An Uncomfortable Level of Comfort
12/7/06 (#100)
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
---John F. Kennedy, 1961
I have been thinking about those famous words lately, impressed that a leader would speak to individuals so directly: There is no collective "we" in his exhortation, a word too easily interpreted as "everyone except me"---it is a personal address from the President of the United States to each of our nation's citizens. Kennedy recognized that "the nation" is not an enormous abstract, some political assemblage to which we can choose to belong as our favor suits---a nation is the sum of its people, and if we expect the nation to achieve greatness, we should expect a contribution to that goal from its populace. The problems that faced us as a nation in 1960 required a collective effort to confront, and Kennedy was asking for our help.
Our leaders today never ask me to do anything---we don't have that kind of relationship. Our dynamic, oversimplified, involves the government taking money from my paycheck and, if I'm lucky, telling me how they spent it. I've come to accept this arrangement because this is the relationship the government has defined, and I love the nation more than I loathe the government. (Not this party or that party---the whole money-fueled machine that has mutated out of the mostly-noble designs of our nation's founders.) A politician claiming to solve our problems without asking for our help is like a person assuring us that they can make the bed without asking the person in it to get up, so I endured an entire election season of news-hour commuting waiting to hear a candidate dare to use a word rarely heard in political speeches, one little word that would have enlightened me to the existence of a leader I could support, who didn't pretend that she or he could solve our problems for us instead of with us. That one word? Conserve.
When I think of my youth, I recall a much stronger sense of social nationalism (as opposed to belligerent nationalism), when despite our differences, people seemed to recognize that we were all in the same proverbial boat, and it would float or sink depending on our mutual efforts. There were national campaigns that stick in my memory, efforts to galvanize the nation behind a cause---not huge political issues (like civil rights, ERA or Roe v. Wade), but housekeeping items that concerned every American. While the most famous is likely the pollution ad featuring the Native American in traditional dress, surveying various environmental offenses before turning to the camera to reveal a tear running down his cheek, the example that illustrates my point came in the wake of the oil crisis, when Americans found themselves sitting in their 8-cylider muscle cars while queued up at the gas station. At that time, the Advertising Council promoted the tag line "Don't Be Fuelish", with newspapers running full-page advertisements that featured cut-outs which could be attached to light switches emblazoned with the slogan "Last Out, Lights Out: Don't Be Fuelish".* Conserving fuel (a finite resource) was a national concern, and efforts were made to raise the national consciousness to the merits of conservation. It wasn't a change for the government to make, it was a change for us all to make. (Easy for me to say---I was about eight at the time, and my banana-seat bicycle used the oldest form of bio-fuel: pedal power.)
30 years later, with worldwide oil reserves further depleted, we are in a boat of regrettably similar design, yet our leaders seem less interested in keeping the boat afloat than in making sure that their opponents are blamed for the water rushing over the gunwales. Public debates over Global Warming regularly devolve into charges of political posturing that dismiss years of research by scores of scientists as nothing more than Al Gore's shameless effort to make a political comeback, and too often the quest for solutions is impeded by obsessive effort to assess blame for the cause. (I have seen statistics that make a fair argument for both sides of the Global Warming debate, but to use an inverted analogy, imagine the earth as a house---as it gets cold in the winter, one could argue that it's merely the season, and the season will change. But until then, isn't it wise to take action---close the storm windows, caulk the foundation, etcetera--- rather than sitting around waiting to see if Spring will solve December's cold?)
I was looking for a candidate to use the word "conserve" because it seems like a taboo among national leaders. Over the summer, fuel prices were among the highest rates in history, yet the 8-cylinder SUVs still lined up at the pumps, some requiring over $150.00 to fill the vehicle in a single stop. President Bush called attention to our energy reliance in his 2006 SOTU address, saying, "here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology."**
Technology? The best way? Amazing---imagine someone proposing that the best way to beat addiction to heroin is through technology: Perhaps, but first, you have to stop using the drug. With a national audience watching, why not throw a bone to the concept of conservation? Why not urge Americans to take advantage of public transportation and carpooling? I will bypass the cynicism that says Bush, an oil man, has vested interests in not conserving oil, because I think the bigger reason is that politicians do not want to require anything of their voters---for decades, our so-called leaders have consistently promised to do this and that and anything at all as long as we elected or reelected them, and no one wants to have the reputation as "that candidate who expects something of me." They are afraid to making us uncomfortable; uncomfortable people tend to adjust their circumstances until they are comfortable again, and a politician doesn't want to be mistaken for something that can be adjusted. Thus, the policy of "give the people what they want" (or at least tell them that you will, even if you can't deliver) becomes the status quo, like parents who find it easier to placate their children with acquiescence (and toys) rather than saying, "No." Because saying no is difficult---it requires confrontation, and in the case of politics, opens the candidate up for attack by an opponent who finds it politically profitable to keep promising the toys. So rather than standing firm, the candidate simply promises toys before the other candidate can. And if their opponent promises better toys, tell the children that those toys won't work. To continue that metaphor, I'm personally fed up with being treated like a child.
However, while politicians are an easy target, it's not a simple matter that most are (to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen) no Jack Kennedy. Kennedy's quotation involves two parties, and when was the last time any of us asked what we could do for our country? (In most elections, nearly half of eligible citizens don't even make the effort to cast a vote.) The current political culture has caused many of us to mistake "the nation" as synonymous with "the government"; we might be willing to make personal sacrifices for the nation (at risk of sounding obsequious, our soldiers do that every day), but not for this or that administration, as if our concern over whether the ship sinks or floats is dependent on who is sitting in the captain's chair.
Kennedy seemed to be trying to shift the onus back to the American people---solving issues is OUR responsibility, not the government's. I didn't feel that under Clinton, and I certainly don't under Bush. So if they're not going to ask for our help, what can we do in the meantime?
We can try to ease our dependence on oil ourselves. I love driving as much as anyone (in fact, more than many) but we sold one of our cars two years ago, and while we occasionally curse the single-car lifestyle, it's been a mostly-painless process: Portland is well serviced by buses and trains (we promote the bus to our daughter as a fun adventure, rather than a frustrating necessity, which on the coldest days it can sometimes be), and we're investigating Flex-car in case a second vehicle is ever needed; I carpool to music shows with neighbors, saving the waste of three or four vehicles making the same journey; the family wear sweaters and slippers at home rather than heating the house to faux-summer environs. Please don't mistake this for bragging---it's a simple matter of fact: We (and by "we" I mean "everyone including me") need to stop using so much oil, and these are adjustments that could be made without significantly changing my lifestyle. Beating an addiction is not a battle fought in the future---it's completely present tense, finding a way to not take the drugs at this particular moment. Hopefully, with each successful moment, the next one becomes a bit easier. It doesn't require technology---it requires the will to make a change, and the strength to endure a discomfort until, incrementally, it is no longer uncomfortable. It necessitates effort, but I've opted to conserve because my so-called leaders won't, and every evening I'm greeted at the door by a little girl who reminds me that I'm not conserving for myself, but for future generations who may one day ask why we didn't act when circumstances clearly called for some type of action.
And if nothing else, one of those actions is voting---yes, politics is saturated with pointless posturing, and yes, it's a money-driven machine that sometimes seems irredeemable; but it's the only system we've got, and any change in the system that you want to see will not be achieved by sitting out of the process.
Thinking back to Kennedy's quotation, voting doesn't seem like too much too ask.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis
** http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2006/
©2006 wpreagan
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