manifesto

“If you want to make the world a better place
Just look at yourself and make the change”
-Michael Jackson

Words of sage advice from (still) the world’s greatest entertainer. In this post, I will in all seriousness make the case that the best way to save the world is to begin with self-improvement.

The systemic injustices of the world seem to demand sweeping, systemic solutions. However, these repeatedly miss the mark, not least of which because we tend to boil systemic problems down to one factor and propose its binary opposite as the cure—more food will solve global hunger, more money will solve global poverty, more force will solve war and terrorism, etc. Any student of development quickly realizes that systemic problems are not so cut and dry.

One reason is that human systems are not some external mechanism, but will inevitably reflect the humans that compose them. Dumping money into a country will never solve its poverty, because the system for distributing wealth will reflect the souls of its members. If an ethos of selfishness exists, even among the poor (it is a mistake, tempting though it may be, to lionize the unfortunate), an unequal distribution of wealth will occur. This is one reason why late capitalism and its championing of greed will never cure poverty. The humans behind the system do not value anything above their own self-interest.

As long as humanity has had a history of oppression and exploitation, it has had a history of systemic solutions, typically a revolution of some sort. Most revolutions have been doomed to repeat the excesses and injustices of their parent societies, as they are performed with the assumption that the aggrieved are in the right simply by their being mistreated. Seldom do they have the foresight to see their enemy in themselves.

The American Revolution is a notable exception. (I’m not going to launch into an American Heritage lesson; don’t worry. There was plenty of abuse, exploitation, and hypocrisy in the U.S.A.’s founding.) What they got right was to anticipate that revolutionaries themselves, once out from under the king’s grasp, would try to set themselves up with as much power as possible. So the founders designed a form of government that would pit aspirations for power against other aspirations for power. The result has been a remarkably stable (if wholly unspectacular in the realization of its ideals) nation.

Even this breaks down. The U.S. system isn’t perfect, as we saw in an alarming degree during the Bush presidency. If the electorate doesn’t mind a lopsided executive branch, it will get it.

So what is the hope for humanity?*

If we can’t depend on systemic solutions, we have to reform the individuals within the systems. The problems that have faced humanity throughout recorded history are not simple enough to be pinned on the Republicans, nor are they external to those who acknowledge the myriad problems facing humanity (but it is a small victory to acknowledge them). They are present in each of us, like a kind of virus in our DNA. That’s why I feel that all of liberal orthodoxy isn’t worth one of Jesus’ teachings:
“How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye” (Matthew 7:4-5, NIV).

If we want to scrub humanity of its greed, lack of compassion, intemperance, cruelty, violence, and covetousness, we have to first get it out of our own hearts.

But once we start with the proverbial man in the mirror, we have to remember not to stop there. We then have to help someone else do the same.

Again, as humans are complex creatures, there are bound to be complications. First of all, how do you know when you are actually helping someone and not simply projecting your own guilt and insecurities onto someone vulnerable under the guise of helping them? I would say that if it feels like you’re giving someone a present that you received in turn, you’re helping them. If you don’t feel like you’ve been given any presents, take time for yourself, ignore the pressing problems around you, and learn to forgive and take care of yourself. This will feel selfish, given the urgency of the problems the world faces, but it is necessary. Saddling yourself with guilt is part of the problem, not the solution.

Another challenge is that humans offend each other even when not willfully malicious; sometimes people are careless because of a lack of appreciation for others’ circumstances. While the victim has every right to be offended, this isn’t productive. Saving the world will require both a sensitivity to justice and a generous talent for dissociating oneself from offense.

Reforming oneself and helping others to do the same requires discipline. It means giving up self-destructive behaviors and habits—if you don’t care enough about yourself to preserve yourself, how can you care what happens to humanity?

Saving the world requires an intolerance for injustice (others’ and our own) but also a sense of mercy for those (others and ourselves) who perform it or are complicit with it. It’s a marvelous balancing act.

Even if we did solve the world’s problems for a generation, there would be the issue of raising our children so as to not revert to the ancient patterns. If we became too jealous of our state of being, our distaste for injustice could turn to panic, leading to overstrict parenting, which would leave our teenagers to find psychological comfort in indulging in what we find abhorrent.

To be explicit about my influences, my view on this comes largely from my religion, both the doctrines and my personal spiritual experiences. So I have to acknowledge that my religion teaches that humanity will continue to polarize itself into good and evil camps until we have practically destroyed ourselves, at which point Jesus Christ will destroy the wicked and transform the Earth into the home of the righteous forever; salvation will come from above. But I don’t think it’s contradictory to believe that we can salvage humanity into a more peaceful, prosperous existence for everyone.

Of course, we would have to abandon oppressive systems, such as our lack of regulation of pollutants and our exploitation of the world’s poor; I’m not suggesting that we halt entirely efforts at systemic reform.

Ultimately my point is that saving the world is best done counterintuitively--that is to say, person to person. A personal injustice assuaged makes it less likely that injustice will be waged on a grand scale.

*The attempt to save humanity is a fight against nature. We’re trying to save cultures that are failing to adapt to modernity. The Marxist notion of a linear progression to utopia where capitalism is the only obstacle is a fantasy and a hindrance. A global, pluralistic, peaceful, prosperous society is an uphill battle, folks.