Responsibility: a few progressive thoughts

A small business owner spoke of responsibility last night at BrewHaHa (sponsored by the Bus Project and the Portland Mercury; thanks guys), and it was not about how government needs to lower taxes and other “burdens”. He spoke of the future and past, humans and nature, self and other … creatures. Not your typical small business discussion of responsibility.

But I do not think Lindsay Mico is probably a typical small business owner. Demeter Designs, the company he founded with his wife Cara provides high-tech scientific assistance to NGOs and others as part of environmental projects. His business depends on an increasingly threatened environment, so a lack of human responsibility in that regard is something he would see daily. He sees more than that, too, and I hope to interview before too long. But here’s what I took away from his brief comments last night.

We are all responsible to everyone and everything. That is a big burden, but an inescapable one. There are two things you can do with a responsibility: Meet its challenge or abdicate. Guess which one I believe is the progressive way?

Living in this world is tough in the best of times. Faced with the conditions we currently do, it’s gotten to the point where “tough times” are looked backed at with nostalgic longing. Would that we only faced “tough times”. Today we face an outlook that is bleak, frightening and possibly sliding towards hopeless.

That is where responsibility kicks in and keeps us going. Those who accept a responsibility as theirs to fulfill may feel grim about the world and the future, but they will always have some measure of hope. Choosing to be a productive part of the world produces hope as a natural byproduct. It may not be the wild and enthusiastic hope of a new parent or a person in love, but hope it is. And hope is the vital element, working with the decision to be a responsible person in a positive feedback loop. That’s why dedicated people can keep moving forward despite the scale of challenges they face: their decision to face those challenges generates the hope they need to hold fast to their decision to face those challenges.

Those who waver in their commitment to a responsibility have the opposite reaction. And as hope begins to diminish, the crash is more rapid than coming down from a sugar rush. Remaining committed to a responsibility becomes not merely a responsibility in itself but a means to keep hope alive and despair at bay.

This is something those who voted for Obama need to understand: They were excited last year because they got out and worked to change America and elect him president. But once the election was over, what was there to do? Those who found other means of staying involved in the process of bringing progressive change to the country also retained their source of hope. It’s those who ended their active involvement after the election who are, I believe, the ones who are starting to feel like Obama is failing (after a little over eight months!) and who need to return to what gave them a new view of the word: responsibility.

Progressive responsibility does not limit a person to direct political activity. That can be what some do — and with the need to get a good health care reform package passed, including a strong public insurance option, politics probably needs to be something all progressives attend to on a regular basis — but there are many other ways to fulfill a commitment to the world and others. Volunteering at a local school to tutor children; becoming active in a group that cares for the community in some way; finding ways to have less of an impact on the planet and then sharing what you are doing with others; contributing money to help others do the work you know is important. The list of possible ways to be a committed, responsible progressive is long enough for everyone to find a role to play who wants to see the kind of change we believe in.

Lindsay had a number of excellent ideas last night at BrewHaHa, and I hope to talk to him in depth about them before too long. But for now, to focus on responsibility and to understand that remaining committed is what feeds the hope that keeps me going — strong stuff. And welcome on a morning when going back to bed seems the best decision I could make.