In one of the most brilliant dialogues* from the incredibly witty Peep Show, Mark and Jeremy are arguing after getting stuck in a house the day of Mark's son's christening.
The conversation goes this way:
Mark Corrigan: [screaming in frustration] Arrrgh! I am so screwed! I am so utterly, utterly screwed!
Jeremy Usborne: Look, dude, Zahra's gonna call back, but, you know, until she does, we're in the Nether Zone, yeah? [he sits down on the floor, crossed-legged]
Jeremy Usborne: Time moves at a different speed in the Nether Zone. We need to relax.
Mark Corrigan: You can't relax! We've got to fight, worry, speculate, tut, pace, swear!
Jeremy Usborne: Why?
Mark Corrigan: Because it's an emergency, and in an emergency you watch breaking news and count your tins of butter beans, you don't sit in the garden and put on Kiss FM!
Jeremy Usborne: Dude, we're here for the duration. Let's chill out.
Mark Corrigan: We have an obligation to be anxious, it's a mark of respect for the gravity of the situation!
Mark and Jeremy are stuck, there is nothing they can do. However, Mark is missing his son's christening, and - this would be mind boggling from an economists' perspective - he feels obligated to be anxious; he feels obligated to suffer because it seems disrespectful to sit back and wait for a situation that is completely out of his control to play out.
I am caught between Mark and Jeremy's attitudes when it comes to politics, although I probably fall more in the Mark category. Maybe this is the point where I go wrong, but I am taking politics to be the important, "macro" events and facts: suffering on a massive scale (e.g., global poverty), systems that exclude, marginalize and oppress (the Israeli occupation, the war on drugs and the mass incarceration of backs in the U.S.), governments that have no respect for the lives and aspirations of their people (Saudi and Syria being obvious ones), etc.
Let me first summarize what the Jeremian and Markian view of politics. I will then leave the reader with some thoughts on these views. The fundamental assumption of both models is that we (everyone except a relative handful of people) have so little influence on the unfolding of "macro events" that our position with respect to them is akin to the position of a teenager watching a romantic comedy**.
The Jeremian view of politics: Things might be tragic or sad, but we have no responsibility to care beyond these feelings, or to make an effort to hold "good" opinions. In fact, it's healthier to detach ourselves from political realities we have no control over.
The Markian view of politics: Even if things are unfolding in front of us like a movie, we have a responsibility to care, to get outraged, to get angry, to try to change things - no matter how futile these attempts are - or at the very least to be tortured about the fact that we can't do anything.
If we accept my assumption - which might be a hard pill to swallow for idealists - does the Markian view of politics make any sense? I understand being sad, but why do we feel the need to act as though what we think actually matters if it doesn't? Why do I spend so much time trying to be as careful as possible about the ethical implications of my opinions? For example, why do I get angry or emotional when someone comes up with outrageous arguments defending Bachar Al Assad's regime and its crimes? Does their opinion matter?
*: Watch it, I'm serious. The quality of the acting is really high and the ensuing scene is hilarious.
**: Even when a large portion of the Lebanese population took to the streets in 2005 in order to ask the Syrian army to leave the country, I was demonstrating but it seemed to me like the real moment of politics occurred when we came back home and watched 8pm news to understand what was going on. It seemed like we were on the inside but, at the same time, none of us was fundamental to our actions as a collective and the collective actions in turned moved the political configurations in ways that did not correspond exactly to their intentionality - at least taken purely.
The conversation goes this way:
Mark Corrigan: [screaming in frustration] Arrrgh! I am so screwed! I am so utterly, utterly screwed!
Jeremy Usborne: Look, dude, Zahra's gonna call back, but, you know, until she does, we're in the Nether Zone, yeah? [he sits down on the floor, crossed-legged]
Jeremy Usborne: Time moves at a different speed in the Nether Zone. We need to relax.
Mark Corrigan: You can't relax! We've got to fight, worry, speculate, tut, pace, swear!
Jeremy Usborne: Why?
Mark Corrigan: Because it's an emergency, and in an emergency you watch breaking news and count your tins of butter beans, you don't sit in the garden and put on Kiss FM!
Jeremy Usborne: Dude, we're here for the duration. Let's chill out.
Mark Corrigan: We have an obligation to be anxious, it's a mark of respect for the gravity of the situation!
Mark and Jeremy are stuck, there is nothing they can do. However, Mark is missing his son's christening, and - this would be mind boggling from an economists' perspective - he feels obligated to be anxious; he feels obligated to suffer because it seems disrespectful to sit back and wait for a situation that is completely out of his control to play out.
I am caught between Mark and Jeremy's attitudes when it comes to politics, although I probably fall more in the Mark category. Maybe this is the point where I go wrong, but I am taking politics to be the important, "macro" events and facts: suffering on a massive scale (e.g., global poverty), systems that exclude, marginalize and oppress (the Israeli occupation, the war on drugs and the mass incarceration of backs in the U.S.), governments that have no respect for the lives and aspirations of their people (Saudi and Syria being obvious ones), etc.
Let me first summarize what the Jeremian and Markian view of politics. I will then leave the reader with some thoughts on these views. The fundamental assumption of both models is that we (everyone except a relative handful of people) have so little influence on the unfolding of "macro events" that our position with respect to them is akin to the position of a teenager watching a romantic comedy**.
The Jeremian view of politics: Things might be tragic or sad, but we have no responsibility to care beyond these feelings, or to make an effort to hold "good" opinions. In fact, it's healthier to detach ourselves from political realities we have no control over.
The Markian view of politics: Even if things are unfolding in front of us like a movie, we have a responsibility to care, to get outraged, to get angry, to try to change things - no matter how futile these attempts are - or at the very least to be tortured about the fact that we can't do anything.
If we accept my assumption - which might be a hard pill to swallow for idealists - does the Markian view of politics make any sense? I understand being sad, but why do we feel the need to act as though what we think actually matters if it doesn't? Why do I spend so much time trying to be as careful as possible about the ethical implications of my opinions? For example, why do I get angry or emotional when someone comes up with outrageous arguments defending Bachar Al Assad's regime and its crimes? Does their opinion matter?
*: Watch it, I'm serious. The quality of the acting is really high and the ensuing scene is hilarious.
**: Even when a large portion of the Lebanese population took to the streets in 2005 in order to ask the Syrian army to leave the country, I was demonstrating but it seemed to me like the real moment of politics occurred when we came back home and watched 8pm news to understand what was going on. It seemed like we were on the inside but, at the same time, none of us was fundamental to our actions as a collective and the collective actions in turned moved the political configurations in ways that did not correspond exactly to their intentionality - at least taken purely.
We cannot know if our emotion and attention to a matter is futile. I agree that Mark's panicky burst of anxiety is not productive in and of itself, but if that's an expression he must make to come to terms with the situation, then it may be justified. Jeremy accepts the situation calmly but complacently. He doesn't care, so he can't figure out a way to change the outcome. Mark cares and could well figure out a way to make more with the situation.
ReplyDeleteIn politics, it may seem like holding an opinion is an exercise in futility but there are examples of populist sentiment changing the course of history. Was not the Egyptian revolution in 2011 shaped by the individual opinions of Egyptians about their government? If everyone who supports decriminalization of marijuana were to contact their elected federal representative today and tell them that this is an important issue for them, then we would see policy change happen quickly. Reading an article or seeing a sound byte on TV may not cause you to take decisive action that day, but you cannot make assumptions on what action it may cause you to take in the future, whether protesting, voting a certain way, assassinating a politician, etc.
You may laugh at the man who spends long hours thinking and worrying about the imminent explosion of the Sun and annihilation of life on Earth to happen in a couple billion years, but he may be motivated by his worry into solving this problem, or at least making some amount of progress.
So you may feel the need to do something. As long as if is theoretically possible to change the outcome, then the worry could turn out to be productive.