In Which I Tackle The Subject of Activism

Nation, you know I don't like social activism, and you know I do a crappy Stephen Colbert, especially in text where you can't even hear my lame attempt at a vocal impersonation. It's not that I'm necessarily opposed to the ideas forwarded by activists, it's more that I find most activism to be short-sighted and reactionary rather than constructive.

I'm not swayed by large groups of people making a public display of anger; I am frightened and disgusted. This applies as much to armed-to-the-teeth Tea Partiers as it does to people marching for amnesty for illegal immigrants. Well, maybe that's not true. The Tea Partiers who carry guns around in public *really* frighten me. At any rate, large groups of people minimizing a complex issue down to a single shouted, repeated slogan fucking scare me, so much so that I honestly can't even register their message most of the time. The diffusion of individual consciousness and responsibility and even identity into a mob scares me more than anything else. ANYTHING ELSE. Which is not to say that, given our heads, I think we tend to use them very wisely all that often. But an emotionally-charged humanity given license by what sociologists call "diffusion of responsibility" to act in ways that, individually, they never could? No thank you. No thank you at all. All ad Hitlerium fallacies aside, this is the primary component of Nazism, people, and of all other large-scale evils ever perpetrated in the course of human events. And of sports spectatorship, which also causes me to cringe and recoil in horror.

(I am so frightened by this tendency to de-individualization, which also causes those within the mob to de-individualize those *outside* of their group into conveniently targeted groups, that a major component of my life's work is striking back against it, and individualizing those persons who are all too often seen only as members of antagonistic "other" groups or urging conscience to those within a de-individualized group. This drive towards individualization is at the core of a good deal of my writing. I believe, rightly or wrongly but of course I think it's rightly otherwise I wouldn't think this, that the acceptance of individual responsibility and the refusal to generalize outgroups into one-note "others" are the solutions to a great many of the problems that we have created for ourselves.).

So, in order for me to be swayed, I need to be presented with a careful, rational argument replete with evidence and largely free of ad hominem demonizations or blatant emotional appeals. I'm still waiting for such an argument that will win me over to a free market approach to economics--I believe such an argument is possible in theory, although I definitely have yet to see it in practice. The day a campus evangelist can provide me with such an argument is the day I commit to Christianity (or Hare Krishnism, as the case may be). But I'm not holding my breath.

Let's be honest, these kinds of arguments are pretty hard to come by most of the time, especially in the public arena, especially in an age where media attention is all and stunts and stagecraft trump careful and considerate every time.

Which is why I was so incredibly charmed by this bridge:
http://www.bladediary.com/astoria-scum-river-bridge/
Make sure you click through to get the other photo blogs to be able to read the full inscription on the plaque and the local government's response.

Now this bridge, to me, is an activist gesture I can get behind one-hundred percent. I might even hyperbolically inflate that number over one-hundred, even though I know that such makes no mathematical sense, for the purposes of dramatic emphasis. For shits and giggles, let's say I can get behind this gesture one-hundred and *seventeen* percent, with the implication that this bridge mobilizes seventeen percent of me that I didn't even know I had or that is otherwise normally unavailable to me and puts that seventeen percent into effect.

Permit me to break down for you why it is that I think this bridge is awesome.

1. It is Useful: The bridge addresses a manifest public need, albeit a relatively small one, and offers a resolution for that need. Stepping in the Scum River was probably an inconvenience at best, slightly hazardous at worst when there were icy conditions. The consequences of not addressing this need were probably negligible in absolute terms--which is most likely why the local government never felt compelled to do anything about it, assuming it was even aware of the problem. Nathless, the presence of the bridge is of benefit to all who might walk that way, making the route safer and more pleasant. If the bridge is a gesture of protest designed to catalyze action more than be a solution in itself, it is still, at present, an improvement over what had existed previously.

2. It is Positive: The bridge does not fling blame. The bridge does not go on the attack. The bridge does not heap odium upon those whose oversights and failures have generated the Scum River problem in the first place. Instead, the bridge just works to resolve the issue. Of course, there is the implied critique of the city government and the corporation (Amtrak) for not being responsive to the needs of the public, but the critique is left at its implication. By taking this approach, the bridge has actually manged to engage with an individual in power, earning "a commendation...[and] a pledge to work with Amtrak to re-route Astoria Scum River off the sidewalk" from a city council member. Instead of causing those at fault to become defensive, the bridge inspires those persons to positive action.

3. It is Free: The bridge is made out of refuse, constructed at no cost to taxpayers or to anybody else, even its creators. One of the awfulest things about living in a capitalist society that inculcates one with the belief that everything has its price is the corresponding tendency to believe that that which has no monetary value is that which has no worth. We feel disempowered to deal with problems on account of the solutions being cost-prohibitive. Or, Hell, I don't know if I'm speaking for anybody else here, but I know I sure as Hell feel that way about a lot of things. This bridge, though, shows that positive outcomes are possible with the use of found materials and individual effort. It is a triumph of personal creativity over a depersonalized and exclusivistic economy. This is, again, a potent critique of those powers with the resources to do something in the traditional, cost-intensive capitalistic mode about the problem but that opted to do nothing.

And, clearly, like any good protest these days, it is media savvy. I think Boing-Boing has picked up on it now. But whatever. I couldn't care less about that crap. Even if the city councilman hadn't been guilted (maybe inspired?) into responding to it, it would still be sufficient in itself, exclusive of any external attention.

Now, just about the only *possible* criticism I can conceive of against this bridge is that, being constructed by two individuals who assumingly are not licensed contractors, the bridge is not built in accordance with state and local safety codes. The _O.C. Register_ loves to cite such codes as a corrupt Statist conspiracy to keep the working man down and to keep slick cronyism in place, but I think they're a good portion of the reason why the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake killed about 2,500 people and the 1989 Bay Area Earthquake killed only 57. Oh, I know there was a difference in magnitude and in distance from the epicenters for the two quakes. But the quake that struck Haiti a couple of weeks ago was about the same size as the Bay Area Quake, and that one caused 200,000 fatalities...I think that this ends up being a pretty convincing argument in favor of rigorously engineered construction. If the artists had waited for a bridge to be constructed in accordance with code, though, they and everybody else who walked that way would still be waiting for any kind of solution to the problem. For the end user, the fact that this bridge wasn't pumped out be a large, faceless organization and was instead built by individuals would be enough for my own mother, who literally lives in a constant fantasy of nearly everything that is not compulsory being prohibited by law, to avoid the bridge. I don't know how many people would share her thoroughly oppressed opinion. Too, there is the fact that the bridge has steps rather than ramps, which makes it wheelchair inaccessible. I expect that wouldn't have happened if the bridge had been built according to code.

But all of this is circumvented if one simply walks (or wheels) around the bridge. And then one is in exactly the same situation one was in before the installation of the bridge--i.e., walking through iced-over scum. Participation in the bridge is non-compulsory. One loses nothing by the bridge being there except for perhaps half a second of effort required to step slightly to the side, or some amount of resentment if one is in a wheelchair and cannot enjoy this amenity. But I'd hope that people in wheelchairs wouldn't be too bitter against the bridge for all that, and would look forward to the now-hopefully-imminent day when Amtrak and the city of New York effect a permanent solution to Scum River.

To sum up, if more gestures of protest were like this bridge, I would be a fan of more gestures of protest. I wouldn't expect everybody who has to confront some kind of public problem to deal with that problem with this same level of creativity, unambiguous and (relatively) non-exclusive utility, and freedom from resentment and malice. I think it's hard to channel these qualities, especially when the public problems start to pile up or are more life-threatening in nature, and especially when we get into groups, which necessarily dampen these qualities. Just the same, I think this bridge provides a model for positive and meaningful activism that could serve as a good example for us all when we think about how we are going to interact with the world beyond our doorsteps.