Right now 21st Century Plowshare is one person writing about the culture of environmentalism. I started this project because I believe that our environmental actions are limited by the available cultural discourse. Deciding to be an environmentalist right now is a wade into chilly, brackish water. The climate's sense of time dovetails poorly with our contemporary news cycle, and this makes for green fatigue. Discussions about impact are too-often based on consumer-choice accounting, and not only is accounting inherently boring--this "Green Lantern Model" plays into that problematic You Are What You Buy worldview that needs to change if we are really going to get anywhere or change anything. The actions a single person can take seem too small to be worthwhile, and so it's hard to really do anything. I mean, I don't know about you, but I am sure that my phone charger or something is plugged in right now. And that's making me feel like an asshole for writing about the environment, judge not lest ye be judged and all that.
And if you ask me, that's one of the things that's going to have to evolve.
I want environmentalism to be about much, much more than quantifying the most minute details of our consumption or inappropriately throwing the word green around until it becomes meaningless. We are all going to have to change how we live, make different choices, maybe even re-define the term "Individual Choice." But I don't think it follows that anyone should ditch their refrigerator, take military showers, or otherwise self-flagellate. I think that both ends of this Greenwashing-to-QuasiSurvivalist spectrum are selfish. And I think that the most powerful thing that could happen to us as a culture of people who take strong, considered action to reduce our environmental impact is nothing less than a total existential restructuring.
Individual choice induces paralysis and depression. It could be great for our sense of who we are to harness our choices to a global system. It could be possible to recognize our relationship to a larger earth-system in a strong, positive way that doesn't collapse into shame, guilt, worry and fear. Instead of hating people who drive SUVs, we could seduce them into joining us. Instead of guilt and shame, the primary weapon of the eco-movement could be something more like joy.
Email suggestions, call out bullshit, comment early and often, send pictures of what you are doing!
Let the dreaming begin!
Hey Deb!
(or have you rejected the Individualist Authorial Paradigm completely and renounced your slave name?) I kid.
But seriously, I look forward to following your (our?) latest venture. I loved that Barry Schwartz TED talk on choice. I tend to be overwhelmed by too many choices but always felt kind of bad about it, like intelligent, ambitious people are supposed to see a multitude of choices as a good thing. Thank you, Barry & Deb, for helping me out of the choice closet! Build your own fishbowl!
Posted by: Oriane Stender | 02/22/2009 at 11:43 AM
Oriane!
I seriously need you to address me as The Artist Formerly Known as Deborah Fisher ;)
HA!!!
No really. I'm glad to see you. Group effort. Serious fun. Us. Everyone together. I have no idea what it's going to look like yet, but I have a good feeling about it.
Posted by: deborahfisher | 02/23/2009 at 10:56 AM
I protect myself from choice overload by engaging both my very strong internal preference compass, and my external-input editing function on MAX. I have to make a conscious effort to tune IN to new choices; otherwise I just grab the same vegetables and toothpaste, go to the same restaurants, read the same blogs and hang out in the same cafe, consuming the same bagel and pot of assam tea with cream. I've always seen excess consumer choices as a dangerous energy sink, and a deliberate attempt by an overblown economy to distract people from important things like thinking, creating and conversing.
On an entirely different note, my sister and brother-in-law have been building their own hyper-energy-efficient, solar heated home in rural Maine using as many recycled materials as possible. They're also deeply engaged in co-housing and community building. I've been on their case to blog about all these things--I'll link up to some info when they do.
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