On doing good and finding meaning
Trying to ‘do some good’ is not easy these days. I have this recurring dream where I am walking along a dried-up riverbed at the bottom of a dusty valley. I come upon a group of people, they are all sweaty and have their shoulders against a giant boulder, pushing it uphill. They beckon: Come help us, we are going to build a fortress on the top of this hill that will solve everything, they say.
No, help us! shouts a voice, we’ll make things better, we have a plan. I turn around and there is another group of people pushing another boulder up the hillside. And then suddenly I notice there are hundreds of groups of people all along the valley, all pushing boulders around. Now I have a choice to make: to whom, or to what effort, will I lend my shoulder?
Like in my dream, the impulse to ‘do some good’ today means moving into a confusing terrain, shaped by contradiction, fragmentation, and ambiguity. There are so many movements in all directions, all the time being replaced or changing, or being discredited. The choice of who or what to get behind is always somewhat based on faith since the information is always incomplete, uncertainty is a factor and outcomes unknown. Also, it is a time-critical decision because, human life is short and busy –I can feel myself calcifying by the minute. So I must make a decision quickly in the dusty valley. I know I cannot push a boulder by myself, cannot fix everything by myself. I also know I am privileged to even be in the valley, with a full belly and a clear head, able to make some sort of choice; to not be fully occupied with trying to survive the next month, the next day, as most people on this planet are. So a quick, ill-informed leap of faith must take place if my life is to have any impact at all, a choice must be made, the only real decision one can ever really make in life perhaps, contained in the question: to whom, or to what effort, will you lend my shoulder?
Adding to the confusion is the current state of global geo-politics, the various crises crisscrossing one another, and the downward spiral of global warming we all find ourselves in, which may dishearten even the bravest idealist.
Yet the current state of the world also presents opportunity. It is like, throughout the histories of the recent civilizations, societies keep messing up in the exact same way, then “learning our lesson”, then doing it again, just telling the same story over and over. And then arriving at the exact same conclusion about what would be right and good: limited group size, regulation of commons, culling greed in some way. Over and over and over, we tell the same story. At least it is a beautiful story.
Returning to the dream: there is an option to stop and think, and possibly also re-imagine – why, and how, is pushing boulders up hills useful for the people of the valley? Is it contributing to solving any of their predicaments? Likewise, the current geo-political tomfoolery and a generally chaotic climate (in every sense) also allow for opportunity to rethink not just what we are pushing for but how and why we’ve built those visions in the first place. We are between orders, and in this chaotic state there is opportunity for changing trajectories in a fundamental way, for setting histories on entirely different pathways. Chaos creates unexpected portals, rips in the fabric, full moon amplification, breaches in the matrix, moments when the veil is at its absolute thinnest. In more rooted terms: there is a window open to radically reimagine societies and society-building on deeper levels than usual, as well as the core paradigms beneath.
But what does that mean in the light of the limitations of a single human life?
Around the planet, scholars, activists, artists and communities are exploring possibilities for more sustainable alternatives.[i] These processes could be further enriched by embracing greater creativity, transboundary thinking (across disciplines, genres, media), experimentation, expansive practices, and daring to approach bold, even audacious theories and methods.
Today’s geopolitical landscape can easily wear down those who still believe in betterment of the type More envisioned. Yet it also presents an opportunity to reimagine not just what we are pushing for but how and why we build and ‘lend our shoulders to’ those visions in the first place. Despite the now, perhaps we can still give future generations something better to push for, something better to lend their shoulders to.
[i] In 2014 The Convivialist Manifesto was published (subtitled A Declaration of Interdependence), signed by sixty-four intellectuals from varied streams of the left. The aim was to “advance us as human beings in full awareness of the finiteness of natural resources and in a shared concern for the care of the world” (26). The manifesto lists a number of threats, of which the ecological are stated as most pressing, and a number of promises that the wealth, development and technology of our time carry. It outlines a “planetary philosophy on the art of living together”, resting on five core principles, including common” naturalness”, “sociality” and “humanity”. Examples of such reimagining can be gleaned in the work of Wangari Mutha Maathai in Kenya, the movement for the liberation of mother earth in Colombia, degrowth and defense of the commons movements (Escobar 2020), the South American Buen Vivir movement[i] and the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature.
