In 1975, Muhammad Ali gave a talk at Harvard and a student called out ‘Give us a poem’. Ali paused and replied: “MeWe”.
Ali’s poem captures the tension of human existence: to what extent do I stand alone as an individual and to what extent am I dependent on others .. or even everything? It was a moment of genius by a genius of individual sporting combat, whose heart had turned to the importance of wider connection, in his case the spiritual. Ali revealed himself as man who had come to see that he never stood alone in the ring, even though that’s how he appeared to millions.
The Western world has spent generations emphasising the individual: the “me”. There are too many examples to list, but one stands out. The naming of the iPhone confirms both our sense of being stand-alone entities, as well as our “aloneness” – our rapidly escalating disconnection from face-to-face engagement. Our digital “connectedness” means that we can do everything to keep ourselves alive without entering the village or walking the main street to pay a bill, buy a stamp or pick up our groceries. Even phone conversations to book a restaurant, or query an invoice are discouraged in favour of screen and keyboard communications with bots, text messaging or email.
This relentless trend is a driver of simplistic, populist messaging by Trump, Farage, and Dutton and Co – messaging designed to provoke outrage at the powers that be for not providing sufficient increased personal wealth and security from selective threats (except climate).
The essential component for this messaging to work is to emphasise the idea of threatened isolated selves – the individual self, the individual family, the individual race, the individual nation and individual wealth. Individualising is key to raising fears of vulnerability. A vulnerability as the messaging goes, which can only be assuaged by an aggressively powerful individual whose personal morals and standing are of no matter if they can win the fight against the “others” whoever they are.
To some extent it is possible to view the electorates of the UK, US and Australia as being made up of two groups of roughly the same size and one tiny group oscillating between the two who decide the result of a zero-sum game.
It seems the terms left, and right are no longer adequate descriptors. It’s true that any label has its limitations; however, for the purpose of this pondering I see two main groups.
One group, the “mePeople”, is predisposed to the idea that “I have to look after number 1”. Their chant is “freedom”, their desire is for increased personal wealth as the key to making life tolerable or what it could or should be. For some, increased wealth is a dire necessity, for others who already have plenty, it’s an inalienable and insatiable right. Those with need and those with greed have come into an alliance which has tipped elections. For action on the biggest issue of all, climate change, a growing individual bank balance must be guaranteed before spending to arrest the situation can be undertaken.
On the other side, the “wePeople”, is a group of nearly equal size, who take a more nuanced position. Their cry for freedom is inclined to include “with responsibility”. This group of poor and rich people are inclined to give some priority to notions of common good and that while increasing personal and national wealth is important, so are government and community services. For this group, action on climate change is more readily accepted as being a necessary cost.
In US, the voting numbers of mePeople and wePeople are almost equal in number. The game changers, about 1% of voters, have been pulled into the mePeople fold, at least for the moment. The fear messaging based on individualised vulnerability has worked and its success has been assisted by a failure of governments to help those adversely effected by global trade and increasing inequality.
“Looking after number 1” has pulled ahead of “we are all in this together” as a dominant world view.
The challenge for the “we” camp is how to create powerful messaging to support policies which emphasise the truth of our interdependence, not our independence from each other, the planet and even the cosmos itself.
Our survival as a specie depends on it.
When the Rudd Government came to power, Australia was in the grip of the Millennium Drought. People were not permitted to wash their cars with hoses or water their lawns. Melbourne faced the likelihood of a shortage of drinking water. As a result, climate change was ranked high. But it slipped with every decent fall of rain.
In this way, we seem like addicts: we see the need for change when we experience severe discomfort, but once it passes, we return to our old ways. Permanent change is so often only embedded when we “hit rock bottom”.
If we believe the scientists, rock bottom is inevitable if we can’t change our behaviour.
Our addiction to individualised material wealth is powerfully described by Samantha Harvey in her 2024 Booker Prize winning book Orbital as she draws the reader into a contemplation of ourselves and our planet from the vantage point of the international space station. “The hand of politics is so visible [sic] that they don’t know how they missed it at first. They see a planet shaped by the sheer amazing force of human want, which has changed everything, the forests, the poles, the reservoirs, the glaciers, the seas, the mountains, the coastlines, the skies, a planet contoured and landscaped by want.”
Harvey’s book is an arresting view of the all-inclusive and inescapable nature of the ‘me/we’ which Ali directs us toward.
So, the question remains. How can we find a powerful message to reassure our people that “looking after number 1” means the planet and others not just ourselves and that “me/we” does not invite a choice between the two?
Ali is telling us that neither can exist alone.