I think I've failed the United States
Assumption - wage stagnation, off shoring of well paying jobs, the opioid crisis and the skyrocketing cost of post high school education have rendered a significant portion of what used to be a highly privileged population into yet another incredibly vulnerable population.
Then instead of even attempting to develop some empathy, I picked a side and vilified and shamed.
I talked down to people on the internet, presuming to know what was best for them. Better health care and gun control would vastly improve the lives of all Americans, but lets be honest, is it really a coincidence that those two issues would especially benefit me directly?
The most active thing I've done about the opioid crisis was watching Matthew Broderick on Netflix. My attitude around wage stagnation has been "Oof, glad I'm work in an economic sector that has done better than most!". My attitude around off shoring has been to a) enjoy the cheaper goods and services and b) huMANsplain to those more impacted than I that we need to think GLOBALLY!!!!
I haven't taken any genuine opportunities to consider what people who are watching their loved ones and their communities die from substance abuse while struggling to feed their families and failing to ensure that their children do at least as well as they did might actually care about or how these crises might impact their attitudes and actions. Edit - that's a HUGE run on sentence. I'm at a loss to fix it this morning. :(
From what little I think I know about empathy, people in general and people in crisis in particular want to feel like they're not crazy or bad and that someone is actually listening. They've already got plenty of self imposed shame. They already (on some level) know what they've been doing isn't working. They are not in a mental state to hear from sanctimonious me that they should be ashamed and they're doing it wrong. I don't think anyone has ever rubbed my nose in my own shit and gotten the outcome they were hoping for, why have I been rubbing other's noses in their shit fully expecting better outcomes?
Now I fear a much larger percentage of the population has recently become vastly more vulnerable, and I fear I am much closer to joining that population myself.
I'm sorry. I've contributed to what I perceive as an utter catastrophic mess. What I've been doing has been making it worse, faster... and I've been encouraging others to do the same, both in words and deeds.
There's no quick fix visible to me, but I'm going to talk about it on line and try to listen with empathy if anyone is still willing to talk... (I fear I'm still a sanctimonious asshole, even in this post. I've got work to do. I want to be better)
Don't worry about letting America down. Worry about letting your city, family, and friends down.
There's little you can meaningfully do aside from voting to affect macro level issues. You probably can't move the needle on these.
But you can move the needle on the micro level. You can leave the lives of people around you slightly better than they were the day before. You can make your mom's day by calling her and telling her you love her. You can volunteer at local nonprofits, or engage in making people's lives better through local politics.
People are so hyperfocused on making the slightest bit of change on macro issues that they often thoroughly miss out on the opportunity to change lives and make the world a better place in the ways they are actually able to.
To add to this, moving the needle at the micro level is one of the most effective ways to make a larger impact.
A lot of the big problems have their root in how people are feeling. Culture bubbles up out of the quality of people's lives. Fear, insecurity, loneliness, addiction, abuse... if you can make a difference in things like that in your circles and community, you'll have an impact on culture and that will have an impact on the macro issues.
To use rng's example, calling your mom (well not your mom, a hypothetical mom) is a small thing but over time it means she feels more connected, which means she's less likely to feel isolated, which is a vaccine against radicalization. If she feels better (than she might otherwise) it will change the way she interacts with everyone she comes into contact with. Maybe it gives her a little extra bandwidth for empathy. Maybe she makes other people feel more connected. Maybe it changes her votes.
Small things add up to big differences.
I totally agree with your comment; I think micro issues affect macro ones.
However, I don't think we should think of the micro as a means towards the macro end; we should be comfortable tackling the micro for the value in and of itself. I can't stave off climate change anymore than I can stop the eventual heat death of the universe, but I can make my community a better place, if only in a small way for a small amount of time. I call my mom not to prevent radicalization, but just for the value of making her happy if even for a day. We should avoid looking at the local through the lens of the national, and value it for its own sake.
(NOTE: I know you aren't saying that's why you should call your mom, but I do want to object to those who view local politics or something as merely a means of affecting national politics or as a microcosm of the macro. These types of folks are not who you want running the show.)
I think it does work better if we do nice things for their own sake. For the moment we're doing them in.
But no denying that they (can) have larger impacts. The reason I frame it that way is that, especially now, there's a lot of stress about the big stuff. Maybe there's comfort in knowing that making mom's day is indeed working towards a better world in a small way
By the way, the reason I believe this and spent my time living this way was in part by being convinced by a specific person.
I love that! This is evidence that I don't pay enough attention to usernames.
This post, thread, and your reply remind me quite a bit of another post from today about underrated ways to change the world. For anyone who's missed/skipped it I found it to be an engaging and positive little read.
Just finished the OP essay, I thought it was fantastic. Good points, well articulated and some angles that most of us might not have considered.
I started typing a response to OP but I realized I was basically just repeating what you mentioned here. The point about moving the needle at the micro level is something that I think a lot of people tend to ignore. Local politics matter a lot more than you'd think because they directly affect the taxes you pay on a day-to-day basis, the local infrastructure you rely on like roads, sidewalks, bike trails, and so much more. Your vote also carries a lot more weight, relatively speaking, because of the smaller overall population. You can see this all over the country, lots of election races are being determined with gaps under 1000 votes, many under 500. So, while your vote at the national level may not feel like it matters much, especially if you live in a "safe" blue/red state, they matter a ton at the local level and can really influence/change how your city/town feels.
Totally agree, local politics probably bares far more on your day-to-day life than national politics.
One additional point I wanna through out there is that you can probably sway far more people's votes for local elections than national ones. While you can spend hundreds of hours debating Trump supporters unsuccessfully, being aware and convincing family and friends to care about specific local issues is quite easy. Folks usually have no opinions one way or the other and are open to hearing you out.
I think you've helped me more succinctly understand part of what I'm trying to get at/to - thank you!!! My personal actions/inactions impact on the national stage are negligible, but my attitude/way of being around persons I know likely has a ripple effect, both good and bad. How many times have I been short/dismissive/condescending with extended family and high school friends on social media? I can do better at that level. Much better.
If you’re feeling bad about some things you’ve said on the Internet, you can certainly try to do better. (And so can we all.) That’s a good thing!
Your framing of the problem seems a little off though, perhaps making it a bigger deal than it is? There is a lot of chatter on the Internet, and your words, good or bad, are probably a drop in the bucket, not visible if you zoom out to the entire US.
Our Internet chatter is not of national significance. But that’s the wrong zoom level. Better to think more locally! Am I contributing to this conversation? How am I getting along with the person I’m replying to? Are we having fun, or if not, at least learning something? If it’s no fun and not useful to anyone, try to stop.
We aren’t going to fix anyone’s substance abuse problem by chatting about it on the Internet with strangers. At best, someone might find some sympathy and useful advice, but they have to do the work, offline.
(But you might, someday, be called on to help a friend or relative, someone you actually know. It would be good to be in a position where you can help, when that time comes.)
I think the point is spot-on though:
"You either hate losing enough to change or hate change enough to keep losing"
Part of (I think) OP's point is that saying things like "they can retrain and find other jobs", "coal mining is never coming back anyways", "immigrants can do those jobs now" and things like that in their local conversations creates the national lens that a lot of people perceive political messaging through. Would you trust someone who said those things about you or your industry/job?
I think that as an exercise of empathy, such statements could be reformulated for one's own careers.
For educators: "if teaching pays little and isn't respected, why not retrain for a green job?" which doesn't really address the concerns of pay, respect, administrative support, classroom discipline, bureaucracy, etc.
For tech workers: "if tech companies are laying off people, why not retrain as a plumber or electrician?" which is kinda fair because it's oversaturated, but it doesn't address concerns around instability, lack of workers' rights, outsourcing and offshoring, lack of respect from employers (an AI could do your job for cents! This team of questionably-credentialed Indian and Filipino IT workers can do your job for cents!), etc.
For communities whose entire raisons d'être revolved around certain industries, there is a certain indignity in being told that they're deprecated and irrelevant by extension of their deprecated, irrelevant industries.
I think you're right that looking at the world through the wrong lens can sometimes result in saying things that aren't helpful to others. That's a good metaphor!
But what are you quoting? I'm not sure I see it in the original post.
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Thanks for sharing your perspective and being vulnerable in this post.
The world has many problems. It will continue to create more problems. There isn't a single fix to the anxious bleugh that is "everything negative happening right now." Empathetic listening is probably the most important foundation for the many solutions we need to identify.
The fact that you're making an effort to listen rather than judge is really meaningful. I think most people never quite have that realization. Personally, the election took me down a notch. I am still a sanctimonious asshole, but it made be realize some of my perceptions of the country were totally wrong. I despaired for a day, but at this point I guess I am trying to be open-minded. There is a lot I don't know. I can probably learn a thing or two from the people I have dismissed for years/decades as being uninformed, narrow-minded, self-serving etc.
I don't think it's morally wrong to care about issues that affect you directly. I care more about urban planning than most people because, right now, I live in a city. I think there is room for everyone to have issues that speak to them, or pet projects, and also be empathetic and mindful of everyone else's issues/pet projects. I think it is a lot harder than just yelling about your own problem, but I don't see a conundrum here.
It also isn't possible to actively fix every issue in the world. If there are 100 issues that you care about theoretically, you can personally care deeply about like... 20-30 of them. Of those 20-30 issues you care about deeply, there is only enough time in the day to "actively" contribute to solving (put in regular activism effort) like 3-5 max. And for a lot of people it's only realistic to actively solve 1 or 2 at a time. For the rest, I think you have to be okay with supporting other people's work (financially, emotionally). That includes the empathetic listening you're talking about. I think as long as you are listening, you are still helping to solve a problem.
I don't know enough about your situation to give a detailed response, but self-examination is always good, and you have my sympathies. Realizing you let people down can be a hard feeling, but it can also be a great teacher.
Feel free to correct me, but it reads to me more like you feel like you let down underprivileged people in USA, rather than USA itself. The distinction, I think, is important, because nationalist rhetoric tries to present them as one and the same. But one is caring about people from an egalitarian perspective, the other is about the imperialist war machine. If one doesn't realize the distinction, they can find themselves in the "USA first!" crowd.
As an outsider who's been interested in US for a while though, I think it definitely has the resources to fix much of the issues its underprivileged populations are facing. It's the richest country in the world, but most of its riches are greedily held by billionaires and similar people. There are also a lot of cruel policies that aren't even about money, at least not directly (e.g. war on the homeless). So, I think, the morally better thing to do would be to focus on these issues, rather than adopting ideologies and policies that would hurt people from other countries. Most popular examples I can think of are what Bernie has been saying vs. what the America first crowd has been saying.
I hope what I said is relevant. Either way, kudos to you for re-examination.
Edit: Corrected typo.
I always think of people (including myself) like machines. We're programmed to survive and form communities, we act from what we've learned and we learn from our surroundings.
Some people are true sociopaths, but the vast majority have at least some empathy. My understanding is that most people help themselves first, then others: when we're struggling we prioritize our own needs, but when our needs are met well enough we spend effort and resources to make sure others' needs are met too (the amount of sacrifice depends on the person, but people who feel they are well off in societies that encourage charity tend to be very generous).
Look around you: almost everything was invented, made, and shipped by others, laws that protect and provide for you are enforced by others. People have the capacity to do horrible and wonderful things, what we do depends on the how the outside world affects and then empowers us.
Never forget the real enemy: tragedy. Tragedy creates and empowers evil people, and tragedy causes diseases and disasters that so far have and always can be more destructive than anything man-made. Everyone's goal should be "progress", which is to bend nature in a way that minimizes tragedy. A lot of internet discourse involves vilifying and/or insulting large groups, but what every large enough group truly wants is the same, serenity, so the things we want different aren't worth fighting for beyond "live and let live".
well said, thank you!
There are endless nits to be picked in this broader political conversation, and there's a time and place for that. Others have already said enough along those lines, so I'm going to address specifically your sense of regret and negligence:
Ifs, buts, should'ves, would'ves, are eternal and infinite. We could always have done something better and will always have things we know with certainty we should do, in and only of retrospect. The value of choice, however, lies in the now, and in the future. Anyone saying "told you so" about these issues is not being a serious person, and one thing you can choose to do with this regret, now, is to be serious going forward. You've seen your previous errors, whatever they were in particular, and to see them is to learn. You are allowed to be proud of that, and to some degree, you should be. Today is a new day, and tomorrow will be as well.
You will probably continue to do this in one way or another. No one is perfect, but you've already taken a major step towards introspection and real understanding. We have couched political positions in this horrible right and wrong framework that doesn't even track with what the majority of people believe, and has all sorts of hypocritical positions.
It takes a lot to really step back and think about what your "opponents" are doing, and why. We like to paint the opposition as stupid and uneducated, but at the same time would cry foul if you dared to hold a similar standard to someone growing up poor in a different neighborhood.
At the end of the day people are people, for better and worse. They want to be left alone, they often find pleasure in things that can be destructive (superiority or vices), and so on. I think one of the most important realizations is understanding things like this and that many people, if given the opportunity to discuss something, rather than argue it, will be reasonable.
I've found myself more and more judging people by the speed at which they recommend and glorify violence. A person who has strong views I disagree with, but can agree that violence is not the answer is probably someone I can at least try to talk to or understand. The kind who thinks that anyone who disagrees with them are scum and can starve to death for all they care are the ones that sincerely worry me.
Edit-
And something I think a lot more people should ask themselves, is how do you think you're going to win?
These people you hate are voting. So either you need to stop them from voting, or convince them to vote for you. I do not see how the absolutely spiteful behavior that's all over the place encourages either.
Well said.
Being able to step back and think is a luxury and a privilege more often than a personal quality I suspect.
Metaphorically, if you're being chased by a bear in the woods, you don't have the luxury of stepping back for a minute and considering whether your current tactics are best suited to your goal of escaping unscathed.
Speaking more concretely, the 24 hour polarized news cycle does an incredibly efficient job of convincing humans struggling with financial and familial survival that there is in fact a specific bear/boogey man chasing them and those humans don't have the luxury of critically evaluating that message. Social media then creates an echo chamber that reinforces that message.