Ever notice how difficult it is now to do good? Many do what’s politically expedient, or what they calculate is in their own self-interest. But doing good, especially working with others to stop the effects of economic violence on our citizens, can earn a pretty sharp rap on the knuckles from the boss, the police and the media.
If “doing good” is new to you, let me explain. Back in the day, we used to have something called “morals.” People were imbued with the idea that one of life’s aspirations was to benefit other people, not just one’s self.
This quaint idea originated in our many religious or philosophical traditions. We developed the value of treating each other kindly – sacrificing self for the other. Old-fashioned, perhaps, but often effective for helping people express their best, rather than their most selfish, impulses.
Here’s why I bring this up. We are now in a time when we absolutely must recreate an understanding of “right conduct” – doing good, with and for others. No more individualism, selfishness or getting away with whatever seems expedient. That old strategy was fashioned by a corporate mentality of breaking free of rules and regulations, isolating us from one another to make us more impressionable consumers.
Now we need a different strategy. Several difficult issues – matters of survival – press us for solutions. To forge new, innovative solutions, we need to develop solidarity with one another.
We must overcome atomization of individuals with the mutuality of community.
Perhaps the most urgent issue we face is climate change. As scientists refine their models and become more adept at grasping the extent and pace of global warming, it’s clear they’ve underestimated the realities. Global capitalism’s depletion of resources has destabilized Earth’s ability to return to balance.
But industry, with government in tow, mightily resists calls for giving up pillaging the Earth to create wealth for itself. Yet we can’t wait 40 more years to get serious about this. Reductions in the human causes of global warming must be deeper and come far sooner than business wants.
Fortunately, scientific models also indicate that human resistance movements against capitalist values and practice might be the one variable that can alter the pace of climate change. Many scientists now advocate, and are themselves actively participating in, direct, active resistance against the prevailing economic culture with protests, blockades and sabotage. It’s that urgent.
But there are other critical issues, too, that call for collaborative citizen action. Fearsome new weapons coupled with out-of-control surveillance and information gathering must be met with massive and continuing citizen protest. China’s expanding drive to gather Earth’s resources for its people calls us to act together to avoid such a takeover. And what do we, as citizens, have to say about biologists using computer-generated synthetic life forms that allow humans to engineer evolution? That will take a collaborative response, too.
Ordinary people can’t leave these moral decisions to others, the “experts.” Too much is at stake. We must work together as neighbors, communities and voluntary organizations of all kinds to develop a new economic paradigm and a new idea of “good.”
Discovering shared values and common purposes on these critical issues at the local level is a much more effective way to meet the critical challenges we face than letting enterprise enrich itself with too-little-too-late solutions that don’t get to the root causes and eliminate them.
Not that we will all be of one mind – that’s not the goal. Through our diversity and from the blending of many citizens’ ideas, the “good” we seek will be backed by collective action. This will allow us to recreate our economic life in ways that make people – not markets – our most important priority.
