About Us

Our Purpose

The Savage Sheep exists as a platform to develop the conditions of possibility for an enduringly equitable future.

That which exists is not all that is possible

Our aim is to encourage and enact social transformations that are globally unified in spirit, but local in strategy. Our approach is speculative, but also pragmatic. This means that even as we attempt to imagine a better world, we deliberately work to avoid the pitfalls of utopian thinking (which is, in essence, the basis of all socio-political ideologies). We reject the notion of perfection and perfectibility.

A truly perfect world cannot be imagined, and can never exist, for the simple reason that what is loved by one may be hated by another. At every level of analysis large or small, the history of humanity has been an endlessly repeated play of domination. Humanity does not gradually progress from combat to combat until it arrives at universal reciprocity, where the rule of law finally replaces warfare; humanity installs each of its violences in a system of rules and thus proceeds from domination to domination.

The nature of these rules allows violence to be inflicted on violence, and so new forces may surge forth that are sufficiently strong to dominate those in power. Rules are empty in themselves, unfinalized; they are impersonal and can be bent to any purpose. The successes of history belong thus to those who are capable of seizing these rules, these complex mechanisms, and turning them against the rulers who have wielded them.

Thus, The Savage Sheep provides a space to study the genealogy of diverse utopias which have emerged and crumbled in the hearts and minds of humanity. We are here to learn from the diverse attempts which have been made to realize utopia in the world, each with its own violences. In such a way, we hope to slowly develop the concrete strategies necessary to subjugate those forces which are now dominant in the world, which are premised on inequality, greed, and waste.

We don’t know where we’re going, but it’s probably safer if we stick together.