With his July Rolling Stone article, Bill McKibben attracted enormous attention for his proposal to step up the fight against the fossil fuels industry in the struggle to forestall global warming. To identify a clear opponent and mobilize power against it is, of course, a strategy of polarization. McKibben has been getting some thoughtful push-back, and I’d like to respond to one of the objections I’ve heard: that polarizing in this way distorts the truth, since carbon pollution is driven by millions of consumer choices. We’re all responsible for the fix we’re in, some critics say, so it’s wrong to mobilize against the 1 percent.
I’d like to challenge this objection on three grounds: it misreads power, privileges one way of seeking truth and snuggles into a middle-class comfort zone.
When it comes to energy policy, power is not evenly distributed. An individual consumer’s choice to purchase a car instead of a bike is nothing like an individual CEO’s choice to blow up a mountaintop in order to mine coal. It could become trendy to eat local food — it already has, thank goodness — but an individual’s decision to buy at the farmers market and a bank’s decision to fund windmills instead of coal mining are not at all comparable in terms of their leverage or effect.
Responsibility should be assigned according to degree of power in decision making, and when it comes to energy, it’s clear who in the U.S. is most influential in the biggest decisions. Why not hold the 1 percent accountable for the enormous power that they now have — and which they fight to retain?
A more accurate picture
I agree that a polarizing campaign against “the baddies” doesn’t represent a complicated and nuanced account of all the truth about what drives climate change. But just about any given campaign’s start-up picture inevitably leaves out a lot.
An academic might prefer to start with the most complicated version of the truth possible. That’s an academic’s job, after all — the pursuit of nuance. It’s a mistake, however, for McKibben’s scholarly critics to take an intellectual procedure and apply it outside the theory seminar. Starting with the complicated version doesn’t line up with how people actually learn, either as individuals or as a body politic.
Harvard professor George C. Homans pointed out that people usually build their cognitive maps through successive approximations. We get a rough image of something (the earth is flat), and as we address it more carefully we get more clarity (it’s round); then still more observation yields nuance (it’s actually oval).
People generally get a fuller understanding of reality through successive approximations. So do societies and the social movements that lead them in the direction of more complicated truths. (For a fuller explanation of this pedagogical view, see my book, Facilitating Group Learning.)
Mohandas Gandhi rooted his work in the value of satya (truth), and at the same time led polarizing campaigns. Looking back, we can see that his work was in alignment with how most people actually learn. By the end of the Salt Satyagraha, both the Indians and the British knew far more about imperialism than either had known in the beginning.
Gandhi found social conflict a powerful means of learning, especially when views of truth are in dispute. In her book Conquest of Violence, Joan V. Bondurant argues this to be Gandhi’s great contribution to political philosophy: Fierce contention can be a valuable means of discovering truth.
Contention might sometimes even be superior to purely intellectual inquiry. When I started to study sociology, for instance, I judged the field to be largely innocent of what was going on in U.S. race relations; its picture of reality was seriously “off,” along with the pictures of race held by most of society.
Then the civil rights movement unfolded, the country polarized and intellectuals learned from what was happening. Not only did much of the United States wake up, but academics did as well.
What does this have to do with social class?
I’ve found it useful to think of each social class as having a culture: a set of norms and attitudes that back up the skills that class members need to perform their role in the larger economy.
Be warned: Just like when we identify a culture with a place or nation, when we say that a class has a culture we make generalizations that have many exceptions. It’s best to use generalizations cautiously. The point is simply to throw enough light on class to see some differences among classes, to make it easier to use the strengths that show up, and to become aware of weaknesses.
Middle-class people, for example, contribute to social change in many ways. They are usually socialized to believe that they as individuals can make a difference in their neighborhoods, cities and even the larger world. They often bring a sense of political optimism that helps a campaign get started. They bring other gifts, but like any class they also bring blind spots.
The point of class awareness for social changers is to become alert to areas where their own thinking may be clouded by their class training.
In both the owning class and the working class, there is wide understanding that economic power is a decisive force in society. Billionaire Warren E. Buffett put it clearly in his interview with The New York Times: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
The perch of the middle class is different; in the middle, it can be harder to see what’s going on. The Times’ middle-class readers who read Buffett’s quote in 2006 did not erupt. They seem to have read Buffett with glazed eyes, unable to process the information.
There’s a reason. The middle class is socialized to remain confused about power. That’s how middle-class people can create narratives that ignore class struggle and assign the primary responsibility to — in the case of energy policy — consumers. The amount of privilege and the appearance of power given to middle class individuals make them especially prone to versions of “blame the victims.”
In my graduate school days, the leading sociological image of U.S. society was “consensus.” I believe it was their middle classness that prevented social scientists from seeing the fundamentals in U.S. race relations prior to the civil rights movement — again, a failure of power analysis.
These blind spots are not unusual in the middle class. Another of the narratives has been that the unemployed could be working if they would stay in high school or complete job training programs. But working class people recognize that’s a physical impossibility. The jobs don’t exist. The leadership of the U.S. economy exports millions of jobs. It’s the 1 percent that decides the number of jobs available, not high school drop-outs!
When middle-class people become aware enough to question their own favorite narratives, their educational attainment becomes a greater resource for social change. The gifts that go with the middle class role are enormously valuable to social change; the problem for any class comes when it forgets humility and believes that its class perspective is The One That Counts.
So, how can members of any class check themselves? They can start by asking themselves whether they are operating inside their comfort zones. If the answer is “yes,” their perspective might not be appropriate, since working for radical change (such as truly sustainable energy policy) cannot be done from inside our comfort zones.
The very awareness of discomfort when reading McKibben’s proposal could be, for many readers, a reason to support him. Outside our comfort zone is where learning happens. Outside our comfort zone is where we’ll save the planet and ourselves.
Americans work to buy gas, and buy gas in order to work. There is little that is voluntary about it. So much for consumer choice.
There are many places where public transportation does NOT exist, and people walk, because they do not have cars. For about 7 years I drove because there was no direct public transportation (would have taken me over 2 hours); the walk would have been long as well (probably 4 hours), and my schooling gave me limited options for jobs. But in many ways I do have choices others do not, so tho my income is low, I’ve a middle class privilege (been to college, own a home, exposed to many experiences and entertainment options, steady retirement income, medical options). I think it’s too easy to dismiss the ‘gas/work’ idea as ‘no choice’ for true ‘middle class’ people.
Then maybe he meant It wasn’t a choice for those who have less than you. Currently my paycheck goes about 75% to rent, 20% gas, with about 5% left over for discretionary spending. My roommate buys the groceries, that takes about half his paycheck. I know I make more than him. We live in the place we do only because it was the best we can afford. To put the percentages in perspective our rent is $700 a month. We both work close to full time.
We have NO consumer choice because we can not afford to go anywhere but Wal-mart and work.
I think this is a valuable analysis, and it raises questions about ways in which different social classes are obstructed from taking firm action against climate change. It makes me wonder about other classes as well. In order to build a cross-class coalition, as you have earlier suggested is so important, we need to find ways in which different groups of people can support each other in overcoming their respective addictions to upholding the oil industry.
It seems to me, for instance, that working-class Americans face a real dilemma here because the choice is being posed to them in such a way that they would stand to take on higher fuel prices and fewer jobs if the fuel industry takes a hit. Considering how economically vulnerable they are, I sense that they’re also a major bulwark against demonizing oil companies — not just middle class academic conflict aversion. This sense of vulnerability and dependence, in turn, carries over to cultural preferences. (Middle-class academics, I imagine, are probably more likely to drive fuel-efficient cars than oil field workers.)
How can middle-class people help lessen working-class dependence on the oil industry, and how can working-class people help middle-class counterparts overcome their aversion to conflict?
my critique of the mckibben piece came from a slightly different angle…yes, i was a bit put off that he chose to declare an “enemy”…but i am even more perplexed that he continues to dwell on “terrifying math”, which, for most people, is and will remain an abstraction – neither something that tends to make us feel connected to the problem, nor something that leads us to comprehend what the solutions might be.
my 2-part “constructive critique” was published in truthout…the first part is called “we have met the environment, and it is us: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/10483-we-have-met-the-environment-and-it-is-us
the second part, which i think speaks directly to nathan’s question above about how middle-class people can help lessen dependence on the oil industry, was titled “the multifold resistance: an invitation” when it was first published on my blog (http://www.synergeticomnisolution.com) but was changed by truthout to “how to break up with big oil: a “complicated” relationship”: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/10656-breaking-up-with-big-oil-a-complicated-relationship
The power that is most relevant to urgently needed transformational change is what Michel Foucault calls “bio-power,” literally the power over (uber) survival and reproduction. What is of greatest concern and urgency is not transforming the entire economy but those aspects that are directly related to survival and reproduction – food, shelter, right livelihood, and community – bio-power, what Vandana Shiva calls the sustenance economy. Almost all people today live in colonial dependency on the corporations and their state for the basic necessities of survival.
This dependency effectively limits political action and co-opts the development of mass social movements. Until people have real alternatives to buying and consuming the necessities of survival provided by the corporations, bio-power will remain a means of corporate oppression rather than Earth liberation. Even more than Dr. Sharp’s regime change, we need John Holloway’s changing the world without taking power. This brilliant double entendre speaks not just to taking state power, but the revolutionary creation of a new power to counteract the taking by the capitalist system of the sustenance economy. Through the power of doing together to restore the sustenance economy we can negate the taking power which has brought both natural economy and the human economy to the brink of collapse.
I think part of the discussion is not just over simplicity, but over accuracy. “All power in the US is held by lizard people” wouldn’t just be a simpler story, but a false one. Some stories you don’t respond to by adding nuance; you respond by starting over.
The thing about Gandhi’s view of imperialist power dynamics is that he put all the responsibility (and therefore power) in the hands of the Indian people. The British are here, he said, because we have welcomed them in. They will leave when we decide it’s time for them to go.
This isn’t that complicated: the 1% don’t have power of their own, we allow them to use our power.
A CEO doesn’t blow up a mountaintop; thousands of people cooperating with the CEO blow up a mountaintop.
If we pretend the 1% have power of their own–if we build that error into our simple version of the story–we’ll start by trying to get them to behave differently.
If we see that they’re using our power, we’ll start by taking it back.
Power itself is an abstract concept, and its reality is determined by the consequences of its application.
The “1%” controls the majority of money in this country, and our society is founded on money. We need it for everything we do. We need it to feed ourselves and our families, and we need it to keep warm in the winter and cold in the summer, and to cure our diseases and so on.
Therefor people with money will ALWAYS find those who are in need of money, and will do work for money, and people in need will ALWAYS find ways to justify how they earn their money.
Saying “we should just stop doing what they say and take back our power” is all very well, but it doesn’t happen just by saying it. If those thousands of people just refused to blow up a mountain, they would be out of a job, and another few thousand people would be brought in. You’re talking about a level of cooperation that has never existed in the history of humanity.
The power they wield is real, and the only way to change that reality is to completely overhaul how our society works.
Maybe that’s what you want to do, but it isn’t anything CLOSE to possible.
No matter where we want to get to, we have to start by seeing the world for what it is.
Just what is the point of talking about the “middle class,” when no one bothers to define this term? Not the conservative, moderates, liberals or progressives. My guess is that by using the term without definition, it leaves everyone to assume he or she is in that class. If it means those with an ADJUSTED annual income of $250,000, then it put the majority in the “lower class,” which is another story indeed!
I appreciate this article, and completely agree that there are huge chasms between the amount of power held by a single individual choosing to walk or bike, or refrain from using single use items, and those making sweeping corporate decisions, like drilling in the Arctic. Of course if we find ways to unify, we multiply our power. And some actions by their very nature require/create a change in consciousness, like setting up a neighborhood tool lending system where people realize they are much more than atomized buying units. Those kinds of consciousness changing actions are happening all over, and though it’s hard to quantify their impact, there is evidence they are preparing the soil for the deep changes we need.
I agree with George’s analysis. And I would note that it is an American tradition that contention is a more likely way to arrive at truth. Our entire adversarial system of justice, in its best sense, depends upon it. People (with their lawyers) arguing their very best case about guilt or innocence, and a jury of one’s peers undertaking to find the truth underneath the argument.
However, I find Bill McKibben’s general case unhelpful, much as I found Al Gore’s arguments similar. Gore argued that if a substantial turnaround didn’t happen by 2010, we would have reached a point of no return. Well, we’re past that, and I know more than a few “middle class” would-be activists thoroughly disheartened as a result.
I would have taken George’s argument much further, though. How much of our general capacity to move toward substantial change reflect our general commonly shared attitude – among the rich, middle-class, and poor – about property rights, property being something we can control and dispose of as we please. I think American society HAS reached a consensus on this issue, and until we take it on head on, it is difficult for me to imagine anything but essentially technocratic models for change.
I couldn’t agree more with Jeb Barrett that definition of what we mean by “middle class” would be a good idea. This column is part 2 of a multi-part series on class, and the next two columns (finally!) get down to defining each class. One of them defines more in terms of class characteristics, and the other defines in terms of occupations and functions in the larger economy.
As you’ll find out, I don’t see much activist usefulness in defining class in terms of income, because income for the same job varies so much in terms of local labor market conditions and whether the job tends to be unionized or not. I remember my high school teachers complaining that truckers were making a lot more money than they were, and realizing even then that they were making a class statement: “We teachers are middle class and should be paid more than working class truckers.” That was one of those situations in which unionization made all the difference in income, not class membership in terms of nature of the job and function in the economy.
Income as a definer of class means more when we’re emphasizing opportunity, and especially when we’re focusing on people as consumers. That’s one of the unstated objectives of the one %, I suspect: to get us all so focused on ourselves as consumers that we lose track of our role as producers. My dad, for example, took a lot of pride in his identity as a working class man, pointing to the bridge nearby that he helped build. It would have been nice for the one % if he forgot that pride and just focused on himself as a purchaser of a car and the latest gizmo.
I’ll explain more of that in columns to come, realizing of course that lots of definitions of “class” can be valid depending on the use we’re making of class analysis. Yes, I’m influenced by my academic discipline (sociology), but the main thing I’m trying to do in these columns is offer a perspective on class that’s immediately useful to activists interested in joining the class war.
Joan Kresich and others who note the flurry of activity that’s been going on at a grassroots level to support people’s alternatives to planetary destruction will be interested in my column of February 18, “Occupy the Long View.” I do think that education and grassroots organization are essential to building a living revolution, but whether any particular project (e.g. Transition Towns) makes much difference has to do — in my thinking — with how it contextualizes itself. If it frames its mission as an alternative to open struggle, it’s part of the problem, not the solution. If it understands itself to be part of a broader movement that includes open struggle, and allows that understanding to guide its strategy, then it’s part of the solution. There’s much more about this with specific examples in my book TOWARD A LIVING REVOLUTION, published in July in the United Kingdom.
Good discussion here.
Defining terms is troublesome. In high school students were largely middle-class, although, the range in family incomes may have been 4 to 1. Today my income is in the poverty class, however, I have a 2-year degree and continue to learn daily. What economic definitions lack is the viewing the whole person. If asked, I say I’m middle-class out of habit, since I use the term to refer to more than income or location, but includes education and abilities. As I said, this is just a habit which rarely comes into discussion today. Some of these so-called upper-class, or whatever, people are rather vulgar and less-educated than myself. No, income can’t be used to define “class” as “class” itself has no value or proper role without royalty or imperial government. While I use the term “Empire” to refer to the gang (government?) in Washington DC, the issue of class rarely enters my thinking.
If using ‘class’ as a label must continue, then broadening its scope will dilute its importance. But, even so, these convenient identity labels serve divisive ends, whether economic, educational, ethnic, religious, and on….
To sum up: ‘class’ can go the way political parties, I think, must too – out of usage.
To paraphrase Howard Zinn in his marvelous The People’s History of the United States, social class distinctions have been a cancerous growth in our Nation from the very beginning.It’s always the privileged exploiting the less privileged. Zinn also notes that the privileged class in the colonial days spawned racism as a way to ensure that indentured white servants wouldn’t join forces with rebelling black slaves to overthrow the patricians.Underlying class distinctions and tensions, of course, is our undemocratic form of capitalism. America’s state of deterioration could be stopped and reversed by organizing and unleashing two-fisted democracy power (see http://www.uschamberofdemocracy.com), but that may never happen.
“indentured white servants” is how my family got started here back in 1639, so I’ve been told. Come full circle, yes.
And today on BookTV an author reminded us, free blacks in our nation’s capitol owned slaves themselves by the early 1800s.