Perhaps you remember that old dirty joke about the three great lies. The first: “The check’s in the mail.” The second: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” (If you don’t already know the third one, I’ll let you google it.)
I’ve been thinking a lot about the second of those phrases, and why Americans, in particular, express so much skepticism about the government’s ability to improve their lives while at the same time holding the president responsible for things like gas prices or employment numbers.
And yes, of course, some of this is just a basic misunderstanding of both civics and economics. But “people are stupid” is, to my mind, too easy an answer. I talk with strangers for a living, and in my experience people often misunderstand the why but they tend not to misunderstand the what. So why do people feel so distrustful of government assistance while at the same time wanting government to improve their lives?
I had occasion to ponder this question while traveling this summer in European countries that don’t have our generalized distrust of government, where the average native-born citizen (it can be a very different story for immigrants) takes for granted the notion that government exists to make their lives easier, better, and healthier.
One thing that stood out to me as we traveled were the minute messages embedded in the infrastructure. Street cleaners picking up litter. Attractive and affordable public swimming spots. Timely and clean public transit. Government employees who responded to inquiries with interest and care. Everywhere I looked, the investments in the public’s quality of life communicated the same idea: You Are Valued. You Are Part of Something.
Here’s a small example, from a train station in Switzerland:
Those stripes? They’re there to help blind people navigate the train station.
Returning home, I was struck by the contrast. I began to track my own emotions, how I felt as I moved through the world: anxious, irritable, alienated. Nearly everywhere I looked, there was something that communicated a lack of care or interest in my—in anyone’s—well-being. Litter, crime, homelessness, barely functional public transit systems, underfunded schools, unpaved streets, bewildering interfaces with government offices. Each of these sends a message, intentionally or unintentionally, of indifference, suspicion, or outright hostility: You Don’t Matter. And when you feel that society doesn’t care about you, it becomes a lot more likely that you won’t care about society.
The private sector is no better—in fact, it’s often worse. The endless times on hold, the increasingly automated interfaces, the hidden fees, the lack of recourse when something goes wrong, the general lack of quality or of human interaction—all of it sends a message that we, as citizens, have no value except as a resource to be extracted: our labor, our data, our attention, our money.
Small wonder then that we are so susceptible to invitations to pay for the privilege of being treated better: concierge service, first class travel, private school, private cars, gated communities, upgrades of all kinds. Somehow we have grown accustomed to a world in which the default is shabby and exhausting and only certain people—those who can afford it—are entitled to anything better.
All of this is not by accident, of course. For decades, the goal of the Republican party has been— in the famous words of anti-tax lobbyist and GOP operative Grover Norquist—to reduce government “to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” The smaller it is, the less functional it becomes, and the less functional it becomes, the easier it is to use that dysfunction to advocate for reducing it even further. In the meantime, here comes the private sector offering us the services that government can no longer provide effectively—but this time, for a fee.
What’s noteworthy, to me, is how much a state of general shittiness infects our sense of what’s possible. We’re so used to the subtle messages from our surroundings telling us that we’re undeserving and untrustworthy that many of us have come to believe it. Government shouldn’t offer anything to anyone, the logic goes, because people will ruin it or take more than they deserve, and whatever it is probably won’t be good anyway, because why would the government give us something good? What does “good” even look like?
The reality is that most of us can recognize “good” when we see it. We like our libraries. We like our parks. We like it when vaccines are free and roads are paved and somebody at City Hall answers the phone. Most of all, we like it when we don’t have to fill out dozens of forms to access some basic benefit, when government demonstrates to us that its mission isn’t to make our lives more difficult but to make our lives easier.
Here’s the thing: effective governments deliver benefits to all of its citizens, regardless of means, even knowing that some people will abuse the privilege. All of society profits when basic health care is easy for everyone to access, just as all of society benefits from universal education and clean streets and public safety. But this is the problem with a state of general shittiness: we absorb its hidden message, the message that says, “If you want nice things, you better be able to pay for them. And if you can’t afford to pay, then you deserve whatever you get.”
Over the past couple of weeks, as I’ve watched the way my environment impacts my emotions, the feelings haven’t always been negative. There are positive ones as well: when I swim at a public beach and shower at a public shower; when I check out a book from the public library; when I exchange pleasantries with the soft-spoken woman who works at my local post office; when the bus or the streetcar takes me exactly where I want to go. At those times, I feel a small, almost imperceptible lift to my spirits, a sense of being part of a community, of being a valued citizen. That’s what people want from government. They just need to see more of it to believe it’s possible.
Let me know what messages you receive from the world around you in the comments. Are there specific places that make you feel more or less valued?
With a sigh,
Dashka
In Other News
Accountable won a Northern California Book Award in the Young Adult category. It’s been quite a year for this book of my heart and I’m so grateful to everyone who has taken the time to read and share it. Here’s me celebrating with my friend Angela Dalton, who won in the picture book category for her book To Boldly Go: How Nichelle Nichols and Star Trek Helped Advance Civil Rights.
Upcoming Public Events
I’ll be talking about Accountable, The 57 Bus, and banned books at the Central library in Houston, TX on September 26 at 10 am central time.
Members of the Berkeley High School Right Writers Club will interview me on stage at the North Branch of the Berkeley Public Library on October 8 at 6 pm, with an audience Q&A to follow.
Dr. Devorah Heitner and I will be teaching a virtual two-part workshop for educators and administrators on Accountability in the Digital World: Navigating the Complex Social Media Landscape in Partnership with our Students on November 12 and December 10 from 2-5 pm, sponsored by the California Teacher Development Collaborative.
I’ll be in Boston for NCTE on November 22-24, participating in a number of exciting sessions about media literacy, having challenging classroom conversations, and a beautiful French snail named Escargot. Stay tuned for more details!
I think about this all the time, especially when traveling. The most relaxing vacation, for me, is to go to a place where it feels like things work in all the ways you mention — transit, clean streets, parks, public amenities. I spent time in Montréal this summer and very much felt that. It always breaks my heart to come home to the US and, even in my very nice and relatively wealthy city and state, feel that general shittiness.
I hate the thought of this Dashka but post Covid I see this happening all around me. A lack of responsiveness from social security, long hold times at the doctor’s office and general poor customer service. I have attributed it to a nation that is understaffed in the service sector. But it is incredibly frustrating.