I am really taking this to heart, Max. As someone who works on the media side of Extinction Rebellion PDX, and has worked and may again work for Veterans For Peace Climate Crisis and Militarism Project, I have always told myself: well, this is what I can contribute - thinking, reading, writing, editing, speaking, helping others to speak in public. I'm pretty old, have health problems, and dread being arrested again, let alone jailed, just the physical experience of it (and I have never been beaten, as you have). But I have been thinking lately, before I read this essay, about exactly this: too many commentators, too few people taking action, especially MATERIAL or DIRECT, not symbolic action. I'm thinking about what I can change in my life. The end of my life is coming more into view. How can I "finish strong" as my personal trainer used to urge me? I'm reading "At Work in the Ruins" by Dougald Hine of the Dark Mountain Project, about how he came to the end of speaking publicly about climate change (crisis, breakdown, emergency) because after years and years of little to no real action, what more is there to say? And here I am writing too much... Anyway, thanks so much for these thoughts, and may they spark real action and feed our collective courage.
Beautifully said Max. I deeply, deeply agree. There are so many ways to manifest direct action in the physical world. Confrontation at the frontline is critical, but so is much else. All of it is needed. Urgently.
I read it here again and again: 'I agree with what you are saying but I am to [... insert excuse here ...]. My contribution is to educate.'
Staying in the thought space doesn't 'do' anything. Doesn't save anything. Stop anything. Action anything. Doesn't prepare for anything.
In truth, writing in this online space adds to the toll on the planet. It has consequence. So talking without doing is a negative sum game. Every commentator should be doing both. Words + action. Otherwise you are telling your readers to be exactly the same.
Is "fight" the most apt term for our struggle? Can we allow it to be a struggle rather than a fight? It may not be so trivial a question as it may seem initially.
To struggle takes courage. To fight takes courage. Both require courage, devotion and risk. But the word "fight" feels like it is not in the right register or key.
Bob Dylan in 1979 songs: "My so-called friends have fallen under a spell / They look me squarely in the eye and they say, “All is well”" ~from "Precious Angel" & "Sometimes I feel so low-down and disgusted / Can’t help but wonder what’s happenin’ to my companions / Are they lost or are they found... All that foreign oil controlling American soil / Look around you, it’s just bound to make you embarrassed / Sheiks walkin’ around like kings / Wearing fancy jewels and nose rings / Deciding America’s future from Amsterdam and to Paris / And there’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend... Man’s ego is inflated, his laws are outdated, they don’t apply no more / You can’t rely no more to be standin’ around waitin'... I don’t care about economy / I don’t care about astronomy / But it sure do bother me to see my loved ones turning into puppets / There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend" from "Slow Train"
I’ve pondered this question for much of my life. Since most people are conformists and many don’t have the education to think in systems, they are hard to move. Nate Hagens has an interesting recent podcast about truth telling and its limitations. Many people are simply a lost cause. What it will take to move the others, I’m not sure. All I know is that we can’t give up and we must keep working to find the ways to reach them and bring them along. As younger people are less invested in this crumbling system, they may be more able to hear the truth and act on it.
The history of art, journalism, storytelling putting people to sleep is long...we put our children to bed with archetypal fables and stories...
Bertolt Brecht worked tirelessly to keep the audience awake. His so-called "Alienation Effect" (Verfremdungseffekt) was an effort to prevent the audience from getting sucked into the world of the play. He wanted audiences alert and aware enough to hold both the dramatic reality and their daily lives in one conceptual space so that when they left the theatre and went back out into the world, they would act upon their experience.
This is a problem of faith: as long as one can live in their head or keep a head-based reality alive, then what goes on in the world for real is of little or no matter. This is what people mean when they say: "I just focus on the positive," or "I have faith in beauty," or some other variation of flashing their privilege-bling that they get to live in a luxurious world of make believe as they hop in their Prius and drive off to the organic co-op grocery store that sells cacao.
Orpheus was told not to look back at Eurydice, not because she would literally descend back into Hades, but because she would always be alive and there with him if he just had faith that she was walking just behind him. Eurydice was never going to come back from the dead for real, but if Orpheus thought she was there, then that was as real in his head as if she were alive: he killed her for good when he checked to see if she was really there -- in reality.
It's been pretty well established by now that people live in their heads because they live less on Earth than they used to...not enough dirt in their mouths.
The art of getting people to care enough to take action is the goal of what I call Real Artists. Those who create what they call art for any other reason have way too much time on their hands; art is too precious of a natural resource to be wasted on anything else...spoken as a former dance-theatre producer.
I live in the so-called "high desert" of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I felt--and feel--called to struggle (I prefer struggle over fight) to protect and preserve Southern Resident orcas. It rose to the level of a vow, that I will not let them go extinct if I can do anything to prevent their extinction. That soon became a vow to preserve, protect and enhance salmon (and migratory fish) habitat. And so my vow brought me to four dams in the lower Snake River, which must be breached in order to feed both salmon and orcas. But it is not 100% clear how this can be done without a massive dam removal or breaching movement, as it seems to me. It is not 100% clear to me how to build such a movement. What exactly constitutes potentially effective action is not clear to me. Is it clear to you, Max?
I've decided that next year is my year of taking several trips to see the dams -- four in the lower Columbia and four in the lower Snake. But first I will need to fortify myself by visiting the Klamath River, then likely the Smith River. I grew up in the headwaters of the Rogue, near the Applegate River, on a tributary of the Applegate. I've got rivers in my blood. They call to me, as do their watersheds. And, yes, I plan to write a book about all of this. It's what I know how to do. I do not know how to confront the Army Corps of Engineers at "their" dams. I barely have a clue about how to grow a movement sufficient to such a task as breaching dams. Do you, Max? I'm travelling there next year--which is as soon as I can be prepared. I plan to be confronted by the dams, the rivers, the watershed--to let them sink into my soul's depths. This I barely know how to do, but I plan to. I cannot do it in New Mexico. I must be there, on the land and in the waters.
I can only think of Pogo and meeting the enemy: we are the enemy. The easiest action is to stop breeding and making more of us until we can be in balance with nature. We humans are a plague on other species and the planet.
It's probably scant comfort regarding saving the world, but I'm sure that there are very many people out there who are both inspired by and deeply appreciative of your vast efforts and dedication.
I agree one hundred percent with your observation: too many words, too little action. Because of a brain tumor in 2019 and unwelcome arthritis and a numb foot, I am no longer capable of physical confrontation at street level. If I were jailed, I could well die lacking anti-seizure medication. For people like myself, I have repeatedly asked readers to boycott and move their money out of fossil fuel-sponsoring banks. Starving the tumors sucking the planet dry at scale would have a great effect along with the tools you advocate for.
I have also suggested a tax revolt. Why are we paying taxes to a government that funds genocide in Gaza regardless of party, now has a Gestapo, destroys environmental regulation, and openly steals our tax dollars? They need our money to carry out their agenda.
Unfortunately, courage is in short supply, and our situation will not be changed without bloodshed. Your words, mine, and others with similar messaging carry personal risk, as anything going against this fascist regime, including working against the destruction of the planet, can be twisted and charged as terrorism. The Prairieland case protesting ICE is a model going forward.
I feel your frustration as Oregon and so much of the planet burns from fossil-fueled climate change. It's beyond coincidence; it's murderous policy.
Max, what you do is brave and inspiring and beyond the measure of how many people turn up or how many bulldozers ultimately roll. You in your way keep me and many more going in our ways. Your pain is the price of being a forerunner - and the time will come. I am not sure what brings change about. They say the pen is mightier than the sword so it is possible that some day someone will write something that does change things. To an extent the conditions must also be right. Perhaps the best change of my life was South Africa’s ending of apartheid. Far too many died in the struggle (may they rest in peace). It all contributed to change coming. One of the brokers of that change was Margaret Thatcher. Whatever bad she led (as she did), it is possible that her influence, particularly as a woman in a male-dominated space, made a huge difference in that situation. I am not waiting for the change in order to thank you. THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for your work and the inspiration it gives me. I am inspired to write also because I think I have an important message. Time will tell if I am right or if I am making a mistake like so many have through a few millennia now. The size of what we are up against is huge and formidable, even if invisible. And even one activist or three do speak for millions, rest assured. Thank you. (Please also read my book! I will do my best to promote it once it’s out!).
I am really taking this to heart, Max. As someone who works on the media side of Extinction Rebellion PDX, and has worked and may again work for Veterans For Peace Climate Crisis and Militarism Project, I have always told myself: well, this is what I can contribute - thinking, reading, writing, editing, speaking, helping others to speak in public. I'm pretty old, have health problems, and dread being arrested again, let alone jailed, just the physical experience of it (and I have never been beaten, as you have). But I have been thinking lately, before I read this essay, about exactly this: too many commentators, too few people taking action, especially MATERIAL or DIRECT, not symbolic action. I'm thinking about what I can change in my life. The end of my life is coming more into view. How can I "finish strong" as my personal trainer used to urge me? I'm reading "At Work in the Ruins" by Dougald Hine of the Dark Mountain Project, about how he came to the end of speaking publicly about climate change (crisis, breakdown, emergency) because after years and years of little to no real action, what more is there to say? And here I am writing too much... Anyway, thanks so much for these thoughts, and may they spark real action and feed our collective courage.
Beautifully said Max. I deeply, deeply agree. There are so many ways to manifest direct action in the physical world. Confrontation at the frontline is critical, but so is much else. All of it is needed. Urgently.
I read it here again and again: 'I agree with what you are saying but I am to [... insert excuse here ...]. My contribution is to educate.'
Staying in the thought space doesn't 'do' anything. Doesn't save anything. Stop anything. Action anything. Doesn't prepare for anything.
In truth, writing in this online space adds to the toll on the planet. It has consequence. So talking without doing is a negative sum game. Every commentator should be doing both. Words + action. Otherwise you are telling your readers to be exactly the same.
Is "fight" the most apt term for our struggle? Can we allow it to be a struggle rather than a fight? It may not be so trivial a question as it may seem initially.
To struggle takes courage. To fight takes courage. Both require courage, devotion and risk. But the word "fight" feels like it is not in the right register or key.
I may be wrong about this.
Bob Dylan in 1979 songs: "My so-called friends have fallen under a spell / They look me squarely in the eye and they say, “All is well”" ~from "Precious Angel" & "Sometimes I feel so low-down and disgusted / Can’t help but wonder what’s happenin’ to my companions / Are they lost or are they found... All that foreign oil controlling American soil / Look around you, it’s just bound to make you embarrassed / Sheiks walkin’ around like kings / Wearing fancy jewels and nose rings / Deciding America’s future from Amsterdam and to Paris / And there’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend... Man’s ego is inflated, his laws are outdated, they don’t apply no more / You can’t rely no more to be standin’ around waitin'... I don’t care about economy / I don’t care about astronomy / But it sure do bother me to see my loved ones turning into puppets / There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend" from "Slow Train"
I’ve pondered this question for much of my life. Since most people are conformists and many don’t have the education to think in systems, they are hard to move. Nate Hagens has an interesting recent podcast about truth telling and its limitations. Many people are simply a lost cause. What it will take to move the others, I’m not sure. All I know is that we can’t give up and we must keep working to find the ways to reach them and bring them along. As younger people are less invested in this crumbling system, they may be more able to hear the truth and act on it.
The history of art, journalism, storytelling putting people to sleep is long...we put our children to bed with archetypal fables and stories...
Bertolt Brecht worked tirelessly to keep the audience awake. His so-called "Alienation Effect" (Verfremdungseffekt) was an effort to prevent the audience from getting sucked into the world of the play. He wanted audiences alert and aware enough to hold both the dramatic reality and their daily lives in one conceptual space so that when they left the theatre and went back out into the world, they would act upon their experience.
This is a problem of faith: as long as one can live in their head or keep a head-based reality alive, then what goes on in the world for real is of little or no matter. This is what people mean when they say: "I just focus on the positive," or "I have faith in beauty," or some other variation of flashing their privilege-bling that they get to live in a luxurious world of make believe as they hop in their Prius and drive off to the organic co-op grocery store that sells cacao.
Orpheus was told not to look back at Eurydice, not because she would literally descend back into Hades, but because she would always be alive and there with him if he just had faith that she was walking just behind him. Eurydice was never going to come back from the dead for real, but if Orpheus thought she was there, then that was as real in his head as if she were alive: he killed her for good when he checked to see if she was really there -- in reality.
It's been pretty well established by now that people live in their heads because they live less on Earth than they used to...not enough dirt in their mouths.
The art of getting people to care enough to take action is the goal of what I call Real Artists. Those who create what they call art for any other reason have way too much time on their hands; art is too precious of a natural resource to be wasted on anything else...spoken as a former dance-theatre producer.
I live in the so-called "high desert" of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I felt--and feel--called to struggle (I prefer struggle over fight) to protect and preserve Southern Resident orcas. It rose to the level of a vow, that I will not let them go extinct if I can do anything to prevent their extinction. That soon became a vow to preserve, protect and enhance salmon (and migratory fish) habitat. And so my vow brought me to four dams in the lower Snake River, which must be breached in order to feed both salmon and orcas. But it is not 100% clear how this can be done without a massive dam removal or breaching movement, as it seems to me. It is not 100% clear to me how to build such a movement. What exactly constitutes potentially effective action is not clear to me. Is it clear to you, Max?
I've decided that next year is my year of taking several trips to see the dams -- four in the lower Columbia and four in the lower Snake. But first I will need to fortify myself by visiting the Klamath River, then likely the Smith River. I grew up in the headwaters of the Rogue, near the Applegate River, on a tributary of the Applegate. I've got rivers in my blood. They call to me, as do their watersheds. And, yes, I plan to write a book about all of this. It's what I know how to do. I do not know how to confront the Army Corps of Engineers at "their" dams. I barely have a clue about how to grow a movement sufficient to such a task as breaching dams. Do you, Max? I'm travelling there next year--which is as soon as I can be prepared. I plan to be confronted by the dams, the rivers, the watershed--to let them sink into my soul's depths. This I barely know how to do, but I plan to. I cannot do it in New Mexico. I must be there, on the land and in the waters.
I can only think of Pogo and meeting the enemy: we are the enemy. The easiest action is to stop breeding and making more of us until we can be in balance with nature. We humans are a plague on other species and the planet.
It sure seems that way, doesn’t it? And I have always been a Pogo fan.
Very well said, Max.
It's probably scant comfort regarding saving the world, but I'm sure that there are very many people out there who are both inspired by and deeply appreciative of your vast efforts and dedication.
I agree one hundred percent with your observation: too many words, too little action. Because of a brain tumor in 2019 and unwelcome arthritis and a numb foot, I am no longer capable of physical confrontation at street level. If I were jailed, I could well die lacking anti-seizure medication. For people like myself, I have repeatedly asked readers to boycott and move their money out of fossil fuel-sponsoring banks. Starving the tumors sucking the planet dry at scale would have a great effect along with the tools you advocate for.
I have also suggested a tax revolt. Why are we paying taxes to a government that funds genocide in Gaza regardless of party, now has a Gestapo, destroys environmental regulation, and openly steals our tax dollars? They need our money to carry out their agenda.
Unfortunately, courage is in short supply, and our situation will not be changed without bloodshed. Your words, mine, and others with similar messaging carry personal risk, as anything going against this fascist regime, including working against the destruction of the planet, can be twisted and charged as terrorism. The Prairieland case protesting ICE is a model going forward.
I feel your frustration as Oregon and so much of the planet burns from fossil-fueled climate change. It's beyond coincidence; it's murderous policy.
https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/trump-destroys-america
Very important message that we should all heed. Myself included.
Max, what you do is brave and inspiring and beyond the measure of how many people turn up or how many bulldozers ultimately roll. You in your way keep me and many more going in our ways. Your pain is the price of being a forerunner - and the time will come. I am not sure what brings change about. They say the pen is mightier than the sword so it is possible that some day someone will write something that does change things. To an extent the conditions must also be right. Perhaps the best change of my life was South Africa’s ending of apartheid. Far too many died in the struggle (may they rest in peace). It all contributed to change coming. One of the brokers of that change was Margaret Thatcher. Whatever bad she led (as she did), it is possible that her influence, particularly as a woman in a male-dominated space, made a huge difference in that situation. I am not waiting for the change in order to thank you. THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for your work and the inspiration it gives me. I am inspired to write also because I think I have an important message. Time will tell if I am right or if I am making a mistake like so many have through a few millennia now. The size of what we are up against is huge and formidable, even if invisible. And even one activist or three do speak for millions, rest assured. Thank you. (Please also read my book! I will do my best to promote it once it’s out!).