying another culture or race is deemed acceptable. And warfare is confused with policing. Individuals can be assassinated anywhere without the due process of law, no matter how many others are killed.

The rogue nuclear powers who failed to learn the lessons of the Second World War and broke international law to retain power are at the basis of this corrupt defence policy. These bullies have been allowed to dictate policy at the UN and so completely undermine all global efforts at peace-making and humanitarian law. War criminals now control global policy, supported by other ‘rogue’ governments and given credence by the media. The daily repetition of horrific news can only serve to habituate the public to such barbarity. The threat of force also keeps other damaging policies in place.

Democracy developed historically because leaders had proved dangerous even to their own people. Out of touch, obsessed and corrupted by power, they were incapable of wise decisions. Democracy relies instead on the good sense of most normal people as used in juries. But democracy is vulnerable to lies. The public can only assess situations when given full and accurate information.

Decades of the lies of neoliberal policies initiated by Margaret Thatcher and followed by both major political parties in the UK since have destroyed democracy here. The claim that ‘government was best left to the market’ was a criminal lie. The market was always about optional extras. Never about basic needs and survival. Putting the mad-made rules of capitalism, developed by bankers for their ends, in charge of policy, above the status of natural laws, was bound to end in disaster. Capitalist greed destroys the natural world we rely on and leads to gross social inequality and injustice. Its business practices destroy democratic control and accountability. When accompanied by cutting ties with all other groups in the UK, so that governments only talked to big business and used top-down control, our system changed to a plutocracy; government by the rich for the rich with quick profits was the only aim.

Such false policies could only be sold to the public by lies. Whenever profits were threatened, big business lied; the scientists involved lied; politicians lied; the media, including the BBC lied and controlled the agenda to block alternative ideas. Governments, big business and the media have used every trick to maintain their pernicious economic policy. They have divided, fooled and reassured the public by tempting some, demonising critics, blaming victims, avoiding topics and distracting attention.

Over the last decades, it is not democracy that has failed us, but the lack of democracy in states claiming to be democratic where the military-industrial-media complex has worked hand in hand with governments to protect the interests of the very wealthy at the cost of everything else. The public has been and remains grossly misinformed and governments no longer have the information to solve real problems.

Several of our own unthinking thinking habits have added to the problem: – we infer intentions from actions; we assume those against our enemies are our friends; ‘out of sight usually means out of mind’. We too often fail to take personal responsibility and carry out damaging orders feeling blameless -‘just doing our job’.

This is the disastrous road we have been following. Much earlier moves to remove people from the land and industrialise started the theft and exploitation, but neoliberal policies have dramatically accelerated it.

It took years of propaganda to get this criminal policy and privatisation accepted. At the same time, global bankers were promoting the disastrous view that self-sufficiency was not important for a country. More profit could be made by exporting goods, which led, among other things, to a huge increase in divisive international tension, huge increases in transport, one of the main drivers of global heating, as well as in pollution and crime. Undemocratic and unaccountable global banking and trade rules have imposed damaging policies on all countries but these have been particularly damaging on smaller ones.

In today’s complex, scientific society, we are especially vulnerable to lies because we don’t understand how most things work or how many other people live, so we HAVE to rely on other’s opinions. But the situation is now so dire that the truth cannot be hidden from the majority.

There is no shortage of knowledge. For over a decade, reports from countless well-qualified sources, including government and UN reports, have warned about global heating and environmental destruction, as well as countless social problems AND have given potential solutions. There is a huge groundswell of public activity researching radically different policies across the board that work with nature and people. Civil Society has proved responsible and able in contrast to corrupt, venal and incompetent governments.

Many thousands of people are doing their best to counter the effects of intensive agriculture, habitat destruction and ultra-processed food despite the effects of policies. Hundreds of organic farmers and environmentalists, community kitchens and allotments all show that change is possible and beneficial.

But, while government policies and global banking and trade rules remain, their efforts will be insufficient to avert a global environmental catastrophe.

Similarly, thousands protesting and talking truth to power, have alerted the public to the dangers of climate change, the corruption of our democratic system and many failures of policies. They have prompted some small changes. But have also failed to change the direction of policy, which, with Kier Starmer, is accelerating to disaster. Their many hopes are that ‘public pressure will make the government change its mind’, ‘that once a proportion of the public agrees, the government must follow’, ‘one more push will be enough’, ‘the greater our sacrifice, the stronger the influence’, ‘change will come incrementally’, have misled them. These would only apply in a functioning democracy.

In practice, many campaigners are so busy and competitive in their separate campaigns that they continue the divisions which help exploitative governments to keep control.

There are also countless brave citizens and protest groups using the law to counter the government’s fake statistics and abuses, supported by crowdfunding.

However, all these actions rely on the traditional view that government is the only route to change. In the current emergency, this is a disaster as the slow pace of party political change is incompatible with the speed of the natural laws driving imminent environmental disaster. In effect, all those relying on political change are denying the scale of the environmental emergencies. The question we must now ask is ‘How corrupt and incompetent does a government have to be before citizens accept responsibility and take action?

After all, we allowed this government to exist. Only the public as a whole has the knowledge and power to stand against the combined strength of government and corporations. We do the work. We run the country. Despite shrinking civil rights, Governments in the UK still rule by consent. They could not stand against well-supported public policies. And as long ago as 1992 the UN stated that sustainable development had to come from the grassroots as local people cared most for their area and knew most about it.

In addition, at this late stage, the public has to agree on a huge transition, and the only way to do this is if they develop policies themselves.

The exceptionally good news is that plenty of people have been doing this wonderful work for decades. Groups such as La Vie Campesina, are the voice of farmers in the global south. Thousands in Diem25(Democracy in Europe Movement) across Europe, including the UK, The Peoples Food Policy in the UK, the Citizen Network’s ‘Grassroots Policies for Sustainability’, as well as the campaign groups World Beyond War and Local Futures.

(Diem25 is now forming political parties, but in the UK it remains a grassroots organisation because of our particularly corrupt system.)

SOLUTIONS ARE AVAILABLE NOW. We would be mad to ignore them. They all offer a dramatically different economy dedicated to social and environmental goods, rather than profits. Central to this is a Universal Citizen’s Income to end poverty, allow slower living, value voluntary work, stop unnecessary polluting work, and enable people to care for their families and participate in their communities and in policy-making, while it also supports the local economy.

These grassroots policies all offer a decentralised system of government which gives information and power to local communities in a participatory democratic system.

They have all used the simple democratic practice of widespread conversations and deliberation directly with each other and experts, avoiding the misinformation of the media. Their policies tackle the damage already done, and define a way of life and government fit for the unstable climate and degraded world we now live in, where cooperation will be essential.

As we do not even know how near we are to irreversible tipping points, the precautionary principle must dominate. We must use a variety of low-carbon techniques that are currently available across our diverse country, and stop all unnecessary activity.

There has been a reluctance to define policies. We have learnt to leave decisions to others, rather than risk taking the blame and often see policy-making as ‘hot air’ and ‘a waste of time’. In this complicated scientific society, we can feel unqualified to make decisions. But deliberating with all views and whistle-blowers has proved effective in making sensible and acceptable decisions where governments have failed. It has shown that the more scientific a society is, the more widespread scrutiny is needed.

The main reason people have not considered policymaking yet is because the media have successfully blocked all mention of their good work. Most people are simply unaware this solution exists which provides essential support for those working with nature and unites all the various campaigns with a real chance of making changes in time to avert a climate catastrophe.

So, please join the work. Look at what grassroots policies have achieved. Listen to the views of others. Share the information widely so many more can join in.

The manifesto produced by the Citizen Network for the UK is a work in progress. We have started with farming, food and wildlife, but know that all policies need to be transformed and invite submissions. The manifesto includes policies from other grassroots organisations. Membership and use of the Library are free.

The publisher is Citizen Network. How did we get here ©️ Alicia Hull 2025.