URSABLOG: A Call To Action

Was it really like this last time? That’s the thought that went through my mind as I saw the headlines seep into my daily life last week: Trump says this, Musk tweets that. Was it really that stupid back in 2017? Was it really that outrageous? Was it really that self-contradictory? I really don’t know. But this time I felt it was different. I felt it was threatening, and threatening the very fabric of my comfort zone that I had mentally built around me to ward off the sense of unease after the Presidential election.

But of course comfort zones are there to be stepped out of; a ship is not meant to stay safe in harbour and all that. So I said to myself: ignore all the commentary of righteous wishful thinking that would do nothing except reinforce your own feelings and prejudices that these stupid, outrageous, self-contradictory and threatening comments would die by their own contradictions. Ignore too the commentary that of course Trump likes to have people afraid and confused before entering into negotiations, and it’s nothing too serious. Instead, I forced myself into a different frame of mind.

What if these things don’t die away, what if history – or the end of it – doesn’t march on inexorably to its final self-congratulatory liberal, democratic and benign free market conclusions? What if shit happens, and shit happens big. How am I going to react to it, live in it? And if I don’t agree with it, how can I express it? How can I fight against it? Because this is fighting talk, and is an attack, deep down, on many of the ideals I take very seriously. I cannot simply dismiss the very real supporters of Trump and his (many) ways as irrelevant. Why should I assume that the ideals I take very seriously are important, or indeed relevant, to them? What do they care what I think?

No, I had to start again, and dig deep into my mind and memory and work out on what foundations my point of view, my opinions, my own sense of myself, my place in the world and what the world was were built on. What did I really believe? What if I was wrong? Worse, what if what I thought, and how I acted was irrelevant? What if the whole meaning, structure and point of my life was mistaken? And if that was the case, what the hell do I do now?

You may think I am being overly dramatic: is there really any need to go into such soul-searching just on the back of the election of someone I don’t like? Just because he’s thrown out some crazy ideas and sent his son to Greenland? Do I really need to panic just because the richest man in the world is sending insults to good men and women, and praising those that I don’t think should be lauded? Why not just go online and see what’s on Netflix, or immerse myself in a book where people in different times behaved themselves more predictably because the stories came out of people’s heads and were confined within the printed pages?

No, it would not do. We are all always already in world, arriving at different times and places, and mix with each other to create and develop, or demean and destroy, other people, things and systems. Like it or not, agreeing with it or not, we are all agents of change in the world where even our inaction – or avoidance of any disruption to our precious comfort zones – has consequences we cannot control. Whether you like it or not, I believe this to be the case. If we are not consequential, then what in the hell are we doing here?

The first thing to consider therefore was how I arrived in the world: who my parents were, where I was born, what value systems – and indeed what patterns of behaviour – did they have that I absorbed and took with me into the world, through school, through college and my professional live and in the relationships that I formed and discarded along the way. Ignoring – as much as I could – the mawkish appreciation or the self-pitying blame that so often accompanies such journeys into the self – I could at least define the areas of politics, culture and emotions that could be challenged because they were, for want of a better phrase – inherited and absorbed unthinkingly.

The reactions I make are often unthinking because I take the easy short-cuts, usually simply not having – or making – the time to think about and reflect on where the justifications I make for such reactions come from. Self-justification is a dangerous habit, because it becomes after the action, especially if the actions – like most of the time – are spontaneous or impulsive without any thought to the consequences. I act like that because I have always acted like that, and if I make a mistake I can always blame someone else – my family, my education, the society I was raised in or the one I’m in now, the state, the stars, even Donald Trump – for the consequences.

The second thing, which was easy enough to do because it followed on from the first one above, was how I had formed my moral, ethical and political view of the world. It turns out that apart from many of the things I had inherited – not genetically, but culturally – started me off on an intellectual journey that was always informed by what came before it. One conversation, opinion, book, article, piece of music leads to another, reinforcing its narrowmindedness as it goes along unless a shock jolts me out of my complacency and challenges me to think again. Or – and more malignly – when the zeitgeist of the times moulds it into something else without me even noticing it and finding myself so far from what I thought when I was in my twenties for example (when not only did I think I knew everything, I knew I knew everything without any doubt) that I am almost unrecognisable. This, on good days, is a nice to reflect on. On bad days self-pity and blame re-enters as I consider apparently wasted opportunities.

Thirdly, my emotional life. I do not mean the navel-gazing tedium of thinking how and why I feel certain ways at certain times – never a productive frame of mind – but how my emotions govern, inform, regulate, amplify or distort my actions, and therefore affect the relationships with the people and – for want of a better word – institutions around me. If I consider myself kind and forgiving, do others consider me weak and easy to manipulate? If I consider myself strong and always acting with integrity do others consider me angry and stubborn, or just passively idealistic? If – temperamentally – I prefer to avoid confrontation and dispute in the search of a consensual agreement, am I really trying to honourably progress through agreement or just giving in to others in the face of a greater force? Is it wise to do so in every circumstance? Am I in search of excellence and recognition in my chosen career, or am I just greedy and selfish?

This line of investigation – as you may imagine – is dangerous as it can lead to perpetual and unproductive narcissistic reflection on the one hand, yet on the other can be so self-undermining that you end up lost in a vacuum of pointlessness and unworthiness. But as – I firmly believe – not only society but market behaviour is driven in a large part by individuals, their backgrounds, and their moral and ethical – and political – sense of themselves, as well as the changing emotional environment of the times, then it is worth it, as long as it remains helpful.

I can report some initial conclusions that are at least helpful to me.

One: we are who we are, a product of where we come from, what we have experienced and what we have done, even up to earlier today. We cannot do anything to change this but we can act differently from how we have acted if we have the strength, understanding and knowledge – and desire – to do so. Some of us can decide to change when we wish, others can work on themselves to do so, but a lot of the time it is circumstances that force us to. All are valid.

Second: our actions – however great or small – affect and are in turn informed by others’ actions. There is no getting around it, it is a fact of life. No man – or woman – is an island, entire of itself. The blessing and curse of being part of the human family is that we need each other, even when the family members are embarrassing and stupid, and even when we are embarrassing and stupid ourselves. Like it or not, we belong.

Third: conflict is eternal. We cannot avoid it. We cannot agree with everyone all the time, nor should we want to. One point of view should not prevail perpetually, as it will rot and poison if it does not change. The sooner we get over this, the sooner we can avoid conflicts leading to pain, loss and war. This is the nature of politics. There is nothing you can do about it: it’s hardwired into us and necessary for our survival. Per Aristotelis, man – and woman – is a political animal.

Finally, action is non-negotiable. We have to act. This is not meant as an inspiring, carpe diem type of encouragement. Some days we really don’t feel like it. But again, tough. Our actions – and worse our inactions – have consequences. But at least by acting, we are doing something, and that at the end of the day – whenever that will be – is better than doing nothing.

If this reads like a call to action, then it is, if only for myself. Challenging not only my beliefs, but their sources, influences and their development has turned out to be an uncomfortable and at times painful process. What has been missing is the element of urgency, the imperative to act. For one reason or another this has arrived recently; maybe it’s just my time.

My reactions to Trump, Musk, Xi, Putin, Starmer, Erdogan, Macron, Mitsotakis – whoever – are inconsequential if all I do is then supress them so they don’t affect my comfort zone. It’s a becoming a dangerous world out there, what will I be if all I do is run away and hide? If as a broker I don’t go into the market and engage with it I am just a passive recipient of opportunities that may or may not arrive. And how can someone know if I care about them, or want them – or even if I don’t want them – if I don’t act? Not only are we always already in the world, we also have to act to make sure we maintain a space in it for us and those we love and care about, and fulfil our potential in it. Otherwise, how can anyone ever know what we really mean?

Simon Ward