Desire is stronger than guilt

Introduction

Claude: In this category of the occupied, there are those who benefit from the current state of things and therefore above all don't want anything to change. And there are those who are just getting by and say "well, I'll focus on what I can do." There are very powerful people, there are people with no power at all. There are people who dismiss the subject with great contempt. There are people who say "well listen, it's very sad, but it's without me." So this is basically the default state.

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Gwen: In this fourth episode, I'm still joined by Claude Garcia, an ecologist specialising in tropical forest management and co-author of the article "Choices We Make in Times of Crisis." Today, we take a closer look at the archetype of the occupied person, and propose ways to help them through the door. If the idea of guiding occupied people through doors sounds strange to you, I refer you back to the previous episodes in which Claude introduces the 4-door system, a framework for understanding people we tend to judge as irrational in the climate debate.

Discussion

Values and Beliefs: the Same Mechanic

Claude: I'm happy to continue and I'm happy to talk about the third door, the door of values, because as we said in the previous episode, there are actually commonalities between these values. In fact, in the mind, in the way it manifests in our brains, values and beliefs, it seems to me, and again I say this with caution because I'm not a neurologist, but they manifest in the same way. That is, a value, a priority, is actually a belief about a belief. In other words, I believe something is good, I believe this is true.

That means I'm going to open the door of values the same way I can open the door of beliefs. Someone is occupied, they have better things to do — in fact, this person thinks they have better things to do, this person believes they have better things to do. It's the same thing, except that in one case, on the first door, on the door of beliefs, I emphasised what I understand about the world. I didn't say what I like about the world, it's what I expect, it's what I think I understand, that I like the law of gravity, I know I'll hurt myself if I jump out the window.

The door of values is something else. The door of values is also beliefs, it consolidates at roughly the same time, it also depends on the group I belong to. There are these same self-defence mechanisms put in place individually and collectively to reinforce collective values and to actually live together as a community. So that's very similar, but the field of application is different, it's broadly what tells me: this is important, that is not, I'll take an interest in this, I won't in that. But there's something I didn't mention at the second door and we need to address it today, that's the notion of the group. I said that beliefs and values were in fact the beliefs and values of the group I belong to.

The Three Ways to Change

Claude : And in fact, if you think about it, a human being has roughly three ways to change: either the change comes from within, or it comes from outside. I'll leave internal change for later, we've already touched on it a little, it's the notions of emotion, the notions of epiphany. So here, I'd like to talk about change that comes from outside, namely: I'm in a bubble of beliefs, I'm in a bubble of values, the people around me vote the same way, they think the same way. Fine. How do I change in that context? How do I get out? How do I open up? How do I reorient my priorities?

Well, the first way is: my group has to change first and show me the new path, and then I'll follow. For example, if I'm surrounded by colleagues, and let's say one day I get up and at lunch I discover that for the past three months three of them have become vegetarians, one is on the way, and another has decided to become one too, I bet that within the week I'll be saying to myself "well, what if I tried tofu?" So if my group transforms itself, changes its values, reorients, I'll follow the movement. And that's what I was saying at the start, when the neighbours change their sign, I'll end up changing mine. But of course, there's an unsatisfying side to it: why did the neighbours start becoming vegetarians?

Gwen: That connects a bit to the messenger story. The group is full of little messengers.

Claude: Absolutely. Is there a group leader, or an influencer in the group who made their mark... did Ronaldo replace the Coke bottle... We're back to those same examples again.

So the first way to change is: if my group changes, I'll probably change.

Gwen: It's a bit like mimicry.

Claude: Mimicry. And because I look around me. It's not cowardice, not weakness, it's how we humans function, we are social beings.

There's another way...

Gwen: And then you can say that the members of this group are people I consider to share common values, or that I feel close to in terms of my convictions, my values, etc. So if I see them doing something different, I'll tell myself it's not necessarily so incompatible with my values, and that if they were able to change, I probably can too.

Claude: And there, you see, we're looking at mechanisms, or for instance processes that are well known, like the Overton window we were talking about a lot on social media recently. Well, you can see that in fact convictions, values change and shift, and you can have a growing radicalisation of a group, etc. So you can see well how this can happen, these processes.

So that's the first way to change. If my group changes, I change with my group.

The second way to change is a little more radical. It's: if I change groups, I'll change.

Gwen: That's a question I was about to ask you. I was going to say, you can also decide to change groups.

Claude: Exactly.

Gwen: But then, that's because you start by changing yourself?

Claude: Maybe I get excluded. Maybe I get adopted. Cults work very well like that, they isolate you. So that's the second way. If I change groups, I'll change with the new group I'm going to adopt. Or I'm isolated and I'll suffer if I'm isolated from a group.

Gwen: I think that's something we can all relate to. If we think back to our adolescence, when we were at secondary school, there are lots of groups like that, with very marked codes, specific ones. Often it's about clothes and music. Anyway, I don't know if it's still the case now, but in my time there were very clear distinctions based on music styles and clothing styles. Either you listened to rock, hip-hop, rap, etc.

Claude: Yes, right, or you smoke or you don't, or you go to youth group or you don't... there are plenty of examples like that. In fact, a group is made up of a set of doings, things, practices, and underlying these practices there are convictions about what's good and what's bad, what's in, what's out, what's cool, and what's...

Gwen: What's acceptable and not acceptable.

Claude: Exactly. So you have the two main mechanisms that are linked to collective processes. If my group changes, I change with my group; if I change groups, I also change my beliefs. The problem with these two paths is that you wonder "but why does my group change and why do I change groups?"

Gwen: It can get complicated when you're in a larger group that you can't easily leave.

Claude: Absolutely, yes.

Gwen: For example, my country is becoming more racist, do I change countries?

Claude: Yeah, and conversely, I change companies because I no longer feel at home there, I don't like the spirit of the company, and there are company cultures, that speaks to all of us.

And so we're left with the third way, which is "I have an epiphany." Something happens to me that makes me reconsider my life. Now everyone over 40 knows what I'm talking about. The others: just wait, it's coming [laughs].

Gwen: [laughs] It's a matter of time, really.

Claude: It clearly is. There are moments like that in life where we take stock, things happen to us, significant, important events. There are phenomena like that around age 20, phenomena like that around 40, 50, we realign ourselves. It shows, there's greater neuroplasticity, it seems to me, if I remember the article I saw about that, even at these advanced ages, such as my own.

Gwen: [laughs] The ripe old age of 40.

Claude: Exactly, I'm speaking from the height of my silver-haired wisdom. Well, the fact remains that our brain reconfigures itself, and a brain reconfiguring itself means connections are forming, others are being abandoned. That's what the body of beliefs, the body of values consists of, it still takes shape in my brain in the form of connections.

The Zero Waste Epiphany

Claude : So we can see very clearly how this can unfold. And so we come back to "I change." The day I have an emotional shock, positive or negative. I'll give you an everyday example, but one that was very telling for me. A few years ago, a colleague I'm very fond of was saying to me, "Oh, it would be great if we started a zero waste group." And I was like, "Yeah, yeah, hold on, we've got a budget to balance. No but it's good, go for it, go for it, do something."

Gwen: Totally occupied, as it turns out.

Claude: Absolutely. So I'd heard it, I didn't say it was nonsense, but I said "right, go for it. If you've got the courage and the energy, go for it." And she did, she organised a conference, she brought in one of the champions of zero waste, and it turned out that since it was a friend who organised it, back to the messenger, I showed up, I was there. And this speaker showed a photo of a home, tidy, zero waste. And it was a photo, I remember, white, serene. I felt something, I said "I want that in my life," and I made it an objective.

So I had to trust my colleague, I let myself be drawn in, even if I did it because you're my colleague, and if it had been someone else I'd have told them to go and... But I remember the shock, the speaker showed me something that made me want it. And then we were the first zero waste group at our university. After that.

Gwen: And that connects to notions I often discuss with the people I work with, which is the idea of a desirable imaginary. She put in front of your eyes a potential situation you could project yourself into and where you said "I want that."

Claude: Exactly, and the previous "it's not good" discourse didn't work at all, it was completely useless. I was drowning in obligations, responsibilities, sorry but I don't need to be lectured, I needed to want it, and it worked.

Gwen: We'll much more easily change our habits if we see an interest in it, and for you the interest was "I want my home to look like that" because it looks much more calming, it seems much more pleasant, so I'll do it for myself. But it seems to me we can more easily get people to change through an interest, at least with a positive carrot, than with guilt, and in any case guilt specifically works very little.

Desirable representations and moralising discourse

Claude: We'll necessarily discuss this when we get to the fourth door, because trying to push people through the third door, the door of values, is lecturing them.

Gwen: And on that subject, there's quite an interesting study called Images and Acts, which looked at the visual vocabulary used to talk about the climate crisis, through photography. So looking at the photos we use for awareness-raising, for talking about climate. The result of this study is that there are several groups of people depending on their degree of involvement, depending on their archetype, and that certain images will work more or less well depending on the group, and that more negative images, of consequences, of causes, and therefore ones that provoked strong negative emotions and guilt, will work very little, or even be counterproductive, for people who tend to be more ignorant, occupied etc. But on the other hand, for people who are already involved, already engaged, so more people who are preoccupied or architects, it will work very well. So there really is...

Claude: It reinforces them. For me the real example is when Greta Thunberg went up to the United Nations Tribune and said "How dare you? How dare you steal my childhood? How dare you steal my future?" It's this moral judgment being made, which was very applauded, but behind it she burned out, Greta.

We'll talk about it, we're approaching the fourth door, the door of means, the state of the preoccupied, so the preoccupied have taken the step and say "Yes it's important, yes I'm going to tackle the problem head on." We talked about this right at the start, we said: in our little bubble, everything's fine. Outside it's terrible.

A few words on what's happening in Gaza: when I said you shouldn't lament what human beings do, it pushes my ability to understand humans to its absolute limit. It's terrible, it's terrifying, and I feel totally powerless on this issue, and I have trouble hearing my angry friends who say "but why are you insensitive, why aren't you doing something?" We'll discuss this link between the feeling of powerlessness and the ability to take action.

But in fact, if you look at me, this is the very first time I've publicly said the word Gaza. That doesn't mean it was absent from my mind, but still zero public position-taking on my part, totally occupied with other things, and yet I have this in the background. And so the moralising discourse makes me angry. What do you think? That I'm not human? But I'm also confronted with my own powerlessness.

Gwen: Yes, because being occupied isn't necessarily just finding it not important enough or not a priority, it can also be a feeling of powerlessness.

Claude: We take refuge in a battle we'll be able to fight so as not to face a battle we know is lost before it starts.

Gwen: Stop me if I'm wrong, but there might also be a kind of protection mechanism when a subject and its information are of a violence that overwhelms us. We struggle to absorb it. We might also need to distance ourselves, it can be a kind of self-defence mechanism, ultimately, to put some distance between ourselves and it, or at least to try, because it's not always easy, but to detach from it.

Claude: Absolutely, and in fact this reflection, we'll come back to it again, about all of those who have the anger of the preoccupied, we really need, it's what I was saying, to be extremely careful about how we judge others and what state they're in, because we don't have access to their interiority. So a moralising discourse claiming to know what matters to me, telling me what matters to me, is necessarily missing the point.

The Default State and the Typology of the Occupied

Claude : So we were talking about the occupied, and we need to understand that this is broadly the largest group among us, because our resources, our attention are limited, so we have to make choices, and we orientate based on what amuses us, what interests us, what we need, what we consider good, so it's normal, it's human to choose and we can't be involved in every battle, etc. So that's perfectly normal.

In this category of the occupied, there are those who benefit from the current State of things and therefore above all don't want anything to change, and there are those who are just getting by and say "well, I'll focus on what I can do" as a survival strategy too. There are very powerful people, there are people with no power at all, there are people who dismiss the subject with great contempt, there are people who say "well listen, it's very sad, but go on, you're on your own in this battle, it's without me."

So, first of all it's our state most of the time, every time I sleep I'm occupied, I'd like that to be noted, I'm not interested in anything other than my own health, so this is basically the default state. The other states are somewhat particular ones: I'm actively denying the reality of the information, I'm actively fighting to find a way to change things, I'm actively transforming the system, I can be actively occupied, I can also just let myself drift.

Gwen: Yes, what you just said about sleep, which isn't something you'd think of, but it's true that there's sometimes something very physiological about it too. If I take my own example, if I have a health problem, it happened to me not so long ago to have a health problem that was really a bit drawn out and a bit painful, and indeed those are moments when I consume completely differently from usual, because we have limited energy resources, and so I'll eat junk food, I won't go to the market, I won't cook. So I end up with plastic waste that I never usually have, etc. There really is a kind of fluctuation in priorities that can sometimes seem even a bit trivial, but in daily life you can easily experience how our priorities shift.

Claude: Listen, that's great, because it lets us put to bed this notion of... No, we're not going full throttle on the battle all the time, we fluctuate. Soldiers on the front aren't on the front all the time, there are rotations, they need to catch their breath. So no, I'm not going full throttle on the battle all the time.

Gwen: It's true that it's a trial that's often put to activists, who are blamed for not being perfect.

Claude: Exactly, and that in fact is a very easy, very sneaky attack, full of bad faith, we have to acknowledge that.

Gwen: Yes, their convictions are put on trial, they're accused of hypocrisy.

Claude: Oh, so you're not an absolutist? [laughs]

Closing the Door: Resistance Strategies

Gwen: So we're talking a lot about going through the doors, here on this archetype of the occupied, which is a very large proportion, who we'll often be confronted with, and who we'll try to convince, with whom we try to dialogue, from our side trying to create desirable imaginaries, or showing them solutions they can project themselves into, etc. There are also people who do the opposite, there are people who push with all their strength to close the door.

Claude: Yes, absolutely. So that things stay as they are, absolutely yes.

Gwen: Exactly. It's what you were introducing a little earlier when talking about people who benefit from the current situation. With this analytical framework, this is where I find it particularly interesting. We can decode certain discourses and untangle personal interests, ask ourselves why is this person saying that, etc. And realise that there are people who are actively trying to close the door.

Claude: To close the door, exactly. And you know this quote, it's famous: "First they ignored me, then they laughed at me, then they fought me." In fact, you see that's an analysis of the framework. I was ignoring the discourse of change, then I ridiculed it, I'm attacking it directly, then it gains momentum, so I need to build alliances, I need to actively counter it. You can see these mechanisms well, you see how the strategy develops depending on the moment when more and more a movement for social transformation gains momentum, opens up, information percolates, it becomes an uncontested norm, and you can see that the defence mechanisms will then... Very important, very important: I'm fairly convinced that on climate change, there is far more bad faith in saying "I don't believe it" than there are people who truly looked at the data, "Listen, I checked the data, I redid the calculations and it doesn't add up, there's something." There are people like that, but honestly no.

Gwen: It's often people who have interests in things not changing.

Claude: Exactly, and so in fact you can see the alliance that will form when the discourse of change threatens the equilibrium from which some benefit. So alliances form between the occupied who benefit from it and the deniers, because the deniers are natural allies, since they don't believe in change, in the reasons that necessitate change. So this alliance will be awakened. And what better way to form an alliance than to join them and say "I don't believe in climate change. Vote for me." And so you start to see the tug of war that will happen between the powerful occupied and the deniers, engaged, motivated, who don't need to be motivated to get involved, and the preoccupied on the other side, and there's this mass of occupied people who aren't interested in the problem because Atletico is playing tonight. I need to go watch the match. And it's for the attention of this mass that we'll be fighting.

Gwen: That's also where we see developing over the past few years this discourse that had much less currency before, this artificial opposition, end of the month vs end of the world, which also tries to depoliticise the ecological transition, because it allows for this opposition, saying "yes, fine, ecology is all well and good, but there's the budget, but there are more important things," completely obscuring the fact that the two can go together. It's also touched on in the article, the win-win solutions: we can simultaneously improve human living conditions and environmental impacts.

Claude: But that said, there's a nuance to add here, because one of the most powerful drivers preventing the occupied from seeking to make things better, meaning seeking to reconcile end of the month and end of the world, is that they're convinced it's impossible. There's this belief that the world is zero-sum, that what you take I won't have, and therefore I need to absolutely protect myself from you.

You can also see that there's a belief game here that will come into play: if people don't believe it's possible to be an architect, they won't allow themselves to become preoccupied and they'll fight against it. And conversely, those who are preoccupied might not be able to imagine that it's possible to support big capital and save ecology. And so, yes, let's share the cake better, but then, let's take from the rich to redistribute, they're creating an imaginary that seems desirable to them, but that horrifies those who feel threatened.

Gwen: Discourses that try to do a bit of both with the myths of green growth, etc. Which are beginning to insinuate themselves, when circumstances are hard to ignore, when we start having heat waves, when we start having climate phenomena, even in France that are significant, droughts, etc. They're starting to struggle to ignore the fact that it's becoming a priority. We start trying to reconcile that with capitalism, and starting to talk about green growth, to find kinds of shortcuts in the narratives we propose.

Towards the Door of the Preoccupied: Desire as a Driver

Claude: And so here we have the question, and we're gently tipping to the other side. You said, "we're starting to realise" we're seeing, and that's what happened with Covid, it was the bodies piling up at the morgue that led to policy. So we're afraid of what might happen. We anticipate the future state of the world. And then we've said, well, we're going to have to reorient our priorities. And at that point, we go through the door. And we move towards the state of the preoccupied. That doesn't mean we've found the solution.

Gwen: Ultimately this third door, it's a story of imaginary, of narrative.

Claude: Of desire.

Gwen: Of desire, yes, of personal interest.

Claude: Of personal interest, but my personal interest, I can be someone very selfish or altruistic. My personal interest can be that all the people around me are happy. That was Spinoza's project.

Gwen: Yes, it's very dependent on one's personal convictions, one's values, one's degree of empathy too.

Claude: Absolutely. You know, if you look fundamentally at what makes someone left-wing or right-wing, it's not the political orientations. In fact, that's the consequence of the orientation. There's a very fine sociology article that tried to trace back to the origin, the source. Is there a common thread between all right-wing movements? Is there a common thread between all left-wing movements, across all countries? And the only common thread they manage to find is the attitude towards, I'll call it the tribe, my group, and the attitude towards those outside the group. And it seems that the common thread between all right-wing movements is a very favourable attitude towards the inside of the group, and a rather unfavourable attitude towards those perceived as outside the group. After that, this group can be smaller or larger, it can be my football club, or it can be my nation, or my race, or what have you. So something very positive for my group and something rather negative towards the outside. Whereas the commonality with the left is either neutrality, meaning no preference for the group, but truly equal treatment, or even a negative reaction inside the group and a positive reaction outside the group.

I find that very interesting because we could, I'd really like someone to take up this question. You know we talk a lot about oxytocin.

Gwen: Yes.

Claude: In the jargon, it's the love hormone and all that, maternal attachment and all that.

Gwen: Affection.

Claude: Yes, right, it's affection. But it's also linked to aggression towards outsiders. That is, largely, oxytocin is responsible for maternal love and for killing the stranger who arrives. It's the same thing. I wonder if there aren't markers, molecular markers [laughs], that would make me more right-wing or left-wing depending on whether I have a lot or little oxytocin.

Gwen: [laughs] Do you really think so?

Claude: But I'm ready to take the bet if there are any physiologists out there...

Gwen: But there would be genetic predispositions, ultimately...

Claude: I'm convinced there are oxytocin markers that make me right-wing or left-wing. But then, I'm ready to bet on it.

Gwen: It's possible. But it's so tied to environments, to where you grow up...

Claude: I'm sure it reinforces itself. There you go, I'll take that bet. [laughs]

Empathy as the Key to the Third Door

Claude: So all of that to say: what made us emerge from ignorance was curiosity. What allowed us to navigate the door of belief is the capacity for critical thinking and the ability to question oneself. What will allow us to open the third door, and thereby move on to the next stage, is empathy. It's the capacity to take into account, to reorient one's priorities and to take into account things we hadn't perceived before.

Gwen: Yes, so that also connects to what we said before, it's the capacity to change one's mind ultimately and to realise we might have been wrong.

Claude: Yes, and to realise that others are suffering and that that matters. We're really getting into the question of "is this good or is it bad?"

Gwen: OK, and I have a question about what we were saying earlier about guilt, because guilt has a lot to do with empathy. Is it once you've gone through this door that slightly guilt-inducing messages can start to be received, but before that it doesn't work?

Claude: Before that they're counterproductive. The problem is that we're more or less resistant. There are people, if I tell you don't do that, some of us will obey, and others will, because I said not to do that, go and do it simply because I said. We're more or less resistant to the imposition of norms from outside. So if someone tells me you mustn't, you mustn't litter, how am I going to take that? Is it because I like having a clean, empty street? I live in Switzerland, that speaks to me. Is it because otherwise I'll get a fine like in Singapore? We're getting into questions of that order. On intrinsic motivation, etc.

Gwen: OK. So it's really empathy that's going to be the key to this door, so the question to ask yourself when you want to help someone through this door is: how do you provoke this feeling of empathy?

Claude: Why does it not affect you, that there are people... that question, I ask it to myself every time I walk around the city. How do I manage to live with people who sleep downstairs from me? Not literally downstairs from me, but on the street. How, how do I do that? I don't have the answer. Well, I have an answer: I think fear is in there, it plays a big role. The fear of being dragged down yourself. There we're going into other questions.

Gwen: Yes, indeed, there's a kind of rejection because it holds up a mirror that's frightening.

Creativity, Spinoza and hope

Gwen : There's one last thing I wanted to bring up around this idea of the occupied. We were talking about this story of narratives, of imagination, etc. and of also believing that there's a possible solution, or not. That connects to what you mentioned as a key, which is creativity, which takes on its full meaning because it's by imagining in the imagination things that don't yet exist, and by offering all these occupied people positive imaginaries they'll be able to project themselves into, that we can tip the balance a little and change minds.

Claude: In the same way that you can go through the first two doors very quickly, you have information and you accept it right away. Here you can, you become aware of the problem and you immediately have the solution. Creativity specifically opens the fourth door.

Gwen: When we talk about imaginary, etc. If you think about it, have you ever seen a positive futuristic film?

Claude: For real! Star Trek! Star Trek talks about inclusion, diversity.

Gwen: OK, except for the exception that proves the rule. But it's true there is a kind of dominance of catastrophic, apocalyptic narratives, which shows what I'd call a kind of intellectual void on the subject. In any case, this kind of slight crisis of the mainstream imaginary, I mean, because, obviously, we're now starting to have more and more literature, like solarpunk, etc., this kind of imaginary that's increasingly developing, but which remains still somewhat marginal. There really is a kind of dominance in mainstream cinema. You really have to be convinced to manage to imagine different imaginaries when that's all you've been offered forever.

Claude: If you're capable of imagining a better world, meaning you have hope that a better world will be realised. This notion of hope, Barack Obama talked about it at the start of his term...

Gwen: He even made it his campaign, his posters were "HOPE."

Claude: Right, and in fact, if you follow Spinoza, hope is a form of fear. So for the philosopher Spinoza, you need to be a little wary of hope. Because in fact, hope carries with it the fear that hope won't be realised. And so, he proposes imagining another way to engage, one free of fear, but therefore also of hope, but that's not for everyone, I'm not there yet. [laughs]

Gwen: [laughs]

Claude: I'm not there yet, but there you go, I know that this reflection makes me be a little wary of the imaginary and of hope, perhaps because I don't quite see what path we'll need to take to get there, and I worry that this imaginary will in fact be out of reach, out of... I want to move towards a better future.

Putting it into Practice: Communicating with the Occupied

Gwen: Before we wrap up, let's take a few minutes to translate what Claude has just shared into concrete actions for your communication when facing the occupied.

The occupied represent the majority of us. We all have limited resources in time, energy, and money, and we don't all have the same priorities when we choose how to use them. That's frustrating, but it's normal and it's human. Let's also remember that we are all someone else's occupied on other subjects.

So we stand before the door of values. It is locked by contempt or indifference, which are defence mechanisms. Faced with a problem, they allow one to distance oneself from the consequences or the victims, to avoid negative emotions or efforts at self-questioning.

As we've seen, the key to opening this door is empathy. But be careful: empathy is a two-way street. If you want to call your audience to empathy, it's important to make the effort yourself to understand them.

To pick the lock, there are three key principles.

First principle: desire is always more powerful than guilt.

When facing systemic problems, it's counterproductive to point the finger at individuals' actions when those actions are shaped, or even constrained, by the very system we're calling to change. In this context, it's risky to presuppose your audience's values based on their behaviour. For example, if you reproach me for using my car when I have no access to public transport, I'm not likely to change my behaviour since I have no alternative, but on top of that I'll be resistant to everything you say because I'll feel you're judging me without understanding my constraints.

You'll therefore have a much better chance of convincing your audience by showing that you understand their situation and proposing an alternative that benefits them. Better still, allow them to project themselves into a better future rather than scaring them with a repulsive one. Claude said it himself: no moralising discourse convinced him to spend time and energy adopting zero waste, it was a photo of a tidy, plastic-free, harmonious home that made him say he wanted that in his life.

So concretely, in terms of information design, what does this mean? First, avoid catastrophist visuals and images of desolation, the occupied are already saturated with them and risk falling into apathy. Then, drop the moralising discourse because it doesn't work on them and is even counterproductive.

OK, but what do we do instead? First, try to show solutions and not only problems, so favour visualisations that show a desirable future, propose infographics showing alternative solutions or projections that open perspectives for improvement. The idea is to focus on the prospects for gain rather than on risk or loss.

Make change desirable, not sacrificial. Your visuals should focus on what there is to gain, because people change when they see a personal interest in it, and it's up to you to make that interest visible.

Second principle: bring the data to life.

Use storytelling to humanise your data and allow people to recognise themselves in it or project themselves into it. If you want to inspire your audience to change a behaviour, show them examples of people who have changed and drawn personal benefit from it, not perfect heroes, but normal people, with their contradictions, who found an interest in changing. If you want to lead your audience to re-evaluate the importance of a problem, help them project themselves into the situation of the people it affects.

A good example of this strategy in practice is the Stories Behind the Line project by Federica Fragapane. Through an interactive website, she presents the journey and story of asylum seekers by placing the numerical data from their journey alongside their personal testimonies about it. In this way, she reminds us that immigration cannot be reduced to numbers, but is above all a matter of human beings.

Third principle: short and digestible formats

Attention is a limited resource, and the occupied have neither the time nor the inclination to read 50-page reports. Favour easy-to-consume formats, like one-page infographics, or 2-minute videos, or educational Instagram stories. Ideally, the information should be absorbable at a glance.

To conclude, remember that we need empathy to open this door, and that empathy also means understanding your audience and their constraints in order to speak their language and offer them adapted solutions. So, as it's become a bit of a habit for me, I'll leave you with three questions to ask yourself for the next time you have to communicate on a subject.

• Do my visuals create desire or rather guilt?
• Is my format suited to my audience's attention span?
• And do I propose solutions that are compatible with my audience's constraints?

And remember, the door of values opens with empathy, but it's desire that will make us pass through to the other side.