The Path Forward Isn't Inward

 

• I've got a bit of a confession to make.  When I started this series, I put in under a folder header with a working title of "People Suck".  The next day I changed it to "Do People Suck?", and recently "Why Do People Suck?"   And, surprisingly, I mostly now know the answer to that:  because we teach them to.  It's not that we do this on purpose, because (mostly) we (most of us) don't.  Our brains are an amazingly adaptable and complex mix of really old parts and kinda old parts tossed into an environment that is literally brand new, with just a few generations of group experience for the entire industrial revolution, and only the first one for social media.  Half the time we want to be Machiavellian, half the time Gandhi, always socially savvy, sometimes unnecessarily aggressive, sometimes unbelievable gentle, sometimes giving and forgiving, sometimes paranoid.  And, to a surprising extent, each of us is capable of shifting between modes, and indeed we're pre-wired to do so.
  
• For me, investigating this topic included some materials I'd assimilated earlier in the year, but as I looked even superficially into many topics it turned into a fairly negative effort, as there is so much in our country that is being done so badly for no good reason, much done deliberately for a bad reason, so much that needs work, and each of us is so limited in time, capacity, and influence.   
• What makes it harder for me personally is that most of the research journeys of recent years were on internal topics, like essentialism, happiness, sleep, and team management skills, or fairly technical topics like what makes cities livable, nice, and valuable, but in the final assessment this topic requires fairly straightforward internal work, but also willing engagement with other people externally to really understand, to improve the work, and even to do a good job of improving ourselves.  Time to get out of my head and into active engagement...my introverted half is not enthused!
  
• Key take-away:  Evil thrives with distance and separation, in our natures individually and as a group.  We need to stop isolating ourselves, and running off to build walls, and instead to embrace and interact.  We need to stop striving for personal success, and work together for joint success.  A few things to do:
  
  • Need to say better things to people, and not tolerate demeaning.  Words actually do matter.
    
  • Need to embrace collective action and responsibility
  • Gotta learn to think better ourselves - but interacting with others will probably help with this.  Our local "hive brain" makes better decisions than one brain alone.
    
  • From government, we need unbiased research, and highly visible trials, and feedback loops.  We as a nation need to relearn to act - to implement what we learn.
    
  • As a society, we must reduce inequity, both wealth and control, as people in power become worse and those knocked down do not thrive.
  • Overall, need to stop creating bad people and rewarding poor behaviors by powerful people and special interests.  This means reducing inequity and power structures, as a lot of crappy thinking comes from "making it" to a position of influence or wealth.
    
• Often, it seems that a core problem with "individual responsibility" comes down to us having the ability to run away from conflicts and situations instead of addressing and resolving root issues. What if we, as a society, decided to embrace our problems head-on, instead of running away far enough to be able to ignore them?  
• Distance aids evil, in multiple ways. What if we decreased distance, and intentionally gave evil less room to infest?
• Those with options then tend to advantage themselves rather than solving problems for all. Those without options are then stuck with both their own lack of agency, and having to deal with those with worse issues.
•  In the end, that's perhaps the "big lie" for "rugged individualism": that you do not have the responsibility, let alone the obligation, to make society better.  If we believe in freedoms, but not obligations; in rights, but not responsibilities; in amenities for ourselves, which do not accrue to all, then we're not actually advocates for freedom, rights, and common good, but for our privilege.
• So, summing up, we each need to work to reduce distance from "others", decrease inequity, and eliminate verbal abuse/elitism and entitlement.  Rule 303 needs to apply - if you have the means to act, and the ability, then you have the obligation.