Reminder: Another World is Possible

What’s “probable” is another matter...

Graphic from Poeta de Alba

Today I want to reflect on something that frustrates me about how we talk about civilized humanity’s relationship to the environment. I’ll also explain how I see my role as an activist writer.

Everyone who’s paying attention to the state of the environment can agree that things need to change. We are collectively depleting the planet’s “resources” (I don’t like that word but it’s convenient here) faster than they are being replenished, and are producing immense amounts of pollution of various kinds. Wildlife habitat is being diminished and extinctions are increasing. Poison is infiltrating water, air and soil. Eventually, our own survival as a species will be in question. In the meantime, quality of life for us and more-than-human creatures is in sharp decline. It’s a bad road we’re on, and we must get off it.

Where people part ways is in how to do that, which is readily apparent in the many discussions that take place online and IRL.

What frustrates me is how such discussions are often derailed by where people are coming from in terms of what’s possible, what’s probable and what’s needed. Or put in other words: what we can do, what we’re likely to be able to do, and what we must do. These are three different things but are often thrown together haphazardly.

This happens no matter what the subject is, whether it’s the genocide in Gaza, politics in the US, economic systems, social justice, or the environment, the last of which is my current area of focus.

To illustrate what I mean let’s look at Gaza because it’s such a clear-cut situation. What is needed—what must happen—is an end to the Israeli onslaught and the provision of essential resources to the Palestinians, at once. This is possible. That is, it can happen. How probable this outcome is—how likely it is to happen—is unknown. Regardless, any person of conscience should do what they can to help make what must happen happen.

Again, in the big picture, anything is possible, so what’s needed is always possible, and it’s a whole nother question as to what’s probable. This is where discussions go awry. People too often talk about what they personally believe is probable as if that’s the full extent of what’s possible (or desirable). But none of us is so wise that our personal perspectives are a reliable yardstick of probability, at least when it comes to big issues. We can guess, but that’s all we can do: Guess.

It’s especially common to conflate what is considered to be politically “possible” with what is de facto possible. To talk about political “possibilities” is actually to talk about probabilities, and in that area, partisan proclivities cloud judgment most of the time. “Oh that’ll never happen,” is an oft-repeated claim. But no matter how forcefully or articulately it’s stated, it’s not factual. It is, again, just a guess, the product of belief. And I personally find “belief” to be very problematic; see my essay “We Need to Stop Believing in ‘Belief.’”

Why does this matter? For a few reasons. One is because we need to keep the Overton window of discourse wide—as wide as it can be. What must happen must always be included in that window. If we narrow it by giving up what must happen for what some people believe is likely to happen, it doesn’t stop there. Soon enough, the new, smaller frame will be shrunken further until all we’re talking about is trivia. Followers of US politics will be quite familiar with this: rhetorically, compromise is followed by compromise, and then compromised further, with little left but empty words. (According to recent polling, a majority of Democratic voters are getting fed up with party leadership, and feel betrayed by the compromising they do.)

Another reason it matters is because when we characterize what is needed as impossible, we breed cynicism, which if left to burgeon sinks into nihilism. Both are dangerous, differing only in degree. I would describe cynicism as the belief (that again) that nothing can change for better, or anyway is unlikely to do so (which is just a guess at probability). It’s the “glass half empty” view. Nihilism is the belief (yup) that it doesn’t matter; that everything is fucked. Both are closely aligned with despair, and here, not for the first time (or probably the last) I’ll pull out a favorite Gandalf quotation:

“Despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.”

The wizard was right. Our predictions are not “beyond all doubt.” They are estimates, projections; guesses.

As a Gen Xer, I once wallowed in both cynicism and nihilism, but fortunately was able to pull myself out of it, somehow, perhaps just because they pained my heart too much. I don’t know. Anyway, I did make the break, and not by running to the cloying shelter of their apparent opposite: hope, which we could associate with optimism, as in “the glass is half full.” The Doomers deride what they call “hopium” but of course as with all binaries, that’s not the whole story.

A friend once suggested that what is sometimes called “hope” is actually “enthusiasm.” This is the will to try, despite the apparent or claimed odds (i.e., what is probable) out of a deeply felt desire to pursue what is needed. This sentiment was succinctly expressed in a popular rallying cry of the anti-globalization movement in the ‘90s and early 2000s: “Another World is Possible” which was originally coined in Latin America as “Otro Mundo es Posible.” The Zapatistas used this phrase, and it was adopted by leftist US American organizers after the WTO protest in Seattle in 1999, an event that inspired me to drop out of the corporate world and become an activist.

Zapatista poster, painting by Beatriz Aurora

I have since wondered if this rallying cry had to be imported into the US at that point in the nation’s history, because cynicism had already taken such a firm hold on the culture after the counter-revolutionary Reagan and the neo-liberal Clinton. Go back a couple decades, though, and in the ‘70s you had César Chávez, the United Farmworkers Union leader, rousing people with “¡Sí, se puede!” which is, “Yes, it can be done!” an evocation of the same spirit.

In my opinion, both “¡Sí, se puede!” and “Otro Mundo es Posible” are expressions of an admirable enthusiasm, not a naive hope, though some cynical and nihilistic people will doubtless dismiss them as the latter.

In any case, they inspire me. In my own writing here, I want to emphasize what must be done and what can be done: what is needed and what is possible. It is not my place to obsess about probabilities and to offer compromises, or to play political games. So, on the subject of the human relationship to the environment, what is needed—what must happen—is a significant decrease in our collective consumption. I am opposed to growing the GDP (which the Capitalists fetishize) and to most forms of what is called “development” (which many Socialists celebrate). Rather than pushing for a “green” or “renewable” energy transition, I am calling for a reduction in energy use across the board.

We just have to use less. And soon. Far too much has been destroyed already, and far too many living creatures—fauna, flora, fungus and more—wiped out.

Another rallying cry from an earlier time is Earth First!’s “No compromise in defense of Mother Earth!” I can only aspire to such an existence on a personal level, but that’s the stance I’m pushing at the policy level. I will leave it to other people to find the mythic “middle ground” or to be “realistic.” There’s an important role to play in holding the Overton window open, and that’s what I’ll be doing. If you appreciate this perspective, subscribe and pass my words along. Thank you!

Poster from Schools for Chiapas