Bandwagon Ethics: A Force for Good?
Remember Occupy Wall Street?
Occupy Wall Street began in September 2011. For a while, #occupywallstreet or #ows dominated headlines. People around the world were made even more aware of the staggering levels of income inequality that existed not only in the US, but globally.
The change that resulted?
“Occupy Wall Street has been credited with reintroducing a strong emphasis on income inequality into broad political discourse and, relatedly, for inspiring the fight for a $15 minimum wage”*
The problem remains.
Remember Charlie Hebdo and #jesuischarlie?
The Charlie Hebdo shooting took place on the 7th of January, 2015.
For a few days, perhaps even a week, globally people rallied in support of this publication. Profile pictures were changed, French flags were projected onto monuments.
Five years later, where does Charlie Hebdo stand now?
“Shortly after the attack, the magazine’s number of subscribers rose to 260,000 … by 2018, it had only 35,000 subscribers… it marked the fourth anniversary of the attacks in 2019 with an editorial that asked its readers: “Are you still there?””*
Remember the Ice Bucket challenge to raise awareness for ALS?
Remember the Australian Bushfires?
Remember the ongoing Hong Kong Protests?
Much like the rest of the world, I hope beyond hope that this moment of focus on #blacklivesmatter and police brutality will be not only a pivotal moment of change in the history of the US, but also globally.
My concern is that it will, like many of the movements of the last decade, soon fade away into the background.
What can be done about this?
Even as I write this, I can already see the story being swept away. People are posting about different issues on social media - be it local or global. The focus is being diluted.
If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that something worse, or more shocking, or more clickbaity will soon come about and attention will move there. News has to be new, and there are so many problems.
In all likelihood, it seems the global focus will inevitably shift, like it has for most of the movements that have attracted global spotlight (though again - I hope it doesn’t). We live in an age of spotlight activism - global attention shifting from problem to problem, and bandwagon ethics - people rallying, temporarily, behind these issues.
Undoubtedly, the movements from the last decade that did receive global attention greatly benefited from having attracted it - attention is not useless. But the attention shifts often before these problems are fixed, and there’s always a sense that if the focus had remained we would have been able to do more.
How can we, in an age of Spotlight Activism, make change last?
Can Bandwagon Ethics be a force for good?
There are three aspects to this problem, as I see it:
There are many big, huge, gargantuan problems
These problems need non-activist, ‘ordinary’ people to act collectively, over a long period of time, to solve them.
People have only so much time, energy, and crucially - focus
Global problems to take your focus include, but are not limited to:
Air Pollution and Climate Change, Vaccine Hesitancy, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Global Economic Inequality, Rising Levels of Extremism, Misuse of Artificial Intelligence, Racism, Ebola and High-Threat Pathogens, Antibiotic Resistance, Major Environmental Disasters, Large Scale Cyberattacks, Sexism, Homophobia, Bio-terrorism, Noncommunicable Diseases to name but a few
Most people aren’t superheroes. Most people are average. Think of the most average person you know - are they evil, or ill-intentioned?
Probably not, most people are decent.
But are they activists? Are they dedicating their lives to push the frontier of change on one of the aforementioned problems?
Probably not.
Most people are average. They are not activists.
In this regard, I am much the same.
Most people will be appalled when they see injustice that’s brought to their attention, but will not permanently join whatever movement has gathered attention that week, month or year.
They’ll perhaps support it in a myriad of ways, be it vocally, financially or through protest at the time. But they will then move on.
Cynics cry out that most support for these movements is therefore disingenuous. They say that most people are guilty of bandwagon ethics - just focusing on what draws their attention that week.
Statistically, this seems undeniable.
Pragmatically, what are we to do about it?
We have to embrace spotlight/bandwagon ethics - continually making small changes to how we live, forever, as these issues come to our attention.
With each problem that comes to your attention - make a contribution, however small or large. Make a change.
Further - we need to normalise this. Our standard questions of “how are you?” “how’s the family” “how are things” should expand to include:
“Who have you helped recently?”
There are terrible things going on in the world right now that most of the world doesn’t yet know about.
Not knowing about them doesn’t make you a bad person. You can only act when you know, when you see it.
And when you do see and recognise injustice, one simple thing is required - action.
The bigger the better yes, of course, but don’t be afraid to start small.
Small actions taken collectively are often more effective - e.g. if everyone cut their meat consumption by 20%, it’s better than 5% of the population going entirely vegan.
No one is short on problems. Everyone has them - personal, health, mental health, family, financial, community, nationwide and global problems all affect us daily.
Some days, you will only be able to focus on a single category.
Some days, you’ll be able to do something about the larger, shared categories. When this time comes, please act.
Don’t ask how much is enough - it won’t be enough until the problem is fixed. Almost all of these will take time. Instead, ask yourself daily what can I do today? Some days this will be a small change to how you live your life, others it might be a day of protesting.
Do what you can.
To go one step further, get another to do the same.
A singular other person.
Bonus points if they disagree and you engage them in discussion, and bring them around to recognising the issue’s importance, and change their mind.
Adjust and change your behaviour.
Help change the behaviour of others.
Hold each other accountable.
Do what you can to help people.
Be kind.
Be better.
Repeat.
Forever.
If we all do this, that’s all it takes.
This week, I’ve been checking in with my US and BAME friends. I’ve been listening and learning. And I’ve set up a regular donation to a cause which fights a global problem.
It’s not enough. It won’t be enough until the problems are fixed. But it’s a start.
I’m better this week than I was last week.
And I’ll be better again next week.
This is how we mature, this is how we grow old.
And I hope that if I do this, then I can help make change last.