Jen Gerson: The right to disengage from the Omnicause

Valid commentary on the nature of meaningful citizenship. Certainly, political activism is also meaningful but needs to be sustained, well-thought out, and reasonably consistent between all the various injustices in the world and society:

…Look, I’m not saying that it’s wrong to engage in political and social activism. But I suspect we risk harming young people with still-forming identities when we encourage them to hyper-fixate on problems that they have neither the emotional maturity, life experience or practical skill sets to meaningfully address. 

Further, we’ve all fallen into the habit of reducing the concept of citizenship into a narrow axiom of activism, and stripping that word of the very social context that makes it effective. The purpose of an education can’t be to churn out an army of well-intentioned activists, throwing their bodies and minds at every passing injustice. Rather, we should be trying to create well-rounded citizens; people who meaningfully contribute to their local communities through their families, employment, volunteer work, spiritual lives, and hobbies. If activism of a more radical sort is one pillar of a rich and well-grounded social life, all the better, but to reduce the concept of “civic society” to activism at the expense of all the other pillars not only risks creating unbalanced individuals, it will, paradoxically, make such individuals far less effective at creating the social changes they wish to enact. 

Hence the choir quip. Or field hockey. Or drama. Pick an extra-curricular, really. (And I would, here, encourage all education ministers to appreciate the importance of activities too often and too easily cut in the budget for being considered frivolous or expendable. They’re not.)

Obviously, I’ve been stewing over this idea since the encampments demanding various universities divest from Israel began to pop up on North American campuses. Police also appeared to move rather quickly to arrest protestors who were beginning to set up an encampment on the road in front of Parliament this week. For a moment, I want to reserve my judgment on what appears, to me, to be a clear example of a highly contagious social phenomena. That is, I don’t want to turn this column into an opinion piece about whether or not these protestors are right or wrong about Palestine and Israel. In principle, I don’t really have a problem with protestors setting up encampments to make their point, except insofar as this form of protest has a tendency to create serious safety problems over time, both for the participants, and for the surrounding communities. 

Rather, I’d confine myself to observing that these protests and encampments appear to be only the latest manifestation of a series of highly charged political movements that rapidly attract followers, engage in mass shows of support, and then fizzle out and move on to the next seemingly existential crisis. 

Coastal Gas, MeToo, Black Lives Matter, trans issues, COVID, anti-COVID, Ukraine, now Israel. Others have recently labelled it “The Omnicause.” Social activism that is ever present. Ever urgent. Ever crucial. Put the morality of any specific issue aside for just a moment, and it’s hard to ignore the bandwagoner effect. This is absolutely no different to the kind of energy that gets stirred up when a city’s sports team hits the playoffs. 

I often get the impression not of a real commitment to a cause, but rather a desperate flailing for meaning and society by people who are doped by the certainty of being on the right side of history. Righteousness is a high, man. …

You have the right to deeply interrogate your own beliefs, emotions, and motives, and from that state of introspection, to decide how you wish to spend your limited time and energy. You have a right to confine yourselves to the things that serve you. 

You don’t have to do things that serve your peer group; you don’t have to be or appear to be virtuous; you don’t need to go along to get along, nor to acquire status; and you sure as hell don’t need to let your will be hijacked by social media algorithms that profit by fuelling perpetual social movements and outrage cycles. 

And if that process of conscious examination returns a positive result — “yes, this does actually matter. I do care about it” — then know that you will be radically more effective as an activist or political actor if you can raise awareness or cash or volunteers within established and durable social networks; again, family, school, employment, social hobbies, spiritual community, and the like. It’s great to attend a protest, but real, effective and durable change most often finds itself in these quiet and unglamorous foundations of real civil society. Developing a fulfilling and healthy life isn’t an abrogation of our duty to do good in the world. Rather, I think that it’s by being healthy and engaged people that we start to become the change we wish to see in the world around us. 

Source: Jen Gerson: The right to disengage from the Omnicause