For those of you who may be wondering, I haven’t published much lately because I have a injury to my right shoulder that has made using a computer extremely painful. In addition, I caught COVID over Yule and that pretty much reduced me to an aching mucous fountain for a couple weeks. Both issues are still lingering, but I now think I’m better enough that I can attempt a reduced workload. To that end, I’ve finished the op ed I was working on before my dual medical problems arrived at my doorstep.
In World War Two the US government put out a series of films that were designed to explain to ordinary citizens why America was at war with the fascist powers.
I think this icon pretty much captures a question I’ve been obsessing over for the last couple weeks. “Why do I fight?” In particular, why have I struggled for the last 40 odd years to make the world a better place?
I’ve worked on a lot of projects over the years: a rent strike, a slate of candidates for city hall, reforming the constitutional structure of the Green Party of Ontario, building a Constituency Association from scratch, organizing several a watershed congresses for the Grand River, a local currency system, sued Walmart on behalf of a coalition of Guelph clergy, the Public Interest College through OPIRG, protested MacDonald’s use of extruded polystyrene packaging, and, other stuff I can’t remember right now. At the same time, I also did some freelance writing, wrote a weekly column for the now-defunct Guelph Mercury for three years. And, when the technology came along, I wrote one blog after another: The Green Party Review, Diary of a Daoist Hermit, The Guelph-Back-Grounder, and now, Hulet’s Backgrounder.
Please note, none of these things have involved earning a pay cheque. Yes, I do ask for subscriptions to Hulet’s Backgrounder, and sell the odd book. But I am not doing most of the things that I would need to do to be able to make real money off the web—mainly because all of these would, IMHO, increase sales at the cost of watering-down the message.
Indeed, I financed several of the projects I pursued in the past simply out of the wages I made at jobs like being a janitor or porter. (Having family responsibilities now plus a reduced income, this is no longer an option.) I decided early on that I did not want to make a living off my politics simply because far too often there is a pretty profound conflict of interest between protecting the steady source of income necessary to make a living and working to radically change the world.
This frenetic activity was pretty much a second job for most of my work life and continues now that I make a modest base income off my pensions.
I’m not suggesting that what I do is in some sense ‘more pure’ than what other folks have done and still do. I see the ‘progressive movement’ of humanity as being a ‘wide front’ or an ‘ecosystem’ where there are many different types of roles—one of which is what you might call “the radical curmudgeon”. I’m just filling my own particular role, and that is one where you generally cannot get paid enough to live on.
If I’m not in it for the money, why bother? To understand that, consider the following graphic.
The above is a diagram of Abraham Maslow’s Hiearchy of Needs hypothesis. In it he posits that people have a chain of motivations that start with ones built around simple biological survival. These build upon one another such that once one level has been fulfilled, another set arises on top of it. For example, no one is too concerned about long-term safety if they are on the verge of death due to starvation. Similarly, if you are at constant risk of imminent, violent death—loneliness is not going to be top of your concerns.
Why I mention it is because as I understand it, I probably shouldn’t have been so willing to pursue my different ‘side-lines’ (ie: that ‘self-actualization’ stuff) until I had taken care of all the other levels below. In particular, why did I pursue them even though the way I made a living (poorly-paid, menial, extremely low-status, blue-collar work) in ways that showed I’d never achieved the previous level that Maslow labels “Esteem”?
Remember, Maslow purports to be describing a universal law (ie: ‘the way things are’) instead of a ideal that people should aim for (ie: ‘the way things should be’). I can understand why Maslow came up with this schema—it fits nicely in the materialistic, liberal, middle-class, capitalist society of the 1950s where it became popular. As he explained in his short book Religions, Values, and, Peak Experiences, he understood religion in terms of individuals having what he called “peak experiences”—which he identified with the statements of mystics from various spiritual traditions.
The point of Maslow’s book—if memory serves—was to come up with an explanation of the appeal of religious belief without leaving any room for all the superstitious nonsense about God and mumbo-jumbo theology that has built up around it. As I mentioned above, Maslow wrote his book in 1964, which was a high-water mark for naive belief in materialism and science, and, bourgeois liberalism—which have tended to have little time for spiritual endeavours.
Personally, I’ve never been a fan of the self-actualization hypothesis because I think it misunderstands two extremely important parts of what it means to be a human being.
First, I don’t like the top of the triangle: “self-actualization”. That’s because from my experience, the people who express the greatest well-being aren’t people who spend a lot of time thinking about or working on their ‘self’—instead, they tend to be people who common parlance would describe as being ‘selfless’. That is, they are people who devote their lives to some sort of outside ideal. Secondly, I think what Maslow places at the top of the pyramid are exactly the sorts of things that enhance the mental ‘toughness’ that is needed to survive the traumatic experiences at play in the lower levels of the triangle. This idea came home to me when I read Victor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning.
What I remember from the text (which I read decades ago) was Frankl’s observation that—all things being equal—people who felt a greater identification with a higher ideal tended to do better in the NAZI concentration camps than others who did not. (My usual quick research to double-check my memory would suggest that there is a controversy about what Frankl says about his personal experience of the Holocaust—including some disturbing allegations about Frankenstein-like experiments involving Jewish suicide victims. But even if true, I don’t see how these invalidate his main points.)
Frankl’s book deals with an extreme context, but my personal experience would suggest that people who are thinking of things bigger than themselves tend to better weather whatever problems they face than folks who have built their lives on the notion that ‘whomever has the most toys when they die wins’. The ‘devil in the details’ is what sort of ‘ideals’ someone is building their life upon.
My own hypothesis is that no one can live a good life unless they build it around some sort of positive ideal that is greater than yourself. I’m certainly not saying that all outside ideals are good. Lots of people believe in ideals that were rotten from the beginning. (Fascism for example.) Others might have at one time seemed positive, but have outlived their usefulness. (I’m not sure what to put in this category, but perhaps organized religion would be one example.) But there are a lot of very positive ideas that people have built their lives around that do make perfect sense: creating more social justice, preserving the environment, seeking greater scientific knowledge, etc.
Of course, people have an almost infinite ability to screw up a good thing, which means that the road to Hell is indeed paved with good intentions. In most cases, IMHO, these sorts of problems come about mostly because of hubris. As the Dao De Jing says:
One who desires to take the world and act (wei) upon it,
I see that it cannot be done.
The world (t'ien hsia) is a spirit vessel (shen ch'i),
Which cannot be acted (wei) upon.
One who acts (wei) on it fails,
One who holds on to it loses (shih).
Therefore things either move forward or follow behind;
They blow hot or blow cold;
They are strong (ch'iang) or weak;
They get on or they get off.
Therefore the sage gets rid of over-doing,
Gets rid of extravagances,
Gets rid of excesses.
—Chapter 29 of the Ellen Chen trans.
My read of the above is not to say that people shouldn’t try to make the world a better place, but just that the world is so much bigger than any given individual that the odds are that it will have a greater influence on the individual than vice-versa. But having said that, it’s important to understand that each individual is also a part of the world. This means that any human action is also part of the operation of the world in itself.
The point I think Laozi is making, therefore, isn’t that the realized woman shouldn’t even bother trying to make the world a better place—just that she needs to be constantly trying to understand and improve both her motivations and tactics. And she needs to keep reminding herself that the room she has to maneuver is extremely limited.
Therefore the sage gets rid of over-doing,
Gets rid of extravagances,
Gets rid of excesses.
So where does this leave me? I believe in and seek to bring into existence a world where humanity lives in harmony with nature, and, every person is treated as a subject instead of a mere means to someone else’s end.
I’m not sure which human traditions have the best answer for pursuing these ideals, but in my case the ones that appeal to me the most are Anarchism and Daoism. Having said that, I’m mindful of other people who have come to other conclusions and pursue the same goals from different directions. The point—as far as I’m concerned—is not to come up with some sort of perfect ideology, but rather to pursue a life of humility, grace, and, self-consciusness devoted to making the world a better place.
It’s important to realize, however, that this sort of life places a person in the minority. Our society doesn’t encourage people to think about this sort of thing. What it wants are good consumers to buy stuff, good workers to do stuff in order to make money for the ownership class, and, docile citizens who dutifully line up on election day but don’t support radical change of any sort. Others positively want something very different than the well-being of others and harmony with nature. These are the ‘whomever has the most toys when they die wins’ guys I mentioned above.
These two groups often justify their actions by saying that their ways are the ‘only ways’ and ‘everyone else does the same thing’. But I’d say that this is self-justification aimed at letting themselves off the hook of being indifferent to the suffering of others. In answer, I’d like to offer an image I got from a song by My Chemical Romance titled Welcome to the Black Parade. The title comes from the idea that over human history there has existed a minority tradition—the ‘Black Parade’—of people who’ve devoted their lives to making the world a better place. As I see it, the Black Parade has a lot of great people in it—both alive and dead. It also has a lot of ‘little people’ who weren’t recognized as great leaders but were still able to make the world a little better by having been in it. Where I fit in that is for others to decide, but at least I can identify myself as someone who at least attempts to march in the Black Parade (at least when my shoulder permits).
The lyrics in the above can be hard to decypher, so here they are so you can savour the meaning beyond the theatrics—.
Welcome to the Black Parade
When I was a young boy
My father took me into the city
To see a marching bandHe said, "Son, when you grow up
Would you be the savior of the broken
The beaten and the damned?"He said, "Will you defeat them?
Your demons, and all the non-believers
The plans that they have made?""Because one day, I'll leave you a phantom
To lead you in the summer
To join the black parade"(When I was a young boy
My father took me into the city
To see a marching bandHe said, "Son, when you grow up
Would you be the savior of the broken
The beaten and the damned?")Sometimes I get the feelin'
She's watchin' over me and other times I feel like I should go
And through it all, the rise and fall, the bodies in the streets
And when you're gone, we want you all to knowWe'll carry on, we'll carry on
And though you're dead and gone, believe me
Your memory will carry onWe'll carry on
And in my heart, I can't contain it
The anthem won't explain itA world that sends you reelin'
From decimated dreams your misery and hate will kill us all
So paint it black and take it back, let's shout it loud and clear
Defiant to the end, we hear the callTo carry on, we'll carry on
And though you're dead and gone, believe me
Your memory will carry onWe'll carry on
And though you're broken and defeated
Your weary widow marchesOn and on, we carry through the fears
Oh, oh, oh
Disappointed faces of your peers
Oh, oh, oh
Take a look at me, 'cause I could not care at allDo or die, you'll never make me
Because the world will never take my heart
Go and try, you'll never break me
We want it all, we wanna play this partI won't explain or say I'm sorry
I'm unashamed, I'm gonna show my scars
Give a cheer for all the broken
Listen here, because it's who we areI'm just a man, I'm not a hero
Just a boy, who had to sing this song
I'm just a man, I'm not a hero
I don't careWe'll carry on, we'll carry on
And though you're dead and gone, believe me
Your memory will carry onYou'll carry on
And though you're broken and defeated
Your weary widow marches, ohDo or die, you'll never make me
Because the world will never take my heart
Go and try, you'll never break meWe want it all, we wanna play this part (We'll carry on!)
Do or die, you'll never make me
Because the world will never take my heartGo and try, you'll never break me
We want it all, we wanna play this part
(We'll carry on!)
We were taught the Hierarchy in teacher college. It does a good job of explaining the behavior (and thus tempering our expectations) of minors; they spent 90% of their time in #1, the rest of the time skipping #2 to get a shot or two at #3&4. Both that and a lifetime of observation of American adults leads me to believe #2 should be at the top (in that it is the most eschewed for the sake of the others) for almost everyone in the West.