The Glitterati & the Life-Centered Economy
My experience with the House of Beautiful Business in Tangiers, Morocco
I recently returned from Between the Two of Us, a three day festival-like conference organized by the House of Beautiful Business (HoBB) in Tangiers, Morocco. Billed as “the gathering for the life-centered economy,” it brings together citizens from diverse fields working for the good of humanity and the planet. It claims to explore “the dualities shaping today’s polycrisis world: AI and human agency, growth and degrowth, extraction and regeneration, capitalism and wellbeing, algorithms and social justice, extended reality and expanded consciousness, the political in the personal, and the personal in the political.”
The event positions itself as both edgy and creative, willing to face the challenges of humanity with spunk and spice (an article on their uber-sleek website is titled, “How to grow your degrowth portfolio today”). I was intrigued, and not just by the smooth marketing: one of my favorite thinkers, Bayo Akomolafe, the post-activist Nigerian critic of modern rationality, was speaking, so surely it couldn’t be that bad. I was also interested in gathering the pulse of how this business-friendly circle was responding to the increasingly dire predicament of climate, geopolitics, and democracy, and how receptive they would be to my work on deep adaptation and collapse acceptance.
In this post, I’ll share my experience of the event. Not because that experience is particularly remarkable, but rather because of what it says about the timeless, yet mutating, function of human gathering, the “life centered economy,” and the strengths and limitations of flying across the world for a three day forum on “beautiful business”.
The Life-Centered Economy
The gathering was hosted in a beautifully arranged palace in the old heart of Tangiers, Morocco, the city of one million at the northern tip of Morocco, on the Strait of Gibraltar, with Spain only 13 kilometers away. Talks and workshops were arranged around themes - such as “Feminisms”, “What Moves Us”, and “Brokening” - that were loose enough to welcome speakers from different disciplines and worldviews.
But it wasn’t the talks that shone most. It was the chance encounters in line for the bathroom, and the spontaneous invitations to join a discussion. The opportunity to interact with individuals from different walks of life and the contagious desire to learn made this a deeply nourishing human experience. Behind the facade of overly polished LinkedIn profiles, I found a curious, entrepreneurial crowd thirsty for challenge and meaning, and eager to exchange Whatsapp numbers.
With 500+ attendees and 70+ speakers, the crowd came predominantly from the creative margins of the white-collar world: coaches, consultants, and strategists helping organizations define their purpose, create healthy working cultures, and maximize impact. Also in force were the cultural workers - podcast developers, social activists, artists, and curriculum developers - working to change mindsets at large. And then there was the acting professor, the fin-tech bros (and sistas), the psychedelic integration coach, the filmmaker, the ceramic tiles manufacturer (why not?), and so many more. The diversity of the crowd spoke to a growing recognition across professions that our economic systems and business practices must be in service to individual, social, and ecological health.
The Glitterati Paradox
Surrounded by Moorish architecture and palm trees, it was difficult not to be dazzled by the talks, and some of the speakers were dazzling indeed. I think of Sharon Dolev and Emad Kiyaei, Israeli and Iranian nuclear disarmament activists and their mission to bring peace to the Middle East. There was Tunde Okoya, a Nigerian chess grandmaster who brings that game to children in African slums in order to embolden and support them in critical, strategic thinking. And Pelonomi Moiloa, working to develop large language models based on indigenous African languages, rather than English as other LLMs do. And so many others.
But I also detected a certain superficiality in the air, something I’ve encountered in similar gatherings of the glitterati, that media savvy, entrepreneurial, and trend-setting cultural elite that fly from TED, to Davos and Burning Man (and, yes, that occasionally wear biodegradable glitter). In our social media culture, it’s easy to speak beautiful words and gather around to discuss beautiful things. And the corporate world loves that shit. Just like climate initiatives easily become tools of greenwashing for polluting corporations, some speakers felt like postcard picture agents of redwashing, allowing companies and brands to associate with social justice themes such as feminism and democracy without fundamentally addressing extractive capitalism, neocolonialism, and inequality.
In contrast to “beautiful business”, it’s harder to engage in what Bayo Akomolafe called “the shitty business” of recognizing our own complicity with systems of oppression, our unwillingness to be in dialogue with those who disagree with us, and the limits that comfort and power can place on our imagination.
Radical Collision
Whilst the curation at the event was aimed at provoking “radical collision,” I question how much collision really happened. I’m not trying to single out the event here; the organizers did a fantastic job at bringing together a talented, diverse, and engaged crowd. Instead, I’m pointing out the superficial comfort of gathering when we’re already on the same page.
Earlier this year, I attended the annual Bioneers conference in Berkeley, California - an intersectional gathering of activists, thought leaders, policy folks, and frontline communities dedicated to social and environmental justice. Like any other conference, it’s not perfect. But it does one thing very well: it engages the deep societal tensions alive in the US by giving a strong platform to BIPOC and marginalized voices. They offer scholarships to BIPOC youth to travel across the country so that they can attend an event they would never otherwise be able to. I saw collision in Tangiers, but I wouldn’t call it radical.
Generative Paradox
On our final evening, we escaped the city to an outdoor venue with terraces overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, framed by illuminating palm trees and blue gum eucalyptus. As the sun set and we loaded our plates with food, a group of local musicians played traditional Morrocan music, which later transitioned to house beats. In the background shone the lights of southern Spain, a short ferry ride or flight away for participants of the conference, and a deadly boat ride for the thousands who risk the journey daily.
Overlooking that gulf between Africa and Europe, I couldn’t quite tell if this scene was naive, disconnected, and hypocritical, or a wonderful gathering of deeply dedicated highly-competent humans. Of course, it’s a bit of both. We have never as a civilization been more vulnerable to systemic failure. We are currently heading towards social-ecological breakdown. And yet here we were, eating gluten-free pastries, building friendships, and trying to make sense of it all.
Gatherings like Between the two of Us can have purpose. In a digitally-mediated, globally interconnected world, the power of in person gathering remains primordial. Zoom has its uses, but effective communication requires embodied presence. To be able to gather together for the sole purpose of learning and curiosity is a real gift because of the inspiration it brings.
It’s also a responsibility. The world’s richest 1% produce more emissions than the poorest 66%. This isn’t some conceptual data: I am, we are, part of that 1%. Shame serves no purpose here. Instead, I want to highlight the paradox of the moment. “Paradox”, as my friend, mentor, and wilderness guide Darren Silver says, “is generative” because it’s only when we get stuck that we actually have the freedom to choose and act, rather than to follow and react. Bayo, in his endlessly endearing wordsmithing, calls it “generative inebriation.”
My observation is that no one at Between the Two of Us had a clear, confident idea of what they were doing in this world. This is normal: we are living in a time between worlds; all we have is informed, speculative, experimentation. What I found in Tangiers is a community with the humility to playfully search for new meanings, tools, and imaginations.
Modern civilization and its systems of extraction and homogenization are in full overdrive; we are losing species at over one thousand times the natural rate of extinction. I left Tangier with more LinkedIn notifications than in the past 10 years, and a sense that our greatest assets are community, compassion, and curiosity. Gatherings like Between the Two of Us are there to inspire us, and they are not enough. As the journalist Anand Giridharadas said at the event: “We are better at dismantling systems than building new ones.” Our great challenge is to take the divine stupor of inebriation and put it to work - in the streets, in the offices, at home, and most importantly in the cradle of our hearts.