Seong Im Hong
Nov 19, 2012
Getting the Last Word: Debate about the Debate Assignment
Call me petty, but I want to get the last word in on the debate about the debate assignment. (And even if Demetra never hears this argument somebody else would know.)
Taxing residential areas a “green tax” is great, but this is a flawed system based solely on the whip. To have an effective system of encouraging citizens to be more environmentally conscious, policy makers should employ both the whip and the carrot. It sounded to me that the “whip,” or the tax, would hit families equally as hard regardless of how good they are about their energy. If this is so, the policy makers should consider their goal: is it to raise tax revenue for investment in green energy, or to herald a shift in the citizens’ habits that may continue even after a total shift to green, renewable energy?
With just the tax in effect, there is nothing stopping the citizens from changing their energy usage habits to be more conservative. What if there are tax cuts offered to those who consume less than the district’s average energy consumption? That way, citizens who do not feel like they can afford the tax can take control of their home to reduce their energy consumption. (They can, for example, unplug their appliances when they are not in use.)
(I italicized “take control of their homes” because I think this is a key step to developing green habits: I think citizens have a sort of… learned helplessness, almost, when it comes to dealing with issues that are bigger than any single one of us can handle. I talked about this before when I was trying to make sense of the Andy Kushner quote, but I think the idea is relevant again: we have learned to seek freedom from responsibility in perceived helplessness in the face of giant organizations and giant problems like ridiculous campaign bills, banks’ reckless behaviors, and global warming. Companies have been consolidating for years and years to the point that we as individuals cannot help but feel small and insignificant when we stare at their true size. We have become removed from corporations and large organizations (the U.S. government included, I suppose) to the point that we really ought to have corporation-money-units to help us fathom how much exponentially bigger everything is. And instead of demanding to have a say in how our society is run, we just shrug and say, “Oh well,” probably because we’re not really in any discomfort. Yet.)
Of course, employing the whip and the carrot to encourage taking control over what comes up to be the grand total of $5 tax per year isn’t going to change the world. Like Demetra said, there won’t be a paradigm shift—if people chose to unplug their appliances, it will be to pay less rather than out of actual concern for the environment. I agree with that. However, can that small change in attitude (a perception of control) change anything if there are many of these perception shifts? I think it maybe, maybe, maybe can, and here’s why:
(I’m about to get a bit radical and theoretical. Bear with me.)
There is a term, microaggression, to describe commonplace act of aggressions that act to subtly put down/subjugate a group of people. Microaggression can have a tinge of racism (i.e. “I can’t believe you’re black! You act like a normal person!”) or sexism (i.e. “Get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich! Haha, this is totally a joke!”) or homophobia (i.e. “I can’t be homophobic! One of my best friends is gay!”).
I think microaggression can extend to non –isms and –phobias. I think that how we react to the world is effected by what we expect out of it from past experiences. And this sounds crazy, but Messianic Moments are supposed to be kind of crazy: maybe supporting a culture of some level of personal control over large institutions (like the IRS) can lead to a more proactive culture.
Wow, that sounded kind of libertarian, too.
Obviously, we do need taxes to support large institutions (i.e. EPA) whose full-time job is to combat other large institutions (i.e. Exxon-Mobil). But we also need to remember that we as a collective are employing those large institutions. But how do we draw the line between personal control/choice and sacrificing for the greater good? Obviously, we can get the two to meet by educating people about why, for example, global warming is bad. But that will take time. Generations, even. So how what do we do meanwhile? I don’t know.
(And that is why I want to be a doctor/scientist, not a policy maker.)
