Breakthrough: From the Death of Criticism to Practicing Possibility

Break Through the book was known for its visionary politics of possibility – for advocating a new social contract that focused on unleashing human potential to solve our pressing issues, rather than curtailing our activity and deriding our existence through a politics of limits. Break Through broke the mold by saying it wasn’t the issues that defined progressive and environmental politics, but rather the way we approached solving them. It was our worldview, our paradigm, our language and our attitudes that determined whether or not people joined us, and adopting a powerful narrative of possibility was our best strategy for galvanizing people around solving our most pressing concerns.

Lately, however, the Breakthrough blog is feeling a little less visionary, and a little more “limited”. Limited to (or at least dominated by) negative critiques of other policy standpoints and thinkers, rather than boldly articulating a clear, pro-active view of its own. From the paradigm-shifters who took on the environmental movement by calling it out for its dismal narrative, I was expecting something a little more upbeat – if not to communicating their optimistic ideas, then certainly to at least walk the walk of positivity. With recent posts critiquing Lieberman-Warner, 350.org, and even Ed Markey’s iCAP bill, the tone of the site has been less than inspiring. It would seem that Breakthrough has fallen short of truly actualizing its namesake – at least in its day-to-day blogging.

But I won’t get into criticism here. Since the idea is to stay positive and create an inspiring vision for the future, I’ll outline what I think Breakthrough can do to fulfill the meat of its message.

1. Transcend pure criticism – rather than break ideas down, build ideas up!
2. Identify the unifying factors between groups, not the divisive ones. Seek to build alliances. Tackling the climate challenge and transforming American politics is a creative act, so let’s build a movement powerful enough to rise to the challenge of our generation – the Breakthrough Generation.
   
3. Focus on what “a politics of possibility” means for our day to day actions – and then do it. If it means making the blog a little more friendly, I’m all for it.

As a Breakthrough Fellow committed to the large-scale implementation of our ideas, I feel its imperative that our organization act in sync with our vision every day. Call it the Ghandi in me, but if we don’t embody the change we want to see in politics, that change will never happen. Breakthrough outlined a vision that inspired countless young people and is in the midst of launching a movement – getting our actions in line with our long-term goals is the next step towards building the future we’re striving to see.