Taking Shorter Showers Doesn't Cut It: Why Personal Change Does Not Equal Political Change [View All]

[katty]

more:
http://www.alternet.org/action/141260/taking_shorter_showers_doesn%27t_cut_it%3A_why_personal_change_does_not_equal_political_change/

Taking Shorter Showers Doesn't Cut It: Why Personal Change Does Not Equal Political Change

By Derrick Jensen, Orion Magazine. Posted July 13, 2009.

Are we taking the easy route? Dumpster diving wouldn't have stopped Hitler, and composting wouldn't have ended slavery.

This article was first published in the July/August 2009 issue of Orion Magazine.

Would any sane person think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?

Part of the problem is that we’ve been victims of a campaign of systematic misdirection. Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance. An Inconvenient Truth helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal consumption—changing light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy that is destroying the planet? Even if every person in the United States did everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22 percent. Scientific consensus is that emissions must be reduced by at least 75 percent worldwide.