Week XXV: What We ought to do

Note: For the sake of clarity, this rant will make liberal use of "We" with the capital W firmly in place. It upsets me a bit to do this, because it smacks of motivational speaker-ese in which letters are capitalized at random in a cheap attempt to give more weight to the words they describe. See Stephen Pressfield's "The War of Art" for an extreme example of this. That guy might be the most pretentious writer in history. And without further ado...

/begin rant

There are a great many things that We ought to be doing. All of us. People. Humanity. Society as a whole. The collective big double-u We that encompasses a large, nondescript gang of humans. You know, Us. The eminently useful We that's trotted out during every conversation about changing the world. The type of We that miraculously holds everyone and no one accountable simultaneously. We ought to do something about that. We ought to X Y or Z for the sake of the Greater Good (see, there it goes again with the capital letters... feels like they're just implicit sometimes.)

We need to change a lot of things. If only We could stop the big oil companies and end corruption in the government and start sharing more and growing our own food, then move on to equal rights for everybody, education for women in Afghanistan, and a stop to all the wars. We would have a more perfect world. If only We thought the way that I do. I know what We need. See, society's moral compass is broken, people are doing the wrong thing and We need to change. We're going to bring about the downfall of society/earth/culture/economics/the environment/etc if We aren't more careful.

Here's where I would like to interject. We as a group are not representative of anything. The category of Us as presently constituted is not useful. I don't want those who read this to take away the idea that I'm disparaging group actions for the sake of social betterment. I'm entirely in favour of those sorts of things. I'm big on getting people together to address the rights and the wrongs. I go to the meetings. The issue I have is the flippancy and the frequency of We and Us and Our and other totally useless collective nouns being set out as targets for everyone's solution cannons. People just love to go scattershot on Us with their plans and ideas. It's far too common within the context of this discussion. There are plenty of assessments of the problems that We have with no followup in meaningful action or engagement. Look, I've "raised awareness." Well, job done then. We're gonna need to get our awareness a safety harness if it's raised any higher.

Example: We need to stop letting oil companies drill mile-deep wells in ecologically sensitive areas. You're right. Here's the problem - oil companies are extremely well funded, well organized, and We keep buying their products, so they have all the clout and they can hire all of the lobbyists. Those with the greatest financial stake in the outcome are the ones who dictate the policy. That's how government works most of the time. On the other hand, We are not well funded or well organized, and We aren't selling liquid gold, thus Our ability to stop the oil companies from doing their thing is limited. We ought to do something about this, you say. You're right. I still don't see Us dismantling our economic infrastructure for the sake of some dolphins, though. They don't buy cars, fuck 'em. We haven't reached the critical mass necessary to overturn these types of policies from the grassroots, and for as long as most of Us are comfortable enough with the machinations of society and economy as they stand, I don't expect that to change.

Again, I would really like to stress that my intent is not to be terribly cynical. It might read that way, and I might be found arguing in circles about where being cynical and being realistic start to differ. Regardless, I felt pressed (hence this rant, which will serve no greater social good) to address what I see as an often unacknowledged hypocrisy in this sort of thinking. There's no accountability or targeted, specific, purposeful calls to action. When We are all held collectively as the ones who need to do something about a problem, We all nod assent and go on with Our lives as usual. Nothing gets done.

I'm not trying to disparage people from getting together and standing up for what they feel is right. Quite the contrary, in fact. I am saying put down the sign and do something. I know that it's impossible to be completely engaged all the time and being a mouthpiece is necessary sometimes. Keep doing your thing, I'm not saying stop. I'm saying that to me, it's important to get away from thinking and talking about what We all ought to be doing, and start engaging with what You might be doing to further the cause, whatever it might be. I point to the obvious but useful example of sharing or liking something on Facebook. Look, I've shared this picture of a landscape with some nice words on it. My work here is done. Everyone is more enlightened. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Whether or not it's true that We should really be acting on all these suggestions is, to me, beside the point. I haven't heard a lot of success stories come out of the hippie socialist utopia talk that crops up a lot in activist circles. We should buy some land together, farm it, build some sustainable houses, get off the grid, and start getting back to The Way Things Were. But there is no Way Things Were, there's only the way things are now. Stop trying to hold sway with this illusion of enlightened regression. The idea that at some point We were all earth-sharing, peace-loving, getting-back-to-the-land sustainable harvesters in harmony with mother nature is silly. As soon as technology became available to harvest more while working less, even to the point where it turned around and started damaging the environment, that's exactly what We all did. Ronald Wright calls it a "progress trap." We got too good at extraction and too lazy or otherwise engaged to revert to the old ways, and now We all have iPhones. We're not going to go pull a plow 'cause fuck that nonsense. Because Angry Birds and Candy Crush, that's why. We'll get around to installing that bio-diesel conversion in the truck any day now.

I'm troubled by the level of engagement or lack thereof that I've seen partnered with this absurdly wide cast of the social net. When We all have a problem, it stops being up to any individual person to change their behaviour. I can't help it, I'm just one guy. This is Our problem, not mine. Or even worse, it's Their problem. They are wrecking the environment and corrupting our elected officials, whoever They are. Companies like Haliburton or BP or whoever the Great Satan of the Left happens to be that day make easy targets. Their CEOs might be evil offshore bank account-holding baby eaters, but those companies aren't their CEOs. They're full of regular people doing regular jobs to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. Maybe We need to stop the evil companies, but maybe We need to change our economic models for the better first so that We aren't all dependent on the sticky, slippery trickle down of oil to lubricate the economic machine, plus We'll need to find something else for all of those HR managers and IT consultants and financial secretaries to do. The problem starts to get a lot bigger very quickly, and thus We become incapable of doing anything about it. Oh, well, We say.

I've heard too many prescriptions for Our social ills of late and I'm frustrated by it. How much time have you spent researching where the minerals came from to build that cell phone or laptop you just used to tweet that Dalai Lama quote? The moral high ground starts to look a little shaky when you realize that it's built on industrial slag heaps. Good thing those kids in the Congo mined all that tantalum for me so that I could serve humanity by liking that Facebook page today. They'll be happy to know that their work went a long way towards elevating the social consciousness by a notch or two. I'll Instagram them a picture and throw a Kony 2012 bumper sticker on for a real show of solidarity. We're all one people, united by technology.

How many times have you heard this phrase: "Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families." Well, a fat lot of good it did them. If thoughts and prayers did an ounce of good, the world's problems would be resolved in an instant. But unless your intended outcome was to "raise awareness," which you may have by this point gathered is something that drives me crazy for its laziness and utter superficiality and meaninglessness, your thoughts and prayers benefit exactly one person: you. They make you feel better about not doing anything. And don't think for a second that I'm counting myself out in that criticism, because I'm well aware that there are plenty of things I could be doing better but don't because I'm too lazy or too busy or I just can't be bothered to care that day. How much good do you think all this rambling is doing? Maybe raising a bit of awareness about how shitty and useless it is to raise awareness? The irony, she burns.

But here's the other point to be made - you and I and all of us individually can be useful and affect change and improve the world. There are a lot of things that We ought to be doing, but until you and I start exemplifying them in our daily behaviour rather than in passing thought or speech, or tweets and Facebook updates, We aren't going to pick up on them. Stop talking and liking and re-tweeting and start doing. Don't concern yourself with Us. Be accountable to yourself and hold yourself to a higher standard. Comfort and complacency are death, don't settle for them. Challenge yourself, educate yourself, ask questions and don't relent until you receive satisfactory answers. Call your friends out on their bullshit. Be an example. Show love by being honest with people. Get rid of the kid gloves and respect people enough to tell things to them straight. A round of doubles of 120 proof honesty for everybody would go a long way. Feel free to give me back a shot of my own. Start off by calling me a cantankerous asshole for even having the gall to write all of this, as though I had the right to tell everyone else what to do with their lives. Tell me I'm a raging hypocrite to get the dialogue going and we'll hash it out while we dig some potatoes. Put your damn phone down, let's go.

/end rant


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