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In Support of Sustainability, Part 2

Al Gore's next ethical spectacle will take place on 7/7/07.  The event has it's conceptual roots in Live Aid, a cross-continent rock concert held in 1985 to help raise funds and awareness about the famine in Ethiopia.  This new event, 22 years later, is called Live Earth.  Live Earth is a massive, 24-hour, multi-venue, global concert to raise awareness of environmental issues and in particular those issues related to climate change.

This is truly an ethical spectacle, yet it is very different than the spectacle of An Inconvenient Truth.  A rock concert, first of all, can never be as didactic as a documentary film.  However, little in the world is so deeply rooted in spirituality than music.  Whereas you'll never learn a whole lot from a music event, it will probably touch you at a more fundamental level than a documentary ever could.  A music event alone, however, doesn't constitute spectacle.  But one on this scale surely does.

Besides the largeness of the event and the spiritual significance of music, there are other aspects of Live Earth that are promising.  The event will be held in 7 continents on a date represented by three sevens.  The significance of this seems entirely manufactured, but the effect is as if there was some deeper meaning than just dates and numbers.  There will be over 100 performers and, judging by the marketing from Live Earth's partner MSN (unfortunately), viewers will be able to watch any of the acts live on the internet.

The upshot is we have a spiritual event of mythological proportions (has there ever been anything so big?) where individuals get to participate at their discretion from their own homes.  It's nearly the perfect synergy of myth, inclusiveness, and connectedness that a fully-realized ethical spectacle calls for.  Perhaps this is the type of thing that only someone like Al Gore can pull off, but in my search for more spectacles in support of sustainability, I see the beginning other, more bottom-up movements that have the requisite mythological undertones, promote inclusiveness and individual control, and advance connectedness and sustainability.  I will discuss these movements next time.

In Support of Sustainability, Part 1

Last week in Slate there was an article about a book called Dream, by Stephen Duncombe, which looks at the failings of the contemporary progressive movement. According to the article, Duncombe argues that modern-day progressives need a "spectacle" rooted in "story and myth, fears and desire, imagination and fantasy."  Bush's "Mission Accomplished" aircraft carrier show is used as an example of conservatives' understanding of this need.  Similarly, progressives of the past seem to have understood this idea.  The author discusses Rosa Parks for instance--how the act of disobeying a racist law had myth-like consequences.

Al Gore and his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, are also mentioned in the Slate article.  In a way, Al Gore's personal story is similar to the hero myth--The underdog suffers a humiliating defeat and disappears from the public eye for a period of time, presumably to reflect and learn, and then returns to share what he's learned in the hope of helping the world. His documentary is a true example of the type of spectacle Duncombe describes.  The film juxtaposes Gore's personal story with the story of the planet.  The shared mythological undertones demonstrate the connectedness of the planet with human life and the uniqueness of humanity.  Yet, for better or for worse, the film plays on our darker emotions such as fear.  How powerful fear is!  A point reiterated by the chilling spectacle of Gore raising himself up on a lift to show us how carbon dioxide levels are literally off the chart.  He shocks us with before and after pictures of receding glaciers and then asks us to imagine what will happen if our sea levels rise 20 feet.

Clearly, spectacle can be a powerful way to promote whatever ideas one wishes to further, provided that in some way the spectacle is tied to mythology and our collective dreams.  Duncombe might call a spectacle like one that promotes sustainability and environmentalism an ethical spectacle, one that furthers inclusivity and openness as opposed to hiding the truth, one that perhaps removes fear from the equation.

I sometimes feel a mythological and dreamlike connection to the natural enviroment which I attribute to growing up in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains so I feel there must be a better way to affect change in the way we live without resorting to scare tactics.  Fear seems to add fuel to the political fire for an issue that I would like to see less politicized.  Perhaps the ends justifies the means, but I'm looking for signs of a different kind of spectacle.