Necessary Evil

Practicing your politics is challenging: it demands that you explored your values and commitments, connected the dots between those principles and appropriate actions, and then charted a course for diligent implementation, all while contending with the million other demands on your time and energy that exist in your day-to-day life, and the potential conflicts that arise with others who don't share your normative stances or approaches.

It's a lot to tackle, and there are so many dimensions in which you could be putting your money where your mouth is, so to speak. It's a trap many fall into—switching out their plastic bags for reusable ones, or opting for paper straws and glass bottles, or cancelling their Amazon Prime subscription and moving their music off Spotify. Taking little steps toward alignment and hoping it all adds up to something someday.

But there's a problem. More than one, really. Small gestures like these might be concrete, and might even feel satisfying or offer immediate relief. You might be able to sleep better at night knowing Jeff Bezos doesn't get one more dime from you (bless). That concreteness has a limit, though. Jeff Bezos won't disintegrate (boo) at the loss of a few customers, or even a few thousand, and our capitalist system will keep right on chugging. You might be able to tell yourself you are no longer personally responsible for the plight of the sea turtles because you opted for paper straws, but our planet will continue to be ravaged by climate change that impacts all life forms just the same. Often, these small actions give us the illusion of having divested from the problem enough that our responsibility ends there.