Today I received the latest COVID prevention shot and flu shot — one in each arm. Those shots, along with a healthy diet, should help to protect me from the scourges of the winter months. I’m grateful to have access to these preventative measures. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” as my grandmother used to say. However, this experience has alerted me to the reality that when it comes to the illness of our natural environment and the divisiveness of the political and social climate, the ounce of prevention has become ineffectual. The pound of cure is costly, disruptive to the status quo and requires a new vision that may be affirmed by all strata of the population.
David Brooks, writing in the Atlantic, notes that the “Make American Great Again” movement lacks the inspiration of a forward-looking vision. Honest history of any country reveals flaws and mistakes. To make the country great is not to reach back and recreate the faults of the past. To enhance the greatness of the country is to take lessons from the past and focus on building a new and improved future.
Where women were only given the right to vote in 1920, envision the time when women will receive equal pay with men for the same job. Where slavery and then discrimination were rampant, now envision the time when equality and equity are universal. Rather than reach back to the time when workers were at the mercy of the owners, envision effective unions and worker owned companies. Where there has been white nationalism, envision social and economic mobility for everyone. Where there has been restriction on immigration, envision welcoming the gifts and insights of people from other cultures.
Brooks explains that it is necessary to “build a movement around the vision.” He continues, “social movements are bigger than political parties … push(ing) for change on civic, cultural, institutional, and legislative fronts all at once.” He also notes that successful movements include “microcosms of the society they hope to create.” For example, the MAGA movement has formed affinity groups of paramilitaries, encouraged the Christian Nationalism movement, clustered around the mantra, “make America great again” and demonized educated and professional people.
The cure for that movement is to introduce the movement based upon the vision of a future of equal justice for all. This cure involves action. Small groups of diverse people living out their vision, some temporary, some more long-term, expanding and influencing the wider society.
For example, we read in the Monitor about people from all walks of life coming together for the annual Crop Hunger Walk for the common cause of feeding the hungry. Some churches, synagogues and mosques build communities that seek to live out a vision of love of neighbor and hospitality, where all people are welcomed by virtue of being a human being.
There are groups focusing on curing the wounded natural environment. There are many groups of people who seek to live out values of compassion, peacefulness and neighborliness. They live it in their daily lives and also through such actions as boycotts, marches, street theater, petitions and civil disobedience. Brooks references the research of Chenoweth and Stephan, who found that “nonviolent uprisings are twice as likely to succeed as violent ones. Peaceful uprisings earn moral authority for themselves and take it away from the regime.”
These micro movements of cultural, ethical and intellectual change may become a healing shot in the arm of rogue regimes. The serum may travel throughout their ailing bodies. It will not be as easy as an ounce of prevention in the first place. But the movement from the “good old days” to the vision of healthy days to come may be well worth the pound of cure.
John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds
Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@gmail.com.