Global Problems Are Not My Fault?
In 2009, "Global" became the most bantered, misunderstood, and most overused adjective. We have "global challenges" that require "global agreements" with "global alliances."
Janet Daley thinks that "global" thinking won't necessarily solve the world's problems.
Thinking of problems in a global context endangers the fundamentally basic principles of accountability - the accountability of our own actions to our immediate environments, and the accountability of our elected officials to our country and with our engagement with other world leaders.
There are no "global challenges." Many countries and many individuals may face the same issues. Labeling a challenge or an impending issue as a "global" one means that we assume that my contributory actions are the same actions of everyone who faces the same issue, that my reparative responses must be identical to the responses of everyone else in every other country, and that we must have a 100% consensus of agreement to which remedial responses every country on the planet will choose -- regardless of the differences in our societies, our political governance, or our cultural norms and values.
The idea that our elected officials might not necessarily need to take action because an issue is a "global challenge" is scapegoat with a capital S.
Requiring "global responses" to our impending issues leads to an apathetic "Well it's not MY fault!" mentality. If my country doesn't agree with Zimbabwe, and if Zimbabwe doesn't agree with Israel, and Israel doesn't agree with Columbia - then neither Zimbabwe, Israel, or Columbia should take any corrective action yet to resolve our "global issues" until they all agree.
Regardless of the adjective-du-jour, the bottom line is that we are ALL ACCOUNTABLE FOR OUR OWN ACTIONS.
No clever shift in linguistics will ever absolve us of that fundamental fact. On the home front, we are equally apathetic. We know what problems face our society and we wait to employ better, corrective decisions in our daily lives while our elected leaders attend world summits.
Climate change, high obesity rates, bank collapses, the mortgage crisis . . . . . . . . What have we do to contribute to these problems and what are we going to do to take corrective action? At home? In our businesses? In our neighborhoods?
