Reflections on Issue Nine

What Are You Willing to Sacrifice?

Thank you to everyone who had a chance to read Issue Nine over the past week. For those who have yet to read it, the reflections from other readers below may be a good starting point, or you can read “What Are You Willing to Sacrifice?” first.

The Understory reflections between issues are intended to share thoughtful comments from readers that expand upon and challenge parts of the previous issue. I am immensely grateful for the comments added this week, and hope they provide further value in connecting your sacrifices with the change that you hope to see in the world.

Over the past week I’ve had several conversations with readers about Issue Nine. When writing the Issue, I struggled with macro versus micro sacrifices—how much to emphasize structural transformation in how we live and make decisions versus micro-decisions informed by habits, comfort, and status. As you will see by a few of the comments that were publicly posted, there is an inherent tension between collective-interest and self-interest when framing sacrifice. While there is a causal link between our individual actions and the living planet, those same actions have limited impact in affecting the structures that define our relationships with each other and the earth. 

I hope you find resonance with the comments below, as I have, and take a few minutes to respond to them directly using the links provided. We each need the assistance and support of others in reconceptualizing meaningful sacrifices in our own lives. Hopefully The Understory provides a venue and community of people to embark on that journey with together. We most certainly cannot do it alone.

As Shared by Peter Tavernise

“There is a fundamental missing piece implied in your mention of the crisis of meaning, which raises the question of sequencing. Will individuals who still feel disconnected from themselves, each other, and their environment be able to feel the impacts of their choices and thus be motivated to change those choices? I may sound like a broken record but from my standpoint step one has to be healing the disconnection, helping people recognize radical interdependence, that we live in a participatory universe, and the choices will then take care of themselves—because we won't be able to choose otherwise without recognizing the harm to ourselves as part of the integral whole.”

Before reading Peter’s comment I had not considered the sequencing distinction as it relates to sacrifice. If we don’t heal the disconnect between ourselves, others, and the planet first, how could sacrifice become a meaningful act beyond personal deprivation? What Peter is suggesting is that by first (re)building our interconnectedness, we then have a context of meaning to evaluate what we should sacrifice and the significance of the sacrifices we make.

In Issue Nine I asked you to consider what you were willing to sacrifice to have the kind of world that you want to live in. Instead of solutioning the problem through a list of the things we are (un)willing to sacrifice in our lives, we could start with the question of what world we want to help materialize and then correspond our sacrifices to realizing that possibility. Within that framing, our sacrifices become tethered to something of greater importance than what is being given up. And this is what leads to a willingness to sacrifice whatever it takes to help materialize the world we want to see, as evidenced by the Freedom Summer volunteers and so many others during the civil rights movement. This is the dissolution of self-interest for the collective.

“We will each have to also work through the moral injury that will become conscious once we fully recognize and account for the invisible sacrifices that have been made and are being made by so many over the past several hundred years, and horrific violence done to our fellow humans, our ‘other than human’ brothers and sisters, and to the Earth herself. There will need to be a process of atonement and healing there as well.”

Through Peter and other friends, I’ve been learning about the art and practice of working with individuals and groups through this transformative work. If you are looking for additional resources on healing personal traumas, Peter would likely recommend Amanda Blake’s book, Your Body is Your Brain, as a good starting point. Blake provides both the somatic framework and case study examples of how embodiment practices can help heal trauma and separateness. 

“One of the points he [Arkan Lushwala] makes is that our economies are fundamentally sick, because we allow wealth to collect in stagnant pools. The point of the gift economy is that for life (and economic health) to be vibrant and clean like a flowing stream, value must be in continuous motion, exchanged from that fundamental outlook of deepest gratitude and reciprocal generosity, including the recognition by every individual that we each are responsible for stewardship and renewal of all resources, people, and any of the ‘other than human world’ that we interact with and with whom we are in relationship.”

I have been reflecting a bit more on this concept of gift economies that require things to stay in constant motion rather than “collect in stagnant pools” as articulated by Lewis Hyde (The Gift) and incorporated into the writings of Lushwala, Kimmerer, and others. When writing about motion for Issue Nine I had not considered the parallel to flights of global capital that are continually in motion, searching for optimal returns—a blameworthy cause of the unrelenting undercurrent of our continuous growth paradigm. Perhaps rather than stagnation versus motion, it is rather distribution that is the concern.

As Peter mentions, gift economies are based on reciprocity, which requires structured equality in distribution. Hyde says, “gift exchange tends to be an economy of small groups, of extended families, small villages, close-knit communities, brotherhoods, and, of course, tribes.” Which leaves me wondering: can gift economies extend beyond local communities or does it require a structural return to localization? I’d welcome thoughts from others in working through this. 

“What needs to be continually lifted up is that sacrifice no longer feels like what we might feel is a burden, but as Litfin points out, it becomes a sacrament—something done in recognition of fundamental sacredness, and as a celebration, an act of joy and reciprocity. "Sacrifice = sacre (sacred) + facere (to make).”

I found this return to sacredness in our sacrifices incredibly powerful. The assessment by Meyer & Maniates that most people are not “wholly content with our lives and the society” combined with the secularized notion of sacrifice in Litfin’s writing helped me to realize how far the concept of sacrifice has devolved in late capitalist society. Thomashow’s suggestion that meaningful sacrifice leads to a state of grace is something I continue to cherish. 

See Peter’s comment in its entirety and add your reflections to his

As Shared by Noah Russell

In sharing Noah’s comments, I am going to mix it up a bit (forgive me, Noah), as I’d like to start with his ending:

“In reading Adam’s article I appreciated his reasoned, research and well-presented expression of Sacrifice in our lives. But I felt it failed to challenge us—at an emotional, visceral, slap in the face level that might make it hard to look in the mirror and question why we allow ourselves to be chained at all.”

I appreciated this pointed and constructive criticism from Noah. His point is that we each need our own dramatic turn towards true sacrifice. Issue Nine could have been more persuasive in inspiring that kind of reaction. Because, in the end, Noah is right that we need that kind of questioning when we look in the mirror at ourselves and our lives.

“I would argue that we have become chained and shackled by a culture of greed, masquerading as prosperity, opportunity and the holy grail of them all—the Good Life. The links of our chain are familiar and our willing submission to them is forged by a market-world system that subtly enslaves us through want, comfort, conformity and fear. I challenge that Sacrifice is possible, but only once we emancipate ourselves from the chains that make our choices seem impossible.

Am I suggesting that those of privilege are akin to slaves or even begin to know the harsh realities of colonial enslavement? Or course not. However, we are complacent participants in a capitalistic system that binds us and blinds us, regardless of our prosperity or because of it, in ways that seem impossible to free ourselves from—without significant personal sacrifice. I ask that readers forgive me for the metaphor.

First world upbringing is underpinned by the elements of capitalism; education to make us better workers, wage earners to make us better consumers, consumers to make us productive and successful members of society. Perhaps we follow this pattern because it’s what our parents and grandparents did. Perhaps it’s because our friends and peers are committed to the same end. Likely fear plays a part for who are we if we fail to conform? Conformity becomes culture. Maybe we even think we are choosing this path; by the time we are educated, employed, mortgaged, married, parents, etc, the weight of our chains feels a part of us.”

I found Noah’s metaphor of the chain compelling as a series of links that are both cumulative and seemingly inseparable. His comment describes why significant sacrifice can be so challenging to undertake and to sustain. The metaphor asks us to consider each of our life milestones (education, employment, marriage, homeownership, children) as links in a chain with each respective segment combined to make a self-reinforcing, prescriptive path. The social stigma that Noah outlines in deviating from the standard chain, or choosing at some point later in life to break the links, highlights the difficulties of straying beyond the normative behaviours of what capitalism encourages. However, with this recognition of the power of social stigma also comes the significance of individuals deviating within their groups of friends, family, and colleagues. Undoubtedly it takes a boldness and irreverence to not conform. In that deviation, Noah also opens up the significant social influence that standing apart can have in shifting small communities one-by-one towards a culture of interdependence rather than separation. 

“We live in a world of plenty, where the technocratic horizon assures us that the solutions to humanity's biggest problems are just a few innovations away. Our governments, even in the face of today’s pandemic, trumpet the need to restart the economy for the sake of growth and GDP. Modern monetary policy allows the printing presses to run without hesitation; the eventual payback surely is a small portion of the future prosperity that our market-world echo chamber assures us is inevitable. With the cumulative messaging of our media, government, educational institutions, think-tanks and capitalistic influencers all suggesting that we can have our cake and eat it too, is it even surprising that too few feel a personal responsibility to sacrifice? In fact, much of the messaging from both government and MarketWorld suggests that our responsibility is to keep consuming—for the sake of the economy and the return to our comfortable ‘normal.’ It seems this chain is shackled to us all.”

In an economic system where sacrifice is defined as spending when we should be saving, going out when we should be isolating, and consuming when we should be conserving, it is difficult to find that sacredness and meaning in our sacrifices.

“Sitting on vacation, how many people lament the return to the ‘real world’ as if they have no choice? They dream of a beachside life in Mexico, the Caribbean or a small Italian village as if it were unattainable—despite their real-world financial realities. What are we not willing to sacrifice? Or what are we too scared to sacrifice because of how others might see us and how we might lose our preconceived notions of self in the carefully scripted MarketWorld culture? Who are we without our chains?”

I love that Noah flipped my question to “what are you not willing to sacrifice.” This requires a kind of honesty with ourselves about the things, places and species that we value. In the answers, we might find the discomforting truth that while we wish for a healthier planet and a lifestyle different than the one we are fleeing for vacation, many of us are not willing to make the personal and collective sacrifices to radically shift our lifestyles. As Noah concludes, 

“I too am shackled by prosperity, comfort, conformity and my choices; I live the Good Life. I love our planet and it’s multitudes of beauty, wonder, awe and connection and consider myself a concerned citizen...Looking back at my reflection, I ask, ‘What Are You Willing To Sacrifice?’ The scary truth is that the answer might still be, ‘Not Enough.’”

See Noah’s comment in its entirety and add your reflections to his

As Shared by Anne-Marie Brest

“What comes to mind when you use the term ‘sacrifice’ is the Islamic version of the term where the affluent sacrifices for the benefit of the needy in the community. And maybe this is where we should be starting in regards to the Climate? For the ones that have enough, to start reducing their way of life so others can have enough and not feel like they are unfairly burdened. And maybe, in this situation, the prevailing sense of scarcity most people have will diminish and be replaced by generosity? As Gandhi said ‘May I live simply, so others can simply live.’”

For most of us (me included), Gandhi’s way of being is both inspirational and daunting. Per Noah’s comments, perhaps it comes from an unwillingness to break those chains that define us from levels of status and comfort. But what I particularly appreciated in revisiting Gandhi’s writing and movement building for Issue Eight was the challenge that even his wife, Kasturba, felt in the transition from her ingrained worldview of caste to one of inclusivity and mutual respect. The transition from a perspective of inherited or earned privilege to one of relationality, reciprocity, and interconnectivity can feel like a vast chasm, and one that Peter identified is the part of us that needs healing first. 

In terms of the affluent sacrifices for the benefit of the needy, it is one of the reasons I found particular resonance in Doug McAdam’s Freedom Summer research. While the volunteers were not relinquishing their station or entitlement, at the same time they were risking everything by putting their lives at stake for a cause that was much bigger than themselves. CORE and SNCC intentionally recruited and chose affluent, white volunteers because they knew it would draw the media attention they needed to elevate the movement. If those with the greatest privileges in a society are willing to sacrifice meaningfully for those with the least, it not only transforms them personally as indicated by McAdam’s research, but may transform society as well. 

“The behavior of the American population in regards to COVID-19 is not making me hopeful that as a country, the U.S. is prepared to sacrifice anything and that self-interest prevails, unfortunately.”

I certainly can relate to being disheartened. But at the same time, I am not sure that apart from perhaps not making their neighbours sick, many of the Americans that you are referring to understand why the sacrifice is meaningful. As you say, the self-interest value orientation is being primed. But I would argue that the collective-interest value orientation is nearly entirely lacking from leadership, paralleling the disconnect Premier Campbell’s campaign furthered between revenue-neutral taxation and reducing carbon consumption. If people cannot find meaning in the sacrifice, why should we expect them to surrender personal security for the collective? One could argue that the very concept of America was predicated, as evidenced by Adam Smith’s invisible hand, on self-interest trickling down to collective interest. Unfortunately, we now know how untrue and painful that can be.

See Anne-Marie’s comment in its entirety and add your reflections to hers

I hope this week between issues provides the space for further discovery and reflection. Go forth and make a difference in the week ahead. See you next Saturday with Issue Ten.

Adam