As I travel the country talking about Hope Unraveled and the conditions of American public life and politics, inevitably someone asks, “It’s all so overwhelming, what could I ever do to make a difference?”
The negative conditions we face, and the sheer magnitude of the challenge, can be overwhelming. I remember a woman from Richmond, VA., one of the people I interviewed for the book in 1998, turning to me and saying, “If you look at the whole picture of everything that is wrong, it is so overwhelming you just retreat back.” Many people share her feelings and sense of frustration.
But my response to the question about what each of us can do is this: none of us alone can “solve” the negative conditions in public life and politics; there is too much work to be done. But each us can do our part. And it is only through our collective actions that change will emerge. For different people, such actions will take different forms. For instance:
During a discussion last night here in Las Vegas, one person asked me if I thought such change could ever come about. I do. If you look back over the course of American history, moments of great change were always preceded by a collection of smaller actions that set the conditions – the right environment – to galvanize larger change. I believe, for instance, the reason that our pledges for change after 9/11 did not stick was that we did have enough of a foundation upon which to build a more robust, vibrant public life and politics. We fell back into our old, prevailing habits.
Each of us can help to set the new conditions we so desperately need and want through out daily words and actions. No one will swoop down upon public life and politics like a knight on a white horse to “save” us. We must do the work, each of us, and the time is now to move ahead.
Let’s go.
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"The only thing worse than doing an American's job for him, is to make him do it himself."
Americans have (through the use of oil/energy), 100 slaves at their disposal every day. In order to get rid of the consumerist attitude (which I contend is a plantation-owner/English manor attitude), we need to put people back to work at providing necessities for themselves and their communities. That means a 100 to 1 reduction in our life'styles'. Think you can do that?
If you don't, the coming crisis will do it for us.
Whether we do it the easy way or the hard way, it's the only way Nature will follow in the end.
As an individual, I am looking for a way to participate and help move public dialogue forward constructively. Having spent 20 years working with local government, I know there are multiple avenues of entry, but I have not clarified in my mind the message I should give.
Have you identified what might be said (and how) to journalists in specific types of situations that would provide constructive direction that they might follow to better reflect reality? Have you identified an approach that a citizen might take to convince and improve private sector leaders’ identification with their local communities? Have you identified elements of building community that foundation and NPG projects might pursue (and which an individual might request) as they seek to meet their core purposes?
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell indicates that the few can have tremendous impact (if the message is communicated to the right conveyors of information), but the message itself must have a stickiness factor suitable to the audience and the message must be appropriate to the context. I agree with you that the context is as you describe – the public is frustrated and tired of not having public discourse reflect their reality. I think individuals want change, and if given an idea of how that might be effected, would rise up. Stickiness in this instance would be clarity that a certain course of action would ring true and realistically begin the process of change.
Rich: Your discussion and the post by Roy follows closely a discussion I had this morning. The president of a college that I teach at was at a meeting last night where the speaker made the comment that she could tell by how much a community spends on its sewer system what the average SAT score will be. Going back to Roy's point of privilege. We are hoping to open the discussion process here and we are getting ready to host a series of conversations (I am calling them collectively a Summit) on how we might take our community to the next level on the quality of life ladder. Change is a process that I have found over too many years is something that has to be made in small chunks and for many of us this can be frustrating.
Rich,
Your book is timely, and I wish you all the success. I look forward to receiving and reading it. Hope is essential to progress. This is ultimately a search for common ground and as you have eloquently stated in the past, sense and sensibilities.
Your latest post was thought provoking. I must still what I feel is still the number one unspoken challenge, Privilege. Privilege remains the significant obstacle which we must face for any progress to happen in America. Privilege remains a barrier with respect to housing, schools, and every major domestic policy issue. Post Katrina has revealed the crisis of leadership in dealing directly with race, class, and privilege. NIMBY (Not in my back yard) choices remains a barrier to equity. Equity will not happen until all of us deal directly with our own internal biases, perceptions,and fears to progress. Without this innerwork and strategic solutions of equity, the road ahead will be painful.