The Triangle Shirtwaist Moment

Today I attended a conference in Boston, down:2:earth.  It was the first incarnation of this conference as far as I could tell.  It was small, but had some very nice support and some well-known speakers--including Bill McKibben and Frances Moore Lappé.  

There was certainly a bit of "oh, we'll buy our way out of this current problem" as my friend called it.  Some products and vendors seemed legitimately interested in providing services and products that may help us.  I know where I can get local worm poop now (but I also attended the session that taught me how to get some worms doing that for me in the garage--even more local).  I really think the solar panel folks knew their stuff.

But there were some things that I found unsettling.  

First: this was really preaching to the choir.  My friend found out about this from her CSA newsletter.  Another friend heard about it from the ZipCar membership he has.  These are people already eating local and not owning a car.  I know--that's a great group to reach out to.  But when everyone in the room at the session raised their hand for various questions about their current efforts on sustainability, we are seeing the choir.  Only the choir.  I found the people in the seats knew as much or more about sustainability than most of the speakers.

Next:  I was excited to hear Lappé's talk--I have read her work, but never heard her speak. I was finishing up the local sprouts I got from the yummy cooking demo while she was beginning.  She started by asking us how many of us were afraid.  A handful of us raised our hands--I raised my chopsticks.    She said that she understood that--ice is melting, food prices rising, yatta yatta yatta....But that this fear wasn't a good thing, and that we have to frame this issue differently. We can't talk about this as a crisis and scare everyone, was the gist of this as I heard it.  We can say nice things about how productive organic agriculture is, and that you won't have to turn out the lights and be in the dark. She was mildly critical of the Earth Hour event for using the darkness frame.  Local production is democratic and cares for the community...yeah...I get it.  The choir gets it.  

But it had the feeling of treehugging to me.  And kumbayah in the streets holding hands.  This is not a frame that has served us well in the past.  Why do we think it should now?

I was discussing this with my friend who attended.  He says I'm too data driven--that most people aren't like me.  He said that he thought Al Gore had the right balance in An Inconvenient Truth between the facts and the hope.  

Ok. I loved AIT too.  But...are we any further along?  Are enough people really making changes (not forced on them by the state of the economy)?  Is anyone beyond the choir taking this seriously?

I don't know--maybe fear and data wouldn't work either.  Maybe there is just not enough inertia anywhere to get Americans off the sofas and walking to the farmer's market. Fact vs. frames.  Will either work?

My friend thinks it will take the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire moment.  That it will take one event that shakes people to their core--like the images in their heads of women hurling themselves out the windows of that flaming factory.  

I thought the bodies floating in New Orleans were that.  They were for me.    

But my friend said that's not enough any more.  That we'll need a hurricane to hit LA and prevent the ships full of imported goods from getting to WalMart before Americans will get it.  Before they really will insist on making substantive changes to the ways we work and live.

I don't know--is that what we need to wait for?  The Triangle Shirtwaist moment?

I'm doing what I can, making choices about how I live.  I know many of you are as well.  I hate to wait for the trauma that will crystallize it for the majority of Americans.  It will hurt some of us directly.  It will be brutal to witness for those of us out of the direct path of whatever the manifestation is.  

I wish that changing the frame would prevent that pain.  I just don't think it will.  Eh, what do I know? Facts aren't working so well for me these days either.

It feels like I'm on the street with you guys, looking up at the building on fire, and we can hear the screams.  But we are the only ones who noticed.

•  Ironically

  I guess if we could prevent the damage, it would be held against us.  Deniers would say it was never gonna happen anyway....

  by mem from somerville on Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 08:02:35 PM PDT

•  The baby carriage

  is going down the steps.

  by ActivistGuy on Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 08:05:13 PM PDT

  •  Like this?

    by Neon Vincent on Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 09:48:15 PM PDT

    •  That's the one

      I had in mind.

      by ActivistGuy on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 07:50:47 AM PDT

      •  Heh. The one I had in mind

        was from The Untouchables.

        by Geenius at Wrok on Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 03:14:30 AM PDT

•  As long

  as there's snow on the ground, there will be climate change deniers. I was like you--I thought the victims of Katrina would be seen as the first tangible casualties of climate change, but that didn't happen.

  I am afraid, dammit. I'm afraid that the buffoons in Washington and the buffoons at the Detroit Three and the buffoons expelling millions of tons of CO2 in China and India will kill us all in my lifetime.

  by PerfectStormer on Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 08:10:15 PM PDT

  •  I find fear rather motivating....

    but obviously it isn't for everyone.  

    I think it takes empathy too.  You have to care that people in Bangladesh are going to be underwater.

    You have to care that people in many countries will starve and need to flee as climate refugees.

    I just don't see how that upbeat framing can create that in people who are resistant.

    by mem from somerville on Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 08:18:51 PM PDT

    •  Scared people sometimes shut the message out

      I've read some studies on "fear appeals": the upshot seems to be that if you scare people--but fail to show them how to avert the threat--they tend to avoid or discredit the message.

      I think a lot of global warming messages offered dire scenarios and not a whole lot of hope for averting disaster. We need to deliver the message, but we need to emphasize that our efforts can affect the outcome.

      If we fail to motivate people (and governments and corporations) to change, I think your friend is right--it will take a Triangle Shirtwaist moment to cause any real change in our lifestyles and ways of doing business.

      by MizC on Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 08:45:36 PM PDT

    •  Its motivating, but not directing.

      Fear is a strong motivator to do something, but if you think of our primitive fight/flight instinct ... I kind of think we primates tend to "scatter and meet up later" flight rather than "everyone run in the same direction in a stampede" flight.

      We need targets to aim for as well as things to run away from.

      In a way, this is yet another Silver Bullet question ... "what is the Silver Bullet approach that is the solution to getting society moving in the right direction".

      But there is no silver bullet. And as we identify silver BB's, we do so in recognition of the fact that no one silver BB will ever be enough, so after we cram them into a shotgun shell and blast away, we immediately start work on gathering or making more.

      by BruceMcF on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 11:01:35 AM PDT

•  Seventy years after the fire...

  I was walking around New York with my grandmother, not far from her old neighborhood.  We were down by NYU.  As we turned the corner, we came across a plaque. Apparently, the building that housed TSW now belongs to part of NYU.

  Grandma stopped dead in her tracks and her face grew pale.  She was a little girl when that happened.  She remembered it well.  It left a mark that time never erased.

  I hope we don't have to get to that point before people act.  It means someone suffered horribly.

  by 8ackgr0und N015e on Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 08:16:15 PM PDT

•  Americans respond to "moments"

  9/11, Pearl Harbor, Black Tuesday, Gettysburg, etc. When have the American people ever acted collectively to change something without a kick in the ass to get things started?

  by Ivey476 on Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 08:22:59 PM PDT

•  Having just returned from India

  and seeing the plight and promise of 1.3 billion people living in a democracy definitely leaves the impression that the world's problems are not going to be solved (just) here in the USA. Often led by poor women elected to lead their villages (and more),

  India is making real progress in primary education and public health, the two biggest prerequisites for economic growth. Institutions matter. Our presidential election matters more than we can imagine. Technology matters. In the race between technology and hunger in India, technology has won (and I don't mean Monsanto technology).

  by RudiB on Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 08:24:31 PM PDT

•  A couple of years ago

  I read a great book about the Triangle factory.  

  by acuppajo on Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 08:33:51 PM PDT

  •  Yeah, I'm sure there will be books

    about whatever that next moment is....

    I would like to read that.  If I didn't have a giant stack of things I must read first I would add it to the list.  

    by mem from somerville on Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 08:40:16 PM PDT

•  Choir Practice

  I agree that it was an event very light in the vision department.  I don't mind meetings of the choir as long as they're choir practice rather than just preaching.  

  Fear is one motivator but a positive vision can be another.  We need entry points and motivators at every level of understanding.  

  As for the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, my grandfather was one of the attorneys for the victims.

  by gmoke on Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 09:12:22 PM PDT

•  I hate myself for this analogy...

  ... but I think its apt.

  How is it that the neo-cons were able to drag the US into the half-baked, wrong-headed, strategically disastrous occupation of Iraq?

  Planning and opportunity.

  They spent literally years laying the ground-work-- most notably the PNAC-- organizing, making plans, pushing their ideas into the media stream whenever they could. For years, no one listened. They were called The Crazies even among their own political allies. Most everyone rolled their eyes and laughed when they sent a letter to then-president Clinton demanding that he follow their course. Nada. No hope.

  But they kept in the game. The stayed engaged in the political process. They inserted one of their most virulent partisans into the national ticket, who then brought nearly everyone else in the project on board in one capacity or another when they won the election for reasons that had nothing to do with their plans.

  Then, within hours of the attacks of 9/11/01, they starting pushing hard to get their agenda to the front. It didn't matter that it made no real sense, they had the infrastructure in place and in the desperate days following 9/11 when everyone was asking what the US should do in response, they were right there with an answer. Its was the wrong answer, it was a stupid answer, but it was an answer.

  The collision of planning and opportunity.

  The Triangle Shirtwaist incident would have been a searing tragedy in any case. But it certainly would not have the importance that we ascribe to it now if it weren't for the fact that the the groundwork for the Worker's Rights movement was already in place and ready to step forward to make their case at the crucial moment.

  by kingubu on Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 09:13:58 PM PDT

  •  I quite agree with you, kingubu.

    And I think that's why the Triangle analogy worked on me.  I had in the past worked at Lowell National Park--the first place women worked in large numbers in the factory system in the US.  I know something about the history of the labor movement through that.

    I think you are absolutely correct.

    I was thinking lately about how long it took to even get to the Inconvenient Truth point.  That Hansen had been testifying before Congress so long ago.  That Hubbert's peak was forming ideas in oil circles long before that.

    And 9/11 as an excuse for Iraq is exactly what I mean about the moment.  

    Maybe you have it--at least when that moment arrives we'll be ready....

    Sigh.  

    Great comment.

    by mem from somerville on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 05:47:44 AM PDT

•  since you were in Boston...

  ...maybe the Cocoanut Grove fire would be a more fitting analogy.  Provincialism All politics is local, y'know.

  by N in Seattle on Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 09:24:47 PM PDT

•  I wonder - do they REALLY matter?

  To those directly affected by such things, they matter.  To others?  

  Humanity has been through much - momentous disasters have affected mankind.  They may have changed things at that moment but too often their legacy is minimal.  Unless there is a sense and knowledge of history possessed by at least those in positions of leadership - so they can put current 'Triangle Shirtwaist Fires' in perspective, we always remain in a panicked 'reactive' mode. And invariably - after the immediate horror subsides - we forget.

  Too often great disasters fade into history with NO real remembrance after those directly affected die.

  Anyone remember the General Slocum?   thought so.

  9/11 is the PERFECT case

  We had national leaders too eager to exploit this - without understanding - or caring - what had REALLY occurred.  

  A better parallel - and response - wold have been akin to the fledgling US and the Barbary Pirates.  A all too appropriate warning about the WRONG response was Rome's reaction to piracy - and its rush to abandon the Republicn in favor of 'safety.'

  Even environmental issues - mass extinctions and horrid disasters - mean nothing if leadership does not know of or comprehend these events

  Yet when we have leaders far too obsessed with the current economic interests of existing industries - people whose own knowledge of science as well as history is horribly inadequate.... well, very little will spur change.

  The absurd NON-REACTION to New Orleans says much...... and it's not just Bush and the Republicans.  Why haven't Democrats made this an ongoing issue - raised EVERY DAY on the floor of Congress?   Because people prefer to IGNORE bad news - and we let them do so.

  by xrepub on Sun Mar 30, 2008 at 09:50:18 PM PDT

•  Don't forget, some were

  right by the Triangle factory and could help right away. Some were many blocks away and could only watch in horror as they ran toward the tragedy.

  Some only read about it long after it was too late to do anything.

  Don't despair. The event holds its own importance. People will react differently by present circumstance - whatever that may mean. History will judge otherwise, as it must.

  In the meantime, providing an example is not such a bad thing, is it? Welcoming, encouraging and forgiving the newcomers and the tentative - ah, that's the hard step!

  by vox humana on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 09:34:20 PM PDT

•  Why does Bill McKibben tell you to compost your

  kitchen scraps when you should be hounding Congress with every ounce of your being to get rid of corporate influence.  Corporate influence is the reason the government is doing nothing.

  by sweeper on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 09:57:36 PM PDT

  •  Can't you do both? (n/t)

    Starve the corporate beast, buy local!

    by EthrDemon on Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 07:57:44 AM PDT

•  Climate Change Too Gradual

  It's too easy to blame any particular storm on short term fluctuations. There's just one Triangle Shirtwaist scenario I can think of:

  Bush bombs Iran as a going-away present to President Obama. Iran sinks a few tankers. Oil shoots to $200/barrel, and America literally grinds to a halt.

  by dwcal on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 10:00:48 PM PDT

•  It's not just denial...

  it's diffusion of a sense of responsibility:
  Why should I inconvenience myself by changing my habits when none of my friends are?   Besides, one person's efforts won't make any difference anyway!  

  I wonder if this isn't really the bigger problem.

  by MissInformation on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 10:07:25 PM PDT

  •  I Agree

    I agree, there is definitely an attitude in this country of me first, why should I bother, it makes no difference and what's the use.  

    Here is an example.  I have a sitter.  She watches my son twice a week.  The following went on for months.  Every day, when she came, she brought a can of sode to our house.  Every day, after drinking the soda, she tossed the can in the trash.  Every day, after she left I picked it up out of the trash and put it in the recycle bin.  I mentioned the bin to her once.  Her response was, thats a farce.  I've watched the trash collectors pick up our trash.  They toss the recycles in with the regular trash.  Why bother?  My response was, ours don't do that.  At least try.    

    It has now stopped.  Why?  Is it a sense that just maybe the trash is being recycled, does she not care about people she does not know yet possess empathy for someone she knows or is it greed?  A new recycling company took over the contract in our community.  The truck reads the UPC code on the bin and weighs the bin as it picks up the recyclables.  The volume of recyclables collected is converted to recycle bucks which can be reeemed at some of  the local grocery stores for credit.  When I told her about the program she was more than glad to begin recycling.  She realized that they must actually be recycling or they couldn't possibly be paying.  She wanted to help me out.  

    What motivated her?  Was it the realization that her efforts were not futile?  Was it greed?  Maybe I'll ask her?

    In case you haven't noticed, I'm a member of the choir.

    by Any Name Will Do on Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 06:49:31 AM PDT

    •  Interesting....

      I just watched a video last night, a talk by Solitaire Townsend (gmoke told me to look for her stuff).  She talks about how part of our problem is the bystander effect--everyone thinks other people are dealing with it, so they'll ignore it.  I wonder if that's part of what the sitter was doing?  

      Cash incentive in an interesting way to get compliance.  I like the sound of that :)  But I wish it wasn't required.

      by mem from somerville on Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 07:11:23 AM PDT

      •  Ditto

        I wish the cash rewards weren't necessary either.  However, this is the era of Greed is Good.  Recycling here is way up.  

        (I will, however, take the rewards.  It's a definite help with the rising cost of food.)

        by Any Name Will Do on Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 04:35:08 PM PDT

•  Adoption of changed habits

  and innovations always proceeds this way.  There just are not that many people with the combination  of foresight, compassion, and discipline necessary to do something different before they  have to.

  Those of us in the choir can anticipate this as well, and prepare to welcome and help people when events force them to change.

  The ones who will give up their Escalade when the keys are pried from their cold, dead, fingers...well...there will be some of those, too.  

  by RichRandal on Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 10:44:06 PM PDT

•  Would today's media

  have covered the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire? And if it did, would it have pointed out the working conditions that made it into such a tragedy? Or would it just have been "146 die in accidental factory blaze"?

  by Geenius at Wrok on Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 03:18:38 AM PDT

•  Exactly right.

  Joe six-pack is so preoccupied with his mortgage payments, how he will ever afford to send his kid to college and the guy in his department who just got laid off, that global warming isn't even on his radar screen.

  This won't break through to middle class consciousness until a genuine catastrophe hits home. And, sad to say, a million dead Bengalis won't be enough. It will have to hit "people like us", meaning white suburbanites. How many people remember the carnage of the southeast Asian Tsunami today? Yeah, I didn't think so.

  Maybe when Venice sinks below the waves, or when billions of dollars of Florida coastal mansions are inundated up to the second floor, it will finally penetrate through the American Idol/Wal-Mart haze.

  by Ralphdog on Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 03:30:15 AM PDT

•  The Choir

  Don't underestimate preaching to the choir. The right wing does it all the time and it is pert of the secret of their success.

  I worked for a couple of years in the building where the Triange Shirtwaist Fire took place. Was kind of eerie to work there, particularly taking the stairs or during the frequent fire drills.

  by mole333 on Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 04:01:58 AM PDT

•  Don't lose hope, mem!

  Seriously, as someone who could be characterized as "in the trenches" of the climate movement (as one of Gore's trained presenters), I know how strong the tendency is to believe that only the choir is hearing the message.  But, remember that 3 years ago, there was barely even a choir to speak of.  It can be disheartening to think of the scope of the problem, but it's imperative not to lose hope and to keep fighting and keep talking about the issue.  In the end, that hope is the only way we are going to be able to pick ourselves up and do what is necessary.

  Let me close by pointing out that your diary ironically comes on the same day as the unveiling of the $300 million "We" campaign sponsored by the Alliance for Climate Protection (a Gore nonprofit) specifically aimed at changing public thinking about the issue.

  Never give up.  Never surrender.

  by demandcaring on Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 09:48:32 AM PDT

  •  Oh, I'm not giving up.

    And I think like people pointed out above--having a trained and prepare choir for the minute the opportunity comes--is important.  We'll be ready to catch the people falling out the windows, I guess....

    No, really--I'm not quitting or anything.  I'm just kind of bracing myself for the inevitable Shirtwaist moment.

    Still marching.

    by mem from somerville on Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 10:10:24 AM PDT