Hi all -- during his videoconference with us this week, Prof. Michael Maniates laid out his "Trinity of Despair." Prof. Maniates is concerned that the environmental movement is less effective than it needs to be, and he traces much of this lack of effectiveness to a set of disempowering assumptions about the human capacity for change, and about how real social change happens.
The three corners of his triangle are:
HN = Human Nature (the assumption that people are selfish, only out for themselves.)
SC = Social Change (the assumption that we need to get everyone on board to make change happen, and that the only way this will occur is if some kind of large-scale disaster focuses collective attention.)
ES = Environmental Stuff or Easy Stuff (the assumption that we build social movements by getting people to do the easy stuff first -- asking people to screw in a new energy-efficient light-bulb will get them, in the future, to take more far-reaching actions.)
Here are your questions:
What did you make of Prof. Maniates' "trinity of despair?" Has it helped you think in new or different ways about how to be an effective environmental change agent? And can you point to any examples of social change or social action that seem to support or that run counter to Prof Maniates' contentions?
Looking forward to what you have to say!
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4 comments:
Mike’s talk with us today helped to show where we stand in our opinions on a sliding scale. The design of this triangle is a good tool for him (and us, as well as other groups discussing these topics) to use to simplify the 3 major concepts of his argument. Honestly, though, it seems as though these concepts were not new or novel to us. Our class is formed form a group of students who care about the environment to begin with, and who‘ve probably already taken the required gened courses which cover philosophical basics, so the ideas of human nature and man’s actions in the ‘state of nature’, the notion of social change, and how we can be drivers of it by first starting off with the ‘Easy Stuff’… are all familiar terms to us. The one aspect of this ‘trinity of despair’ that we don’t talk much about is this coming ‘crisis’. That without a crisis or major catastrophic event, social change factors wont be churned into action. Really? Unfortunately, as much as I don’t want to believe that it would take hitting rock bottom for life on the planet to turn around and crawl back uphill, it seems as though things get worse and worse every day and while yes, 30-35% of people are now admittedly concerned about the environment and willing to act upon these concerns, it’s not enough yet to make major improvements in our levels of efficiency as a society. I don’t have anything more to say that I pulled from our discussion this morning. I feel we all enjoyed Mike’s talk with us as he is an entertaining and educational concept-focused lecturer, his concepts essentially reflected the same of our class this entire semester, and it’s nice to know in other places, the pots are stirring too, and there are great professors to turn to for motivation of what the hell to do in the coming years.
And by the way, last week’s blog topic brought some fantastic responses from us, I love what we came back with on cradle to cradle, and I love this blog group. I’ve read the blogs of other groups, and I still appreciate this crew the most. Peace yall, happy thanksgiving. Try to convince family to be a little more efficient this holiday season.
To be completely honest, I have absolutely no idea where to begin regarding Professor Maniates’ “trinity of despair”…I feel like I’m a kid in a candy store. I will be the first to admit that I am one of those individuals that you would not automatically classify as an environmentalist. Some people might ask why and it’s not because I could really care less about the environment. My reasoning is because, as I’ve found myself talking in so many blog posts before hand, when I think environmentalist, I think of the hippie looking uber liberal that is harassing me while I’m on my way to Starbucks or walking out of Best Buy. Even back home when I would get out of work, the last thing I would tolerate was some stranger thinking he (or she) could tell me that how I lived my life was ruining everything around me (especially considering they have no right talking about someone they don’t even know). Hearing about how the only way we can fix the problem is with those infernal energy efficient light bulbs (which seem to again be coming up in many of my blog posts…but I swear it all has a point) and all of the other plans these environmentalists indicate are massive failures in that they don’t look at the bigger picture.
Professor Maniates’ “trinity of despair” highlights what, personally, I have always felt plagued the environmentalist movement and felt had to be overcome in order for any semblance of progress to be made. Looking at the problem of waste and how to fix the abuses on the environment, one cannot allow themselves to fall into the pits of despair known as human nature, social change, and environmental strategy. All too commonly it seems that the answers pitched by environmentalists is that everyone needs to be on board with the idea of change, but that’s hard because we’re all just too damned greedy, and that we might as well just do the simple minor things and that’ll make everything better. Much like the books such as the “Lazy Environmentalist”, the only thing I can really say to that is much of these ideas are half assed and will just result in the lazy way of reaching even more environmental harm. It’s not solving the problem. This triangle seems to exemplify all of the bad and missteps within environmentalism. This seems to be the narrow view through which I have argued against over and over again. We cannot approach the idea of saving the world through such a narrow mindset. Professor Maniates made so many great points, referencing to companies like Starbucks and complementing some of the ideas brought forth by “Cradle to Cradle” with Nike and Ford, stating that we can’t simply take the lazy, narrow minded way out of this problem. In order to move forward, we need to burn both ends of the candle in terms of taking action. We need to break out of this triangle of narrow minded thought if we are going to be able to take the chance on exploring and implementing new ideas and ingenuity.
I absolutely loved the comment he left on our general course blog, especially the end through which he said “Don’t be a pansy. Resist the Trinity of Despair.” I feel like if we could get that message out to more people then maybe we wouldn’t have people like Al Gore running around sounding like a bunch of wild animals when it comes to this topic. I feel like when people are trapped in this so called “Trinity of Despair”, more often than not they choose to be in such a situation mostly because they are scared of taking upon themselves any true initiative that might hint at so much as an ounce of effort and work. It’s so much easier to criticize everyone else but when the work is pointed at you, how many people would honestly be willing to take it all up and run with it? If this has showed me anything, is that it’s about time that there are educated individuals out there who realize the established “norms” of what it means to be an environmentalist are not accurate and to move beyond the old system is to move closer in the direction of true solutions. If those people on the corners would talk to me about these “pressure points” and true ways to fight this environmental problem, then maybe, just maybe, I might give enough of my time to actually listen to a coherent and well thought out plan of action. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
I found Mike’s lecture the other day to be very interesting; from his discussion and the previous post he made, he obviously seems pretty fed up with the notion that we must all jump on the same band-wagon in order to solve our problems. In all honesty, I had never really put into perspective the relatively small amount of people it would require to actually get something done. It has always been an all or nothing attitude, and I have accepted it, despite my continual thinking that nothing would become of the ideas presented…You always hear of grassroots movements making changes, however, with the exception of a notable few, many have been extinguished.
This trinity of despair, therefore, presents an interesting way through which small groups of people can be organized and act. Its principles are easily understood (not the doom and gloom or the lazy environmentalist extremes), REALISTIC, and can be implemented, like Will mentioned, all over the place: Ford, Nike, Starbucks, you name it. I think the most important aspect is the fact that these new approaches require people to think. No more of this mindless following crap thinking that the next person will take your share and his.
My major beef with environmentalists is that most of the ones whom I've met (not all of them though, so don't worry Mackenzie) are outrageous hypocrites. They only ever have two things to say, and most will say them separately, and some have the tenacity to say them in the same breath:
"We are pretty much fucked." and "If ALL of YOU don't do something NOW, we are DEFINITELY fucked. And its your fault."
My question always is "Well, if you think we're in HOPELESSLY bad shape, why are you giving so many people so much shit for not doing what you want them to do?" Don't get me wrong, I know environmentalists have their hearts in the right place, but this really bugs the shit out of me. The aforementioned "All or nothing" attitude coming from the same people who have absolutely zero faith in the ability of the human race to save itself (As far as I'm concerned, its not about saving the planet, its about saving us). I don't want to repeat myself too much from the last blog question before I even get to this one, I just wanted to make it very clear where I'm coming from and what kind of attitude I had going into that videoconference.
That being said, I appreciated the Trinity of Despair concept partly because of how realistic it is and partly because of its simplicity. Maniates impressed me, and so did his concept. The realistic approach that he has taken to this specific problem is the opposite of what I have seen from many environmentalists. He didn't express any sort of fatalistic attitude or make a desperate plea for a world-wide initiative where every single living person takes part. I remember a very specific quote: "WE ARE NEVER GOING TO GET EVERYONE ON BOARD." Thank. You. Mike. No, we are most certainly not going to get everyone on board. Environmentalists need to refocus their efforts concisely on/with people and programs that are FULLY committed to their cause and the MOST potential if given maximum attention. We need better ideas, and, like the Starbucks thing, they need to trickle down into the everyday lives of the average bum like me. But we average bums aren't going to figure this shit out on our own, because whether we like it or not, we're somewhere in that trinity of despair and therefore rely on the people who are able to step outside of it.
Anyway enough of that. I will not be there tomorrow to discuss the guardian article with you guys (shocker, right? I seriously might have made the effort but I'm about 600 miles out of town at the moment)
But yeah, hope you three have a good holiday and safe trips home to wherever you're going!
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