The Tender Activist: Less typing, more action

What does it take to get us to care? I mean care to the point of action. We’re badass typing, meme-creating, click-here-to-tell-my-senator keyboard warriors on social media, but when it comes time to vote you’d think there had been an outbreak of some unheard of deadly flu or perhaps a zombie invasion.

Case in point: Orlando’s recent city election. The commissioners of three districts in Orlando were up for reelection, making 87,389 voters eligible to vote…and 11,648 did. That comes to 13.33 percent of eligible voters, which is an even smaller percentage of the population. In one district the incumbent won despite running a shamefully racist and dishonest campaign; in another the incumbent won despite having a questionable past and a first term that was laced with scandal. In both instances, the incumbent barely avoided a runoff. One hundred or so people could have changed that; more people than that were in the theatre when I saw the latest drek of a Thor movie at Cinema Cafe.

What does it take to get us to care to the point of action?

Part of the answer may lie in “apocalypse fatigue.” In a TED Talk delivered in September at TEDGlobal>NYC, psychologist and economist Per Espen Stoknes used this term while taking a look at why it’s a challenge to get people to combat climate change. In large part, the media is to blame in its eternal grab for ratings using a constant barrage of doomsday terminology or, as Stoknes fabulous terms it, “collapse porn.” This leads to apocalypse fatigue during which we begin to feel that there is nothing we can do to make things better. I’ve liberally paraphrased here and it’s a simplification of Stoknes’ astute presentation which I highly recommend you watch.

I first became cognizant of media’s waning integrity about 16 years ago as an assistant editor for this publication, in the days following 9/11. At the time I was reading a book about the media’s handling of Matthew Shepard’s death, which resulted in demonizing an entire town and its population. I walked into the 7-11 on Summerlin and saw the covers of Time and Newsweek at the counter; both sported the now well-known photos of the planes hitting the Twin Towers. It was an example of the numbing sensationalism the book discussed. I bounded into work with this epiphany only to be informed that we would be running the same emotion-triggering photo on our cover.

Collapse porn exists for the same reason x-rated porn does: we provide the audience for it. The media itself can feel like a hyper-object, too big to wrap your mind around, but it is important to note the operative word in the first sentence of this paragraph: we. We the people. We are the ones in control of the ratings, not the media. The most powerful effect of porn, in all its forms, is that it turns things into abstractions. Take Stoknes topic, climate change, for example. For many it is a hyper-object and yet, “It’s about this air that surrounds us. This air, you can feel in this room, too, the air that moves right now in your nostrils. This air is our earth’s skin.”

In being diligently discerning in what we click on, watch, and share, we can change the quality of information delivered to us. That’s a bold proposition in today’s America, isn’t it? I’m reminded of conversation with a friend while having dinner poolside at his beautiful Belle Isle house. The topic of the White House came up and a friend who voted for Trump said, “It’s a mess, Scottie.” I agreed, we dropped the topic and uncharacteristically didn’t launch into a passionate political discussion, partly to not ruin our steak dinner but also because we the people have allowed the POTUS to become a hyper-object. What the hell is there to say?

I’ve been mystified at how well we’ve all played into the hand of the Grand Wizard of Apocalypse Fatigue. Trump tweets doomsday, then we gobble it up. There it is again, that word: we. Bizarrely, we’ve even come to believe it’s possible to be governed with Twitter. We the people give him that power. Want to take a simple step? Block the punk on Twitter and quit giving him that platform. Steps, Dr. Stoknes believes, are the way forward, and I agree.

This brings me back home because there’s not a better place to make an impactful step. In his last election, Mayor Buddy Dyer kept his job because 5 percent of the population of Orlando voted for him. Because I like the guy, I’m willing to buy the oft-touted theory that people are fine with things as they are and can’t be bothered to vote. It’s a stupid gamble, but I grasp the concept. But the election of the two incumbents mentioned above, the low voter turnout is clearly not due to voters being happy with the status quo, otherwise the results would not be so close.

On a local level things can seem hopeless. Illogical developments happen. Historic buildings disappear. Businesses spring up where once there were homes. You may live in a neighborhood that is flatly ignored or patronized at best. Listen: this isn’t an abstraction, it’s your life. It’s your world. It’s your country. It’s your Orlando. Less typing, more action. We can do this.