Sunday, August 9, 2009

Musings: Effecting Change

It was raining when I awoke, causing me to wonder if my now regularly scheduled Sunday morning walk with my former neighbor Andy, due to proceed unless it was pouring, would have to be nixed. But by the time Koko and I arrived at his house, where he and Momi were waiting out front, causing Koko to whimper and whine with anticipation, only black clouds remained.

They later delivered another sizable shower, but fortunately Andy had an umbrella and we had plenty to talk about while we waited alongside the road for it to pass. When it did, it left lacy clouds clinging to the fluted upper peaks and verdant summit of Makaleha, whose face was streaked with two broad white waterfalls. We admired all of it while discussing a question I’d posed to him early on: “So what’s your take on how, or even whether, we can shift people’s thinking or work to effectively change things?”

That topic is often on my mind, but it had been in the forefront since reading some of the thoughtful comments left on last Wednesday’s post, ”Emerging Insanities.”

“What sort of things are you talking about?’ he asked, and when I replied, “the massive environmental and social problems we face,” Andy said, “Oh, that. I just throw up my hands.”

The way he figures it, nothing much will change until widespread disease wipes out a large segment of the population, and then the chiropractors and other alternative medicine folks will say they have the answer to it, and when it becomes clear that they don’t, people will return to a rational way of thinking and we can work on resolving some of our problems.

I didn’t bite at the bait he threw out about alternative medicine, since it’s a long-running debate between us, and I knew he was partly kidding, but I did groan, “Oh, no, don’t tell me you think science is going to save us.”

No, he wasn’t going that far, but he did come up with an example of how irrational thought is holding us back from doing something that could have a positive effect on both environmental and social problems, and that’s in regard to limiting population. If people were thinking rationally about the subject, they’d be having no kids, or one.

And that segued nicely into the question of how, then, can people’s thinking be changed to bring about profound social change? Not that I believe rationalism has all the answers. In fact, its total dismissal of other ways of knowing is part of the reason why we’re in this mess. Life, at least as I’ve experienced it, does not fit neatly into the confines of logic and scientific principles and provability, and discounting everything outside that box as superstitious bunk has worked to sever our sense of interconnectedness, shrivel our recognition of what’s sacred and suppress various helpful tools and options.

Andy said he used to believe that progressive social change could be effected through education, and in the heyday of 1960s radicalism, that seemed to be true. But his years as a college professor disabused him of that notion, in part because he found, over time, that his students were progressively less prepared, which seemed to indicate that they were passing through school without getting educated. And as the nation swung to the right, he found some of his brightest students held deeply conservative and/or religious views, so education obviously wasn’t having the intended effect on them.

Then we got to talking about change effected through the political system, with me saying something like that approach had proven pretty much useless, so how long are you gonna bang your head against that wall? But Andy said, no, it had worked, once, when Kauai had a very strong anti-development sentiment in the 1970s and early 1980s that coalesced into a 4-3 majority on the County Council, including a haole newby by the name of Jeremy Harris. And while that majority couldn’t push its agenda too far, because the mayor wasn’t on board, it was able to stop things. Over time, that movement continued to grow until JoAnn Yukimura was finally elected mayor.

Then Hurricane Iniki hit, and a lot of people lost their appetite for slow growth in the push to rebuild the island and its economy. Andy said he’s seen Kauai take that teeter-totter approach pretty consistently: when times are good, people don’t want growth, but when times are bad, they embrace it, because they’re worried about jobs for themselves and their kids.

But it wasn’t just the economic crisis caused by the hurricane that derailed the slow-growth movement, it was the opportunity it presented for JoAnn’s vitriolic foes, those who feared her and felt she was dangerous — most notably the ABBY (anybody but Yukimura) crowd dominated by disgruntled tour boat operators who had been kicked out of Hanalei — to spread the rumors and outright lies about her response to Iniki that still dog her today.

As for Kauai's progressive politicians, Jeremy went off to Honolulu and joined the dark side, and later JoAnn also went off to Honolulu and joined the more mainstream, accommodating side, which caused her to come across as weak and ineffective when she returned to the Council. That, in turn, alienated many of her longtime backers, which is a large part of the reason why she lost the last mayoral election, even though Andy and I agreed we both voted for her because we believe she still does hold the core values that prompted us to be early enthusiastic supporters.

That leaves us where we are today, with economic fears dominating the populace, and so the political scene, which makes it difficult for the slow-growthers to regroup and the sustainability crowd to gain a toehold. The education system, meanwhile, is gutted by budget cuts and bogged down by the standards-driven “No Child Left Behind” legacy of the Bush Administration, so it’s no longer a breeding ground for critical thinkers, much less revolutionaries.

As we parted, I was left still wondering what it will take to shift the dominant materialistic world view that has delivered a wealth of problems, and a dearth of solutions, or — at the risk of being branded negative, yet again — if it’s even possible, without the prodding forces of calamity or disaster. But at least I now had, thanks to Andy, a box of lilikoi to sustain me through such ruminations.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

not sure if we need revolutionaries but we do need to continue to have progressives advance the notion of sustainability as a community value that fits into the social, economic and political structures that we partake in.

the environmental and social justice movements have never been more embraced by the mainstream. all over the globe people are wising up to the fact that capitalism, as practiced by empirical governments and corporations, is not healthy for our planet. more folks are willing to support local endeavors that build community and improve their standard of living. putting commodity before community has had disastrous results; people around the globe want, need and deserve better.

Anonymous said...

Joann lost to Bernard because:
*too many local folks didn't vote for her
*Bernard had inherited Baptiste's machine with county workers afraid of change
* she is an entrenched politician who has played her political hand too many times

Katy said...

All around the globe, advances are being made in effective grassroots organizing, one part of which is a necessary emphasis on popular education. But as your friend pointed out, education is not enough. It has to be joined with mobilization, direct action, and the building of viable alternatives outside of the mechanisms of government.

Making change is not possible without organizing around people's common needs.

A recent essay on the impacts of the current economic crisis by John Clarke in the Canadian journal "Upping the Anti" makes this salient point:

"Organizing social resistance and struggle is not like sitting on a platform waiting for a train to come in. If no lead is given, passivity is more likely than resistance. If, on the other hand, there are efforts to develop political education, agitation and models of effective resistance, shock can give way to anger and a readiness to fight back."

Also, I am disturbed by calls to address "over-population." Generally, the claims to the primacy of population as a problem focus on the supposed over-population of the global South. Never mind that a family in the global South uses far fewer resources than a typical individual in the global North. There are rational reasons for having larger families in many places.

Hoping for widespread disease or economic calamity to curb the reach of the "unwashed masses" is cynical and inhumane, and certainly can't be taken seriously in any way until those who advocate it or see it as a solution are ready to have their own families and neighborhoods victimized by such misfortune.

Anonymous said...

"Joann lost to Bernard because:
*too many local folks didn't vote for her
*Bernard had inherited Baptiste's machine with county workers afraid of change"

-- very strong points, esp the 1st


"Also, I am disturbed by calls to address "over-population." Generally, the claims to the primacy of population as a problem focus on the supposed over-population of the global South. Never mind that a family in the global South uses far fewer resources than a typical individual in the global North. There are rational reasons for having larger families in many places."

-- also pretty much all good and true points, but really the problem of course is that india and china want to be like americans. if europe / US can continue to develop some great "green / clean" technology, and get it used in india / china, there is sound reason for optimism (some at least)


darwin_was_pretty_smart

Anonymous said...

Katy said- "Also, I am disturbed by calls to address "over-population"

Population is the problem. I am disturbed by anyone denying that is the case. Any species that cannot control it's population will overshoot its finite resource base. It is called dieoff. It is a biological fact of nature from algae to the Easter Islands.

Joan's friend make the mistake of confusing education with school. They are not the same. School today is primarily for socialization and training. Neither are education. Training is skill-set acquisition to complete a process (usually service or manufacturing). Education involves the development of rational cognitive processes to answer questions of why? One may possess the skill sets to make an atomic bomb and not know why they are doing so.(beyond the fact that someone is paying them to do so).

Today the government really doesn't want educated people they want trained people (see old Jay Walk All-Stars episodes for examples of trained but uneducated people). They learned in the 1960s that educating people to think beyond their pay grade, makes them to uppity and before you know it they are questioning the self-proclaimed "expert" opinions of the "smart" people. People are born ignorant not stupid, for that they need to attend school. Try autodidacticism. You may like it.

Andy Parx said...

When did we have a 4-3 majority on the council? We had five or six (depending on if you included Eddie Sarita) progressives on the council at times over ten years (78-88) but one or another always ran for mayor and lost (Jeremy, John Barretto, JoAnn) and some left politics for other reasons so we never got that 4-3... unless I’m getting old and forgetful.

JoAnn’s big change was when she took – and embraced- the Steve Covey Seven Habits of Highly Defective A-holes and decided to allow the land rapers and greedy developers to become “stakeholders” and give them “a seat at the table” where they could dictate outcomes no matter what the working class people- who had no seat- wanted. They were depending on her to defend their interests at the table- and she screwed ‘em

She learned the wrong lesson from her ’94 defeat thinking that she just didn’t play politics wel or often enough instead of realizing her micromanagement of the we-be’s had alienated the people who worked under her until they sabotaged her.

By ’92 she had already started to compromise her principles to try to satisfy the unsatisfyable instead of sticking to principles. But instead of learning that she needed to fight harder for what she believed in, she decided to be the consummate politician who compromises away their beliefs before they begin to negotiate.

Why she lost her fighting spirit is anyone’s guess but the fact that she did caused her supporters to see that and refuse to fight for her if she would no longer fight for them.

That meant her “progressive base” thought “what have you done for me lately” and so were willing to “give someone new a chance”. And voila- Bernard.

Anonymous said...

Bernard did enjoy the pole position because of his county worker connection. I heard plenty locals say," She had her chance already. Lets get someone new."

Joann played nice, tried to apologize for her past and ran a weak campaign. She'll be back; can't keep her away from Planning and Council meetings. Still yet, it's sad to see her stick up for Chair Asing so that she can make up to the locals that haven't forgiven her for her Superferry & PMRF Starwars stance, or her hairy armpits.

Anonymous said...

Katy said "Hoping for widespread disease or economic calamity to curb the reach of the "unwashed masses" is cynical and inhumane,"

Who is hoping for that? Who said anything about curbing the reach of the "unwashed masses?"

Andy Parx said "When did we have a 4-3 majority on the council?"

When Joann, Jeremy Harris, Rodney Yadao and John Barretto were on there.

Anonymous said...

Public school is not meant to educate. It is to indoctrinate. Public school is meant to produce a large majority of people who have the same ideology, and historical perspectives. This way mass media can have mass impact. People don't trust the government to run healthcare or even properly fix a pothole in the road, but we let government "educate" our kids - without question.

Anonymous said...

People don't trust the government to run healthcare or even properly fix a pothole in the road, but we let government "educate" our kids - without question.

Wrongo. the ones who don't trust the government home-school their kids.

Anonymous said...

If you love Kauai, take comfort knowing that she existed long before the dawn of man and will still be here long after man is gone.

Anonymous said...

We need more progressives like Bynum who push for vacation rentals on ag land and who is also a gentleman farmer himself. A guy who is "calm and reasonable" yet whines when he can't get his way. Send more ASAP

Anonymous said...

"They learned in the 1960s that educating people to think beyond their pay grade, makes them to uppity and before you know it they are questioning the self-proclaimed "expert" opinions of the "smart" people."

I think they figured that out way before 1960. I believe that was why it was illegal to teach slaves to read. They might question the institution of slavery itself, and then cause trouble of some sort.

Anonymous said...

Andy Parx said: "JoAnn’s big change was when she took – and embraced- the Steve Covey Seven Habits of Highly Defective A-holes"

Amazingly Parx is right on target. I am always amazed how apparently bright people loose their way seeking answers in loony cults who propose enumerated steps to solve all problems. Most of their answers are simple, straightforward and wrong.

Anonymous said...

"can't keep her away from Planning and Council meetings."

Mel Ratpozo as well. I have a theory. Those that go to council meetings regularly and take their citizenship beyond voting, will not be elected. Those that attend meetings a lot and then run for office have never won a seat. Successfully elected people seldom if ever attend council (or planning, etc.meetings. Those that do are perceived as having a "special interest." Never realized being a good citizen was such a stigma. Mel and Joann wrongly assume continually getting your mug on TV is a way to stay fresh in the public mind and get re-elected. WRONG!

Andy Parx said...

I don't think Jeremy and John Barretto were ever on the same council.

Anonymous said...

Getting your mug on TV worked for Chang, but as Anonymous pointed out he did not do so by attending county meetings.