“Quit complaining”. How many times have we all heard and said that. Just stop complaining, it’s not that bad. It’s better than it was before. It’s fine – you’ll get used to it. Whatever the incarnation, there’s a pervasive cultural sense that complaining is bad, useless, destructive, polarizing, or paralyzing. I disagree.
I have a political blog elsewhere, so I won’t get into it, but very much on-point is the blind “American Exceptionalism” style of non-campaigning that Sarah Palin has come to symbolize. The “everything is great and perfect and wonderful” idea that any complaints or suggestions are not only unwarranted, but unpatriotic and potentially dangerous. So BIG SMILES everyone! Don your flag pins and put the hooks in the sides of your mouth so the rest of the world can see our bright, shining, contented faces. But like the family Christmas card that shows the perfect, loving family that is bitterly divorced by April, superficial declarations of perfection are the real danger.
Yes, I said it. Saying everything is wonderful is dangerous. Of course sometimes things ARE wonderful, and some things are perfect for the circumstances, but society is like evolution, and suffers the same misperceptions. And, interestingly, from many of the same people. The people who think that there is a static ideal somewhere. That Man is the perfect animal that evolution has been struggling for millennia to achieve. That America is the equivalent: the embodiment of the progress of a thousand generations of fits-and-starts and experiments. Here we are, World! Your Golden Child, your epitome of all things, your 42.
But, ladies and germs, evolution and society are not static things. They are very dynamic processes of adapting and changing to suit changing circumstances. What may have worked fine during the Industrial Revolution or the expansion of Manifest Destiny is badly out of step with modern society. Very few, I suspect, would claim otherwise, despite the recent bellyaching about debtor’s prisons and child labor laws and environmental regulations. We live in This world. Not That one. In order to survive in This world, we have to adapt to it, and adaptation means change. I believe this is what we are seeing in the Middle East and parts of Africa – societies mired in That world struggling to adapt to This one. Unfortunately, societies change exponentially faster than biology does and humans as a species are generally unwilling to give up power just because it no longer serves the purposes of the culture.
Which brings me back to complaining. Complaining is a recognition (if it’s constructive) that something is not what it could be, is not functioning the way it should, or is somehow flawed. Without seeing the flaws in a thing, you cannot fix them. If the downstairs tenant doesn’t complain about the dripping water in the ceiling, the manager doesn’t know that the upstairs plumbing is rotted out and the whole floor is about to collapse. If no one complains about slavery, abolition never happens. If no one complains about the fact that their drinking water catches fire, no one knows that the natural gas mine is leaking flammable gas all over town until it blows up and kills everyone in sight.
Complaints (again, if they are constructive) drive clearer visions of weakness and thus space for improvement. You can’t improve what you think is perfect. So while it may sound very Wal-Mart American, “American exceptionalism” desperately needs to take its own advice. America is exceptional. It is a unique experiment in many ways, and an evolving one. The exceptionalism is that evolution. Our founders build a government that is flexible enough to stand the ages, but built in enough deliberative process and mitigating influences to slow the changes to a manageable pace, avoiding the violent overhauls going on in less adaptable nations. BUT. Being exceptional is not the same as being perfect. People work to fix, change, grow, and perfect systems and things they care about. Things they want to be the best they can be. By claiming that everything is perfect (or would be, if only we had Republicans calling all the shots, as Palin and her ilk would have us believe) stunts the process of analysis and growth that is American Exceptionalism. It prevents people from engaging critically and asking “what can we do better”?
Which, of course, is what that brand of politician wants. They want people not to ask questions or think about things for themselves. They want people to take their word for it, and rely on their judgment. That way they can pretty much muck about however they want and as long as they wear flags and say American-y sounding things a lot and tell everyone how perfect things are, no one will get in the way with all those pesky questions and ideas.
So I say – RISE UP, COMPLAINERS!! Seize your power and be heard! Complain, whine, bitch, mutter, grumble, and most importantly – SUGGEST CHANGE! Even if you don’t know how to solve a problem, GET INVOLVED and be part of the discussion. People can only think what they think – so share what you think! But you must also be open to hear what others think. Sometimes things simply can’t be fixed, because the harm done by the alternative is worse, and you must be prepared to accept that. But even in that, you can help. If there is some piece of the puzzle that is particularly troubling that can be mitigated, COMPLAIN ABOUT IT! Make someone look and say “you know what, you’re right, maybe if we just tweaked this a little it would be better”. And when someone calls you unpatriotic, you call them the same. This country was founded with an artfully designed complaint system built in. The very forces that drove the founders to complain about England strenuously enough to revolt and try a better way continue to operate. And they designed it that way. We can go to court, we can give every official the bum’s rush, and we can amend the very Constitution that allows all of this. If we stop looking for ways to improve, we go the way of the dodo. And while Palin may already be there, I’d just as soon not have my country follow.
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