Conclusion
From Learning Activities Using "The Yes Men Fix the World"
1 Conclusion
| “ | Do not pray for an easy life; pray to be a strong person. | ” |
| — Prayer from India |
At this point, I think it is important to reflect on whether The Yes Men Fix the World is optimistic or pessimistic and why. Remember when Mike said: "We’d done all we could to show people how it sucked if we let greed run the world; instead of freaking out they just take our business cards." We won’t be able to find the time and the emotional and intellectual energy to act, if we think we will just be adding to Mike and Andy’s collection business cards.
How can the continuing horrors exposed in this film, and the connections among those horrors to deeply entrenched institutional structures like the "free market," be deeply understood without discouraging people, and thereby stopping resistance? The context of many peoples’ lives is such that they have been involved in our struggle to fix the world. And different groups of us have experienced some victories. However, given the resources to regroup of those currently in power in much of the world, we wind up fighting the same battles over and over, and often, initial victories are overturned or co-opted. Nevertheless, those of us who are committed to the struggle for a just world keep fighting. How can we encourage our students to join in for the long haul?
To me personally, two things stand out as very hopeful from The Yes Men’s movies: how those in fairly powerful positions go along with the horrors without thinking very deeply about the issues (they seem to be just looking for opportunities to hand out their business cards); and, how not everyone goes along, particularly when someone else (in this case, The Yes Men) offer an alternative idea. In their first film, The Yes Men, remember when they disbanded the World Trade Organization so that the WTO could re-think its policies which had brought so much misery to so many people in the world, and so many in the audience said they thought it was a bold, good idea? In The Yes Men Fix the World, remember when the contractors in New Orleans applaud the "hoax" government reopening/not-tearing-down of public housing? Remember how many people were happy at the "dream" news reported in the fake New York Times?
When we see that the irrationality and silences of those in power can be so easily manipulated by The Yes Men’s interventions, we can become more confident to be more active participants in decision-making in our democracy. We can realize that we are not "stupid," and begin to think about the connections between knowledge and power, and how we might use our knowledge to become more powerful, to intervene in influencing and creating public policies that can fix some part of the world.
When we deeply understand that not everyone goes along, when we study some of the many ways people have and are continuing to resist the exploitative actions of those in power, we can realize that our efforts to resist injustice and create more justice in the world matter. One of the young people who contributed to this Guide commented: "I don’t read newspapers because there’s stuff I don’t want to see; in the fake newspaper, there was stuff people wanted to see." If there were more community and social justice based newspapers, would more young people be interested in reading them? Would more young people become active in social justice groups?
Even more than the facts the movie presents and the connections among those facts to our "free market" institutions, The Yes men films present experiences that challenge our silence, that challenge our helplessness in the face of huge problems, that motivate intervention and resistance. As mentioned in Section 8.3, George Lakoff[1] insists that just telling people the facts, facts about policies that will make their lives better, does not mean that they will support the policy. This is not because they are "stupid," but, rather, because research in cognitive and neuroscience shows that people don’t reason in "pure" logic, but also using their emotions, their sense of empathy, and their ethics.Truth matters. But it can only be comprehended when it is framed effectively and heard constantly…. The scientific research in neuroscience and cognitive science has shown that most reason is unconscious. Since we think with our brains, reason cannot directly fit the world. Emotion is necessary for rational thought; if you cannot feel emotion, you will not know what to want or how anyone else would react to your actions. Rational decisions depend on emotion. Empathy with others has a physical basis, and as much as self-interest, empathy lies behind reason…. Ideas are constituted by brain structures called "frames" and "metaphors," and reason uses them. Frames form systems called worldviews. All language is defined relative to such frames and metaphors. There are very different conservative and progressive worldviews, and different words can activate different worldviews. Important words, like freedom, can have entirely different meanings depending on your worldview. In short, not everybody thinks the same way."[endnotes 1]
Fixing even small parts of the world is never easy. I think it is very important for students to start with some awareness of what they will come up against when they are out in the world trying to fix some part of it; and, to work with people who will reflect on their experiences, work on creative new approaches using their reflections, and persist. For now, I’ll conclude this teaching guide with a few thoughts that have inspired many people to keep our strength: to see what is broken, to figure out how to shout out about it, and to continue.
- Howard Zinn[2] cites specific examples of how history has many surprises, some of them victories for justice, so "it’s clear that the struggle for justice should never be abandoned because of the apparent overwhelming power of those who have the guns and the money and who seem invincible in their determination to hold on to it. That apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, patience—whether by blacks in Alabama and South Africa, peasants in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Vietnam, or workers and intellectuals in Poland, Hungary and the Soviet Union … The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."
- "… hope [is] a living state that propels us, open-eyed and fearful, into all the battles of our lives. And some of those battles we do not win. But some of them we do."[3]
- "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Next they fight you. Then you win."[4].
1.1 Endnotes
- ↑ In the “Execution Class” (Z Magazine, July/August 1988, http://www.zmag.org/zmag/viewArticle/13961), teacher Gary Olsen experienced what Lakoff discusses above. Olsen discovered that his students, although exposed to the horrific facts of U.S. global exploitation, and understanding the radical critique, and able to restate that critique in their papers, made a cost-benefit analysis that, as one student said: “You see, if our government didn't cooperate in killing people like you, our corporations would lose their cheap labor, raw materials, and profits. We would suffer and, besides, someone has to be on top.”). Olsen then conducted a bold educational experiment and concluded: “We must find a way…of joining concrete analysis of the world with the badly undernourished capacities for empathy and compassion existing within our students.”
