If you’re like me, you’ve unfortunately fallen into the habit of endlessly consuming bad media, or ‘doomscrolling.’ I see environmental destruction for human use, food insecurity while billionaires get more and more wealthy. I see systemic injustice everywhere I look— I can’t open any news site without feeling like the world has gone downhill. This cycle of media consumption leads me to be monumentally frustrated with the injustices plaguing the world. Luckily, I am not alone. Kieran Setiya, author and professor, describes in chapter 5 of his book, Life is Hard: How Philosophy can help up find our way, the injustices he sees all over the news and how he thinks that we should approach them.
It seems easy when too much stuff happening at once, it can overwhelm many to the point of deciding it may be better to ‘throw in the towel’ on the world, so to speak. After all, we’re just one person. However, Setiya says it is important to resist that urge. To give up and to minimize the impact of the efforts that we are trying to make is to not make any progress towards making a better tomorrow. To say that we are just one person is to dissolve the many one by one. Setiya urges us to keep moving forward. Any step to the face of justice is a step in the right direction.
“Ok, I’m committed,” I promise to a Setiya who cannot listen. “Now I just to everything all at once? I mean, if I don’t, then I’m not making that much of a difference.” Setiya answers back, though he cannot hear me. He urges us to focus our energy— if you try to be a die-hard activist of every cause it will most certainly burn you out. Even if we dial back our energy, we may not be able to make as much as a difference as we’d like. The best way that I think about it is if we want to give away 10 dollars to help someone else. If give away a dime per person that we see, we won’t make much of a difference. However, if we give that 10 dollars to someone in need, that could makes the difference like between if someone eat a meal or not. Take this same principle and apply it to your energy towards activism, and you will get a much better return on the good you put into the world.
“Ok, Setiya,” I say to my book, “let’s say I’ve chose my cause. How do I know when I’ve done enough?” Well, Setiya, almost as if he can predict my questions, has an answer for that dilemma, too. Setiya says that it is easy to fall into a trap of over-committing to a cause and getting generosity burnout. He says to commit to a cause, make a difference there, but don’t forget what makes life worth it. Make sure to leave room in your life for the arts, make sure to leave about to give back to yourself.
I finish the chapter with a sense of improved ability and ambition. If the people I see who are overwhelmed with bad news commit to just one cause, we will have a force of people who can vow to making the world a better place. We can’t let ourselves be paralyzed by the amount of injustice in the world, or else there will be nothing done. I am set with a new determination to do what I can where I can. The best part of all of this? Everyone can commit to that simple promise.
Armed with new tools, I am ready to do good!
Below, I have included some of my favorite charities that people can donate to or learn about to find their cause they will be a fighter for.
World Wildlife Fund
https://www.worldwildlife.org/
The Trevor project
https://www.thetrevorproject.org/
Human Rights Watch
Environmental Defense Fund
No comments:
Post a Comment