THE TOWN CRIER

Economics/The global market • Beauty • Connectedness

What if the most fundamental part of the Western, capitalist society changed? The market. Can you imagine the transformation from what it is today to something truly beautiful? How would the world and your everyday life change? The Town Crier is a journey into an extraordinary day of an ordinary town. It’ll invite you to look for the beauty (or the lack of beauty) in the way things are connected.

INFO:
Text and/or podcast. Read it all or listen to the whole story. Or mix it: Start reading and when you get to the town crier’s announcement, turn on the sound. Continue reading and switch to sound again when the woman with the burnt cookie is being passed the microphone.
Read: 8 minutes
Listen: 15 minutes
Exercises: Include wandering and wondering

Relevant for all consumers and producers ready for a renewal of the old, obsolete model

Prefer listening? We’ve prepared a full recording of “The Town Crier” for you. It’ll give you both the story and all exercises involved. You can find it right below.

Chapter 1

It begins in the early morning. A deep, booming voice traveling from the far reaches of the town, echoing in staircases, snaking through pipes and openings, finding its way to all living beings in your sleepy neighborhood.

It’s a voice with a message, repeated over and over: “Invitation to a market based on a philosophy of beauty. Beauty is a question of coherence. Things cannot be beautiful without also being good and true. You’re invited to a market where everything – wait and see – is truly beautiful.”

You notice windows opening, your neighbors peeking out at the deserted street. What kind of invitation is this? And who can possibly cry at this volume? You follow the voice. There’s no better way to describe it. You let the voice lead you through the streets of your hometown as weekend traffic sets in. You’ve lived in the town for a decade but still have no clear picture of it. Why is that? you wonder. Why haven’t you paid attention? Would you be able to describe it with your eyes closed? You’re not sure.

This morning you have a sense of seeing everything anew: the flowerpots, the chalk drawings on the sidewalk, the geese in the crisp morning air flying towards the open fields with the string of muddy lakes. You turn a corner and find yourself at the town’s former main square which was turned into a parking lot. Then you see him, the town crier, a diminutive man on stilts with a black hat on his head. The parking lot has been sealed off to traffic and is filling up with people, your neighbors and acquaintances, people you know only by the places you meet them: people from the gym, people from the mall, people from the park. The town crier bellows out his invitation, but what kind of market is this with no stalls, no food, no free samples? Only people filling up an empty square.

You hear snippets of conversations, arguments, opinions. The town crier leans slightly backwards, as if amazed by the power of the crowd and this sudden, surprising community. Then he gathers his thoughts and cries them out.

(You can hear the town crier’s call right below or read it further down)

  • What if the world wasn’t created by market forces out of our control? What if it wasn’t defined by a kind of totalitarian consumerism driven by the strongest means ever known to mankind?


    Can you imagine a market that is not based on manipulations, exploitation, and irresponsibility? A market that doesn’t undermine our very existence?
    Neo-liberal economics, growth-based capitalism, industrialization, and segregation have led to massive economic, ecologic, mental, aesthetic, and cultural imbalances. It’s time to move on.


    What about a market based on a philosophy of beauty? One that arises from the conviction that beauty is a question of coherence. It emerges through the interconnectedness of things: Nothing is beautiful in itself. A dazzling piece of design can never be truly beautiful if the process of production, transportation, and selling exploits people and contaminates the earth on its way. Things cannot be beautiful without also being good and true.
    If we want to create a market based on honesty and beauty, we need to rediscover the whole picture and reclaim responsibility over the whole process.

  • Go for a walk and empty your mind. Allow yourself to be amazed by the richness and details found in your surroundings. What do you see? What do you hear? What’s the day really like? Embrace the weather. Embrace yourself. When you get back to your front door, pause for a second and ask yourself this question: How do I define beauty? Write down the answer and save it.

Chapter 2

The town crier has fallen asleep on a patch of dusty grass, his hat neatly placed on top of the stilts beside him. A dragonfly has – magically – found its way from the lakes and circles the crowd of people on the parking lot. Why is this happening? you ask yourself. And why isn’t it happening every day?

Minutes and hours pass, and the square is somehow turning into something different: a new square – or maybe just the old square with its potential unfolded. Makeshift stalls are blooming. People sell coffee, sandwiches, cakes, cheap beer, candies, newspapers, honey from a garden near the lakes. A farmer has opened the trunk of his car at the edge of the square and sells potatoes, ripe tomatoes, eggs, crooked cucumbers. Did he know that this would happen? And shouldn’t he have a license? You buy a tomato and a loaf of bread and find a spot next to the town crier. He snores as you taste the tomato, its juice dripping down on your pants. It’s just a tomato but it tastes like … Like what? Like home?

A woman sits down beside you with a cup of coffee and a cookie, slightly burnt. You’ve seen her before but where? The supermarket? The highway tollgate? She turns around and smiles as the town crier awakens with newfound energy. The three of you look at each other and wait for someone to speak. Then the woman stands up and heads towards a small, impromptu stage made of milk crates. She puts the coffee at her feet and is being passed a microphone. Is this wonderful day her idea? She speaks above the market noise, gesturing with the burnt cookie in her left hand. The coffee tips over. You watch it dripple through the crates as the woman speaks.

(You can hear the woman’s speech right below or read it further down)

  • One of our basic challenges lies in the fact that everything has been divided into fragments. We don’t see the whole picture anymore and therefore tend to forget that everything is connected. We know there is no effect without a cause. We know that the part and the whole are, by necessity, inseparable. But the world has turned sufficiently complex as to letting us believe that many things can be done without consequences. We can consume and do whatever we want without seeing or feeling the pain in the other end of the supply chain.


    While the world is on fire, the market is constantly reassuring us that everything is perfectly fine. Keep shopping, and life will be good. The message caters to human laziness but fails to fulfill our deeper needs for meaning and belonging. Not to mention our need for having fun. As Donella Meadows, the American environmental scientist, put it, “living green is sweeter, more fun, more creative, way more satisfying than living in a way that impoverishes people and nature”.


    In transforming the market, an important task for us lies in rediscovering the logical connections between the divided things, processes, and situations.


    Therefore, we must insist on systematically training our attention and sensibility by looking behind the surface, investigating the full circle of a product’s life. We must look for the beauty - or the lack of beauty - in the way things are connected.
    How many products and experiences would turn ugly if we could smell, feel, listen to, and see the whole picture?


    One strategy is to bring back a tightness of feedbacks. Tightness of feedbacks refers to how quickly and strongly the consequences of a change in one part of the system are felt and responded to in other parts. The closer to home we experience the consequences of our choices, the more mindful we will become in our actions.


    To get to that point, we must pursue, promote, and nourish the strategy of going local: Local production, local economies, local solutions. It’s not about isolation, protectionism, or returning to the old days, but about inventing new models that are more equal, more fun, and more economic in the original sense of the word.


    Challenging basic beliefs and guidelines is part of it. The World Trade Organization is, for example, not allowed to promote the idea that local food is in any way better than products from the other side of the world.


    Part of the change lies in reimagining our world, society, and everyday life. Easier said than done. “Modern capitalism works by colonizing people’s imagination of what is possible”, as the scholar Richard Sennett puts it.


    The first thing we must do therefore is to escape the colonial powers and reimagine what is possible. Then, act on it.


    Now is the time to create a meaningful market. Consumerism is the problem; retail reconnected is central to the solution.

  • Look at your things. Your cups, your couch, your carpet. Can you see the whole picture? Are the things around you truly beautiful – and does it matter to you whether they are or not?

    Open your fridge: Any local products? If not, would you consider going for that next time you go shopping?

    Look out your window. Empty your mind and allow your thoughts to wander. What do you see? Do you feel at home? What makes you feel at home?

    Find another window and repeat the exercise only this time with a new set of questions: What do you see? Is anything closely related to you and your actions? What do you feel when considering the relation?

CHAPTER 3

A group of children has invented a game. They’re circling the crowd, over and over. Certain words are shouted at certain times. A ball is tossed between them, there’s a paper bag involved. Someone shouts as the ball misses its target, then laughter. There’s a promise of rain in the air and somehow a smell of open fields. The farmer is packing up for the day. The town crier has abandoned his stilts and is strolling the parking lot in a heavy metal t-shirt and jeans. Town crying is not his day job, it turned out; he runs a small bookshop in a neighboring town. He handed you a business card as you sat on the grass, and you promised to visit. You said it like you meant it. You actually did.

The wind picks up as evening comes. There’s a light on the sky that feels closer to autumn than summer. Tables are folded away, garbage bags carried off. Someone quickly sweeps the square, and there’s a rattling sound of paper cups rolling over the pavement.

What was this? Who made it happen? And what was this feeling in your chest? A gentle, warm feeling of simply belonging in this odd crowd of people being summoned by the owner of a bookstore on a pair of stilts.

And these conversations … What were they all about? Tightness of feedback, true beauty, the reimagining of what is possible.

Rain clouds roll in. You look up and feel the first drops on your face. It’s simple, isn’t it? And yet you feel overwhelmed, grateful, confused. The last remaining families clear the parking lot, shaded by jackets and sweaters, as a crack of thunder rumble through the streets, like an echo from a distant dream.

Soon you’ll be on your way, too, and there’ll be nothing much to see behind you: A paper cup dancing in the wind, the first leaves falling from the municipal trees, a smashed tomato, an empty square.

  • Revisit your definition of beauty and save this question for your next morning stroll: How can I unlock beauty’s potential in my neighborhood? Write down your answer and revisit it. No action is insignificant.

    • Beauty awareness

    • Transformative potentials & potent transformations

    • Individual challenges

    Imagine buying only truly beautiful things for - what - one month? A year? What would change? How would it feel? Imagine your neighborhood dominated by this kind of retail reconnected.

  • If you’re looking for more, read the editorial about The Consumer Story Versus The Citizen Story in The Empty Square JOURNAL. It’s written by Jon Alexander, author and co-founder of The New Citizenship Project. If you want to dive into the philosophy of beauty and connectedness, watch the interview with the Danish artist, Morten Skriver, The Philosophy of Flowers. He talks about it 5 minutes into the interview. Besides, look through our Community Stories & Identity section; it’s packed with inspiration.

Credits:
Written and produced by The Empty Square
Illustration: Samuel Toi
Voice artitst: Simon Jackson