We Don’t Need Better Policies | We Need Better People

Well hello there! I know it’s been a while, and I’m sorry for the radio silence. Whenever something big happens, there’s a lot of pressure to weigh in immediately. But I didn’t want to blurt out my knee-jerk reaction and I didn’t feel comfortable posting my usual content given the explosive social issues of late. For a long time, I wasn’t sure what to say. But I’ve reached the same conclusion I always seem to come back to: we don’t need better policies. We need better people.

Before everyone freaks out, I don’t mean we shouldn’t reform laws, systems, or organizations. Reform is a necessary part of progress. All I’m saying is that you can’t legislate morality. And social programs are not the answer to morally based questions.

I want to be extremely clear here, lest my thoughts be taken as an attack on anyone. So let’s get a few things out of the way:

• Racism and prejudice are real
• Responsible reform is a good thing and we should keep seeking it
• Equality should be fought for, especially by those who have the voice to fight for it

This is not an anti-BLM post. I firmly believe that black lives matter. I also believe that social reform is a flawed attempt to solve an issue that is in desparate need of something far more painful: personal responsibilty.

So what I’m going to do is throw a little English analysis at you. Because this is a complex problem with nuanced arguments and it is necessary to pull it apart in order to understand the full complexity of what is at stake. Here goes nothing.

The Problem

The problems going on right now are fairly obvious, but I want to talk about the problem with the problem. And the 3 big problems I see are:

• Political interference
• Failure to listen
• Looking for resources in the wrong places

Political Interference

This is a biggie, and I have to start with it to frame the rest of my argument. That said, this is not about to be a political debate. I’m just calling things as I see them. Trump v. Hilary was an incredibly divisive election. It wasn’t the first in America’s history, and it certainly won’t be the last. But if you do a little historical research (or pay attention to the current political conversation), you’ll see that the strategies each side is using are nothing new. Here’s a basic breakdown of what I mean:

The point is, each party has an agenda. And neither agenda has anything to do with improving the lives of American citizens—whether they are black or not. Division is a powerful tactic for politicians because it keeps the public squabbling over social issues while they are free to rise to power.

Since this is a story-focused blog, take the Star Wars prequels. Senator Palpatine essentially starts a war and intentionally divides the republic in order to create the ideal conditions for a Ceaser-esque power grab. He literally starts, funds, and ends this war in order to seize power, and thus the Empire is born. Sound familiar? It should. It’s happened several times in history.

The point is, politicians are reveling in the distraction of social politics because emotional people are easy to manipulate. And #blacklivesmatter is an extremely emotional topic no matter which side you stand on. You may think you’re accepting a little evil in exchange for a lot of good when you support politicians who “want to make a difference.” But make no mistake: no matter which party you align with, they’re not on your side. Politics are about power. Plain and simple.

Failure to Listen

This is by far the most common problem in any conversation. Both sides are so concerned with being heard, they fail to listen. This is especially true when politics are mixed in—particularly in a bi-partisan system.

Imagine a fictional person—we’ll call them Taylor. Taylor leans conservative on gun control and economic policy but is also vehemently pro-choice and thinks that taxes should be raised for the rich. Which party should they choose? Which values are they supposed to sacrifice?

This quandary gets even more complicated as you continue to add social problems to the list. As a result you have a lot of people forced onto one side or the other even if they don’t totally agree with the party they’re defending. Thus political involvement becomes the death of conversation. When discourse ceases to be about progress and is only about winning, everybody loses.

The only way to open a conversation to real and lasting progress is to allow people to say the wrong thing without being “cancelled” for it. That’s what free speech means. We have to allow people to have complex opinions and give them time to talk through that conflict. And when someone has mistaken ideas or can’t see the full picture, we need to respond with education and patience instead of condescension and character judgment. Hence the reason we need better people, not policies.

Looking to the Wrong Resources

In college, I took a class called Writing for Social Change. It was a decent class with a lot of discussion about how to make the world a better place, but I felt completely out of place in it. I was expected to come up with ideas for conventions, programs, and/or policies that could make the world better, but in my mind, there was no policy that could make up for integrity. There was no program that could change a person’s soul.

Before there can be any real change, there has to be personal responsibility. But people don’t like talking about personal responsibility because they want instant gratification. They want a list of uncomplicated, actionable relief that can be instated right now.

Such relief does not exist. Change takes place on an internal basis and an external one. Try to have one without the other and you will fail every time.

It’s Complicated

I really wish people would stop boiling this issue down to who’s racist and who’s not. This conversation, like most, is vastly more complicated than social media will admit. Racism is undoubtedly real, but it’s not the only thing—or even the main thing—at play with #blacklivesmatter.

Whenever you involve private interest in social problems, the message gets complicated. On one side you have political interference, but on the other side, you run into hidden agendas. BLM is a great example of this because it’s not just a hashtag or a sentiment, but a full-blown organization. And while the general public may think the message is simple and united, there’s a lot more going on with BLM than meets the eye.

I believe that black lives matter. I would submit that most people do. But BLM (as in the organization, not the sentiment) is

Change is possible when we act rationally and responsibly. People have a desire to be good, and they’ll often surprise you. Give someone the right information under the right circumstances and suddenly barriers fall. Parents can teach their children to be better than the last generation, and we can each hold ourselves to higher standards by taking personal responsibility for the things we say, do, and think.

Read More Books

As I said, this is a story blog. So, of course, a huge part of my advice is to read more books. But it’s not as self-serving as it may seem. We don’t need policies that attempt to force people to live well. We need stories that inspire individuals to be better. Think of all the literature out there that inspires thought and compassion:

• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Literally thousands of other books waiting to inform and stretch your mind

The beauty of storytelling is that it gives us a chance to step into roles and situations we could never experience in real life. I dare you to read To Kill a Mockingbird and come out the other side rooting against Boo Radley or Atticus Finch. Books and stories not only teach empathy and compassion; they inspire us to take action. Tales of bravery are infectious and when we read them we take a little piece of that bravery with us. We endeavor to be more like the characters that made us feel like anything is possible.

Who doesn’t want to be brave like Atticus? Compassionate like Huck? Unendingly positive and loving like Anne Frank? These characters, real or imagined, can make us look at the world in a new light. It’s why I wanted to be a writer in the first place, and it’s why I believe we could heal a significant amount of damage in the world simply by reading more books. If you need ideas, check out my Top Ten Books page for some recommendations.

Food For Thought

I promise I’m almost done, but I want to add one more thing to illustrate my point. Did you know that Black Americans enjoyed a period of prosperity and affluence after slavery? Having a father in the home was a huge part of that prosperity. But then social policy incentivized single motherhood and created negative conditions in cities like Chicago and Detroit where black Americans are most severely disadvantaged. Social policy is not only unhelpful in solving equality problems; oftentimes it is the direct cause.

A great example is affirmative action, a policy intended to help minority students gain entrance into good schools. There’s a ton of evidence to support the fact that affirmative action actually harms the minorities it was supposed to help. You can read more about it on The Atlantic here. In a nutshell, the problem is that affirmative action lowers the standards for prospective college students without raising the standards of the education that leads them there. The result is a high drop out rate and low quality of student life.

Social policy carries unforeseen consequences. It can’t fix this issue. But we can. With personal growth and accountability.

Listen to the people around you. Support equality in meaningful ways and continue to fight for the marginalized and oppressed. But please, stop simplifying complex issues. Stop looking to someone else to solve the problem and take some personal responsibility. Recognize evil in politics, social programs, and anywhere else it might be lurking.

And for the love of all that is holy, read a book.