While I had already posted the Disobedience video on the Ethical Society of Austin website so that members could participate in these actions as a digital witness, we watched it together during our Sunday meeting on July 3. A day before the nation would be celebrating its 240th year of independence, we had an opportunity to revisit social movements of the past through this movie. We were well aware of July 4 and its meaning. Indeed we decorated a little with flags and some star-spangled centerpieces for our tables. But, when we joined hands and sang "We Shall Overcome" with Pete Seeger, we were all in the mode of thinking about how far we had come in 240 years.
Not far enough.
The video provoked discussion of its focus--fossil fuels and the need to keep them in the ground--but also the broader issue of how to bring about social change on the many issues that confront us as a nation, indeed as a planet. Some took the view that protests of the sort planned by Break Free were not effective, were actually futile; rather the route to social change, they thought, is through education and one-on-one conversations. Others echoed the images of the film itself--the struggle of migrant workers, the civil rights movement, the non-violent but highly effective actions of Mohandas Ghandi--and brought more social change issues to the dialogue--Mothers Against Drunk Driving, anti-slavery and suffragist movements, all of which involved civil disobedience when dialogue had failed to bring the desired change.
We could all agree that change is hard to see close up. Many of us also agreed that we may not be able to effect great changes on our own nor even live to see the changes we hope to bring about. Still we asserted that we can take action in our own lives, making the small changes that are part of the cumulatively greater changes that are needed.
In his 1876 founding address, Felix Adler issued a clarion call:
The world is dark around us and the prospect seems deepening in gloom, and yet there is light ahead. On the volume of the past in starry characters it is written—the starry legend greets us shining through the misty vistas of the future—that the great and noble shall not perish from among the sons of men, that the truth will triumph in the end, and that even the humblest of her servants may in this become the instrument of unending good. We are aiding in laying the foundations of a mighty edifice, whose completion shall not be seen in our day, no, nor in centuries upon centuries after us. But happy are we, indeed, if we can contribute even the least towards so high a consummation. The time calls for action. Up, then, and let us do our part faithfully and well. And oh, friends, our children’s children will hold our memories dearer for the work which we begin this hour.
Adler was speaking of the founding of ethical culture, yes, but ethical culture was founded for the deeds yet to be undertaken by its members, disregarding creed and working not only to build the literal edifice of the Meeting House but the moral edifice of ethical humanism on a global scale. Working, to be sure, in the practical everyday world of need and suffering and petty human failures while seeking a better way to treat each other with respect and compassion. We are a long way from the high goals set at the beginning of our community, but we have the encouragement of our past to buttress our efforts while the future pulls us forward along our path. Indeed, Adler thought of that, too, when nearly 50 years after giving his founding address, he spoke to English ethical humanists about meeting the challenges still being posed to the moral commitment of ethical culture:
The radiant future stretches forth its arms toward us, and binds us to be willing servants to its work, willingly to accept those limitations of the individual will which are indispensable in the service of a faroff cause, a service which at the same time disciplines and ennobles the individual himself.
Social change is a struggle. It demands that we take the long view, that we accept incremental progress as steps on the long path ahead of us. It also demands commitment to that long path and even some degree of sacrifice, if self-discipline is indeed a sacrifice.
Whether or not civil disobedience is the answer to causing change, it will likely remain one of the options for many. For ourselves, today, we may consider what the long-term goal is and what actions we can personally take to work toward that goal. If the goal is to keep fossil fuels in the ground, what can we do to make that happen?
- Educate ourselves about the presence of fossil fuels in our daily lives.
- Reduce our own consumption of fossil fuels.
- Educate and encourage others to do the same.
- Seek ways to influence decisions about fossil fuel extraction (advocacy, public education, divestiture).
- Act up?
