Function Dictates Form

“Function dictates form” is a belief that the on-the-ground, real and specific changes that any group or person advocates for are a reflection and an embodiment of the new reality that this person or group would create. In other words, the “function” of the group—the policies it advocates for, the actual reforms it pushes—exemplify the “form” of the change the group is promoting. The function of large scale government investment dictates a form for society that is new, forward-oriented, and empowering.

We here at Breakthrough (Generation) are often accused of wanting to techno-fix our way clear of any serious social or cultural change. In other words, a will to create clean energy so that we can maintain our overly consumerist, overly isolationist, and overly self-involved American lifestyles is often projected onto BTI and BTGen. This is far from the case. Instead, we are believers in what I call the “function dictates form” model of social change. A discussion about function versus form might benefit all of us who wish to bring change to the world, be it to solve climate crisis, lift billions out of poverty, redefine the American city, or achieve energy independence from foreign oil.

Regarding Breakthrough Generation, Our Controversy and our Perceived “Tech-Fix” Fixation

But the fact remains that when we put our money into technological innovation in this country, we are able to achieve at a pretty rapid pace…If the money and the motivation were there, I don’t think it’s wrong or ignorant of me to say that we could be taking potentially massive strides in clean energy technology.

I am going to apologize up front if this is too self-referential for some people’s tastes.

Right now, I am two parts confused, one part troubled and (I’ll admit it) one part amused regarding the flak we at Breakthrough Generation have been drawing the past few days on ItsGettingHotInHere and the conversations it has sparked and mood it has set in the office. I don’t think any of us are any less determined to advance a mission we see as essential, but how we do so and what that means has been the cause of some serious discussion.

The smart and passionate people I work with are working through some serious inner turmoil over the direction the movement represented on IGHIH is headed. I have come to question whether this movement is even capable of seriously advancing an agenda of clean energy, global prosperity and just and equitable social change. My new friend and BTG summer fellow Helen Aki posted a serious, thoughtful and questioning post on IGHIH hoping to explain where we are coming from, and where we would like a place on the quilted mosaic of the youth climate/energy movement, and thus far she has been met largely with bitterness and a refusal to recognize even the goodness of our intentions. Yes, we have been criticized for our style, but also for content and beliefs that are projected upon us and that we do not hold.

What Sort of Individual Action Helps Establish a Politics of Possibility?

With Barack Obama as the democratic nominee for the presidency, a long and arduous primary season seems to be slowly but surely winding down. Talk around the office between the summer fellows has drawn a lot of parallels between Breakthrough’s ideology and Barack Obama’s message, and it seems that, if not in the same words, Barack Obama is working towards the same asset-based, inspiring politics of possibility that we aspire to bring to society. All this has brought an important question to my mind: what kind of individual, personal actions can help focus each of our efforts on a politics of possibility?

Growing up in the Washington D.C. area, political talk is all talk—shop talk, dinner party conversation, idle chatter, pre-preview movie theater whispers—all anyone talks about is politics. I entered my first year of college in the Boston area last September, and the election and political talk, while not as pervasive, was definitely in the air. This didn’t strike me as all that odd until a friend who grew up outside Boston told me that this level of talk about the political process, in fact any level, was completely new to her. Upon further reflection, I was surprised and encouraged by the level of political conversation that had sprouted up, not just on my campus, but apparently across the country. The candidates were strong willed, and Obama especially seemed to galvanize supporters in a way that had not been seen for a while. Obama clearly reaches and brings to the fore an active, politically interested aspect to many Americans.

From the Meat to the Message: The Importance of Translating Complex Theories into Simple Messages to Create Big Movements

As Breakthrough Fellows, we are here to learn the details and finer points of the philosophy of the Breakthrough Generation. Give us two hundred pages to read for tomorrow, and it’s done; ask us to write a couple hundred words about the subject matter, and it’ll be (basically) complete by mid-day. However, Breakthrough is meant to galvanize an entire generation of youth, regardless of how deeply immersed in the issues each person is. We do not have the luxury of sending out readers to each person whom we would like to sign on to our mission. Even if we could, to paraphrase Break Through, people aren’t looking to subscribe to data or science or even facts; people sign on to ideology, to the story that we are telling.

It is important for us to keep in mind that if we want our message to spread, it must be one that is inclusive and inspiring, yet grounded and relatable. When Kennedy said, famously, “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” he created a message that the entire country could sign on to. There was no specific promise, no detailed explanation of a plan; there was simply an ideal, an entire system of thoughts and beliefs condensed into a short sentence. It is this type of message that will help us tell our story at Breakthrough.

The beginnings of my Breakthrough

*note: This is a reflection on Breakthrough (the book) that I was asked to write for my first day at Breakthrough (the office).

“The crises we face demand not that we wake up to reality but that we dream differently.” -Breakthrough: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility, page 272.

I have never considered myself an environmentalist. I stumbled upon Brandeis’ Students for Environmental Action (SEA) because I knew a few of the kids in the club and was interested more in making friends than in helping the environment. I began going to weekly meetings sometime in mid November. Someone had recently read Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael, and recommended it to the entire group to begin reading over Thanksgiving. The first meeting back after Thanksgiving, many of my friends and fellow club members began discussing Quinn’s story of a sentient, telepathic gorilla life-tutor and his self-hating human pupil. I had no idea what this book was about at the time, but I was a little scared by the rhetoric my friends had begun to adopt.