"My part" is not done.
Anti-individualist individuals for ecosystemic belonging.
Cosmologists & mathematicians tell us that: if, after the Big Bang (13.8 billion years ago), the expansion rate of the Universe had been one-millionth of 1% slower than it was, the universe would have re-collapsed and imploded; and if it had been one-millionth of 1% faster, it would have been too rapid for aggregation and would have spread into molecular dust [1]. In other words, there would be no gas, rocks, nor stars as cradles of atoms; no galaxies or planets as cradles of life...
Our history as earthly life is full of statistical improbabilities, mutagenic stochasticity, and absurd synchronicity—unlikely relationships without which we wouldn’t be here.
Multiply that by each individual, in each of our biological, socio-ecological, familial, ultra-personal contexts... and we arrive at a unique, unrepeatable expression of life within each of us. The same is true for any organism.
So, how do we respect this individual organic miracle without falling into the traps of hyper-individualism that devastates ecosystems essential for the survival of all?
How can we combat consumer individualism without disempowering the individual as a unit of systemic change?
“I already do my part” and other traps of manipulated hyper-individualism
“I already do my part” is something we* often say in socio-economic contexts of reduced scarcity. We usually refer to adopted individual behaviors of consuption such as recycling, buying biodegradable, second-hand, etc.
We say it to relieve ourselves of further accountability, as an expiation of guilt, and to alleviate the heavy pain of genuine individual impotence in the face of the systemic socio-ecological crisis.
I understand and challenge this.
Out of genuine concern and anger toward polluting industries that manipulate us to be part of the violence we abhor. This is no “call out”, but a “call in” as Loretta Ross says [2]. It is an invitation into relational accountability, not a show of moral superiority (for there is no such thing).
Let it be clear that I don’t judge these individual behaviors as useless or lacking in care for the whole. It’s important to acknowledge the socio-economic effort made by many in choosing more sustainable consumption.
What do I mean, then? That you are not my enemy, nor am I yours. That it is crucial to interrupt solutionism before deciding our part is good and done, because the crisis is still unfolding.
Our ecosystemic relationships don’t begin and end in our kitchens, countries, or continents. The idea that we are independent of other people, species, and biomes is a foundational lie of the necrotic modern paradigm
Slow down with me.
Help me take a breath.
Our lungs are full of Sahara, Amazon, Andes, Atlantic and every organism, micro and macro, living and dying in them.
We’re Earth’s conversation.
Will you help me listen?
Will you listen with me?
With love, grief, and rage, I remind us that the notion of “our part” being individual, simple, and finite is encouraged by large polluters who profit while torturing us with guilt, tiring our health, manipulating our concern for the Earth strategically and malignantly.
Let us remember that 108 fossil fuel and cement institutions release ~70% of global carbon emissions, with BP ranking 3rd in the USA and 6th globally [3,4]. What do they tell us? To focus on our individual carbon footprint [5].
Classic marketing strategy: blame the consumer to protect the producer who profits from the disease. Also used by the tobacco, lead paint, and opioid industries, etc.
We* are inadvertently accomplices to much. To have the paradox of accomplice & injured party manipulated into solutionism & individualism by those who benefit from the status quo must not be an option.
“My part” in the apocalypse
Born in 1990’s Portugal, I grew up with the terror of the Anthropocene killing everything I love. While the possibility metaphorically suffocates me, for many the apocalypse arrived long ago:
Thousands of species extinct.
Indigenous peoples violently killed and removed from the lands they reciprocally care for, so that we* can extract resources.
Three-quarters of Pakistani youth with post-traumatic stress after the 2010 floods, recurring in 2022. And what will become of the people in Rio Grande do Sul [6]?
Congolese people and land murdered to power the computer I write to you from.
Palestinians under genocide inadvertently co-financed by our consumption.
…
How can my part be done when these realities sustain my comfort?
The list of entanglements between the individual and systemic violence is long and painful. It is as long as the list of entanglements between the beauty of the individual and the relational beauty of the whole.
“Our part” is systemic.
It must be a conscious, curious part that errs and evolves, learns in community, insists on collective, ecosystemic, ‘utopia’—not drowning in guilt, but rising in accountability.
Our part is sustained by the beauty of belonging in a community that shares our griefs and joys.
And I can already hear the anxious “so, what to do?”
The question itself and the discomfort of uncertainty are the only true answers because they demand constant, contextual dialogue with our communities and ecosystems. Distrust simple solutions for complex crises.
There are imperfect cartographies, learned along the way, through trial and error, woven from fractal, transdisciplinary, transcommunity dialogues that tear apart the hyper-individualist, dominating, and violent paradigm.
We know that socio-ecologically sustainable futures require a transformation of modern urbanized societies. Fritjof Capra [7] summarizes, based on systems research by Rian Eisler and Lucy Garrick:
We must transform self-affirming thoughts and values (e.g., reductionism, linearity, competition, dominance) into integrative ones (holistic, non-linear, cooperation, partnership).
Those who survive colonialist genocide tell us that sustainable relationships with the Earth require: trust, respect, reciprocity, consent, and responsibility [8].
The individual is indeed very important, especially when rooted in ecosystemic relationship, seeking to uproot complicity with systemic violence from within and without.
Let us not exhaust each other.
Let us not play the games of hyper-individualistic guilt that benefit the status quo.
An atom doesn’t make a universe; an individual doesn’t make a paradigm, but we can shift it, together.
Our part is a living relationship with the Earth, and until the soil returns us to the elemental conversation (and even after!), that part is an unfinished, collective, ecological dialogue.
* The ask for accountability and focus of “We” in my writings is on middle to high class people experiencing limited to no scarcity in urbanized contexts (this includes those living in rural contexts by choice and privilege).
References:
[1] ‘Journey of the Universe’ Brian Swimme & Mary Evelyn Tucker (2011)
[2]
[3] https://science.thewire.in/environment/big-oil-hijack-carbon-calculator/
[4] https://clear.ucdavis.edu/blog/big-oil-distracts-their-carbon-footprint-tricking-you-focus-yours
[5] https://x.com/bp_plc/status/1186645440621531136
[6] https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2024/05/floods-advance-and-security-and-transportation-collapse-in-rio-grande-do-sul.shtml
[7] ‘The Web of Life’, Fritjof Capra (1996)
[8] https://decolonialfutures.net/7-steps-back-forward-aside/
This is an edited translation from a Portuguese version published at Vento e Água – Ritmos da Terra 52, 2024
LAURENTINO, Telma G. “A Minha Parte não pode já estar feita”
https://ventoeagua.com/revista-52/a-minha-parte-nao-pode-ja-estar-feita/.