Making the World a Better Place

So I’m having a Facebook conversation with some people the other day (I qualify it as a “Facebook conversation” because while they can be productive and helpful, they really aren’t the same as a face-to-face over dinner kind of thing). General “la-ti-da” kind of stuff and I am rolling out my typical indictments of modern American Christians that they would rather spend money on their own Sunday morning entertainment or lobby the government for more cultural superiority than they would like to help the poor or instill social justice, blah blah blah. My close friend, who I’ve known for over a decade, in all earnestness, says to me privately, “I know what you don’t like, but I want to know things you do like.” She voiced a desire to make the world a better place and felt like since I believe so strongly in this ideal, wouldn’t it be more fruitful to concentrate my efforts on illuminating what is right instead of what is wrong?

Well, yes. But the problem with that is (and has been since my idealism was torn down half-way through my Peace Corps service), I don’t really know the way forward like I thought I once did. The problems in this world are beyond big. They are global in scale. I watch even the most powerful voices advocate for change against a much more powerful elite that has vested interests in maintaining the status quo. Even working towards local changes becomes hard.

Nevertheless, my blissful naivety still exists. Even if my idealism is partly shattered, I still believe even small things make a difference and if more people worked together, the sum of our concerted efforts would be greater than the individual changes we enact. So here is my attempt to explore the possibilities of what we can do as individuals to make the world a better place, globally and locally.

Overall:

Before we even get into the specifics, I think we should first approach an overall attitude.

JUST GIVE A DAMN.

Even as small as it sounds, this is a heroic feat in our modern, complacent society. Cornel West, Christian theologian, has very prophetically noted, “The expansion of indifference to other people's suffering is the most dangerous phenomenon in the world.” Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, with equal fervor, argues this:

“There is immense silent agony in the world, and the task of man is to be a voice for the plundered poor, to prevent the desecration of the soul and the violation of our dream of honesty.
The more deeply immersed I became in the thinking of the prophets, the more powerfully it became clear to me what the lives of the Prophets sought to convey: that morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.”

Do you care who makes your clothing? Do you care whether or not the people who mine valuable minerals for your electronics are paid a living wage? Do you care how many innocent civilians died today by US government sponsored military actions? Does it matter to you how many Americans get three nutritious meals every day? Do you even think about the parents who have to watch their children die because they don’t have access to life saving medicine and medical care that most of us take for granted? Do you care how much farmers are paid for their crops or just whether the cup of coffee was increased $0.40? Does it matter to you that other human beings live in destitution or die prematurely or fail to get a basic education and a chance to provide a life for their children that they never had? Does it matter to you that many neighborhoods in America are plagued by such systemic poverty that even prison is an escape. All of these things (and so much more) we can change. But our lives are comfortable. So it takes an effort to actually give a damn.

This is where it has to begin. You have to actually care about what happens to other people that you don’t know. You have to care in a meaningful way.

You have to let that concern carry you forward into finding out ways you can change the status quo. To educating yourself. To imagining a new world and fighting the never-ending struggle to make that world come to life. To make sacrifices in your daily everyday routines.

Global:

My journey has taken me in many different directions towards finding out what I can do in the global sphere to change the problems of social injustice. I joined the Peace Corps and worked at international development for a bit. I have many friends that have also been driven by this impulse to change the world, so they dropped everything and moved away to another country where they live and work in local communities trying to help the severely impoverished improve their life one project at a time.

But not everyone can do this. Not at all. Some people have rooted down. They have kids and other responsibilities that prohibit some kind of dramatic action like this. Or maybe what they feel called to do with their life can’t be done in rural poor countries. Or maybe they simply don’t want to do something that dramatic, but they still want to help in some way.

That’s ok. So what else can be done?

Honestly, and stay with me here, this is where our voice becomes so important.

We live in a democratic society that thrives on our voice being used. The world’s political and economic structures are hugely influenced by the U.S. and our allies. We should be constantly making our voice heard by our government, petitioning them to do things that are not in the best interests of ourselves, but in the best interests of the poorest of the poor (which actually turns out, is ALSO in our best interest – but that’s another blog perhaps). We should be voting for people and ballot initiatives that work to help the poor and make the world more equitable. We should be constantly using our democratic reach to show the powerful political elites of our country that WE CARE ABOUT OTHERS, and if they want to properly represent us, they better do the same.

We also have a substantial economic weight to throw around. How does your favorite clothing company treat its workers? Does candy company XYZ get ethically sourced chocolate? Did your bank contribute  to the Great Recession (Financial Crisis of 2009)? Have they been fined by the SEC recently for defrauding people like you and me? How does Corporation ABC treat its workforce? Does it treat them with respect and a desire to help them subsist and provide for their family?

If we were to make concerted efforts not only to be educated and mindful consumers, but helped other do the same, the market would have no choice but to listen to our concerns and change its practices or lose profits. We have enormous potential, here.

Lastly, you can give money. Now this is a touchy subject. Firstly, most of the people I know are low to middle income. Secondly, financial information is incredibly personal. Most people don’t share that kind of intimate details about their life with other people – especially debts. Even folks who make decent sums of money might be in positions that make it difficult to be as charitable as they would like because of other incredibly personal situations that resulted in debts. And lastly, along with political support, charitable giving is often charged as being a cop-out. “It’s an easy way to assuage guilt without getting personally involved with the poor or oppressed people.” This is greatly oversimplified.

I work at non-profits. I work with a lot of really smart people who could have had much more lucrative careers in another sector. We do this to help people. But we rely on people to help us with monetary contributions. Not everyone can do non-profit work. Not everyone WANTS to do non-profit work. So we are able to do a lot of good work and we wouldn’t be able to do it unless people gave us money. IT’S A BIG DEAL. Even modest contributions. They pile up and it makes an enormous difference.

Local:

Helping the situation in your local community can be both easier and not. Obviously volunteering for some charitable cause that helps serve people or fulfill a local need that is important to you is probably the single biggest way. But that is often very difficult to do, especially with work and family responsibilities. Likewise, giving to those local causes is also very helpful, especially if they are 100% local and receive no outside funding.

If you are a member of a church, or business, or other social civic club, you can look into the budgetary and operational processes. Is there any current practice or norm that has unforeseen consequences that marginalize the poor in your community? Is there any way to help conserve money in order to free up more funds for charitable giving? Can you periodically take up collections or donation drives for local food pantries or thrift shops? If buying a new piece of furniture, is it feasible to give away the old one instead of selling it? There are a myriad of things we can do that just take little bits of mindfulness to the plight of the less fortunate around us and a tiny bit more initiative to pursue that goal.

Lastly, and perhaps more importantly, you can dialogue. You can have 1001 conversations with your family, friends, children, co-workers, acquaintances, even your mail man if you’d like, about these kinds of ideas. I get the general feeling that most people are not spiteful to the poor or the marginalized or the stranger. But they simply don’t think about them or don’t know what to do. For those of us who have strong feelings about these things, it is imperative that we talk more and more about them with other people. Challenge people to do more, whatever that may be. Challenge people to challenge you when they think you aren’t being very mindful. Argue and debate and dialogue about which course of action is the best way to help make the world a better place! Because after all, the path forward is not always clear and two of us can both want a better world and have completely antithetical notions on how to get there. It is imperative that we have civil, friendly conversation to make these kinds of issues on the forefront of our priorities. And by talking about our desires, we openly invite others into an intimate knowledge of our concerns, which opens up understanding and mercy despite disparate political or prudential decisions.

In conclusion, I want to quickly wrap this up with two quick comments:

One was mentioned earlier. Often times, some of these ideas or prescribed actions are maligned as cop-outs or methods of assuaging personal guilt in the complicity of an unfair world. That is oversimplified and not very fair. If no one gave money to non-profit charities, then they wouldn’t exist. If no one advocated to their political leaders about these kinds of things, we would never have had some of the large systemic changes that have indubitably made the world a better place.

Assuaging guilt really isn’t the point. Does it make us feel better to do these things? Sure. But that isn’t bad. The end result of true social justice is the goal. And we won’t feel truly satisfied until we get there. I often here Jesus’ words quoted “The poor will always be with you” as if to say that the priorities of this world come secondary to the spiritual priorities of the church, because after all, there is nothing we can do – injustice is inevitable.

That is a sad, hopeless interpretation of his words. Yes, the poor will always be with us as long as that is the attitude. And if it were our children starving, or our parents dying prematurely of preventable diseases, or us freezing every night because we couldn’t afford heat in the middle of a New England winter, I would find it hard to find Jesus’ mercy and God’s abiding love anywhere in that sentiment. The battle for justice is long and hard. But if we all want a better world, questioning the intentions and veracity of someone’s desire only makes the struggle harder. We need to challenge each other to do more but we need to do it in love and mercy. (And this is something I am constantly struggling with. Outrage and self-righteous indignation often come too easily, unfortunately.)

Secondly, (and lastly – I promise!) many of these suggestions are a lot of work. They require us to break out of our comfort zone. This is true. It requires research and self-education. This is VERY true. Educate yourself. Educate others afterwards. Never stop looking deeper. The world we live in is bigger than ever before and more complex than we can even begin to imagine. Our decisions have profound impacts on a global scale despite feelings of complete hopelessness to do anything. It is hard work. Very hard work.

But we can’t be indifferent. We have to give a damn.