The Awesome Island

I have a tendency to blabber, mostly about things I don’t know but which have happened to catch my attention. I’ve been reading this book/memoir written by a death penalty lawyer, called “The Autobiography of an Execution”. And so the death penalty ended up as conversation after dinner with friends one evening, and I blabbered on and on about how I am shocked and appalled by the injustices in this system, that I had never really realized it was so bad, that the death penalty is racist, classist and the difference between being executed or not is most of the time luck and legal technicalities which are stupid et cetera et cetera.

From this sorry state of affairs in capital punishment, my friends and I went on to count how many things are wrong with this society, such as corn subsidies, gender inequality, global warming…

Two of my friends, Stephen and Nora, sighed and said how they have this fantasy about buying an Island, and only have awesome people who “get it” live on it. They would have sustainable farming (and in Stephen’s island no using animal labor!), and justice for all, and gay marriage, and do things properly, responsibility, democratically. They would try to screen people for this awesomeness, and require a willingness to participate in cultivating such a positive and environmentally responsible community.

I joked how this would make a horrible reality show, where people would be kicked off the island. “You’re not awesome enough.” Stephen would say in a deep overly dramatic voice, then there would be sad sappy slow instrumental music and shots of people loading their bags onto solar-powered boats.

Other than my tendency to blabber, I also have the tendency to challenge other people’s ideas even if I think they are cool. Especially if they are cool. I bought up many technical reasons why this island would not work, and why it was not as awesome as they thought. If you are unsatisfied with the way the world is, why go hide in an island? Why not change the world?

“It’s impossible.” Nora and Stephen argued, empathetically. “We’ll make our island a success first, and use it as an example for how people should do things”

Is the world really beyond repair?

I know that feeling that Nora and Stephen were expressing: we look at the state of the world, and just feel helpless. Like we are the lone sensible people in the world. But I object to the concept of an island, because the world needs us sensible people to be part of it. It needs us who are so blessed and have so much-- we have the luxury of sitting around after dinner fuming about the injustices of the world, and the luxury of blabbering in a blog. We should use our vast resources and try to make the world more like what we would like it to be.

How can we not commend those that try to push against the forces that sustain injustice and poverty and inequality? Even if for these individuals or groups some of their efforts are futile? Wouldn’t we be worse off if they did not exist? To all those activists who dedicate their lives to making the world better, I salute you. To all those ordinary people who take the time or money to put a few drops of “just” in the ocean of injustice, I salute you.

And to myself, the intellectual who sits around and complains about how the world is not perfect, maybe it’s time I get off this awesome island where I sit and complain and jump into the sea of trying to make a difference.