I’m currently reading Adrienne Maree Brown’s new book, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good and thinking about how it applies to government. Although her core audience is people pushing for change from the outside of the system, I think her book has lessons for public sector changemakers as well.
As in Brown’s earlier book, Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism explores the connections between individual and societal change; her mantra is “transform yourself to transform the world.” Her new book focuses on how pleasure – defined broadly as “a feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment” – is a measure of freedom and a tool for social change. She describes pleasure activism as “the work we do to reclaim our whole, happy and satisfiable selves from the impacts, delusions, and limitations of oppression and/or supremacy.”
So what lessons can people working in government take from it? It’s a thick volume and there’s a lot to unpack, so I will start in the place where Brown herself begin thinking about the relationships between pleasure and change: her early career experiences in community organizing. As she grew her career, she observed:
“There’s this concept of suffering central to so many of us as whatever, activists, organizers, anyone trying to change the world . . . so much of how we get pulled into community and kept in community is a solidarity built around our suffering. . . which is not liberatory. That’s just not it. It’s not us. The suffering is not what we’re called to attend to. That’s happening all the time. What does it mean to transcend it and make it so that: I can’t settle for this? This has nothing to do with me. This doesn’t have anything to do with us. I think about that a lot: what does it take to actually shift the feel of organizing? The way we feel our existence? We’re not meant to suffer alone. We’re meant to experience pleasure and togetherness.” (page 48)
The public sector version of suffering comes in a different flavor, which varies across agencies, geographies and levels of government. But it is no less stifling. In general, public sector culture often says that as government employees, we can’t have too much fun or take too much pleasure in our jobs because we are using public resources. If we shine too bright, if we are too colorful or creative, someone might notice and lodge a complaint – or worse, seek to cut the budget! We should just do the job, robotically, efficiently and preferably in a gray cubicle.
Although I’m relatively new to the Adrienne Maree Brown fan club, I have rejected anti-pleasure culture for a long time. One story shows what has happened when I’ve challenged it.
In a previous job I led the regional transit agency’s equity team, a group of bus drivers, financial analysts, janitors, managers and others who were charged with leading the agency towards a more equitable future for its employees, customers and community. The team, the second of its kind, had come together a few months prior. The members had a wide range of backgrounds, vast lived experiences with racism and a full understanding of how it operates in our institutions. But we lacked shared language and consensus on our role in leading change, and tensions had surfaced between the members. It was clear that we needed to spend some time learning together, having fun and building a shared vision for our work.
Prior to our weekly meeting I came across an advertisement for a new photographic exhibit at a local art museum that “connected the protest movements of the 20th century to today’s political, social, and racial conflicts.” I saw this as one small opportunity to bring the team closer together while learning about the history of movements that, like our team, fought against white supremacy and other forms of oppression.
I announced that our next meeting would be at the art museum instead of our regular location. After viewing the exhibit we would then discuss its relevance to our agency and community. Admission to the museum was free, and it is on a bus line, so field trip would be no cost to the agency. I let my supervisor know of our plans, asking if he had any questions or concerns. I also shared the information with a group of senior leaders charged with guiding and supporting our team.
No one directly told us that we could not meet at the museum – that would be un-Minnesotan! Instead, through a series of meetings, microaggressions and second-hand comments, we faced pressure to call it off. Although a small handful of managers supported the trip, the majority opinion was this: with the legislature in session, it’s not worth the risk. With our agency in a battle for its financial future, what if the news media found out that a group of employees was going to an ART MUSEUM? To learn about BLACK LIVES MATTER? Clearly this would be exactly the fodder that the anti-transit lobby would need to slash the budget.
But digging deeper, under this concern were implicit messages: “Art is trivial and has little place in the business of government.” “Learning and team building are not essential to our jobs.” “Fun and pleasure do not belong here.” And, “Advancing racial equity will have to wait. It’s too risky.”
I spent several days running scenarios in my head and consulting with others. At times, the paranoia was contagious, and I began to believe that a team-building field trip to experience art could undermine the agency’s success. Ultimately we went ahead. As we rode the bus to the museum that day, we checked out the other passengers, hoping they weren’t reporters. As silly as this sounds, it demonstrates how deeply the explicit and implicit messages had affected our team’s collective psyche.
We made it to the museum, learned a ton, had fun, got inspired, and bonded as a team. We had an insightful discussion about our team’s role in advancing racial equity. Afterwards we even went out to lunch together – on our own dime, of course.
Certainly this story has as much to do with white supremacy culture as it does with an anti-pleasure mindset. But if I read Brown correctly, I believe she would say the two go hand in hand: Just as white supremacy culture discourages many of us from experiencing pleasure, pleasure can set us free from it.
And while this story focuses on the unspoken pleasure prohibition for government employees, let’s not miss the bigger issue: that the implications of this type of thinking are even more detrimental for the general public. It results in depressing public waiting rooms that you want to avoid at all costs. It accepts mediocre customer service and standards of cleanliness in facilities. And it decides that some communities are worthy of certain amenities – free WiFi, food and childcare at meetings, clean parks --while others are not.
In government and elsewhere, rationales for greater equity (and pleasure for all) are often rooted in “the business case.” Investments in art programs in low-income neighborhoods create economic development and higher tax revenues. Employee wellness programs such as yoga improve productivity. These functional arguments are important, defensible, and play important roles in advancing an equity agenda. But what draws me to Pleasure Activism is that Brown’s perspective is based on justice, not capitalism.
So following her lead, I wonder: how could we shift the way it feels to work in government, and to access government services? What if those experiences were actually pleasurable? What ripple effects might that have in our communities and in our world?
The biggest barrier to this shift is a false dichotomy that pits responsible use of taxpayer dollars against pleasure. To be sure, government must be a careful steward of public resources. And, it is possible to do this while also creating a pleasurable environment. I’m not suggesting that government should replicate corporate levels of luxury in its offices and waiting rooms. It’s not even about the perks – although I never mind free coffee. Much more than money, pleasure activism requires a mindset change. It says that fair pay and full benefits are not enough; working for government can and should be enjoyable. And residents should not only receive the services they are entitled to, but they should have a feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment while accessing them.
How would your life change if this were true?