Maxim vs Orion
The two articles below are both worth reading. They make opposing arguments. Either one could have been posted as a response to the other. The Maxim article claims that systems are not able to solve societies problems, it is down to individual action. If we were all to take care of our neighbours and do the good thing then we would not have such societal ills and dysfunction. The article from Orion Magazine suggests the opposite. It is crazy to think, the Orion article comments, that we will solve the problems we are currently facing through individual action, we need to get political.
It seems to me that both are required. Big corporations would not do what they do if it were not profitable, and it is profitable because we buy the end product. Individual action may not change a system that creates a situation in which individual action is required. But the people who are concerned enough to act and change their own lives become conscientised and empowered. They are more likely to be those who engage at a political level to change what is unjust. There is also a question of credibility. To cry out for systems to more fair while living in a way that exploits your global neighbour doesn’t have a lot of integrity and is unlikely to attract followers. To try to draw a line between individual action and systemic change is unhelpful.
Perhaps a better way to reflect on what is required is that of community change. We are not called to act individually to make society better; or to individually act for political change. Becoming a christian is about inclusion into a community, about a new way of life. To be in Christ, to be one body, to be in and not of… however you want to word it being a christian isn’t about individually believing a set of statements about God, it is about being caught up into God and becoming a part of a community. It isn’t easy to know how to function and live and decide and act as a called and gathered community in the midst of a fractured and compartmentalised culture. And a lot of the time I’m not even sure I want to. But it seems a more helpful direction to struggle in than trying to decide between individual or political action. To live a different and peculiar life with a community of people is far easier and more sustainable than trying to do it alone, and there is little that is more political than a large community of people that insist on living out a radically different story than the one they are surrounded by.
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