In the next two months we will be prodded and poked, angered and outraged, moved and pushed by people running for public office. Then, the day after the election, we will all feel a bit used and a bit icky, wondering why we allowed ourselves to feel outrage and anger at processes we barely control.
The saddest part is that, over time, most of us have become convinced that we have very little power to change anything significant about where we live, our schools, our cities – even our nation. With jobs to do and mortgages to pay and children to raise, who’s got the energy? Unintentionally, we’ve become obsessed by our individual social mobility, not a drive for social justice.
Social mobility is not democracy. It is materialistic tyranny.
I can fully understand that everyone is struggling. But in times of crisis, the voices of panic rise up and attempt to sell us a vision of retribution and anger that leads us farther astray from our democratic values, not closer to them. If left unchecked, those voices – both Democratic and Republican – become reality for far too many people who want someone to blame for experiencing the pain of change and economic struggle.
Instead I’d like to propose something radical. Howard Zinn once wrote about “the enormous capacity of apparently contented people to demand change.” To believe in such a radical notion is “to hold out, even in times of deep pessimism, the possibility of surprise.”
I think the radical change that Zinn talks about here has nothing to do with an uprising of the proletariat or a massive wave of public protest. I think what Zinn is talking about is the need for us to talk to each other, in public, about such things as our rising elementary class sizes or the still deep divide between the Hispanic community and white community in Bellevue. I think he’s calling on us to cooperatively find better ways of achieving a more socially just community that extend beyond the options offered by our politicians. I think he’s asking us to stop waiting for a “hero” to lead us.
Truly, it would be radical if both our problems and proposed solutions were discussed in public, by all of us, in ways that promote understanding and compassion. To be sure it would be even more radical if our efforts pushed our candidates to talk about them with us.
We have always strove to be the heroes of our own national story. How many of us are dedicated to picking up the pen and writing a chapter? How many of us are willing to let politicians and political demagogues write it for us? Our answers will determine the kind of democracy our children inherit.
I urge you to pick up the pen and write something surprising.
Paul Sutton lives in Bellevue.
