Refuse to Give Up

Hope > cynicism

In the wake of overwhelming Evangelical support for Trump in 2016, Chrissy Stroop posted this on Twitter:

The tweet went viral, eventually spawning a book. The post was meant to highlight that the rise of young people disaffiliating from the church wasn’t as mysterious as many Evangelical leaders claimed—it was a direct result of their own hypocrisy.

The newly coined “exvangelicals” flocked to online support spaces to vent their frustration, grief, and disillusionment. The sentiment at the time was one of “burn it all down”—there was nothing worth saving in this corrupt institution. Many exvies went from being zealously Christian to becoming atheists, agnostics, or interested in alternative spiritualities like Wicca.

Americans have a long tradition of distrusting institutions, be it big business, religion, or the government. In fact, research has shown that while most Americans approve of the government, businesses, and schools in their own community, they disapprove of these things at the national level. (Maybe this explains the popularity of non-denominational churches.)

This distrust in institutions has only grown in the Trump Era. He denigrates the media and refers to our national government as “The Swamp.” Cynicism is easy to sow but harder to repair.

Maybe you, like me, feel this creeping cynicism, too. Do you trust institutions like Big Tech? How about the pharmaceutical or financial industries? For a comparison, check out this survey data from 2010 on how many Americans approved of various institutions:

image courtesy of NPR

In our grief and rage, “burn it all down” feels like the only real option. But, like it or not, these institutions fill a need. Eliminating them creates a vacuum, and opportunistic manipulators are all too happy to step into that vacuum and claim authority. We may imagine that if we leave the church, we’ll leave spirituality altogether, but often we simply fracture into some other cult: the cult of Liberalism, the cult of wellness, the cult of Q-Anon. Let he who is without irrational belief cast the first stone.

All this came to mind recently when I was reading Helen Lewis’ Atlantic profile on Joe Rogan. Rogan is a fascinating, if deeply unsettling, character. I’ve listened to his podcast and understand the appeal—he’s affable and curious, a sort of everyman stand-in. But given that his podcast is number one in the world, his decisions come with added responsibility, one he doesn’t seem to understand or care about as he continues to platform and then not pushback against various conspiracy cranks.

Writing about Rogan’s tacit agreement with his friend, the loathsome Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Lewis posits:

“Rogan’s sympathetic treatment of his friend demonstrates why power is better mediated through institutions than wielded by individuals: It’s too easy to be sympathetic to a man sitting in front of you, whom you know as a complete person, rather than to his distant, unseen victims. Also, it’s good to be open-minded, but not so much that your brain falls out.”

The point of institutions is to remove this human frailty from the process. Instead of following the whims of an individual, we’ll have rules and guidelines that apply to everyone. That’s the fundamental premise of democracy—that the rule of law applies to presidents and paupers alike.

Now have we ever actually achieved this? Probably not! But it’s still an ideal worth striving for.

Our institutions continue to both serve and fail us. When I advocate in my school district, I’m both delighted by the bright classrooms I visit and frustrated by the district’s bureaucracy. But instead of jumping ship, I believe we are called to do the work of reform. We may start by calling out our institutions’ shortcomings, sure, but from there we can’t lapse into cynical inaction. We can’t cede control of all our institutions to people who would destroy them for personal gain. We need to point back to the ideals our institutions were founded on and then push them relentlessly towards those ideals.

And I get it—slow, incremental change is not sexy. Reforming an institution means listening to people you disagree with, making compromises, coalition building. It means sitting in meetings and drafting statements and wondering if anything that you’re doing actually matters. It’s the opposite of the con man—diligent, glory-less work. But it’s good work, too.

BONUS MATERIALS:

-Here are two poems to rev you up

-Kat Armas has me feeling hopeful

-Shama4Realz is hilarious and I definitely recommend a follow