Disengaging: Every so often you come across the line, “You shouldn’t feel poor for owning an iPhone; it’s not our fault the system has gone bad!”, and it begs the question of where it all got so convoluted in the first place. Because that’s a convoluted statement to make. In the words of Peter Singer, after whom this article is inspired,
The decisions and actions of human beings can prevent this kind of suffering. Unfortunately, human beings have not made the necessary decisions.
What necessary decisions, though? In the fast-paced world where we are less human and more vessels of consumption, there is a right and wrong to everything. Even when there shouldn’t be.
The Layers to Responsibility
Responsibility is a two-handed phenomenon. That is the simple truth of being a social species. In this section of the article, I want to draw your attention to the intricacies of what responsibility is and the ways it plays out or connects with the world in general.
Having a unique self imposes a personal responsibility towards our individual. This is the duty we have to ourselves due to the self’s existence. We can very easily mistake this for a selfish bone within the human condition. However, the truth is that the more you neglect this set of responsibilities, the more selfish you become, falling into a self-fulfilling prophecy, much like the truth of not being able to pour from an empty cup.
Ismatu Gwendolyn says she ruins this allegory in 2 minutes, but I beg to differ through her own logic. This duty to the inherent self due to existence is both maintenance of your being to continue under the conditions you are forced to live in, as well as care that expands the space you take up as an individual, or in the case of the cup metaphor, changing what drink you pour out of yourself into others to create the ripples required to resist and exist without exhausting yourself. Part of maintenance is understanding that we are being treated like consumers, or cups. To be more than that is to make what goes into us undrinkable.
Is Disengaging the Answer
This leads us to the next set of responsibilities we have, to ourselves and to others. Regarding this topic, I refuse to engage in the individualist versus collectivist debate. I simply believe that individual care and collective care are mutually reinforcing; individual care leads to collective care, and collective care leads back to individual care. Therefore, caring about what you contribute is an individual responsibility, as the people and influences you surround yourself with help shape you into a better person. Unbelievably, peer pressure can have a positive impact on your life. You are responsible for your own existence.
And now because existence is interconnected, in a hopeless fashion, you have a responsibility to your fellow human beings and, through them, your habitat. This is what you see when the cups have poured into each other and become unpourable and lifelike. To see all cups already full, or unpourable, and having to then treat the whole instead of the individual condition. This is much like the above responsibility but also distinct in its framework and action.
How many of us understand the full breadth and layers of responsibility like this? And what does it say to have been conditioned into a tunnel vision that if lifted causes alarm? The alarm then activates a coping mechanism that puts us back into the ignorance of tunnel vision.
To Act or Not to Act
Did the above make sense? Because a layer of actions and behaviour is needed to reinforce the above. Today, we see a world that is hopelessly degrading at a fast rate as the climate shifts. The imperial world is thriving due to the destruction in places like Gaza, the Congo, Yemen, Syria, Sudan, etc. With both the environmental decline and the political seams in a tug of war keeping clearly oppressed nations and oppressor nations responsible, where does the individual find itself?
Hopelessly entrenched and interconnected to all of it, even if we are not the ones making the decisions.
The All or Nothing Cognitive Distortion
Recently, in therapy, I was told that I have a distorted view. I have a tendency to view things in extremes. A cognitive distortion is a lens through which we see the world, or any given condition. My responsibility and action talk leads to speculation; have we made revolution into an all-or-nothing affair? To boycott or not to boycott, to speak up or not to speak up, intense moral policing and internet mobs or moral superiority, cancelling and uncancelling based on moral action – what is one to do?
The answer is, do something. If you can’t do that, do something else, as that’s progress, even if we don’t see it as such. Whether it’s for your personal well-being, the well-being of your group, or simply the well-being of your group, it’s important to take action. Whatever lens you put on, let’s not forget the world has not stopped getting worse.
The Gaza situation is still ongoing, the climate crisis is still spiralling, and if we gloss over it now, if we get paralysed, then we lose. And sworld orend on another note from Peter Singer:
What is the point of relating philosophy to public (and personal) affairs if we do not take our conclusions seriously? In this instance, taking our conclusion seriously means acting upon it.
I agree with your point, but I’d like to pose another argument. Taking action for the sake of just ‘doing something’ doesn’t change the ground realities. We can try to picture things as black and white, as wrong or right and then chose to do the right thing.
But isnt that delusional? The world is grey. And whatever we do is wrong for someone else. Perhaps we should understand that its a gradual process, to make the world a better place. And we must stop thinking of grand revolts or changes, and instead work on smaller ones. At least those are realistic and bear more fruit.