Well it’s really not that simple. I assume you’re referring to things like climate change and privacy concerns and general de-evolution of government.
Just to boil down a very complex subject into a lazy comment:
Let’s take climate change for instance. Do corporations and government do almost nothing to curb climate change? Yes. Do they actively lie to people about climate change? Yes.
Does the public still know that climate change is a real thing? At least some of them.
Do a ridiculous proportion of people still buy gas-guzzling SUVs and plastic water bottles and use plastic bags at the grocery store unnecessarily? Yes.
Do some people have full access to the information to educate themselves very quickly on the science, and yet choose to ignore that and instead actually actively promote what they want to believe instead? Absolutely
The reality is that “blame” is seldom simple and we all carry some amount of responsibility.
Personally I view this as a sliding scale. And while I do take personal responsibility in driving an efficient vehicle and refusing plastic bags and bottles (even though people look at me like some kind of crazy hippie and mock me accordingly), I also refuse to live in a yurt in the forest. When more people move down the scale toward me, it will make it easier for me to move even further down the scale.
Do a ridiculous proportion of people still buy gas-guzzling SUVs and plastic water bottles and use plastic bags at the grocery store unnecessarily? Yes
It’s not that this doesn’t matter, it does. But almost every time it’s mentioned is alongside industrial climate impacts as if they were at all in a similar scale.
They aren’t even close. People doing the ‘well actually’ thing for individual climate impacts are inadvertently being patsies for corporations to continue to deflect scrutiny away from the absolutely ridiculous levels of climate impacts they have. And while consumers are trying to move to metal straws, corporations have basically not even started trying to address low hanging fruit ways to mitigate climate change, let alone anything slightly tricky.
People doing the ‘well actually’ thing for individual climate impacts are inadvertently being patsies for corporations to continue to deflect scrutiny
No one is doing that. I could very easily just say that you’re just doing the opposite. That is, deflecting personal responsibility from individuals and just blaming corporations. It’s very easy to just lean back and blame corporations for your choices but the reality is that they simply couldn’t sell this bullshit if individuals weren’t buying them.
And in the same turn, consumers can’t buy a product that doesn’t exist. Until more environmentally friendly products are on the market made by the producers, consumers don’t have a real choice, abstention is not a viable choice.
I still need food, I require the ability to move those groceries from the shop to my car to my house, but if no one produces an environmentally friendly way to do so then I’m at the mercy of the plastic bags, bottles, containers, and wrapping I’ve been provided.
Just like we couldn’t use unleaded gasoline until they started making unleaded gasoline.
Just like we can’t start using renuable energy until they start making renuable energy.
Just like we can’t recycle our waste because we don’t have the infrastructure to recycle our waste.
Just like we can’t take mass transport that hasn’t been built, or use green energy infrastructure that doesn’t exist, or buy products without plastic that don’t exist.
