We have the need and the urge to be two things at the same time: selfish and social, an individual and a member of a community, a consumer and a citizen, living in the moment and sacrificing for the future, impulsive and prudent. Civilizations are built on harmonizing these opposing tendencies. Cultures emerge, grow, and wane according to how well they balance the needs and capacities of the individual with needs and capacities of the community. Both must be nurtured. Both must thrive if a civilization is to survive.
Increasingly our lifestyles and politics are awash in the former: we are self-satisfying individualist who believe that production and consumption of goods and services is all that is expected of us. We deride sacrifice, prudence, sacrifice, and care. We are drowning in the consequences of our unbalance, which everyday becomes more apparent in the decaying conditions of our community, economy, political discourse, and environment.
The decisions required of us today—the challenges before us—are hugely complex with many unknowns and unknowables. Their solutions requires a community response, a tolerance for uncertainty, a willingness to trust others to do the right thing…the capacity to act with humility, care and prudence. One of the most damaging consequences of an individualistic, consumption-driven, consumer-oriented lifestyle is that it hollows out the willingness and capacity to deal with complex tasks. We are distracted by texting and tweeting, shopping and surfing, playing and yearning. Our attention gets consumed by—and limited to—sound bites and emotive images. We lose the ability to tolerate complexity, think critically, dig deeply into issues, see things from multiple perspectives, and willingly negotiate with and trust others. These abilities are required to solve the complex, wicked and tragic problems we face.
In The Challenge of Affluence Avner Offer examines the rising imbalance between consumer oriented instant gratification versus citizen oriented prudence. He illustrates the critical role of cultural, educational, and government institutions we’ve established over time to help us invest in community and act with prudence. Many of these institutions have been under attack by neo-liberalism and Tea Party dogma that “government is the problem,” adding to the imbalance and accelerating our undoing.
Prudence is not easy. It requires work and sacrifice and tolerance. But it allows us to build roads and infrastructure, to get educated, to invest in research and social services we might need in the future, to regulate safe food and risky financial investments, to act responsibly towards challenges of biodiversity collapse and climate chaos, and to care not just about ourselves but for our legacy.
We must find ways to renew our respect for citizenship. We are more than consumers. We are social, interdependent, citizens looking to the future.