because it's never over. We'll never achieve that ideal utopic moment, when everything's perfect, and justice and freedom and well-being prevail. It doesn't exist. I know because I've been to various Utopiae, and they always have problems. When I read the complaints about the Obama Administration's failures, the compromises and betrayals by Dems in Congress, the cynical gutting of progressive ideals and values, I think back to where I was a few years back, during the years of W, remember how ecstatic I would have been, to be where we are now.
We'll never win, because there's always more to be done. Humans aren't hardwired for contentment, they're hardwired for recognizing enemies and threats and danger and disaster. That's the world we evolved in - saber-toothed tigers and droughts and lightning strikes and war and desperation disease and theft. We build our stabilities and contentment at the expense of others - by taking from them, or attacking them, or enslaving them, or exploiting them. Our leaders gain power by casting others as threats we must unite against.
That's not a bad thing, that's just a natural thing. Ants do it too. In the spring, they scramble to build up their resources, so they can increase their population so they can gather more resources so they can defend against and attack their neighbours so they can harvest the corpses and pupae of their enemies so they can gather more resources so they can increase their population. It never ends.
In times of abundance and prosperity, we get nervous. The absence of immediate threats drives us to more elaborate constructs of fear and disaster. Which makes us more vulnerable to exploitative narratives of danger by those who desire power, and would lead us by playing on our need for fear. We flock to movies dripping with death and explosions and betrayal and destruction and viciousness and injustice and terror because our lives are so safe and comfortable, because we need to be close to disaster. We'll never win, because we need fear in our lives.
We buy bigger cars to protect ourselves from accidents, making the roads more dangerous for people in small cars. Industries prey on those fears, so their employees and leaders can buy bigger cars for their families, and so on. We consume more oil, indirectly funding extremists who attack us, so we consume more oil to attack them, and protect our innocents. Every civilian killed by "collateral damage" inspires one, or five, or ten of the people who knew them and loved them, to hate us, to support or participate in attacks on us, resulting in more war, more weapons, more oil consumption, more collateral damage, and so on. Our fears create the threats that feed our fear.
The opportunity to fix the BP oil disaster was five years ago, or ten years ago. It takes at least that long to put responsible policies in place. Various environmental groups have been protesting the inadequacy of the current regulation and oversight for at least as long. They didn't have enough attention or support to effect change. It took a disaster like this one, to bring adequate attention to the issue.
Obama didn't campaign on "I will be the change you want to see". He campaigned on "Be the change you want to see". It's easy to get outraged about what's happening now, and useful to complain about the inadequacy of the measures being taken. But it's far more meaningful to find ways to participate constructively. That means working with imperfect allies. That means taking a long view, and working to effect practical change over the next 5 or 10 years. That means trying to reduce your personal oil consumption, and that of your community. That means setting an example to the next generation, and working to find effective ways to improve the current situation.
It's easy to take potshots at how badly things are going from the sidelines. It's a lot harder to take on the inherent risks and frustrations of getting meaningfully involved. Until we build up a statistically significant long-term community of people who support socially and environmentally responsible initiatives through their work and their actions, we're going to keep going through these kinds of disasters, and going through the same news cycles of outrage and blame.
Hell, we will anyway. There's a lot of f'd up stuff going on out there. I know this diary comes across as a self-righteous rant. That's probably because it is. I spent decades outraged at all the horrible things going on in the world, and frustrated by the failures of society to address those problems effectively. I still feel that way. But now I find satisfaction and hope in the groups I volunteer with, the initiatives I support, the real battles I fight over local pollution issues and environmental degradation, the allies I make, the kids I plant trees with. I feel that I'm planting seeds, and I'm grateful of the opportunities to get my hands dirty doing real work. When I get frustrated about the small scale of the work I'm doing, about the obstacles and indifference and lack of funding, I think, "If not me, then who? If not now, then when?"
Thanks for hearing me out.