I have recently had a couple of experiences that have left and lingering but not a very happy impression. One was in one of my courses at Mount Mercy, the other was tonight after a Linn Co. Greens viewing and discussion of Naomi Klein talking about the ideas in her book “Shock Doctrine.” There wasn’t a lot of overlap to the content of the conversations, but both conversations left me musing over the question, why do people not take action?
That was one of the themes of the Greens discussion, with none of the theories I heard satisfying my curiosity about the question. The way my course got me thinking about this was that my 8 students took me by surprise Wednesday night in their very blunt willingness to assert that there is no such thing as a responsibility to take action aimed at subverting one or more of the structures that divert resources from the poor to the rich. I wouldn’t have been so surprised if it weren’t the case that we have been reading literature asserting (with good arguments) the opposite view for fully two months now–some 400-500 pages of material that included Letter from Birmingham Jail and resounded similar themes again and again, complete with lots of facts and figures. One impact that all this good literature has had is that two of the students have undergone a complete conversion from shopping a lot at Walmart to becoming Walmart-free, and one of these is very actively evangelizing her friends and family about the good news of life beyond Walmart. I pointed out, after our discussion had gone on for a while without much encouraging being said, that their change of how they vote with their consumer dollars, and especially their willingness to spread the word, was an example of an action aimed at subverting such an unjust structure. That helped a little, but not enough for me to be able to stop feeling haunted by what these young and not so young people, who have now read hugely more than the average American about key economic and social structures of our world, were saying about social responsibility.
Basically the theme of their remarks was that different people are called to different things, and so for that reason it would be improper to propose that everyone has a responsibility to act in one way or another to oppose some injustice or another.
To me this sounds like a claim that some people are called to be truthful when they speak and other people are called to obey traffic laws when they drive, but some people aren’t called to these things. In other words, it sounds perfectly ridiculous to propose that some people may not be called to be part of making society more just. Particularly after having read Letter from Birmingham Jail!!
My musings on this, intensified after the Greens discussion, have left me with two hypotheses about what those folks are assuming that leads them to such a different conclusion than mine.
One hypothesis is that, even after all kinds of arguments in great literature to the contrary, these students see themselves as not participating in society’s structures, so the question of a responsibility to act for justice sounds to them like entering into something that might not be their “business” or their “concern.” King wrote: “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.” We are part of what is going on, like it or not; we are either contributing to the problem or contributing to the solution. My students know enough to acknowledge this when they hear it, but they are also willing to refuse to believe it too. In that latter bit they are like most of the people around us, the difference being how much more they have read that contradicts their self-deception as to their complicity.
My other hypothesis is perhaps closely related. But it feels to me like my students think their are entitled to their social apathy. Trying to bring about more justice is someone else’s job, and as long as they faithfully do their own thing, all is well. I find this notion incredible, and yet it is as close as I think I can get to understanding what their logic is. It isn’t their job. Someone has to do it, they realize, just not them. And they really deserve not to have anyone bothering them about their own role in relation to issues of justice.
We talk in our society sometimes about how we seem to have created a generation or two with a strangely enormous sense of entitlement. What I’m trying to get after is that I think that’s involved in our current problem. People are not just apathetic but are willing to be pretty self-righteous about it. They are comfortable defending their passivity. They have every right to it, they believe. They think themselves entitled and free to regard social responsibility as one of a number of possible hobbies from which they can choose, and they think it fairly audacious that anyone would suggest otherwise.
They fancy themselves as entitled to their apathy as they are entitled to listen to whatever style of music they prefer.
So we find ourselves in a country at war, with as much as 70% of population reporting their disapproval of the Iraq conflict. But their voices never really rise, other than when they are answering an opinion poll, I guess.
How do we counteract this? How do we stir in people an awareness of their responsibility, their duty?
(At this point there are fairly large cross-sections of world-wide Christianity that would propose praying for a revival. This is not my style of Christianity, but I haven’t much else to fall back on.)
One option would be to try to urge people to embrace social responsibility on the grounds of an enlightened self-interest: on the grounds that all the other things that they want to pursue (to “do their own thing”) will be less and less available to them as more and more of the wealth of our world is transferred to the uber-rich. Is self-interest enough of a tipping point into responsibility? If that’s their only possible motive, isn’t it just as likely they’ll approve the next George Bush’s proposal to kill or otherwise harm other people as a means sustain the opportunities we hope these folks will exert themselves morally to preserve? Appeals to their self-interest from us might just backfire and make them even more vulnerable to being manipulated to support the next fascist scapegoating routine. The effort to gain leverage with their sense of entitlement may well be destined only to reinforce that sense.
I’d prefer to try almost anything else (including praying for revival, frankly!).
I wonder if there is any way to show people that we find a greater joy in trying to make a difference than pretty much anything they have ever known. This is another variation on appeal to enlightened self-interest, I suppose. But the difference is that the other way makes seeking justice a means to preserving other treasured rights and opportunities, which people might be seduced into thinking can be attained more easily through even greater injustices. This way makes seeking justice something that brings a fulfillment all its own–the very seeking, quite apart from success.
I don’t know if there’s anything to that. I’d sure like to gather some insights that others might propose in response to my meandering contemplations here.
3 Comments
April 19, 2008 at 7:49 pm
How cure apathy?
(Part 1)
This is my first attempt at the blog, so please excuse my baby steps in what is new territory for me.
The original post is very thought provoking, not only because of the very important general question raised, but also the specific context in which the question was formulated.
I’m going to take this in reverse order, so bear with me. In regards to the latter, I have more to write about. I’ll leave the former to later as I have less to say about the general question. So if you’re more interested in the question “How Cure Apathy”, please skip down to (2).
(1)Yes, I was once in a place of higher learning. Now, you may ask, much as my son once asked, “What was college like back in the Civil War?”. Really, it was not that long ago! I’m going to try to have some empathy for students, although I’m not one now.
College may have changed since I was a student, but I noted an overwhelming interest on the part of myself and many people that I knew to pick courses that looked interesting, but also in which they would do well. Most of the students I knew understood that there would be tough courses that they could not avoid, whether they were required courses in their major or required by the administration. I think there is a large amount of pressure on students to do well and to pick a career. That pressure comes from other students, parents, the school, our society, but it is also self-generated. My point is that doing well in their chosen career is probably more important to many students than changing their lives.
I wonder what the course was and what were the other readings besides, “Letter from the Birmingham Jail”? What were the demographics of the students eg. old vs. young, denomination etc.?
Does the college make a difference? Every college has it’s own distinctive student body and atmosphere. I’m a product of 12 years of Catholic school, but then went to a public university. Are students that go to a private church-affiliated college different than students at other schools? Perhaps, teachers at other schools have different experiences.
(2)”How cure apathy”
a)Is apathy curable? Many diseases don’t have a cure. Some can only be managed or perhaps improved in one aspect. Maybe the reduction in the profit of WalMart is the best we can do. If by doing so we could stop exploitation in China it would be worthwhile. Maybe the reduction in the price of 100# of rice in Haiti is all the people there could accomplish when they took to the street recently. Maybe the best the people of Spain could do after the train bombings was to vote in the Socialists, who promised to get them out of Iraq.
b)Is apathy a disease? Or a sign or symptom of something else?
c)If apathy is a disease, is it the right diagnosis?
Some see 4 ounces of water in a 8 ounce glass as half full, others see it as half empty.
I’m think that figuring out how to activate people who agree with us is our most important task.
April 19, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Good questions and observations, Bob.
I sure agree that the task is activating those who agree with us! I am just asking how can we do so, how can we overcome what it is (seemingly apathy) that renders inactive people who agree with us but do not act upon their views.
The students in this particular class session were 7 students, aged 21 or so to about 50 or 55, 2 of them males (in their 20s). Two of the women are African American. All are Christian, 2 Catholic.
The course is called Faith and Moral Life (our version of Christian Ethics), an advanced course in Religious Studies. We’ve read a lot about economic inequalities on both a national and a global scale, corporate accountability, war, racism, etc. Six of the 7 students are Religious Studies majors in their Junior or Senior year. I have them write a journal entry on every reading assignment, and they are definitely understanding what they read.
They seem to get along well with each other in this discussion-format course. But it seems like they are sometimes different people in the discussion and in the journals. For instance, one male who sat there quiet (as is his usual manner most times), wrote this and turned it in the same day of this disappointing discussion: “We must recognize the burdensome effects of capitalistic dominance and advocate for a change that focuses on the importance of the individual, on the importance of a community, and on the importance of humanity.” (I hadn’t read this when I posted to original blog.) Many if not all of them have written something like this at one point or another. (A couple are resistant sometimes in their journal entries, but other times they too are thinking like this fellow.)
I do think most of them are taking themselves a little by surprise as to things they are writing in these journals. Perhaps they imagine their classmates would be surprised too and so they are far more reserved about their level of commitment in the discussion. It’s really puzzling to me on some many levels. (I can’t recall ever being so eager to see students’ evaluations at the end of a course, to see if that sheds any light.)
I have one more thought for now: It’s very possible that the way I initiated this particular discussion interjected a strong note of a judgmental view of people who do not engage in action to contribute to some structural transformation. The left can often be kind of judgmental (maybe that’s some of what got Obama in his comments in San Francisco), and I’m perhaps especially good at sounding that way. It’s possible that that judgmental aspect of the issue distracted them from the substance of what I meant. I don’t know, but it’s a hypothesis that helps to put the disappointing discussion together with the (by and large) vastly more encouraging journal entries.
So much for the students.
Leaving them aside, I still want to know how to activate people who agree with us. Because it seems like there are a lot of people who agree with us but remain inactive, content to let our government and the beneficiaries of corporate power run the world exactly opposite the way they want–which is really weird!
April 20, 2008 at 1:18 am
Comments written by my students for the class session I was so disappointed about (all leaving me wondering why I didn’t hear them say these things to each other–so much so I mean to ask them Monday):
We as a community cannot be called true Christians if all we do is talk about good deeds, we need to go out and actually do them. The problem is that ever since we were little no one has told us that we need to do more. I think too many times the Church doesn’t want to push any buttons, for people to walk away. But I say let’s be straight with everyone, show them the teachings and hope that they will come with open arms.
The one thing that caught my attention was his concern with the church’s attitude. King also had this concern. Even today we can address the same issue. What about the Church of today? Is there only lip service or a call to duty?
God defends the helpless, the poor, the widows. God is biased and will defend the weaker populations. That remark astounded me because I’ve never thought of God as biased. That seems like such a negative word, but in this case it is not. Our God is full of compassion and mercy.
We must recognize the burdensome effects of capitalistic dominance and advocate for a change that focuses on the importance of the individual, on the importance of a community, and on the importance of humanity.
We must believe that we can make a difference in order for change to happen. It is our job as Christians to encourage others to help others, not just to go to church and pray. We must make an ongoing effort to get society involved because otherwise we are not living by the word of God.
In order to correct the causes of poverty and injustice in our world, we do need, as Gutierrez speaks, to become involved as Christians in the political and social liberation of the marginalized. Because the dominant culture automatically and intentionally keeps the marginalized (in the case of Latin America—most of the population) from the human dignity that all Christians know comes from God to all peoples of the earth.
This man clearly made it his mission to develop liberation theology from a religious perspective and as he went along it seems he found Marx’s ideas helpful in developing what he was attempting to do…. The government could want to shape our own views on reality in order to better serve their purposes. What has been done to communism in the past seems similar to what had been done to African Americans in the past. We began to unconsciously associate both of these entities with something wrong and bad due to influences coming from within the culture…. We are forgetting that communism is merely a system of interconnected ideas that propose a potential solution to some of the problems of the world…. It is always refreshing to see an advocate for ‘system change’ who isn’t motivated by purely political factors.