When the Effect of the Cause is a Problem

Previously, I wrote about the nature of causes: how people create causes in order to find meaning in the ensuing battle.

It’s not that I don’t think that just causes exist and that individuals or groups of individuals are not justified in their actions in support of a cause. Certainly, there are legitimate reasons that people have gone to war, have held protests, or have marched or picketed as a means of bringing about change for the better, or as a means of preventing a change for the worse.

The problem with many causes, at least in my view, is that they quickly become identities and or industries. And the problem with this is that once it happens, the problem is never going away no matter how good things get. And when this happens, what was once a solution quickly becomes another problem.

Take racism for example. In spite of how far things have come socially and in spite of how much better things become, racism is never going to go away. This is true in part because of human nature being what it is; we are never going to completely rid humanity of bigotry and prejudice. But it is true in larger part because there are too many people working in the racism industry. The reverend Jesse Jackson is never going to say, “there aren’t many black guys playing major league baseball because they are just not into it. They are more into playing basketball”. What he is going to say is “there aren’t many black guys playing major league baseball because it is closed to them.” The Reverend Jesse makes a pretty good living off the racism industry, and he is not about to start making statements that would begin to limit his earning power.

Another example is school reform. The schools have been being reformed for about forty years now. If you don’t think schools have improved, take a look at the school curriculum in 1970 compared to today. Granted, every student isn’t learning (have they ever?) and every school is not a good school, probably owing more to its socio-economic setting as opposed to those people who are working in those schools desperately trying to overcome such barriers. But no matter how much we improve our schools, school reform will never go away. Why? Do a Google search on the words “school reform”. See how many companies are in the school reform business. The need for school reform will be perpetuated indefinitely, not because we need better schools, but because there is an industry that is thriving on perpetuating the idea that schools as they are, suck, and that their company is the only viable option. They are not going to say, “You know what? There is only so much you can do with a 100 IQ. There are only so many hours in a day, and only so much you can demand of ten year old kids. We’ve done all we can, now it’s time to go and solve some real problems, like why Johnny’s parents get drunk and beat each other up every weekend.” They aren’t going to say that because if they did, they’d have to find another job, probably doing real work, like trying to stop Johnny’s parents from getting drunk and beating each other up every weekend.

But the real problem is now some of these folks who started out with good intentions are now part of the problem. To Jesse Jackson and his followers, every inconvenient thing that happens to a black person is racism. Sometimes it is, yes. But lots of times it is just life happening as it tends to happen: randomly. But Jesse is perpetuating racism and creating it where it doesn’t exist because it feeds his cause. I heard of one university professor who claimed that even when a white person is kind to a black person, they are only doing it out of guilt because of their own racism. I mean, how do you ever counter this kind of claim?

School reform businesses are now in the business not of helping schools succeed, but of proving schools are failing so they can continue to sell their product. No Child Left Behind was not about helping kids succeed, it was about helping schools fail. Specifically, it was about finding a way to show how schools were failing so they could drum up support of funneling public money into private education under the auspices of “school choice”.

There is no doubt that in history, certain groups have been mistreated in any number of ways. I think it would be a real challenge to find a group of any kind that can’t make a serious claim as such. And there is no reason that when it happens, good people should stand up and well, take a stand. But to perpetuate conflict because it is part of your history (Arabs vs. Jews, Blacks vs. Whites, Irish Catholics vs. the IRA), or your identity (Greenpeace vs. anyone who drives a car, Feminists vs. anyone who has a penis, etc) is taking things a bit too seriously.

And I might add, a bit tiresome for all those who have to pretend to take you seriously, lest you inflict yourselves upon us.