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I remember years ago I used to look at someone like Pete Seeger who had worked, say, 40 years by that time for important causes and thought, "Where is his outrage? Why does he seem so optimistic? Doesn't he understand how entrenched and systematic the evil is?"
I thought back then that his efforts to clean up the Hudson River were naive and missing the big picture. A lot of older activists struck me that way. They tended to know only one or two issues in depth, though they kept up casually on current events.
I think now that he was still an activist who continued to get results because he had moved to a different phase of activism than I was in at the time.
When we first open our eyes to the world of public policy and politics, it is generally because we have been inspired to join a political campaign. There's a certain glee in finding out how our candidate's positions are superior not only to his/her opponent's, but to what has been achieved in Congress or the state legislature or wherever the candidate is headed. We get a sense of superiority just knowing we back someone who knows better and who will improve things. We knock ourselves out campaigning and celebrate when we win. When the next candidate appears w/ a similar agenda, we back that person, too.
We want to see how much of a difference we made, so we start following what happens next, politically. This leads to the next phase--starting to pay attention to issues and current events in general. Perhaps we start getting newsletters from one or two issue-oriented groups. Or follow one or two blogs. Or become active in a party locally. We start to see how much more work there is to do than we were formerly aware of. But we dig in, call Congress when prompted, or hit the pavement each summer for our favorite candidate, and write checks when we can. We read in those newsletters or blogs how we have sometimes gotten a piece of legislation passed--how our efforts made a difference. Or sometimes our candidate wins. But we also start to notice how sometimes the bill was defeated or the court case lost, even though we'd been convinced that the situation was important. Sometimes our candidate is outspent and loses, and often can't get the promised reforms passed.
We become outraged by much of what we find out. We try harder. We try to involve others. If our SO, or close friends are disinterested, we may get involved in recruiting strangers when we campaign door to door, phoning for the party, or writing motivational pieces for a blog or a letter to the editor. And our understanding of the broader picture increases. By this time we may sometimes watch C-SPAN. We see how the same politicians keep obstructing needed reforms. We learn how much more money the entrenched elite interests always have than the reformers. We learn about the huge, negative, worldwide impact on much we hold dear caused by the unremitting actions of a small, powerful segment that cares only about its own advantages. We find out how few of our neighbors want to do anything more than vote every few years, and how few of those care to learn enough to make informed voting choices. Sometimes we hear even luminaries like Michael Moore say they're discouraged. We learn the devastating impossibility of making it all, or even most of it, right.
We think about giving up. We try to pay less attention to what's going on, but we can't unlearn the big lessons. Even if we only scan the front page of the newspaper occasionally, or see politics when it shows up on a satirical TV show, we know what it means in a way we didn't before we began the journey.
There are a number of ways people go at this point. Some get used to being bitter. They stay fairly informed, but the whole world becomes the enemy--part for perpetrating evil, the rest for allowing it. They disengage, and they get a sort of nihilistic satisfaction when the good side yet again loses. They feel their low opinion of the world is vindicated.
Others decide that they need to be more realistic. They decide their hurt is a painful lesson about how foolish it is to tilt at windmills. They move toward the "center" of the political spectrum and look for positions to advocate that won't get such hard pushback from the powers that be, such as carbon credits as opposed to stronger emissions regulations. They remain involved and feel they are sometimes making headway, but have little hope that the world will ever get much better than it is. They try not to look at the longterm picture. They get angry, even vindictive, with people who demand they back more anti-establishment measures. They tell themselves they're angry because "the perfect is enemy of the good", and those idealists are only derailing good compromises. But they are actually angry because the more progressive activists remind them of the hope they have lost.
A few, after having been knocked down, reassess things a little differently. They acknowledge how strong evil is and how powerless and disconnected with public policy most people feel in modern large societies. They admit to themselves that not only is progress slow, but that there is no such thing as an ultimate, a final, once-and-for-all win. As far back in history as it's possible to go, they see that there have always been people who have clawed their way into positions of power over others and who spend their considerable energies staying in power no matter the consequences to the society as a whole. They accept that there always will be. They wonder how, in light of that reality, some reformers keep going for a lifetime.
They look in history for examples of when there was a point to the struggle. What they see is that it took 80 years for women in the U.S. to become enfranchised. No one who was active at the start of the struggle lived to see the victory. From the Magna Carta to the U.S. Constitution there were 572 years, and citizen empowerment in the U.S. continues to be endangered and needs constant shoring up. It took over a hundred years to abolish slavery in the U.S., and African-American citizens are still working to have the same access to opportunities that citizens of European descent take for granted. Perhaps most problematic have been labor rights, access to a comfortable standard of living for the majority of working people. We have not seen straight, upward progress. There's been a lot of three steps forward and two steps back, depending on whether the gov't has been backing economic measures that benefit working people and the economy as a whole. Still, a great many jobs offer a 40 hour week, more or less, two days a week off, workers comp if you get hurt, and the promise of Social Security in your old age.
Politically active people who get this far in the re-evaluation usually remain active. They see their goals differently. They think of themselves, however large or small a part they play, as a belonging to a much larger effort with an unknown destination. They know that what may not be possible in one lifetime may still bear fruit. They know that improvement, but not absolute success, is possible, and that it matters. They even know that the human race will eventually die, but that as a member of the species we have an allegiance to it--it's the way we are made; it's who we are. Anything less diminishes a person. We know that this awareness gives us a grounding and sustenance that the most elite and power-driven can't imagine. Think of the MLK "I have a dream" speech. See how Michael Moore pulled himself back up and set up a website to encourage people to commit to a certain number of actions a week--w/o knowing for sure whether or not anyone would respond.
People in it for the long haul pace themselves. They learn their strengths and their limitations. Each person's abilities are different. They look for the next action they feel they can take, big or small, that moves in the right direction. They look to ally with others going in the same direction, and they don't waste time worrying about those who aren't. To newbies they may appear naive. It doesn't matter. They know that sometimes they will evaluate situations incorrectly or make other mistakes. They know that they can only do their best and hope that sometimes they will be very right.
Though I don't have Pete Seeger's talent for motivating people to drop everything and devote themselves to a particular action, I do believe I now understand better who he was. And I hope my small daily actions are a tiny bit effective, and that they cumulatively have some impact. Perhaps the overwhelmed reader of this recounting can find where in the spectrum you fit for now. And it can give you some peace despite the ups and downs of being engaged.
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