manifesto craft

notes on writing manifestos that light both yours and readers’ hearts on fire

Standing for something isn’t just about writing it down. It’s about believing it and living it.

David Heinemeier Hansson • Rework

"Remember to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without, just as you dismantle the ones you cannot live within."

Ruha Benjamin

New worldviews are bubbling away in little cauldrons all the time, but they only flow into the mainstream (eg become part of corporate trainings, official gov't policy, school curricula) when they are structurally of service to preserve the power status quo.

Emmett Shear x.com

One issue with corporate comms is there’s too much “how to build a boat” and not enough “why you should should yearn for the vast and endless sea”

Lulu Cheng Meservey • Tweet

“A people or a class which is cut off from its own past is far less free to choose and to act as a people or a class than one that has been able to situate itself in history.” - John Berger

tomcritchlow.com • Ways of Seeing

“A principle isn’t a principle until it costs you something.” — Bill Bernbach

🌵 Spiky point of view: Let’s get a little controversial

Wes Kao weskao.com

In its highest form, the manifesto acts as a magic spell incanted by the visionary artist. It is a performative speech/act that attempts to bring a new reality into existence.

Julian Hanna • The 10 Things All Great Manifestos Need

Fleeting and permanent, serious and ridiculous, sincere and ironic, always undermining their own authority, manifestos are unstable texts in the extreme.