Two Nouns #25: Small Change
Hi all,
At some point after I went into labour and before my child was born (sorry for the pause), one of the impeccably competent midwives who staff the NHS could see I was struggling in pain. She estimated another half day of contractions atop the day, night, and day I had laboured at home, and asked me: Can you carry on, and do you want to?
I’m not going to drag you into the intricate choice politics inherent to the birthing process -- suffice it to say labour and delivery resembles Jorge Borges’ Garden of Forking Paths. But because anything can happen as a baby makes a break for daylight, I had trained myself to be humble to the plot my body chose for the moment. In other words, I had preferences, but no orthodoxy. So when she asked these two questions, I could laugh while saying no, and no.
My angry baby dressed as a “superspreader” for Halloween.
The pandemic has forced us to change our plans, to leapfrog or abandon previous paths. We have reckoned with grave illness and death, jobs and industries gone up in smoke. New insight suggests we were wrong about the relative importance of ventilators and ventilation. Meanwhile, telemedicine has advanced a decade in six months. We’ve reimagined conferences, content, and remote work. People have uprooted and rearranged. We've let racial skeletons see the light. Some transitions are welcome. Some are frightening.
I'm beginning to view change as a rare gift -- especially when it comes to politics. As the season finale of America approaches, I’m amazed anyone is undecided about who should be elevated to offices high and local. But as committed as I am to a certain vision of leadership for my home nation, I’m aware that opinions vary ;) The American Voter account on Twitter -- the only bot worth following -- publishes random people’s political stances, and how they voted in the 2016 election.
Some representative examples from @american__voter
The account keeps my optimism honest, and quietly catalogues what must happen in order to expect a new president after November 3rd. Millions of people must change their minds -- to vote differently, or to vote at all.
This reality is not comforting, and not just because of shameless voter suppression. While this is a perfect time for a revolution, it's increasingly difficult for people to release orthodoxies -- about what government is for, what a good life looks like, or what we owe to one another. Casting change as a weakness is Donald Trump’s fatal stupidity -- but affects us all.
Most weeks I watch British Prime Minister’s Questions, a performed combat ritual that occasionally produces accountability. All year, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has dismissed challenges to his decisions in fighting COVID-19 -- accusing Labour leader Keir Starmer of “a dramatic U-turn” in opinion, or being for someting before he was against it. Leave aside Johnson’s history of issue-straddling, and the U-turn he's just made on a new UK lockdown (😭) -- these hollow jabs serve the cause of toxic stubbornness.
There are good theories about why societal reform is floundering across the globe. But part of the ground-level civics problem is that opinions (of which I have many) risk becoming identities. Given once in a generation clashes on fundamental values, any flexibility can seem heretical and submissive -- or like giving up who you are. I personally find it really hard to be practical, to persuade and build outcomes. But supporters of the broken present are not going to cross a picket line staffed with jeering compatriots, throwing “I told you sos” as well as tomatoes. Shame is a miserable weapon.
I don't know what's better. Within and outside of politics, we need more psychological safety to explore shifts in attitude, opinion, lifestyle. What if we reframed changing your mind as an action rather than a collapse? What might that free us from? Free us to?
May we all claim the right to grow out of our past selves.
I never forget that it was Joe Biden’s loose tongue that nudged Barack Obama into a posture on gay rights that was, in the language of political warfare, a clear “flip flop.” Recently it’s the pope making a “dramatic U-turn” on marriage equality. These examples have the comforting characteristic of being aligned with human rights. But also a reminder that it’s okay for anyone to think and do something new.
All of this is hard. None of this is over. When confronted with forks in the road, I’m going to try running back the midwife’s words, and be fearless with my own answers.
Stay safe, and if you have the right to vote on America -- use it!
Dayo
#ENDSARS