Joy, Art, Humor — The New Climate Change Weapons
Two men leading the way
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A few days ago, Ray Katz published What If Our Climate Revolution is Playful and Full of Joy? on Medium at the very same time as I have been reading Poetry on the Side of Nature by Wisconsin poet Thomas R. Smith. (I will be commenting more completely on Smith’s book in my newsletter Arguments with Books.) Both writers are trying to point us in a new direction — beyond despair, beyond passivity, beyond hopelessness, and beyond the dour frustrations of watching the natural world implode. Many have characterized our current experience as watching a slow-motion disaster without being able to act. These two voices call us beyond that.
For my part, I have been focusing on taking action through a re-dedicated career. For me, it is this writing, and I have suggested that everyone take whatever their skill and get involved in creating solutions in their jobs. We spend most of our time in our jobs, so if the job is also dedicated to solving climate change, you make a vast increase in the energy going into such solutions. Anyone who does not do this is, in effect, putting their energy toward a climate catastrophe on Earth.
Katz and Smith, however, are onto something else. A media that always highlights the devastation of climate change is having its effect. The news is so overwhelming that people are discouraged, depressed, and despondent. More and more, I hear people saying, “We are doomed.” This experience of life is closing in on us. The climate that is really changing is the climate within our individual and collective psyches. Joy, playfulness, creativity, and imagination are being pushed out. Among those who understand climate challenges, these parts of the psyche are being replaced with political solemnity, hopelessness, and even despair. Others are living in denial, a kind of blissful stupidity, refusing to acknowledge what is right before their eyes. Joy and playfulness are being ceded to those in denial, while those with knowledge enough to take action are being disempowered by their own despair.
Friends, this is not a recipe for success!
Katz and Smith are calling us to something greater. Where is art? Where is our creativity? Where is the joy? How else do we expect to sustain ourselves through these difficulties? How do we expect to inspire ourselves to keep working at what must be done? It cannot just be a long-term slog. You or I may have the strength to soldier on, but most will not. And the reality is, we need almost everyone to succeed at this.
Katz points to the joys of playing the role of the fool in society, by which I mean the Shakespearian fool who always sees the other side. The fool brings wisdom, insight, and the deep questions necessary, while playfully skewering all the old assumptions, all the old ideas, and all the conventions that define a society. God knows the old ideas need to be skewered, so Katz offers fresh air in this regard.
Smith, for his part, points to the role of art and its unique ability to enrich and repair. While art can also protest, and much political poetry and art has protested, Smith calls us to something greater. There are enormous ruptures between individuals and nature, small groups and nature, and society as a whole and nature. These ruptures need repair, and poetry in particular can help with that repair as it creates a more filial relationship between us and nature itself. Poets and artists often see what others do not, and once having seen through those eyes, it is often hard to go back. You can’t unhear words; you can’t unsee images. And if those words and images open new appreciation or guide us to new feelings toward nature, we can indeed achieve restoration and repair.
Enrichment comes through imagination. Far too much of the climate debate is utilitarian. The underlying motivation usually develops from an appreciation for nature, but most of the debate is not like that. It is dry, scientific, and technical. Don’t get me wrong… we need that discussion. But too much of that diet begins to kill the soul, and people who work at it all that time begin to see their hopes fading, the lights going out in their eyes, and this deep despondence creeps in. The antidote is imagination. It is beauty. It is creativity.
You see, we could imagine what the world is trying to tell us today. Go, sit in nature. Listen. Write it down. Paint what you hear. Dance to the music of the Earth. Bring back the beauty the earth is always sending our way, but also, be honest and see the violence of life feeding on life that goes on every day. Celebrate it. Go in with your eyes wide open. Look. See. Smell. Touch. Hear the silence or the noise, and let it transform you. Provide your vision and your experience to others, to change their perceptions as well.
Or join with others, make and play games, laugh, ridicule leaders, and sabotage their plans. Dance like fools in the streets! Drive your car in reverse only! Sing in the boardrooms! Love the men with guns and Trump flags!
With these approaches, we will have one huge advantage over all others… We will be happy! And, that, my friends, is the start of a real revolution.
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