For generations now, progressives and others have faced political choices presented as Scylla and Charybdis: both evil choices but forced to choose one or the other.
“Just hold your nose and vote for our guy, he’s not them!” has been the diktat of both mainstream parties.
For many people these have been choices they have declined to make as neither represented their viewpoints or desires, so they metaphorically stayed ashore and voted for neither, refusing to vote for evil in any capacity, lesser or greater, because either way, in their view, they were voting for and approving of evil. I think, that, far more than mere apathy or disinterest is what has been driving non-voting. As one young friend of mine puts it: “Why bother? It won’t make any difference, they listen to money, not me, I get screwed either way.” He no longer believes that democracy will serve his interests, and means just to try to survive whatever comes.
In viewing our political landscape and choices as Scylla and Charybdis in 2016, the Democratic Party, trying to avoid the rocks of socialism represented by Bernie wound up sailing the country into the whirlpool of Charybdis.
But the choices of Scylla and Charybdis are framed by the technology and concepts they are tied to: two-dimensional movement on a surface in technology limited to coastal travel.
Today we can do better: we can fly over both, look down and marvel that anyone thought they were the only choices available. Or we can, if we insist on sailing, board an oceangoing vessel and just bypass them, snapping selfies with them in the background to post to social media.
This election is the chance to break away from Scylla and Charybdis choices offered by the moderates and the GOP. An opportunity to free ourselves from the linear two-dimensional thinking and approaches that have continually forced us into one disaster after another, and now threaten us with the awful realization that whichever way we turn climate change will be there to inescapably greet us.
This election offers us the opportunity to change the framework. We can board a plane and overfly those risks by changing the tech (fossil fuels) and viewpoints (unbridled capitalism) that engendered them.
For those who think progressive ideas are impossible to pass, here’s proof of how close we are to achieving it. Recent studies of social change have found that the tipping point for great social change is 25%:
Our results show how these activist groups may initially grow through a slow increase in numbers until they reach a critical point. At this point, their popularity and influence can explode, having a remarkable influence on the broader population. We have also seen this with #MeToo and Black Lives Matter. The implications here are that once groups reach the 25 percent tipping point, they can trigger a change in the rest of society.
www.psychologytoday.com/…
When organizations turn a blind eye to sexual harassment in the workplace, how many people need to take a stand before the behavior is no longer seen as normal?
According to a new paper to be published tomorrow in Science (link is external), there is a quantifiable answer: roughly 25% of people need to take a stand before large-scale social change occurs. This idea of a social tipping point applies to standards in the workplace, and any type of movement or initiative.
“When a community is close to a tipping point to cause large-scale social change, there’s no way they would know this,” says Centola, who directs the Network Dynamics Group at the Annenberg School. “And if they’re just below a tipping point, their efforts will fail. But, remarkably, just by adding one more person, and getting above the 25% tipping point, their efforts can have rapid success in changing the entire population’s opinion.”
www.asc.upenn.edu/…
To the wobbly moderates here agonizing over whether choosing Bernie will be a disaster in the general, this should offer you some hope and justification to come aboard.
You could be the one person in your group who makes that crucial difference.
To the already committed: heed these results and redouble your efforts, we are so close to a tipping point that great social change is indeed possible, right now, not in some distant future.
In every community across this nation progressives are working hard to reach that threshold in their own communities and neighborhoods. If the Democratic Party can give people something to vote for, rather than just present itself as a choice against, we shall reach that threshold and surpass it easily.