Yes We Can't

So many conversations recently which end with a little sneer: 'We can't do that though can we'. Then there may be an afterthought, a killer blow non-sequitur, particularly if you dared to question why we can't do that.

'You'd go back to the stone age then, would you?'

'So al quaeda would just lay down their weapons, would they'

'Well if we're talking about communism [sneer]...' (which we aren't).

We just can't do that; not any of it. Because it's not what we have now, and because the alternatives to what we have now are - well, the stone age, communism, or fairyland. It's obvious.

So we can't put an end to war, can't end inequality, can't stop people starving while we flourish. Can't stop flying, can't turn down the heating any more, can't get rid of the water cooler in the office. Can't redistribute wealth, can't take a pay cut, can't pay more in taxes or the money would all dissipate. Can't not flourish (while others die). The market would dry up - heaven forbid.

Can't lower our standards, or give up what we are accustomed to having. Can't go backwards.

So you'd go back to the stone age, would you?

Can't stop bombing Afghan villages.

So al quaeda would just lay down their weapons, would they?

Can't be paid according to what we need, not what someone or other thinks that we are worth.

What are you, anyway, a communist?

That's a clincher: if you advocate (more) equal pay, or pay according to need, you must be a communist. So you deserve a sneer.

[Sneer]

The conversations are with Guardian-reading types, charity workers, do-gooders, those who see themselves as making the world a better place. These people should be natural allies: they see themselves as ready for change, open to new, creative ways of doing things, sickened by injustice. But no: we can't do this, or that, and to suggest we can is just too silly. In fact, the suggestion is so very silly that we can't even discuss it sensibly.

The sneer may be a friendly one - a sort of 'well-you're-a-bit-way-out-and-I-live-in-the-real-world' kind of sneer. But still a sneer: still a refusal to discuss the undiscussable and a slightly superior recognition that someone comes from wacko-wacko land.

It's anyway interesting the things that deserve a sneer. Making Poverty History, for example, was possible (or at least - it was possible to say it). Making ourselves a little poorer, on the other hand, in order to make poverty history is neither possible, nor necessary - and nor, for those reasons, is it sayable (in pleasant company). I find myself wondering how on earth we can make poverty history without the rich world becoming just a little poorer - but that too is not sayable in pleasant company. Pleasant company knows that growth is limitless, and only when the super-rich become still super-duper richer will there be enough to trickle down a few more riches to those who live off mud.

A climate deal at Copenhagen was also possible, discussable, apparently, and the NGO sector went into overdrive telling people Yes We Can beforehand. But cutting our emissions by the 90% or so we need just can't be done (although George Monbiot has shown us just exactly how it can be done). So we will cut by 10% or so, if we can, and as long as it doesn't need to stop us flying round the world to broaden our horizons. Because we can't stop doing that.

And then, of course, a year ago, or so, Change itself was possible. Yes We Can. We could stop torture, close Guantanamo, stop foreign wars, and we could stop American support for the atrocities in Palestine. Except that, as it turned out, none of it was possible, and no-we-couldn't. And the strange thing is, that if you ask the Yes-You-Canners what went wrong, it turns out that despite what we (or they) believed, even Obama himself can't do that. If he could have done, he would have. But he didn't, so he obviously couldn't.

This is logic of the highest class. X happened, so it had to happen. There was, and is, no Y. There cannot be a Z. We can't do that

Well, why can't we?

And do we know that we can't?

Surely we, 21st Century beings, can do anything, pretty much, as long as it is not a physical impossibility; and surely questioning the certainties we seem to be presented with is just what human beings do. When life depends on it, when something dear to us is threatened, we can and do explore all options - and can't is not an option. We question the impossible, investigate all avenues, find ways around, create solutions, dare to dream, and then make real those dreams.

And yet when other lives depend on it, we think we have the right to sit upon the riches of the world while others die, as if there were no other options, no Ys or Zs (or ps and qs).

There are at least two problems with the rich world sitting back, refusing to consider other ways of running their affairs. The first is that refusal to consider other ways of doing things – whether those things are bombing, exploiting, polluting or plundering – because of a deterministic end-of-history world view which does not allow for human agency is a sad indictment of our 'civilisation'; a sad reflection on the stage of history we have reached; a sad, ironic 'consequence' of wealth and privilege and education.

It is as if we in our wealth and privilege are stuck in a great, fat counterfactual - and we think that it's the only one in town. We think we know that x inevitably leads to y, we think we know that Z is not a topic worthy of consideration, we think we know exactly what we can and cannot do. But we know nothing. And it is as if we have stopped thinking altogether.

The second problem is not sad so much as criminal, despicable:

the biggest issue is there are more than a billion people hungry in the world. It recently increased by a hundred million or so because of the Wall Street-induced financial collapse, but it was at about 900 million during the days of top prosperity, as defined by our current economic system. That’s completely intolerable. Until everybody eats, no one should live in luxury.

Allan Nairn, Obama has kept the machine set to kill

The second problem is that it is fine to stop thinking and be stuck in a deterministic mindset if that is what we choose to do with wealth and privilege and freedom (relatively speaking), and as long as we are happy to regard ourselves as beings with no moral sense, no ties and no responsibilities towards the others on this planet. But it is not fine to stop thinking if by doing so we close off options to repair the damage we ourselves have done; and allow continuation of the system which itself allows a billion people in the world to starve while others live in luxury. At least: it is not fine as long as we pretend to have a system of morality which is both universal and impartial.

We live in a highly indoctrinated society. That's part of the prerogative of wealth and power. You really don't have to think. You can be self-righteous. Even wealthy and powerful people in the Third World tend to have much more open minds.
Noam Chomsky, Expanding the floor of the cage