Why I got sick of activism, and what I propose to replace it.
City planning.
Oh, was that too vague for you? Ok, let me 'splain more. I spent a few years in student government, then I jumped on board the Obama campaign, and a little after that, I was a reporter with the school newspaper. These three things constitute the extent of my community involvement, and I feel it's a fairly respectable resume.
Beyond that, one of the best classes I took in college was a class called National Environmental Policy, which was a class about how hard it is to convince people to do things that won't kill them, or their children. Somewhere around then, I learned that people are fucking stupid, and will keep being so until we bash the stupid out of them.
There's a certain romance about the activist lifestyle. In Reno, while partying in one of our organizer's completely bare ass apartment, I told Andrea that I admired the spartan purity of it all. Food, bed, and work. Anything else... doesn't get the right guy elected, I suppose. Here's my problem: it's an uphill battle. Every four years, thousands of activists have to have the same discussions: how abortion policy will save women's lives, why pollution is harmful, why foreign policy based on decency and diplomacy is beneficial to our interests. An important point to make is that I don't believe one political party has a monopoly on smart policies, but I do believe that there is an obvious distinction between smart policies based on reason and science, and stupid policies based on superstition, ideology, or ignorance.
I'm tired of those discussions. I don't want, nor do I want anybody else to go every two or four years to the ass end of Iowa to debate with those people. Yes, I want Iowans to be smart, but as some sort of community organizer rite of passage? It's Sisyphean.
So then I start thinking about environmentalism, and city planning. How would an environmental activist fight auto emissions? (Let's start out with direct pollutants like sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide and the like, and ignore the ones that completely and evenly disperse) He or she would go around and knock on people's doors and try to convince them to volunteer, attend a rally, or donate money to an organization that lobbies congress. In this case, people are busy as fuck with their work and families, and might not have time. Let's talk about congress. Congress is also getting lobbied by auto companies that have already spent a shitload of money buying machines that build cars that run on gasoline. They've also spent a shitload of money doing research on how to make them more efficient. They don't want to have to adhere to yet another federal standard. So every step of the way, you're trying desperately to convince people to do things they don't want to.
The city planner, if he or she wants to reduce auto emissions says "fuck you, car. I'm just going to zone my city so that houses are built either close to, or on top of grocery stores and other workplaces, so people can walk everywhere. Now we don't need you."
The idea is, that specific part of people's lives, their physical geography, was designed with a certain intent in mind. Imagine what other parts of people's lives can be designed.
Taking the example of the car, this country spends billions of dollars every year both buying cars, repairing the national infrastructure to run the cars, employing highway cops, paying hospital (and funeral) bills from accidents, and not to mention purchasing gasoline at least weekly. Put simply, if this country was a person spending proportionately this much money on something tangential to it's survival, you'd stage an intervention. Because they have a despicably costly addiction.
Here is where it stops being an uphill battle. I can point to a handful of examples off the top of my head of instances where a polluting industry has turned the pollutants into a business opportunity, from algae capturing carbon emissions, to mushrooms and worms growing on the runoff from breweries. Business opportunities mean employment. Not to mention solar panel installation, and windmill manufacturing. Do you think it'll be hard to convince people that don't have a job to get one? Do you think it will be difficult for people to front capital for a lucrative and sustainable business opportunity? Do you think it'll be a hard sell for people to support ideas that keep money in their community?
My point is, I'm tired of the uphill battle of activism. I'm not lazy. I'll slog through miles of swamp, so long as it's horizontal and there's no chance of me sliding backwards. Young activists spend so much goddamn time, and lose so much sleep on an uphill battle, and the depressing part, is that it's sometimes to get a person into a job that will make more money than the activists will ever see in their lifetime. Imagine if all that effort was put towards scientific advancement, or artistic creation. If all that effort was put towards giving people things they want and need, rather than what they'll take, reluctantly.
There. It's out of my head, and onto the Internet. Now I have no idea what I'm going to do.
Oh, was that too vague for you? Ok, let me 'splain more. I spent a few years in student government, then I jumped on board the Obama campaign, and a little after that, I was a reporter with the school newspaper. These three things constitute the extent of my community involvement, and I feel it's a fairly respectable resume.
Beyond that, one of the best classes I took in college was a class called National Environmental Policy, which was a class about how hard it is to convince people to do things that won't kill them, or their children. Somewhere around then, I learned that people are fucking stupid, and will keep being so until we bash the stupid out of them.
There's a certain romance about the activist lifestyle. In Reno, while partying in one of our organizer's completely bare ass apartment, I told Andrea that I admired the spartan purity of it all. Food, bed, and work. Anything else... doesn't get the right guy elected, I suppose. Here's my problem: it's an uphill battle. Every four years, thousands of activists have to have the same discussions: how abortion policy will save women's lives, why pollution is harmful, why foreign policy based on decency and diplomacy is beneficial to our interests. An important point to make is that I don't believe one political party has a monopoly on smart policies, but I do believe that there is an obvious distinction between smart policies based on reason and science, and stupid policies based on superstition, ideology, or ignorance.
I'm tired of those discussions. I don't want, nor do I want anybody else to go every two or four years to the ass end of Iowa to debate with those people. Yes, I want Iowans to be smart, but as some sort of community organizer rite of passage? It's Sisyphean.
So then I start thinking about environmentalism, and city planning. How would an environmental activist fight auto emissions? (Let's start out with direct pollutants like sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide and the like, and ignore the ones that completely and evenly disperse) He or she would go around and knock on people's doors and try to convince them to volunteer, attend a rally, or donate money to an organization that lobbies congress. In this case, people are busy as fuck with their work and families, and might not have time. Let's talk about congress. Congress is also getting lobbied by auto companies that have already spent a shitload of money buying machines that build cars that run on gasoline. They've also spent a shitload of money doing research on how to make them more efficient. They don't want to have to adhere to yet another federal standard. So every step of the way, you're trying desperately to convince people to do things they don't want to.
The city planner, if he or she wants to reduce auto emissions says "fuck you, car. I'm just going to zone my city so that houses are built either close to, or on top of grocery stores and other workplaces, so people can walk everywhere. Now we don't need you."
The idea is, that specific part of people's lives, their physical geography, was designed with a certain intent in mind. Imagine what other parts of people's lives can be designed.
Taking the example of the car, this country spends billions of dollars every year both buying cars, repairing the national infrastructure to run the cars, employing highway cops, paying hospital (and funeral) bills from accidents, and not to mention purchasing gasoline at least weekly. Put simply, if this country was a person spending proportionately this much money on something tangential to it's survival, you'd stage an intervention. Because they have a despicably costly addiction.
Here is where it stops being an uphill battle. I can point to a handful of examples off the top of my head of instances where a polluting industry has turned the pollutants into a business opportunity, from algae capturing carbon emissions, to mushrooms and worms growing on the runoff from breweries. Business opportunities mean employment. Not to mention solar panel installation, and windmill manufacturing. Do you think it'll be hard to convince people that don't have a job to get one? Do you think it will be difficult for people to front capital for a lucrative and sustainable business opportunity? Do you think it'll be a hard sell for people to support ideas that keep money in their community?
My point is, I'm tired of the uphill battle of activism. I'm not lazy. I'll slog through miles of swamp, so long as it's horizontal and there's no chance of me sliding backwards. Young activists spend so much goddamn time, and lose so much sleep on an uphill battle, and the depressing part, is that it's sometimes to get a person into a job that will make more money than the activists will ever see in their lifetime. Imagine if all that effort was put towards scientific advancement, or artistic creation. If all that effort was put towards giving people things they want and need, rather than what they'll take, reluctantly.
There. It's out of my head, and onto the Internet. Now I have no idea what I'm going to do.