An Entreaty Against Indifference

"When it all comes down, will you say you did everything you could?"

The answer to this question, when it comes time for me to give it, I hope with all my heart will be yes. I'm not an activist because I think it's trendy, or for the shock value of telling people I tried to push through a police barricade once. I fight--and I'm not even a particularly strong fighter or one who's seen much of the world or thrown themself in much danger--because I am a privileged American who refuses to add apathetic to that already condemnable description.

Today I was trying to explain to my brother two things that I learned in eighth grade that took until ninth grade to actually sink in: the construct of race, and neoliberalism. The construct of race exploded into a heated and dead-end discussion/argument in my eighth grade class, and for that one my brother was mostly just dismissive of what had been up for debate, why it mattered. The nuances of racial relations are already something I've come up against a brick wall with him about (a la microaggressions...), but today I was just frustrated to tears again.

A thing I loathe about myself is my inability to keep cool and logical during arguments; I lose my eloquence, I sometimes lose my voice. My mother told me I sounded too lecturing or some such today, and I wish I could exchange that tone for one of compassionate urgency, but I only come off as pleading, I think.

I didn't understand neoliberalism when my teacher tried to explain it in eighth grade, beyond thinking, "Oh, Anti-Flag sings about that. I know what it is. It's bad." And yeah, it's bad, but I had no idea what I was talking about until I read The Shock Doctrine, learned about economics and foreign policy and the US's legacy of overthrowing democracy abroad while subverting it at home...etc. Etc. So I was trying to explain why one ought to actually care about neoliberalism, and foreign policy, and my brother simply says, well, if he doesn't want to go into politics, why should he know all this? Why should he know about every terrible thing that goes on in this world when he'll never be able to change them?

This is something I come up against time and time again--why should I care? Why should I bother to change things? And, of course, the perennial "Of course I understand that it's bad, but I don't want to know all this--it'll make me too depressed."

To which I say a) you know what does not help with depression? Apathy. And b) you know what is depressing to me? Yes, wars and climate change and the agonizing suffering of the victims of US policies and all those things are depressing, but what is worst to me is how the people who have the most potential to effect change and the most power to demand action are often the most content to sit back and watch from their armchairs or through their TV screens as if this protest, that shooting, this bombing, that war, this overthrow, that suicide, this natural (or not so) disaster is just another commercial break before we return to the viewing of what we really care about.

We meaning generally white, generally middle- or upper-class, generally American people. The ones who can most easily ignore. The ones who are taught apathy and consume it like candy. The ones who are fed individualism until we are so disconnected and dismissive that we are the worst kind of hive mind.

And yes, when I impel my brother to act, when I plead with him to care what is going on in the world, when I ask him how apathy could possible be better than the depression of facing the world--yes, I know that he alone or I alone will not shake the world's foundations or change everything. But with every person who accepts the status quo and turns their back, how many die? How many of those who have no option of looking away will pay for the luxury of your indifference?

I know it sounds melodramatic when I say it aloud. But I have no idea how to break through to people who will never walk on the other side, who have every privilege you could possibly pull out of the privilege lottery, who will probably never understand a life in which political is something that you can't help but be.

My brother says yes, activism is important, but if he wants a well-paying job and a happy family, well, environmentalism won't cut it. But think about it--what are you really winning with that happy family and that nice job? How thick is your bubble? How long can you live like that, and only think of your own security? We live in a very rich-white-Jewish area, and the privilege bubbles here come safety-sealed and steel-reinforced. My brother attends a private school with the kids of upper-crust society, and the way they preach political correctness has turned him to mocking it instead of understanding the theory (a rant for another time). So I understand where his mindset springs from. I see it all the time. He is my archetype for the problem of privileged indifference, but he is not alone--and let me be very clear: he is hardly the worst. And I am no paragon either. I am not doing as much as I could, as I should. Don't let it be said that I think him heartless and uncaring; he knows more about the world than I'd wager most of his grade does. But the infection is there anyway, probably a contamination from the friends around whom activism and politics and selflessness are laughable, distant problems for distant people.

The thing is, you reap what you sow. The problems we have created and turned our backs on have festered while we hum away at creating new ones. The explosive fallout of American exceptionalism, of racism, of imperialism, of everything--that will not stay contained in faraway lands. We cannot drone-strike it out of existence. It will come back to roost. It is called blowback. So no matter how removed you are, how little you think you need to care, you will wish one day that you had paid attention. When it all comes down, you will be caught blindsided, with no context for what is crashing all around you. Remember 9/11? Oh, I'm sure you do. That was a taste of what I mean.

When it all comes down, my brother will have done barely a fraction of what he could. And that is what drives me to tears, what keeps me awake at night, what propels my ranting and my fury and ultimately, my activism. My need to answer that question (posed by Rise Against in the song The Eco-Terrorist In Me, by the way) with a yes. And hopefully-- "Yes, and I was hardly alone."