Bellah’s chapter on the important role of institutions in
our lives reminded me of a recent episode of the radio show This American Life. The episode “Hot in my Backyard” discusses
the increasingly urgent problem of environmental destruction and what we can do
to address this issue. In part 3 of this
episode, writer Bill McKibben argues, like Bellah, that individual efforts will
not suffice to make real changes in the way we relate towards the environment. Instead, according to McKibben, the way to go
about addressing climate change is to work through political institutions.
This episode follows the efforts of a college student as she
attempts, following McKibben’s suggestions, to disentangle money from oil
companies from the rest of her school’s finances. Although the student is only somewhat
successful (she meets a dead end when she confronts the oil companies), making
efforts like this known is important, at least if we agree with Bellah’s
thesis. The successes this student and
her peers make reveal the possibility for change if we work through
institutions. As Bellah states,
“large-scale institutions can and indeed must be better understood, and they
are amenable to citizen action and the influence of global public opinion.” I am still left wondering about the question
posed by Dr. Peterson, however. Are
individual actions ever worthwhile? What
does this mean, for example, about individuals’ choices to abstain from eating
animal products? Further, how can we
overcome our societal tendency towards individualism in order to take political
action (assuming, that is, that political action is most effective when taken
by more than one person)? How can we
begin to reorient our perspective so that we live through institutions?
-- Mary Puckett
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