This post has been inspired by other posts around the idea of "You can just do things", including Against "You Can Just Do Things" and You can just do things: 5 frames. But the idea is just in the air. It was also heavily inspired by my thoughts on ecology, which guided the original reasoning and most of the examples.
Agency is great, doing things is great, it's straightforward to see. But, when I look at the problems I care about and struggle to find solutions to, what is at stake is often not to do more things but less. The most acute example being the ecological crisis we are currently facing.
Behind the ecological crisis is the happy event that we found incredible tools to be more efficient. We are now able to do way more and better with less effort. Youhou ! With the industrial revolution and what not, we gained in capacity and obviously, we are using this capacity. Why wouldn't we ? What could go wrong ? Well, this new power has costs that compound.
We could talk endlessly about the why of this crisis. Oh the terrible (in both sense) capitalism ! Oh, it's a prisoner's dilemma at the scale of the world, and coordination sucks. It is short term thinking, local thinking, i.e people are far away from the consequences either spatially or temporally, so they don't care.
Let's put these grand-scale complex analysis aside for a moment. At the core of it, we are humans making choices. We have great tools at our disposal, and it is very tempting and natural to use them. If we are in a developed country and we have a bit of money, there are tons of things we can easily do. You can take a flight on a whim to visit a friend in another country the next weekend (well, at least we can here in France, not sure in the US). It is way cheaper than the train, quicker too. You could even do it every month, I know people who do. You can heat your flat at the temperature you like and happily wear just a T-shirt inside in the middle of winter. You can eat meat at every meal. We can do these things, but we would be collectively better off if we didn't.
Not doing sounds trivial, but it is not. Here is a list of things you can choose not to do in order to pollute less :
Not eat meat - this would require letting go of meals you love, learning new ways to cook, do some research on what nutrients you need, have conversations and arguments about it with friends, family, complete strangers
Not heat your flat a ton - this would require to adapt progressively, to buy comfy warm clothes to wear inside, to snuggle up under a blanket when you're not moving
Not take the plane - this would require to spend money and time taking looong trains and buses, making up for good stories and time to think, sometimes not visiting someone you care about or a place you'd love to go to, even giving up work opportunities
Not doing things is (surprisingly ?) fucking hard, it can be a struggle that requires effort and sacrifice. We should start celebrating it, so :
Yeah to staying home when you're sick ! My friend with long covid thanks you.
Yeah to going to bed early !
Yeah for not buying this gadget you don't really need !
Yeah for not spending time on a screen today (well, if you are reading this, in the overwhelming eventuality that it was not printed, you failed at this one)
Yeah for not sharing this fake news you didn't have time to check !
As humans, we are doing great things (kind, funny, awe-inspiring), but we also do a bunch of nonsense. Please do things. Try, fail, learn. But keep in mind that there is power in not doing things too, and that there are areas where that's what the world needs from you.
~ ~ ~
We're reaching the end of this post. Let's look at the grand-scale arguments I put aside at the beginning. It can be discouraging, because if you are the only person to not do something, it often has no impact. You will lose something, comfort, opportunities, security for what ... nothing ? It is a grand-scale prisoner's dilemma that feels doomed to fail. These are good arguments, that's partly why it takes a lot of mental strength to not do these things. But right now, that's what the world needs. And sometimes, that's what the humans around you need too, but that would be a more complex post to write :-)
This post has been inspired by other posts around the idea of "You can just do things", including Against "You Can Just Do Things" and You can just do things: 5 frames. But the idea is just in the air. It was also heavily inspired by my thoughts on ecology, which guided the original reasoning and most of the examples.
Agency is great, doing things is great, it's straightforward to see. But, when I look at the problems I care about and struggle to find solutions to, what is at stake is often not to do more things but less. The most acute example being the ecological crisis we are currently facing.
Behind the ecological crisis is the happy event that we found incredible tools to be more efficient. We are now able to do way more and better with less effort. Youhou ! With the industrial revolution and what not, we gained in capacity and obviously, we are using this capacity. Why wouldn't we ? What could go wrong ? Well, this new power has costs that compound.
We could talk endlessly about the why of this crisis. Oh the terrible (in both sense) capitalism ! Oh, it's a prisoner's dilemma at the scale of the world, and coordination sucks. It is short term thinking, local thinking, i.e people are far away from the consequences either spatially or temporally, so they don't care.
Let's put these grand-scale complex analysis aside for a moment. At the core of it, we are humans making choices. We have great tools at our disposal, and it is very tempting and natural to use them. If we are in a developed country and we have a bit of money, there are tons of things we can easily do. You can take a flight on a whim to visit a friend in another country the next weekend (well, at least we can here in France, not sure in the US). It is way cheaper than the train, quicker too. You could even do it every month, I know people who do. You can heat your flat at the temperature you like and happily wear just a T-shirt inside in the middle of winter. You can eat meat at every meal. We can do these things, but we would be collectively better off if we didn't.
Not doing sounds trivial, but it is not. Here is a list of things you can choose not to do in order to pollute less :
Not doing things is (surprisingly ?) fucking hard, it can be a struggle that requires effort and sacrifice. We should start celebrating it, so :
As humans, we are doing great things (kind, funny, awe-inspiring), but we also do a bunch of nonsense. Please do things. Try, fail, learn. But keep in mind that there is power in not doing things too, and that there are areas where that's what the world needs from you.
~ ~ ~
We're reaching the end of this post. Let's look at the grand-scale arguments I put aside at the beginning. It can be discouraging, because if you are the only person to not do something, it often has no impact. You will lose something, comfort, opportunities, security for what ... nothing ? It is a grand-scale prisoner's dilemma that feels doomed to fail. These are good arguments, that's partly why it takes a lot of mental strength to not do these things. But right now, that's what the world needs. And sometimes, that's what the humans around you need too, but that would be a more complex post to write :-)