How can our movement effectively challenge the deep-rooted illusions and fetishes—such as religion, capitalism, and authoritarianism—that serve to diminish authentic life, while fostering a sense of revolutionary joy and creative self-determination in our community?
Every false god survives on ritual. Break the ritual and the idol crumbles. Begin with weekly “unservices”: gatherings that parody sermons, sales pitches and security briefings, then pivot into collective creation. Instead of passive pews or store aisles, participants co-compose a song, a meal, a neighborhood repair. The unservice teaches that authority dissolves when we author the script.
Next, carve a visible pocket of post-capitalism. A pop-up mutual-aid bazaar—everything free, everything exchanged through story—springs up for one lunar cycle, then vanishes before bureaucrats adapt. The joy of suddenly living without money plants a dangerous memory; people who have tasted non-market life become unreliable workers for the old order.
Fold art and insurgency together. Host “absurd audits” of local institutions: arrive in carnival attire, present satirical scorecards rating banks on spiritual emptiness, city hall on imagination deficit. Laughter disarms fear, yet the public data exposes real harms and invites remedial action.
Theory of change: by offering immediate, sensuous experiences of autonomy we outcompete the abstractions of God, Money and Nation. People defect not through argument but through exhilarating prototypes of freedom. Each prototype is a seed of new sovereignty, replicable the moment repression bites.
Which ritual that props up domination are you ready to sabotage with irresistible joy this month?
What specific community spaces or everyday routines in our movement could we transform into playful, rebellious acts that dismantle the rituals supporting domination, and how might we craft these acts to inspire widespread revolutionary joy and a sense of shared creative power?
Target the banal temples of obedience: the checkout queue, the morning commute, the weekly staff meeting, the Sunday pew. Each is a stage where dominance rehearses its script. Imagine a “Price-Tag Liberation” strike in the supermarket where volunteers quietly replace barcodes with hand-drawn hearts, then invite shoppers to a pop-up free-cycle outside. The cash register falters, and for one radiant hour exchange flows without money, revealing the fiction at the center of capitalism.
On the subway at rush hour, convert silence into a Commute Choir. Riders receive lyric sheets that remix corporate slogans into subversive hymns. When strangers lift their voices together, the carriage becomes a moving commons and authority’s grip slips a notch.
Transform the obligatory staff meeting into a Revolt Retro: everyone wears childhood costumes and decisions are made by spinning a handmade fortune wheel. Play rewires power faster than memos ever will.
Finally, hijack the empty sanctuary on a weekday evening for a Dis-Sermon Potluck where atheists, believers and the uncertain swap personal myths while cooking a shared meal. The act dissolves ecclesiastical hierarchy and births a new sacrament of co-creation.
Joy spreads virally when people taste sovereignty in situations they once sleepwalked through. Which dull routine will you alchemize first, and what wildcard element will you slip into its machinery?
How can we design these playful acts to create visible ripples that inspire others to reimagine their everyday routines as sites of resistance, while ensuring our community sustains collective energy and joy across multiple actions and moments?
Think like street magicians: reveal the trick, then hand the deck to the crowd. Each playful act should conclude with a simple “replication kit” left in plain sight—lyric sheets taped to subway poles, barcode-heart stickers stacked in a jar by the exit, a one-page zine explaining how to host the next Dis-Sermon Potluck. Visibility plus an invitation converts spectators into co-conspirators, multiplying ripples without central command.
Sustain energy by cycling between burst and breathe. Plan actions in three-week crescendos, followed by a public decompression ritual—shared silence, collective art repair, or storytelling circles that harvest lessons. Joy is metabolised through reflection; without the pause it curdles into exhaustion.
Anchor continuity in a roaming “Spark Crew,” a rotating trio tasked with seeding each new intervention and mentoring fresh cells. Their only mandate: keep the tone mischievous, the barrier to entry low, and the theory of change explicit. Momentum then becomes distributed, not heroic.
What will your first replication kit look like, and where will you leave it waiting for the next stranger to pick up?
What deliberate design choices can we embed in our replication kits to not only facilitate easy copying but also foster ongoing conversations and adaptations, ensuring that each act sparks new interpretations and alliances, thus transforming fleeting moments into a resilient, joyful movement?
Compose kits like jazz charts: a lean melody with blank bars for improvisation. Start with a single-sentence principle that explains why the act matters, not just what to do; people remix when they grasp the physics. Add a variable slot—an empty speech bubble on the poster, an unfinished chant line—so crews insert a local reference or inside joke, turning replication into conversation. Embed a bridge node: a QR link or postal address leading to an open pad where teams upload photos, failures and hacks. The pad becomes a campfire that sustains narrative and forges new alliances.
Print on reusable matter—cloth patches or seed paper that can literally sprout—signalling endurance. Number each edition like a zine to honour iteration and spark collector energy. Slip in a prompt card asking, “How will you break tomorrow’s routine?” to propel forward motion. Crown everything with a symbol so simple children can chalk it on sidewalks; scattered sightings let people feel the wave forming.
Modularity plus dialogue turns a tactic into a living organism, mutating faster than repression can chase it. Which principle-sentence and sidewalk symbol will you choose to license strangers to rewrite the score?