WHY BOTHER?
A funny thing happened to me after I sat down to write my fourth book, "Why Bother? Getting a Life in a Locked-Down Land." While attempting to find a publisher, I started doing readings from the book during appearances as diverse as a meeting of Ayn Rand enthusiasts and a class of prospective political scientists at American University. I found something interesting happening. People reacted favorably, but in a different sort of way: instead of talking about the book, they began talking about themselves. My words seem to unlock things that had been on their minds but unspoken.
Becoming more brazen, I passed the book or parts thereof to a few people in the business. Then columnist Russell Mokhiber dropped into my office, and I slipped him a copy. Next thing I knew, Russell was not only reading excerpts to others but, along with Robert Weissman, writing a piece about it. Within three and a half hours of sending out the column, Mokhiber forwarded me 30 e-mails with comments by readers. "Why Bother?" is clearly a question on many people's minds. . . . Here's a slice of the intro:
Why bother? Only to be alive. Only to be real, only to be made not of what we watch and acquire, but of what we think and do. Only, Winston Churchill said, to fight while there is still a small chance so we don't have to fight when there is none. Only to climb the rock face of risk and doubt in order to engage in the most extreme sport of all-that of being a free and conscious human . . . in a society that seems determined to reduce our lives to a barren pair of mandatory functions: compliance and consumption.
What safety we have, the privilege of the cocoon, comes from those who, at much greater danger and with far less chance, climbed that wall, insisted on being human, fought despair, suppressed fear, and denied themselves the illusion of detachment. . . . Our present safety is built upon their risks, on their integrity, rebellion, and passion, and upon the courage that propelled them.
Part of the reckless hubris of our time is to believe that we have become so clever and complex as to render such qualities superfluous. We are assured that if we are competitive and hip enough, if we just obey the rules of the marketplace, all will be well. Yet, as Lily Tomlin said, even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat. And there is another irony. The rules of the marketplace recreate by artificial means the brutality, unfairness, and helplessness that humans have sought to escape for most of their evolution. Only during the last one-tenth of one percent of our history have some broken away from tyrannies of nature and culture to build societies hospitable to the free individual. No small part of this work has occurred in our own land.
Yet, rather than acting as stewards of this fragile achievement, we have lately become increasingly indifferent toward its lessons and profligate with its rewards. Too many, particularly in places of power, have become the spoiled brats of human progress.
For the rest, there is seldom power commensurate with available conscience or opportunities enough for available will. Worse, in the land of the bottom line, virtue often is not only devalued, it is undermined and becomes an object of ridicule. To survive in such a time, to retain the will to be human, to build good communities, and to be decent and caring in such places, is extraordinarily difficult. The carelessly powerful are not about to tell us how. We have to help each other.
What follows is my contribution to this common endeavor. It suggests three exercises. The first is to see clearly our present condition and to examine honestly our losses. The second is to pass safely through a maze of faulty promises and failed prophets. And the third is to consider some of the possibilities that remain.
Life is an endless pick-up game between hope and despair, understanding and doubt, crisis and resolution. "Evermore," Emerson said of it, "beauty and disgust, magnificence and rats." Sisyphus nears the mountaintop, and the rock rolls down again. We lose courage, and suddenly there is a light. What follows reflects this contest in which the grim and the glad are only oscillations and never the end.
For such reasons, I'll speak of possibilities and not of solutions, for it is in the abundance of our choices rather than in the perfection of our path that our future lies. And I'll not dwell on hope and faith because, central as they may be to our lives, far too many politicians, preachers, and publishers have used such words to defer present responsibilities, opportunity, and consciousness. Further, it has been wisely said that hope won't pay the cable bill, and faith is too often just another drug, producing hallucinogenic visions of a flawless future. This is not to reject either, but rather to return them to their rightful role, that of planting seeds of possibility rather than sowing false prospects. . . .
We have come to expect more--including the entitlement of certitude. Hence we sometimes approach these concerns as though we were apostles out on a Saturday shopping for a creed. If this is you, I can't help you. You've come to the wrong door. There's nobody here but another member of the search party. Let's step into the sunlight together and see what we find.
--Sam Smith is editor of THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW, 1739 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20009, Tel: (202) 232-5544, Fax: (202) 234-6222. For a free trial subscription to the bi-monthly hard copy edition and regular e-mail updates, send e-mail and terrestrial address to <ssmith@igc.org>.