I was recently asked that question, but in a forum where the only acceptable answer was to throw up your hands, bemoaning but accepting victimization. Indeed, I was accused of “elitist lifestyleism” for suggesting there what I am about to suggest here. There is so much injustice, and so much of it delivered by system that increasingly does not respond to the needs of any but the very richest,[1] it is easy to become overwhelmed by it and give up hope of anything ever changing. I’ve certainly felt quite a bit of that myself in the past year. But there are things that we can and should do to resist the increasingly authoritarian society that chokes us.
The first thing, which is simultaneously the easiest and the most difficult, is to talk to people. As long as people feel like they are the only ones bothered by all of this it is easy to stamp out any resistance. An increasing number of people can see and feel the injustice in our government and in our institutions but it’s still not something widely spoken about. Before Edward Snowden proved it true, you would be told to put on your tin foil hat if you thought that the government was engaged in any sort of mass surveillance program. Now you can discuss government surveillance, but it’s met with a collective shrug. People don’t know how upset to be about these things, and there’s a great human inclination to accept it because it’s easier than fighting. Well, don’t. Get angry. Get angry about being spied on, about the militarization of our police, about corporations that commit environmental atrocities with impunity, about the lack of responsiveness of our politicians, about institutions that extract value and leave people as hopeless husks drawn to opiates as all sense of forward progress is snatched out from under them. Let other people know that you are angry. We all wonder, is it just me? Am I the only one that feels this way, and should I just get over it? So many people just need to know that they aren’t alone, that it is not only reasonable to feel anger over this but imperative that they do. So the first thing that we must do is to talk to people and give this valid anger legitimacy.
The second thing is, to the extent possible, to opt out of this extractive system. The political and economic system depends on us collectively doing our part as profitable cogs in the machine. So stop being profitable. There are two main opportunities to extract profit from us: from our labor and from our purchasing decisions. The first, labor, is more difficult to deal with. A lack of job opportunities makes it difficult to have negotiating power with employers and unions have unfortunately been demonized in this country. This first I’ll leave aside, then, and discuss the second. Every time we interact with the marketplace we have an opportunity to make choices that can further the great concentration of wealth that underlies most of our systemic problems. The very worst thing that we can do is buy copious amounts of new things. If something is broken, try to repair it first. If possible, try to buy things used. These actions will help scale down the amount of money that accumulates in few hands. The idea with every purchase is to make it consciously – no impulse buys – and to make these purchasing decisions with the intent of having your money end up in as decentralized a destination as possible. Choose the independent shop over the chain, choose repair over replace, learn the supply chains involved with your choices and pick the one that benefits the most people instead of the least. Implementation of this part will obviously vary a great deal based on your circumstance. Those who can drop off the grid and make everything off of their own land are going to be in the minority, but we can all do what we can to make conscious purchasing decisions and be as unprofitable a cog as we can be.
It is said that it is good to put things in threes, so I will limit myself to just one more item. Address injustices with your local government. I’m not going to advocate for state or federal action here because, frankly, I don’t think that we can as individuals change much here nonviolently. While it’s not a useless endeavor, I’m not going to advocate for effort here unless it’s something that otherwise appeals to you. But locally, things can change. If a police officer in your town or county murders someone, their pets, or robs from them via civil asset forfeiture (or even other, less official ways), don’t stop complaining until something happens. If the city or county council contemplates approving a zoning variance so environmental concerns can be swept under the rug, yell about it to everyone who will listen. The people in your county or city government have to live near you every day of their lives and they aren’t being paid enough to not care when their neighbors call them out for these injustices. Very few people are actually manifestly evil such that they enjoy perpetuating bad situations, people, or outcomes. Mostly it’s just easier to go along with it. Some company wants to destroy wetlands but it will create jobs? Whatever, sure. Some cop shot a pedestrian who gave them a dirty look? Easier not to get involved. Make things more difficult for them, be loud, be obnoxious, and call them out for these actions, and suddenly just rolling with it isn’t the simplest option.
So, embrace this “elitist lifestyle:” talk to people about the things that are important, make conscious purchasing decisions, and take local decisionmakers to task about bad decisions. These are things that we can all do. Are they enough on their own? No. This will not change everything and fix the problems that are pressing with more and more urgency. But this will encourage a public discontent that will eventually have to be addressed, especially because as non-violent avenues of change are closed off it leads to a justified revolutionary movement. This will eat away at the easy extraction of profits from the masses. This will encourage a just local government. Our apathy and isolation make us easy targets individually but an angry and more unified front is not as easily abused.
[1] Zachary Davies Boren, Major Study Finds the US is an Oligarchy, Business Insider. http://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-us-is-an-oligarchy-2014-4
While We Slept 