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Do you believe everyone deserves to vibe and eat their favorite soup?
Think about that for a moment. What is your gut response? How did you react to the question? Have you heard it before, or something to a similar effect? Did it feel pretty simple to you, or did it bring up other questions?
What I’ve asked is a starter metaphor for liberation called “soup theory.” As written above and originally formulated by progressive minister Rev. Oliver Snow, soup theory asks “Do you believe everyone deserves to vibe and eat their favorite soup?”1 I pose this question because it gets directly to the heart, the core concepts, of collective liberation. When you think about what soup theory implies, you might find other aspects to consider: Who is included in “everyone”? What does it mean to “vibe and eat one’s favorite soup”? How would society have to be structured for “everyone” to have access to that? What would our relationship be to the land — to nature, the environment, and all contained within — such that we could have that, not just now but for the foreseeable future? What kind of relations would we need to ensure it? This (re)formulation of freedom is collective liberation, and imagining how that freedom manifests and is made meaningful is a critical part of the work.
Freedom is material
Soup theory is a test of our belief in collective liberation. As a question, it digs deep into our morals and ethics, but how it is expressed emphasizes a material vision of liberation. Understand that collective liberation isn’t just a vague notion of equality and human rights: liberation is freedom for all. A freedom in which we are able to live as our fullest selves is very much a material thing, and it can’t and won’t be built on thoughts and prayers. We can’t be free without the ability to exercise our freedom; otherwise, freedom is meaningless. A system of “rights” without means, with very limited means, or with means provided only conditionally is glorified enslavement. Collective freedom is based around the means of being free, which requires that we have our basic needs met. This includes not just physical needs like food, shelter, medicine, and water, but also needs like relationship, belonging, spirituality, purpose, self and community actualization, role, identity, and esteem. For us inherently social beings these can only exist and have meaning in the context of community. This is the essence of collective well-being. It follows then that liberation is a set of material conditions, that it operates on the human condition, and that it deeply relates to the question of what it means to be human on this earth.
Liberation and economy
Following that, liberation has to directly address economy since it sees the future not just in terms of “isms,” but in terms of material conditions. One could say that liberation is economy, but it isn’t only that. Economy specifies material conditions: it provides a society’s answer to how needs are met and whose needs are met — freedom under liberation requires an expansion of both. Culture, on the other hand, is the storytelling which maintains economy and responds to economy. Politics is a system of culturally rooted decision-making regarding economy. This all takes place within societies in environments around the world. Therefore, liberation is as much about an economy (one that meets and ensures access to all our basic needs) as it is about the cultural, political, social, ecological, and environmental dynamics and relationships that support and uphold it. To realize liberation — to build a world which prioritizes collective well-being and freedom — entails a struggle not just for transforming material conditions but for building the means of sustaining them. There are limitless possibilities for what it looks like in practice. Like soups of all variations cross cultures around the world, liberation will take different forms wherever (and whenever) it is found.
→ Link to liberation is change? Liberation is connection?
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This was first presented on their TikTok page @revpoppopandfriends (where you can also find a playlist of discussions regarding soup theory). ↩︎