Hacker News Reader

Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

> Many of the thousands of causes of stress in modern life can't be changed by an individual

The counterpoint is essentially that if people engaged in social outward-looking collective action, as opposed to solitary inward-looking meditation, then you can change the world -- as has been demonstrated countless times.

You certainly can unelect politicians in the next election. Environmental movements have made gigantic progress towards cleaning up the air. And congestion pricing is starting to spread as the solution for cities to reduce traffic, and it works.

As an individual you probably won't be the single tipping point. But collective action happens because lots of individuals work together, and it requires all of those individuals. But it requires more than changing your reactions, it requires collective action.

View on HN

Interesting that this replies to a comment quoting Thich Nhat Hanh, who practiced "engaged Buddhism" and whose name means "one action" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Nh%E1%BA%A5t_H%E1%B...).

> The counterpoint is essentially that if people engaged in social outward-looking collective action, as opposed to solitary inward-looking meditation, then you can change the world -- as has been demonstrated countless times.

Yes, it has been demonstrated, and yes it requires collective action, but no that doesn't mean I (necessarily) have the time, energy or skill to act effectively to change any one, let alone dozens or thousands of these stressors, even if they're enormously stressful to me currently. The 'bang for the buck' in my world is to address the stressors at the personal level, and hope/intend to contribute to some worthy cause as well.

Why do these two actions contradict each other? People can do both. Gandhi was not only a community organizer who affected broad, collective action but also practiced meditation.

Where do people get the energy to take outward collective action if they are bogged down by stress and frivolous thoughts? I see meditation and/or psychedelics as the only way to get people to do pro-societal things, above individualistic things that are not thoughtful uses of time.

Well, experience with political organization makes clear that it's motivated by anger at injustice. Which is why consciousness-raising has historically been such a part of starting movements, to make people aware of the injustices, to stimulate the anger that motivates political action.

If you're angry and want to change the world, stress and frivolous thoughts aren't going to interfere. If anything, your focus on the cause isn't going to leave room for as many frivolous thoughts.

Angry people might get the change they want, but probably not thoughtful change that makes things better. Politicians and the media are expert at redirecting anger in a way that doesn't upset the balance of power.

> You certainly can unelect politicians in the next election.

Unfortunately this is not literally true in that an election puts a different politician in the place of the former one. This is how most democracies are inconsistent and don’t allow people to choose anarchy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com