In Denis Villeneuve’s 2016 sci-fi film, Arrival, extraterrestrial ships descend to float ominously over various points of the earth. (Spoiler alert!) Amidst a backdrop of widespread fear and panic, scientists are employed to make contact, to study the strange beings inhabiting these ships and try to come to terms with what they might want.
The aliens speak in utterly foreign ‘logograms’ – beautiful circular images with recurring patterns (see image above) that allow some form of understanding to eventually be developed. However, attempts at communication with these beings soon break down, amidst panic at the use of a symbol which is (mis)perceived as ‘weapon’. Governments do what they do best, and enter an aggressive war footing. Armies are mobilised to counter the threat.
Arrival, however, is ultimately a thoughtful film about understanding and communication, not the dramatic Hollywood flick about aliens and warfare that it might appear on the surface. Rather than weapon, it turns out, the extraterrestrials are trying to provide a ‘means’ or ‘tool’ – and, well, I’ll let you finish the film from there.
Degrowth has been described even by its proponents as a ‘missile word‘ – an idea so shocking and provocative that it is difficult to co-opt (though there are many who try). With the release of yet another poor critique of degrowth, this time authored by Eoin McLaughlin in The Conversation, it is clear that the knee-jerk hostility which faces degrowth is also a problem of understanding amidst uncertainty.
To continue the analogy between the misunderstanding that ensues in Arrival, and that between degrowth and its constant train of critics, it is clear to any fair-minded reader that degrowth advocates – these alien beings to the status quo – are trying to provide humanity with a gift, not a literal missile or weapon. At a time of polycrisis, Degrowth is about discovering pluriversal ways of understanding and proceeding which are both equitable and truly ecologically beneficial. Yet it is consistently (mis)perceived as its opposite: as a threat, or a weapon which will implode the economy. The barrage of poorly-grounded critiques (here’s another from last month) makes clear that, at the end of the day, this is not just an issue of rage farming and click bait, but also a question of misaligned languages, world views, and histories.
This time, McLaughlin, an economics professor deeply rooted in the worldview of neoclassical economics, argues that the UK’s ailing and unequal economy shows us what life would be like under conditions of degrowth. Rather than recognising that degrowth is a process of democratically cultivating and slipping into very different socio-economic patterns altogether, the author erroneously puts forward the UK’s decades-long stagnation and decline in living standards as a ‘case study’ for what inevitably happens under conditions of degrowth. The end of degrowth is to ‘impoverish people’ apparently.
The article is not entirely bad faith. There is some attempt to concede to the degrowth perspective. McLaughlin acknowledges, for instance, that degrowthers ‘do also call for various pro-equality measures, so the comparison only works up to a point’. But what is the ‘point’ to which the comparison works? I would argue that by comparing apples and oranges, there is no point at all – just a total breakdown in communication and a failure to read the extensive and nuanced degrowth literature on innovation, technology and decoupling. While McLaughlin points to the UK’s declining GDP figures, must it really be repeated time and again: degrowth is not the same as recession.
The article itself is not much different to those which have come before, so I won’t go into a point-by-point breakdown. Rather, the point here is to encourage us to take a deep breath and give more time to those who would like to engage in genuine dialogue around growth and post-growth, rather than shouting ‘weapon’ and jumping straight on the offensive. Indeed, on the side of its advocates, this might even include judiciously recognising when the use of the term degrowth becomes an obstacle to communication, or distraction from other issues. We may, from time to time, step away from it temporarily or altogether. After all, even when it serves its purpose, it does not subsume all relevant socio-ecological questions. However, like in Arrival, we must at least be willing to accept the gifts being offered, in spite of misunderstandings and mistrust, and this article is simply another example of an academic refusing to do that.
