How do we respond to the big questions of our time in our daily lives? By working out two different themes – power relations and the climate crisis – this book offers new perspectives and insights on how to translate the abstract into the concrete and the political into the personal. Bringing together social theory, philosophy and everyday reflexivity, it bridges the gaps between the academic and the practical, the macro and the micro, and public and private life.
The first of the two essays in this book opens up privilege and power as a psychology. It argues that the social positions we inhabit will shape the ways we view ourselves and the world around us. The second essay analyses the climate crisis as a multilayered puzzle, involving not only collective behaviour, but also underlying emotions, worldviews, and needs. Through such a layered view, it offers multiple entry points for responding to it in our communities.
Ultimately, this book connects big and abstract societal issues with our everyday lives by highlighting how we already show up in them. From there, it offers conceptual beginnings for showing up differently.
