Is there still no place like home?
My unsuccessful 3,000 word entry to the 2019 Nine Dots Prize...
One
Just to the south of Birmingham’s city centre a front garden is littered
with syringes. The street is busy with
the local trade in sex and drugs. Behind me I can hear the slowing approach,
pause and departure of the sundry customers in their mid-range saloons.
Inside the tiny terraced house we find a broken world. Abandoned cans of lager and empty food
containers jostle with the flotsam of tired toys. A naked light bulb hangs from a single bleak
flex. The smell of marijuana, stale
booze, burnt toast and dog food is almost emetic. Drug paraphernalia in chrome, glass and
plastic is gathered into small piles in easily accessible locations.
People live here. It is a
home. It is brutally clear that the
people living here do not – cannot – look after their home.
Two doors down, children’s muddy shoes are stored carefully in the small
porch. The day’s groceries are in their
wicker bag in the hall. A child is doing
homework at the kitchen table and a pile of pressed shirts sits beside a floral
ironing board. There are no needles in
the front garden: the mother explains that she clears them away each morning,
just before leaving with the children for school.
My companion tells me that the woman we have just seen is one of a
growing number of local residents who are reclaiming their streets. Some, she says, are like the family we met
earlier: they barely manage their own lives.
Others are stronger or more resilient - or something - and they have the
capacity to look after their own home[i]. Some reach to the front garden; some venture as
far as the pavement to clear away the needles, perhaps even the weeds from around
the base of the lamppost.
And some, she says, seem to have enough of whatever-it-is to stretch to
the entire block or even the street.
“Street stewards, we call them”[ii].
It’s as though home comes in different sizes, I reply. For some, home stops at the front door; for
others, the end of the street; for still others, home encompasses the entire
neighbourhood. Home isn’t just somewhere
you come from, or somewhere you live: it’s a place you look after.
It’s a place that someone looks
after. Hopefully.
Two
Home, for good or ill, is one of our most powerful myths[iii]. Home is where we come from; and it’s also
where we’re at. In this liquid age of hyper-connection[iv]
we may well be from ‘anywhere’[v]
(wherever you go, there you are[vi])
but when we press the Home button, where do we go?
An enquiry into the myth of home takes us in at least two directions: how
myth in general works; and how this particular myth works.
We humans are story-telling creatures reliant on the tales we tell (of)
ourselves in order to frame our condition[vii]. We have to explain the world in order to
navigate it. We build our explanations
using symbols and we cluster the symbols into ‘stories’ or ‘narratives’. A particular form of these – the ‘myth’ – is
of especial importance. The world,
though suddener than we fancy it[viii],
is insufferably complex and overwhelming.
Our sensory systems reduce that complexity to something more manageable;
but our operating systems still rely on a whole host of short-cuts, or
heuristics[ix],
to help us get through the day. If we
had to think everything through from scratch each time, we’d never have come
this far.
A myth is a type of heuristic. It
is not a tale of heroes or dragons – though it may be. It is not a falsehood as distinct from a
truth. A myth is an author-less
explanatory account of an experienced phenomenon. It is a story, held in our heads, that
effectively packages some part or parts of our world in such a way that we can
function without having to worry all the time.
Myths can be more or less precise.
Look back at traditional myths and we find a curious plasticity. Is the Hindu god Kali male or female or
both? For the Greeks, did the Giants and
the Olympians battle at Pellene or Thrace?
In Norse mythology, did Ymir summon humanity from his armpits – or did Odin
summon it from the trees? It doesn’t
matter.
What matters is that the myth captures some aspect of the world and looks
after it on our behalf. (Its precision
or imprecision is, in fact, an adaptive advantage: as circumstances evolve, so
too the myth.) We avoid the difficulty
of having to recall the detail – instead we easily and quickly summon the myth.
To function effectively, however, a myth has to work in two ways. For an individual – a ‘centre of narrative
gravity’[x]
– each myth is a component of the self-story, the story of who you are, of who
I am. My identity comprises the stories
I tell myself, and these stories include various myths. I am, in part, myth.
At the same time, myths are collective items[xi]. A group of people with a shared myth, however
apparently outlandish, comprises a community.
And vice versa: a community comprises a group of people with a shared
mythology. To be a part of a community –
a sports club, a religious assembly, a nation state – is to share in its
myths. This is what belonging consists
of: to have shared myths.
And herein its power. A myth is
simultaneously a deeply personal, internalised narrative central to individual identity
and a collectively owned story that is central to belonging. Issues of truth and falsity and of precise or
imprecise form are unimportant: it is the function that matters. I am a person who believes A; I am a member
of the group P that also believes A. This
is who I am, and how I belong.
Our myth of ‘home’ is redolent with this duality. My identity includes my notion of home; and
home is a fundamental part of my belonging.
The duality is evident in the etymology of ‘home’. Its origins have both a personal, individual
aspect (‘of the earth’ or ‘earthling’[xii])
as well as a collective aspect (‘where one lies’ or ‘where one’s forebears lie’). We find a sense of ancestry, of connection,
of beginnings. We glimpse the story –
the myth – of who we are, and where we come from.
When we turn to the way in which home is addressed in the ancient myths,
we encounter something striking and, for the West, paradoxical: the notion of
return. Home is not just the place we’re
from: it’s the place we leave, and the place to which we return. We leave home on our journey, our quest, our
saga. On the way we grow, we change, we make progress. So deeply embedded is this element of our
home-myth that it is central to the entirety of Western culture: progress. We have to make progress.
And yet – we want to go home. We have to go home. At the end of all that progress - we (want
to) go back.
As Odysseus discovered, however, home is not waiting patiently and inert
for our return[xiii]. Home is alive, it is dynamic. We may go back in space; but we cannot go
back in time. In our absence, the
maintenance of our home depends on the effort and care of others. Without that care, or if the effort is
threatened or thwarted, there will be no home to which we can return. Someone, somehow, must look after home.
And suddenly we can see how, emerging from the very heart of our
home-myth – and, by extension, deep inside our sense of identity and our sense
of belonging – a dramatically under-appreciated truth: that our entire sense of
‘progress’, that post-Enlightenment sensibility permeating not just our notions
of individual development but the entirety of science, politics and commerce,
is critically dependent on ideas of custodianship and care, of diligent
maintenance. Someone, somehow, has to
look after the home.
Three
Communication technologies may have made the world a smaller place, but
home has grown bigger. These
technologies – iconic manifestation of ‘progress’ and current apotheosis of the
three-century Enlightenment project – mean that we are now everywhere. And in being everywhere, we could be from
anywhere, or nowhere at all. Perhaps
this means there is no longer a place like home.
But fifty years ago, when the astronauts of Apollo 8 photographed planet
earth rising above the lunar horizon, we found out exactly where we’re from.
Often heralded as having given important momentum to the burgeoning
environmental movement[xiv],
the ‘Earth Rise’ photograph provided a visually digestible way of appreciating
the earth’s finitude. Here we are, blue
and fragile, floating in space. Just
look! Of course the resources must be
limited. Of course this is our
home. Of course we must look after it.
And yet – we haven’t. The
intervening half-century is a dismal catalogue of reckless abuse: habitat
destruction, species depletion, soil degradation, pollution of land, air and
water, the emission of gigatonnes of carbon dioxide[xv]. We seem to be treating our home – this
bigger, planet-sized home – as if we were low-capacity drug-addicts on the
worst estate in town.
We need to do two things. We need
to expand our notion of home; and we need to ensure we have the capacity to
look after it. We need to stretch from
our living rooms to our front gardens, from our front gardens to our forests, from
our streets to our cities, all the way to the entire planet.
And if we are to develop the capacity truly to look after this new,
bigger home, we need to challenge the isolated and brash notion of
‘progress’. We need to re-integrate
progress with its sibling ‘care’. We –
each of us – needs to be looking after our new, bigger home, every day, with
the same routine commitment, the same notions of custodianship and care that the
majority of us bring to the maintenance of our quotidian dwellings.
How can we do this? We need to
upgrade our myths. If my sense of self
truly depended on my notion of this planet as ‘home’; and if my belonging to
this thing we call ‘the human race’ depended on a shared myth of that same
notion of ‘home’; then maybe, just maybe, we might avert catastrophe.
Four
Achieving such a transformation is no easy task. Indeed, it may at first sight seem absurdly
utopian. The IPCC has, after all, made
it clear that our situation is now urgent[xvi]. Our home is in real jeopardy. We need – surely – concrete action.
The evidence, however, whilst it reveals some important gaps in our
understanding, also provides important pointers, not only to the means by which
we might develop the necessary myths but also to the possibility of rapid
change.
The core of the evidence base concerns the issue of ‘diffusion’: how do
new technologies, ideas and beliefs spread?
What are the factors that shape the nature and pace of diffusion; and
what are the distinguishing characteristics of successful innovations?
Seminal work on these questions was conducted by Everett Rogers[xvii]. His focus was on technologies, but subsequent
work has extended into the realm of ideas, beliefs and behaviours[xviii]. This work intersects with the substantial
evidence base on the role of advertising, marketing and public relations in
‘the engineering of consent’[xix],
as well as with the developing field of behavioural economics[xx]. Collectively, these domains of enquiry have
been exploring how and why people believe one thing rather than another; how
these beliefs change over time; and the links of both through to behaviour.
Not everything is fully understood.
Precisely how ideas and beliefs compete with one another inside an
actual individual human, for example, remains contested. Similarly, the issue of ‘multiple belongings’
remains an issue. If my ‘belonging’ is a
function of the myths I share with the various communities of which I am a
member, what can we say about how these belongings play out with respect to one
another?
On the other hand, we now know a great deal about social contagion, about
the importance of catalytic individuals, and about homophily. Homophily is the tendency of people to
associate with others that they perceive to be ‘like me’ and is crucial to
understanding the ways in which novel beliefs are transmitted. The most influential person in your life is
someone who you think is like you – but a bit better[xxi]. If that person adopts a new belief or
behaviour, you are dramatically more likely to adopt that new belief or
behaviour than if someone you hold in low regard does the same.
Such people are not merely the ‘social influencers’ of contemporary
social media fame; they are embedded within all social groups, both digital and
material[xxii]. These individuals both embody and tell
stories of disproportionate importance to the operation of social groups. Their perspectives and statements often
heavily outweigh alternative sources of information and they have a powerful
role in giving credence to authorless beliefs.
In effect, these people are the prime legitimators of (new) myth.
In addition to evidence on mechanisms, there are instructive instances of
rapid and dramatic change in behaviours and beliefs. Malcolm Gladwell brought several such
examples to widespread attention[xxiii]
including the sudden popularity of Hush Puppies, the fall in New York’s crime
rate and the post-War disappearance of the hat.
With the evidence and examples it is possible to move from speculation to
possibility. We can conjecture viable
tales of home – not just of leaving home, but of looking after home – that
build on existing myths, but which stretch and enhance them. We know of particular types of people who, in
living and telling their stories, are the keystones of new myths. We know the mechanisms that will shape the
diffusion of such new myths and can work to maximise the chances of rapid
uptake. We can – with sufficient will
and appropriate humility – initiate and support the kind of transformation
heralded by a fifty-year-old photograph.
There is still no place like home.
It is bigger than it used to be and it needs a lot of looking
after. I am not suggesting that we
abandon the technical and technocratic mechanisms already underway. We must, however, find new ways to supplement
existing approaches with methods that speak to our hearts as well as our
heads. The diffusion of new myths of
home may be just such a way.
Five
Several years later I returned to south Birmingham. The drug dealers, pimps and sex workers had
moved on. A new air of optimism seemed
to emanate from the very fabric of the place and permeated my discussions.
I met a lady who had moved to the area from Worcester. She talked to me
about the floods[xxiv]. It’s awful to have your home flood, she told
me. All your belongings are
destroyed. You have to move out. It takes months to sort out the repairs and
the insurance. The media cover the story
for the first few days but don’t seem interested after that.
Everyone’s instinct is to have their home repaired exactly as it
was. Everyone thinks – well, it was
awful, but at least it’s over and I want my home back. Just as it was.
Then it floods again.
You can’t believe it, she said.
You just can’t believe it. This
sort of thing only happens once, surely.
And now it’s happened again!
It’s only when it happens a third time, though, that you change. That’s when you accept it – that you live in
a place where it floods. That’s when you
say Yes to the modifications – the plug sockets high on the walls, the special
flood-proof doors, the air-bricks.
Something else happened, too, she added after a reflective pause. When we had the first flood, everyone got
involved. We didn’t wait for the people
from the council or the agency, and even when they did arrive we didn’t really
rely on them. Yes, they helped with
pumps and rescue equipment but, to be honest, the whole community really pulled
together.
And we were even quicker off the mark the second time. In fact, all sorts of good things happened
when I think about it. We met all the
other people that lived nearby, some of them for the first time, and the
atmosphere of the entire neighbourhood changed.
People would knock on your door to see how you were doing, or to ask if
you needed anything from the shop, that kind of thing. I was really sad to leave.
Why did you leave? I asked.
She told me her grandchildren were growing up in Birmingham and she
wanted to be nearer to them. Then she
told me how pleased she was to have moved into this part of town – a part of
town that had for decades been almost a ‘no go’ zone. It’s got the same sort of feel as it did in
Worcester, she explained. The atmosphere
in the shops, at the bus stop, as you’re walking about. People here really seem to care about each
other and about the place, she said.
When people chat, it’s like they tell the same kind of stories that we
had back in Worcester. It makes you feel
at home.
Notes and references
[i] Material
in this section derived from ‘Capacity Building: An Evaluation of the
Sparkbrook, Sparkhill & Tyseley Area Regeneration Initiative’, EDAW, 1999
[ii]
See “Urban Renaissance: A Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal and the Welfare
Society”, Dr Dick Atkinson, 2000, for more background.
[iii]
This section draws on a range of sources on myth, notably “A Short History of
Myth”, Karen Armstrong, 2005; “The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony”, Roberto
Calasso (trans. Tim Parks), 1988; “The Language of Sustainability”, David Fell,
2009; “The Myths We Live By”, Mary Midgley, 1990; and “Metaphors We Live By”,
Georges Lakoff and Mark Johnson, 1980
[iv]
“Liquid Modernity”, Zygmunt Bauman, 1999
[v]
“The Road to Somewhere”, David Goodhart, 2017
[vi]
“Wherever you go, there you are”, Jon Kabat-Zinn, 1994
[vii]
See “The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Mind and Soul”, Douglas
Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett, 1981
[viii]
This line taken from “Snow”, Louis MacNeice, 1967
[ix]
See “Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics & Biases”, Daniel Kahneman,
Amos Tversky and Paul Slovic, eds., 1982
[x]
“The Self as a Centre of Narrative Gravity”, Daniel Dennett, 1992. See also “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”, Dennett,
1995
[xi]
“Crowds and Power”, Elias Canetti, 1960
[xii]
See, for example, the OUPblog discussion “Our habitat: one more etymology
brought ‘home’” https://blog.oup.com/2015/02/home-word-origin-etymology/
accessed 16/01/19
[xiii]
The reference here is obviously to Homer’s “The Odyssey” (I rely on the Stephen
Mitchell translation, 2011) but see – importantly – “The Penelopiad” by
Margaret Atwood, 2005
[xiv]
Generally reckoned to have begun with the publication of “Silent Spring”,
Rachel Carson, 1961
[xv]
There is an extensive literature here – the World Resources Institute provides
a particularly useful and accessible guide - https://www.wri.org/
accessed 16/01/19
[xvi]
“Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5oC” IPCC, 2018
[xvii]
“The Diffusion of Innovations”, Everett Rogers, 1962
[xviii]
“The diffusion of environmental behaviours: the role of influential individuals
in social networks”, Brook Lyndhurst, 2009
[xix]
“The Engineering of Consent”, Edward Bernays, 1955
[xx]
There is a large literature here, but of particular relevance are “Micromotives
and Macrobehaviour”, Thomas Schelling, 1978; “Nudge”, Richard Thaler and Cass
Sunstein, 2008; “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, Daniel Kahneman, 2011; and “On
Choosing the Right Pond”, Robert H Frank, 1985
[xxi]
See Brook Lyndhurst, ibid.
[xxii]
See, for example, “Engaging Hairdressers in Pro-Environmental Behaviours”, Dr
Denise Baden/ESRC, 2013, which not only summarises the literature but also sets
out results from an experiment to test the role of influential individuals in
the diffusion of environmental ideas and behaviours.
[xxiii]
“The Tipping Point”, Malcolm Gladwell, 2000
[xxiv]
This section on flooding significantly informed by “Flooding: A Social Science
Evidence Synthesis”, Brook Lyndhurst/Defra, 2014
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