The Politics of Me/The Politics of We
Issue 40
One of the things I love most about cultivating conscious politics is it forces/invites us to pay attention to the connection between who we are individually and who we are collectively — also known as the difference between me and we. It asks us to regularly toggle between the two, a dynamic we see in force when we gather together in places like the Spiritual Workout for Politics & Current Events Drop-Ins to which I invite you each month.
Just as it is incumbent upon us in this milieu to appreciate, at any given moment, whether we’re dealing with old or new consciousness we must, I dare say, also be aware of when we are dealing with a me thing or a we thing. Government itself is a we (the people) thing. Yes? Arguably, a significant chunk of its reason for being is to do for us collectively what none of us can — or perhaps should — do individually. So let’s spin the big wheel of government issues — shall we? — and dive a little deeper into the me/we dynamic. Zipping past, clickity-click-click-click, education and our environment, clickity-click, whizzing by racial equity, clickity-clickity, slowing down now, past agriculture and climate change to — click, ever slower, cuh-lick and it’s…Stop Signs! (Phew.)
Stop signs, it seems, are an example of something government came up with to create a modicum of collective safety. I did two seconds of research (for us) so I could say with confidence that at some point stop signs didn’t exist in America, then they did, then they evolved. Imagine that. I’ve lived here for years and I’ve been wanting one down the street at the corner of Oak and Willow. Deleterious incidents aplenty. The Jones kid will never be the same since being hit by a car there a few years ago. (Family moved away.) There was a two-car collision about two months ago and a dog was severely injured just last week and that’s just this year. So far.
This is one of those situations where what I want and what our government wants are the same, so I’m having an easy time with it. But the protestor lady, not so much.
The one I fashioned in my garage and installed under the cover of darkness, however, was removed almost immediately and I received a summons. Shit. Then, I got with some neighbors, we petitioned the city council (there’s a process!) and, bureaucracy bureaucracy, voila! There’s a new stop sign at the corner of Oak and Willow. I couldn’t (legitimately, apparently) do it myself but our local government could and did. They were all set up for it and, I gotta say, I love stopping at that thing! My next door neighbor hates it, though: he thinks drivers/pedestrians are irresponsible idiots; he doesn’t think it will affect “incidents” at all; he thinks the city council members are the biggest idiots who draw breath. But he begrudgingly stops at the stop sign every time, something about civic duty and the rule of law, he says.
A lady up the street has been protesting the stop sign. She thinks it violates her freedom to move about the neighborhood and drives right through it with abandon, flipping the bird and then some to anyone who dares try to get her to stop. (I hear she’s gotten two tickets.) She has more allies than I thought possible and lately they gather at the corner and harass people for stopping at the stop sign.
The city manager, the city council, and a small committee of citizens/neighbors are charged, by the way — as agreed to in the legislation that created the sign — with monitoring activity at the corner of Oak and Willow and reporting assessments to the full council/community at the three- and six-month marks. Then, a final determination will be made as to whether or not the sign stays.
I choose to trust that our system of government is sound even if many times it is in the hands of people I don’t trust.
This is one of those situations where what I want and what our government wants are the same, so I’m having an easy time with it. But the protestor lady, not so much. We sat down, the two of us, for coffee, at the behest of and with a journalist from our local paper who wanted to interview us both for a story about the now-storied stop sign. Oy. I’m a conscious politics practitioner so I was listening for beliefs, which were in abundant supply. I believe the city council responded to the needs of its citizens; she believes the city council is trying to control the lives of its citizens. I believe it’s my civic duty to follow the law and stop at the sign; she believes it’s morally wrong to stop at the sign because of how it came into existence. (I could go on.) I don’t know about you, fellow conscious politics practitioner, but for me two issues reign supreme here.
First, trust. Trust cannot be imposed upon anyone because trust is always a personal choice — the ultimate me thing. I choose to trust you. I choose to trust your financial investor because you trust her. I choose to trust that our system of government is sound even if many times it is in the hands of people I don’t trust. I choose to abide by laws not because they’re genius, but because I believe it contributes to society to do so.
This leads to that second supreme issue: civics! And the basic, general idea that, as Americans, we adhere to that thing, that value we call the rule of law, the bedrock of our system of government. Not my idea, right? But it’s what I’m doing with the sign, easy because my me equals my we. It’s what my neighbor is doing even though it’s harder for him — his we is bigger than his me. It’s not what protest lady is doing — her me is bigger than her we. We can afford some of that but.
It seems obvious that America should be flooding the zone with sexy civics writ large. I have a million ideas. But at least for today we can, individually, be about the business of deciding who and what we trust, the ultimate me thing. Because whatever we things we Americans will ever want will not exist without trust.
NOTE: It’s almost time again for this month’s Spiritual Workout for Politics & Current Events and it won’t be the same without you.
Do your Self a favor, sign up now and forget it. I hope to see you there on Tuesday, May 18, at 5pm Pacific, 8pm Eastern, and whatever that might be where you are.
Subscribers, please attend as my guest:
NOTE: Happy Mother’s Day
So funny about this stop sign issue. We just had the same situation here in Idyllwild at the corner of Tahquitz and South Circle. The sign won out! Some are happy about it, some are not. But like you say, at least there IS a process that we have agreed upon to help decide these things. Where people get upset is when that civic process is by-passed and laws are forced in without a majority consent.
I love this. But you must be joking about the stop sign debacle!