Yeah. How did I get here? Yeah. So I came to the work of democratic innovation of democracy from a slightly unlikely source. But the story really begins. My first boss in the advertising industry described my job to me by saying, what you've got to remember is that the average consumer sees something like 3,000 commercial messages a day, and you've got to cut through that. You have to make yours the best. And I also used to be pretty keen on my sport and I was quite competitive. So I was like, make mine the best. But then over time, I started to quite quickly actually, but then deeper and deeper go, what are we doing to ourselves when we're surrounded by messages that tell us we're consumers? Actually, like, whatever they're selling us, whatever the thing is for, the underlying idea is you're a consumer. And you hear that thousands of times a day and not to date myself and I'm obviously very young, but that that that stat originally comes from 2003. So the latest estimates are anything up to 10,000 times a day for certain cohorts. Wow. That really set me off on this trip of asking, like, what are we doing to ourselves and and what becomes impossible in that world? And I had a bit of a breakdown, actually. So the journey from working in advertising to working on democracy is not a smooth one and I had to rebuild myself after that breakdown around a question another question which was what would it look like to put the energy and creativity that currently goes into telling people their consumers into inviting them into their agency as citizens.

So we used to work together in the advertising industry way back, and we went on very different journeys. Irene had actually she'd had really quite a serious kind of personal trauma, actually. She lost the sight in one eye through a an infection she originally contracted through a contact lens. But what she had done was she had started organizing among patients of this disease and finding agency together and creating communications that warned people about some of the dangers in relation to this disease and contact lens wear. And she had written academic papers and she became a patient leader. And we got back in touch actually because she read something I'd written about the importance of voting in a in a in a general election. And we started talking and realized So at that time, I was developing this set of ideas around what I call stories of self in society. As an academic project, I was doing a master's degree with a with an intention to go and do a PhD. And Irene, in true Irene fashion, grabbed me and was like, no. No. No. No. No. No. No. You

Yeah. Enough already, dude. Stop geeking out and let's go do something. And because she'd been living it. Right? She'd been living what it is to find her agency in a situation which had removed all of her power, really, by working with others. And she was like, you're onto something and it is potentially a transformative set of ideas so let's go do something.

At that point, we I had the notion of consumers and citizens, but I was developing the understanding of subjects. So so where I am now and the framework of ideas that sits on underneath all of my work, including what I'm bringing to this podcast, I talk about the subject story, the consumer story, and the citizen story. The easiest way to introduce them is as a sort of historical shift. So end of the nineteenth century, beginning of the twentieth, I argue that we were in something like the subject story as in subjects of the king. The right thing to do in that story is keep your head down, do as you're told, get what you're given on the basis that the God given for you who runs society know best, they'll lead us to the best outcomes. And across the world, that story held for a long time. And Britain, the colonial empire was absolute, like, leader of that. But it fell apart end of the nineteenth century, beginning of the twentieth, two world wars and out of the other side, we more or less consciously, more or less deliberately created what I call the consumer story. And in the consumer story, the logic becomes don't just keep your head down as you're told. Actually pursue self interest because self interest will add up to the collective interest. So both of these stories, all of these stories are ideas for how the best society results. And what I believe we're living in now, just as the subject story fell apart before, I think we're living in the collapse of the consumer story. You just can't solve the challenges of our time from within it because it actually kind of created them. Like, you can't solve a crisis of loneliness and mental health from within a story that says we're independent isolated individuals. You can't solve crisis of inequality from within a story that says that everything needs to be a competition. You can't solve ecological crisis from within a story that says we're separate from nature and that success is about material standards of living because the story creates all of those crises. And what's happening, I think, now and for me, the reason behind this podcast is that as that collapse happens, the real danger is that the subject story is back. Right? Like, consumer story collapsing because it's failed. But what's replacing it is the return of the strongman leader. And in some ways, the consumer story and the subject story fusing. Like in America, this sort of weird thing where Queen Victoria might have appealed to God for her authority, but Trump and Musk are appealing to some sort of weird perverse version of the market for theirs. And I think in that moment, you can't save democracy. You can't face these challenges from the same logic. We actually have to step into something else. And I think it's possible because I think it's happening everywhere and it's what I call the citizen story. So the logic of the citizen story is actually don't just keep your head down, do as you're told. Don't just pursue self interest. Get involved. Contribute your ideas, energy, and resources, and critically, like, reimagine and open up our institutions to tap into the ideas and energy and resources of institutions to tap into the ideas and energy and resources of everyone on the basis that actually all of us are smarter than any of us. That it's by tapping into the ideas and energy and resources of everyone. As I say, that is how we will face the challenges of our time. And what I see all over the world and like I say for me, the motivation behind this podcast is I see this happening. Like, I see Taiwan crowdsourcing their COVID response

Two founding ideas for me. The first is that humans are citizens by nature. We are collaborative, creative, caring creatures, that that all of us have that. But the second is that we are storytelling and story dwelling creatures, and that we can't help but appeal to stories to inform who we collaborate with, what we care about, who we care about, and what we create. And as you say, so much of the world for so long has been trapped in that subject logic. And in only in the last eighty years that the consumer story gave us maybe a hint of something. It's it is freer than the subject story. In the subject story, you have there is no freedom. You get what you're given. In the consumer story, you choose between a fixed set of options and you can express your self interest. But the citizen story, like, actually, it's much deeper, much older. Like, I've been spending an increasing amount of time working with indigenous folks in communities in New Zealand and Australia and in North And South America as well. And and actually, like, in those logics, in those places that they immediately recognize what I'm talking about when I talk about the citizen story. They're like, oh, yeah. Of course. And it's such a like, one of my favorite example is probably in in New Zealand. I was giving this talk and this Maori lady came to me at the end and she was like and I'm I apologize to anyone listening from New Zealand because I probably won't get the pronunciation of this right. But she said, you do know the concept of papa no ho. Right? And I was like, no. And she goes, well, look, it's the word that means the meeting place between the two holes of an ocean going canoe. Wow. An ocean going wacker. And she said, the reason it's called that is basically when if there's a storm and we and, like, the canoes lose their way or whatever, we gather in that place and we hear from all the different expertise, all the, like, the one who understands the currents, the one who understands the stars, the one who understands the creatures, and we pull that intelligence to decide what to do. And And it was just like, this is so powerful. It's like this citizen story and there's so much of it, so many little things like that that I could share. The citizen story isn't a new creation. It's a remembering, and it's closer to the surface for some people than others. And also, it's in all of us, I think.

That's exactly it. And maybe the thing I would say is because it's remembering, that doesn't make it easier to do in and of itself than do something new. But once we start, it means we have a natural tendency to it, I think. It's a bit like, you know, that thing they always say about riding a bicycle once you know. And I think it's in us, in our DNA. And but that doesn't mean it's easy to start doing. But what's fascinating, I think, is all across the world, when you find places where some kind of participatory thing opens up, a citizens assembly happens, a big crowdsourcing project, then more and more seems to follow. I was just coming across the other day in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Who knew? But there's just been a really fascinating quite big digital democracy project with, like, 8,000 people and millions of, like, online comments and ideas being shared in Bowling Green, Kentucky. And I was digging into it and it turned out they've done a little version, like, five years ago. And so you have this thing where there's a phrase I love. My friend Steven Green, he talks about the idea that citizenship is a muscle you build, not a cup you empty. And when you start to use that muscle, you kinda like it and wanna use it more and more. He founded this thing called RockCore where, basically, you the only way you can get a ticket to this big exclusive gig is you have to do four hours of volunteering, four hours of community action. They find and I won't don't quote me on the statistics, but it's something like 90% of the young people who do the volunteering to go they've never done volunteering before. They're doing it to get the gig ticket first time up. Right? But then 90% of them go on to do more unrewarded. And Steven's thing is like, that four hours is enough to get the muscle. And so the remembering happens pretty quick once we do it. But but it sort of then comes back and the reason for me for this podcast is, like, there's so little trust in people. Like, we talk a lot about whether people trust institutions and we know all the stats about declining trust. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Boring. What not enough people talk about, I think, is that institutions actually don't trust people Yeah. And don't believe that kind of thing is possible. And that, I think, is that's the real danger. Because if we don't break out of that and I understand why it's hard to do when you see what goes on every day, when you see people voting for the fuck whatever. But actually, when you give people the opportunity, when you create the conditions for people to contribute and participate meaningfully, they we always do.

I think, ultimately, it's what I was just saying. It's like the the lack of trust in people. And it's like when you are in a position of power and influence in the consumer story, to get there, you have been conditioned to see people as lazy and selfish.

Then it's very hard to. And so I think you see I mean, take politicians who are at the heart of our conversations a lot. And I know you were a you were a politician yourself. I understand that it's really difficult because we see people becoming angrier and angrier as democracy fails to deliver actually. But the danger is that the response to that is to draw power further away from people. And when that happens. And it's happening. And it's happening. The only result that will ever really have is to make people still angrier. It becomes a vicious cycle. And look, I'm I know it can sound very easy to say these things, but I good friends of mine, I am in the same circles as Joe Cox, the British MP who was

Who was murdered by Yeah. The far right. And I understand that it's that to say into that space, trust in people can sound glib. But also in the research for my book, Citizens, one of the most profound experiences and I and I, at the time, I didn't really even know how to write about it and I want to go there more, was I went a little way into the QAnon conspiracy theory world to understand it. And what you find when you go into that world is the entry point into that world is you're needed here. Here's your first task. Here's your first contribution.

Right. It's not that they want to do something for you or they think that you're in pursuit of your own self interest, they recruit you into a cause that's bigger than you.

consumer democracy, about consumer politics, this idea that the thing to do is to appeal to people's self interest, to appeal to them for their votes on the basis of their self interest, You start to understand that what we're actually doing is saying to people, you're lazy and selfish. We know you are. From the best intentions, but we're trapped in that story. That that is what I mean about the consumer story. It's a logic that that we're stuck in and is itself, like, pushing people into the arms, actually, of the subject story.

and mostly in very positive ways. Like, I think what I feel I do for a living now is stare at, give my attention to the positive, the possible, the emerging. And I I feel a deep joy in the work of going to places and communities and telling them stories of the possible. Part of my work is opening up institutions and that's what I think this podcast is really about. The other part of my work is going because the these things come together. Like, my theory of change as it were is that we need to connect up and celebrate and platform all of the stories of community level power. People just getting together whether the institutions recognize it or not and doing their work. And that, like, going to those places is super joyful and seeing that agency and and validating it and seeing them revel in that validation is just great. And actually, the more challenging part of my work and I think what we're leaning into here is the is that ultimately, unless we can open up the institutions or create new ones, that rising agency doesn't doesn't fulfill. Like, we are in a moment where we where these things have to change because otherwise, we can see it everywhere. They're gonna get crushed. And so it's made me what's it done to me? It's made me very determined. It's made me it's made my life quite hard. I I'm no tiny violins for me. Right? Like, I I enjoy my life a lot and I'm and I love what I do. And it's not easy. It's not easy to maintain personal relationships when you're so committed to something you're trying to do in the world. But I love it and it feels, like, commensurate with the scale of the challenges we face. So, yeah, I feel certainly feel more alive than I did when I was working in the advertising industry. Let's say that. Wow.

I mean, from this conversation alone, I hope people feel energized and enthused and want to get involved themselves. From this podcast, like what we're doing together, I think the combination of our voices, mine as a change maker, as a serial geek, maybe a sort of a bit of an outsider to politics but with a vision and a and a theory and a set of ideas. And you with your activism and your practice and your creativity, like and also geographically and the places that we're speaking from. Like, the combination of our views and how we bring them together to to look at the possibility of a different kind of democracy. I just hope people, particularly those who are in positions of power in these existing structures, I hope they take some inspiration. I hope they see something else as being possible. And I hope they make some space to try something because it's so much as possible in this time and yet fear staring only at the rise of fascism, the rise of the far right, actually that will if we only pay attention to that and I think too many people in positions of power and influence are only staring at the rising danger, that in itself is a self fulfilling prophecy. So what I think we exist to do with how to save democracy is to create somewhere else to look, something else to pay attention to that can actually drag us away from the chasm rather than throwing ourselves into it. That's the point for me.

How to Save Democracy is produced in partnership with The Conduit and wouldn't be possible without the kind support of Open Society Foundations and you, our listeners. We've got big plans. So if you can chip in to help us make them happen, we'd love to have you on board.