Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:
Climate change is too big, there’s nothing I can do about it, so why bother?
Our political system is so polarized, so vicious, and so corrupted no honest person could possibly make a difference.
You can’t fight the market, so just make all the money you can and then you can give away a portion later.
Actually you’ve probably heard all of these and many more similar sentiments passed around by friends, colleagues, family members, neighbors, commentators, financial advisors, and just about anyone else you know.
It’s easy to understand the impulse to throw up one’s hands. After all, climate change, government destabilization, market hegemony, and pandemic are all concurrent existential threats, and we face several others in this moment as well.
Seeing it coming and living through it are two very different things.
With sincere apologies to Martha Wells for this bastardization of a frequently repeated quote from Murderbot, the fact of the matter is that while many if not all of our current crises were not only foreseeable but widely predicted by experts and moderately informed lay people alike, seeing the disaster coming did nothing to soften the blow. Living through multiple converging, interconnected, and mutually amplifying catastrophes in this moment in history is terrifying.
But extremity does not strip us of agency; nor does terror absolve us of responsibility to act.
You’ve seen this movie.
How many beloved books and films — e.g., The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, just to name a few blockbusters — feature critical plot moments in which the fulcrum of the story is a choice a character makes to act, even in sheer desperation, despite overwhelming evidence and powerful assurance that they cannot possibly win?
The heroic characters choose to act not because they are fearless or confident they will prevail. Rather they act in spite of being frightened and severely overmatched. The choice to defy an overwhelming menace is what makes those characters heroic.
Perhaps you prefer nonfiction.
Here in the real world, who would have expected that a schoolgirl — historically and still currently among the least powerful or feared social ranks — would have launched a global climate movement speaking truth to power and inspiring a generation of other young leaders, or become a Nobel Laureate in recognition of her global peace and human rights advocacy, or become the first ever National Youth Poet Laureate, as well as activist, author, and nonprofit founder, among other things. Each of these extraordinary young women and countless other people of all ages and identities made and continue to make heroic choices to pursue unreasonable, perhaps even impossible-seeming objectives that mattered to them and to others. As a result they have become role models and champions both for people they know and many others they will never know.
Not everyone who commits to act becomes famous, of course. The majority are only famous in the Naomi Shihab Nye sense, and are heroic on a personal but no less valiant scale, as voiced by Lucille Clifton.
Regardless of recognition, it is the choices, the actions, the determined unwillingness to be insignificant that distinguishes them from many talented people who are seduced or frightened into inaction.
What would Desmond Tutu do?
Although sadly he’s no longer present to remind us himself, Archbishop Tutu’s towering legacy remains to guide us. For decades, across continents, and against one seemingly insurmountable horror after another he relentlessly sharpened and embodied the moral call to action, the unequivocal ethical and spiritual duty to act. Inaction constitutes complicity in evil, as Hannah Arendt wrote: “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” Archbishop Tutu framed the moral imperative even more pointedly: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
What are our political, financial, economic, climate, health, and other calamities if not material expressions and effects of oppression, degradation, and injustice?
“Futility is self-imposed.” — Iain Banks, Transition
Fred Rogers often quoted his mother as having told him to “look for the helpers” in times of catastrophe, to locate cause for hope. To Mr. Rogers’ advice we add this: Don’t be an idle observer. Do what you can to support the helpers — or better yet, be one.
The current catastrophes were not inevitable, nor are they inexorable. Current calamity can be abated. Further calamity can be averted.
For our part, Reinventure Capital is acting to break one of the causal drivers of catastrophe: the extreme hyperconcentration of investment capital in the hands of straight white cis-gendered men from a tiny subset of universities and located in a handful of metropolitan areas. There is no hyperbole in naming this hyperconcentration as an evil. In some instances it is intentionally propagated with active malevolence, but it is most widely sustained by the inattentive complicity of people who choose not to see the atrocity unfolding on their watch, or who choose to see themselves as powerless to alter the system.
No, success is never guaranteed, and as the standard disclaimer goes, past performance* is not an indicator of future results. But change can only come from action, from dissent, from refusing to be complicit with the status quo. As my dad used to say, “if you don’t ask, the answer is already no.” Choosing not to act is choosing hopelessness and helplessness, choosing the existential NO posed by our interrelated calamities and their evils. Apathy and futility are not neutral stances in the context of our status quo.
What choices are you making? Have you accepted self-imposed futility, or are you one of the helpers? Whose side is your money on?
If you and your money are taking the side of the mouse, please contact us to explore how we might join forces. And please share how you are helping or supporting the helpers, so others can join you as well!
Meanwhile, I wish you a deeply meaningful, stirring, heartening Martin Luther King Day. May Reverend Dr. King’s unbroken spirit of prophetic indictment, human courage, and divine grace embolden and impel you to speak up and take action.
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Photo credit: Dan Meyers on Unsplash
*While there’s no such thing as a guarantee in investing and no one can reliably predict the future, Ed’s prior track record delivering 32% IRR to investors provides direct evidence that it is indeed possible to consistently invest for both financial returns and system change. If you are an accredited investor and would like to learn more about investments that can advance social, racial, and gender equity by supporting high-value companies led by people of color and/or women, please contact us to start that conversation.
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