Unlearning the Activist Script #3: We Must Make Things Perfect Unlearning the Activist Script

An online event with with Anthea Lawson, author of The Entangled Activist, and Vanessa Faloye, anti-oppression and collective liberation practitioner and co-founder of the Held Collective.

Dreaming of a more perfect world can be a big part of our inspiration for change-making. But taken too far, it can become perfectionism. We can drive ourselves – and maybe others – too hard. We can pursue purity politics, which exclude and polarise. How can we be clear what we want, without putting up walls?

Vanessa Faloye and Anthea Lawson will discuss the roots of perfectionism in culture and psychology and its potential consequences for change-makers. They will enquire into the somatic aspects of perfectionism: what does it feel like, and can we learn to recognise it in ourselves? What might it feel like to relinquish the aim of making things perfect, while holding true to our political aims?