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Democratic Underground
Fri Mar 05th 2010, 12:07 PM
With over 100,000 copies in print, my book "Soul of a Citizen" has inspired
thousands of citizens to make their voices heard and actions count--and to stay involved for the long haul. I spent the past year writing a wholly revised new edition, which St Martin's will publish March 30, and which HuffPo will serialize each Thursday for the next several months. I like to think of it as an antidote to the political demoralization, paralysis, and despair that so many people are feeling these days. Here's the first excerpt, adapted from the chapter called "The Cynical Smirk.
When America elected Barack Obama, cynicism seemed in retreat, beaten back by a wave of ordinary people staking their time, money, and spirit on the prospect of significant change. We seemed to have reached a major historical turning point, offering the chance finally to address our country's root crises. Now, cynicism and despair have bounced back on steroids, as if to mock any new hope that we can help create a better world. Last year's soaring expectations seem distant memories, leaving a bitter taste. Obama's campaign made grassroots participation central, and he's invited us to help him do the right thing in office. But his compromises and the failings of Senate leaders to overcome the resistance of their obstructionist colleagues have destroyed much of the grassroots enthusiasm that existed a year ago. Meanwhile, those of us whose passionate engagement helped elect Obama haven't stepped up to help define our national debates (while the Teabaggers have). Most of us have done little in the past year beyond signing online letters or petitions, and watching shell-shocked from the sidelines as the country's politics spiraled steadily downward. Yet I still believe that we can help transform America through what Nelson Mandela called "the multiplication of courage," as I explore in "Soul of a Citizen." But for that resurgence of courage to bloom, we need to get past the cynical resignation that assumes change is impossible.
* * *
What happens when we decide that our politics is so corrupt, bought and paid for, that all talk of ever changing it is naïve? "Everybody lies," says a veteran newspaperman quoted in the Utne Reader, "but it doesn't matter, because nobody listens." In an extreme personal example, imagine a man who tells his young son to jump from the stairs into his arms. The father catches the boy twice, but the third time steps back and lets him fall. "That's to teach you never to trust anyone," he explains, "even your own father."
We've come to expect comparable betrayals when we think about changing our society. A long-powerful strain in our culture posits all businesspeople and politicians as corrupt, all religious leaders charlatans, all journalists hacks--and all who'd dare to try to work to change their society naïve fools. Increasingly, it's come to occupy the mental and psychological space we could reserve for hope--at least for the kind of hope that might inspire us to take larger political stands. Better to expect nothing, in this view, than to set ourselves up for certain disappointment.
Taken far enough, this kind of cynical resignation can become as great a barrier to meaningful public action as all other obstacles combined.Continue reading here.
