Meander 6: Collaborative Citizenship
No river can run in a straight line longer than ten times its width, even in a flat valley. If the river is fifty feet wide, it will stray from its course in five hundred feet or less. This is due to shifting sediment accumulation along the river's path, causing variable current speeds. When the currents become strong enough to eat into the banks in some areas, the river begins to meander.
In the November 2022 midterm elections, US businesses and individuals spent at least 10 billion dollars in support of their candidates. Twenty thousand organizations like the Pomegranate Center could prosper and do good and necessary work with what was collectively spent on the last election, at the same time giving employment to 100,000 people. Politicians ran on platforms promising job creation, but the wasteful spending sucks money away from such obvious opportunities for growth. This waste is obscene, and we must change it.
The government should give each legitimate candidate the same amount of money to conduct campaigns, which would be limited to a few months’ time. Such a shift will be good for our national mental health. The candidates will be encouraged to offer their ideas in a streamlined fashion that focuses primarily on what they want to do right, not what others do wrong. A tenor of anger presides over this country, and the history of mudslinging political foes does nothing to heal our current divide.
But how will this change happen when those with power and privilege will want to preserve the status quo? They will not lead the charge because it will diminish their influence. It will be up to us, the people, to demand this change. And to be successful, we will need to upgrade our citizenship standards. We have a Bill of Rights in this country, why not add a “Bill of Responsibilities”? Though individual liberties are a bedrock upon which our country was built, those freedoms should not diminish the common good upon which we all depend. Thus the need for a ‘responsibility-centered citizenship’, which should have three functional components.
1. Recognize and tell the truth.
2. Identify values, principles and patterns that should guide us into the future.
3. Connect numbers 1 and 2, the "what is" with "what ought to be," and commit to do our part and not blindly demand it from others.
The courage to see things as they are
Agree to see things as they are, rather than what we want them to be. It takes courage to honestly accept our limits, mistakes, and inadequacies. We need to vehemently demand truth seeking. We need to resist propaganda in all its manifestations. It will take courage to determine things for ourselves and not simply toe the ‘party line’. We must explain why we support or oppose any idea, and at the same time be open to alternatives and new ones. Gradually, fake news will have no oxygen to fan the flames.
Advertisements and slogans are the new normal. I saw this tendency towards sloganeering when I was seeking financial support for the Pomegranate Center—the least favorite part of my work—when those with money wanted me to distill my approach and mission statement to an ‘elevator pitch.’ I would often feel the imbalance of power at play, where the person wanted me to quickly explain myself in terms they understood. They wanted answers. I would say that ‘the collaborative process with the communities would provide the answers,’ that ‘my model is about learning and discovering things together.’ I wanted a two-way street with funders, but I found that the road went one way: from them to me. After encountering this humiliating and reductive dynamic once too often, I eventually said that I prefer to take the stairs and invited them to walk with me.
As an artist, I know the power of well-crafted words and images. Most artists want people to use their own interpretation of a piece as a springboard for discovering something within. But in politics and advertising, we are told what to see, do, spend our money on, and, by extension, what to think. Take the example of filming SUVs on mountaintops and ocean beaches. We all love adventure, but such images manipulate us into how liberty and freedom should look. But cars should never be in those locations. What ‘freedom’ are we selling?
Likewise, political campaigns play on our prejudices by highlighting one thing without mentioning the consequences. It’s an effective ‘lowest common denominator’ approach that riles up a party base and perpetuates old modes of thought. Politicians and advertisers will continue such practices as long as they continue to be effective. Why should they change what works? But if we have the courage to ask why, to demand explanations and not succumb to a polarizing buzzword or a glamorous image, we might begin to dig below the surface to get at the truth. In this way, we are forced to confront our own contradictions. “Wait”, we will say to ourselves, “these words and images show what others want us to see and hide the rest”. What’s beneath the surface?
Clarify the needed changes
I see the big picture in three phases. In the distant past, we humans lived in reverence, children of mother Earth. In the second phase, we rebelled against her, declaring, like teenagers, our independence and the right to do whatever we pleased, full of clever innovation and endless industry. We created machines, cities, and armies, eliminating whatever stood in our way. We invented products built for obsolescence. Along the way, we cut down forests, eliminated creatures and human traditions, and heated the climate.
We should now take the third step in the civilizational waltz and combine the first two phases into a new synthesis that balances the childlike innocence of our “pre-teen” years with the industrial ingenuity and inventiveness of our “teen” phase. It is time to grow up and mature, and this means willingly replacing our guiding values and working principles. Another word for this synthesis is “collaboration”, where our actions consider the consequences they hold for people and nature.
Which one of your values should lead us into the future? We need to listen to our hunches and intuitions, trusting them enough to start being effective communicators of change. We can look to our common past to explore what worked and what did not, and why. We are then more likely to de-construct old ideas that we never bothered to question. Just because something was done a certain way for many years doesn’t mean it is the right way forward for a better future.
How should our cities change? What about our homes? Do we commute? What about the environment? How should we raise our children? The value in such an exercise is that we ask important questions and imagine the answers for ourselves. I propose that it is our civic duty to then share our answers with others, and improve our image of the future by embracing others’ great ideas. Without thinking it through, we will succumb to a lack of thought propagated by advertisements and some politicians, giving our power away to those who want us to serve them, not them to serve us.
Connect the facts with your vision
I am an insignificant drop in a vast ocean of change. But I would never give up my right and privilege to do my part. And to be an effective citizen, I think that everyone should take the time to answer these questions: what is the truth of this moment, where do I think our world ought to be headed, and what can I do about it?
We need fresh ideas, and there are plenty if we only pay attention because they reside in each of us. Gradually, we can turn these new ideas into institutions that will serve us better. And along the way, we will toss many things on the collective compost heap.
It will take willingness, courage, and artistry to do it well. And it starts with each of us doing our part.