There was a time when society and civilians just didn’t exist. There was a time when people weren’t born into a broader network of human production. There was no pressure to ‘be something’ besides just a human figuring shit out as you go. Humans had no responsibility outside of what they determined on their own. Nothing was handed to you- you had to get up and fight for everything.

Was that a physically dangerous time, to have to work for everything you need to survive? Shit yes, and there was a high turn over rate, but I do have a point. I want you to consider the differences between being human without society, and being human with one. How would your mindset change? What’s it like now? We happen to live in a time when there are these working networks of humans and roles to fill within them. And if you live in one of these societies, you affect it and it affects you, whether you realize it or not. I don’t care if you’re homeless, or a billionaire, you change your society and it changes you (more accurately, you let it change you). Unfortunately, we rarely see this relationship of necessary causality, between us and society. We rarely see that our actions matter, and we rarely see that we don’t question being a civilian (or government worker). Because we have to affect this network of humanity, and we let it affect us, we have a moral responsibility to our selves and others however.

What does existing in your society mean? Shopping, taxes, work, nice clothes, drinking, dancing, movies, TV, amusement parks, video trolling, ‘blogging’, lots of traffic/driving, parades, soccer, hunting Walrus’ to eat and stay warm? Which do you do on a regular or even rare basis? When you take social action, do you even think about it? Do you question the effects? What about the cause? What if the affects of your life as social being (a being that happens to be in society) is unknown to you because you just never examined it? What if you realized just how much better you could make it, even without giving up very much of the comfort you are used to at all? Would you?

There are some things that just don’t change- I think the ease of talking the talk without walking the walk may be one of them. It is just really easy to complain, but way tougher to challenge your behavior. People complain about everything in society- “Damn politicians!” “Damn taxes!” “Damn media!” “Damn corporations!” “Damn rich!” “Damn poor!” “Damn Damn Damn! Now back to work.” We bitch and bitch, but keep our course of action, which at least partly caused the effects we are complaining about. Of course, I’m guilty of this as well. I am unhappy with all kinds of things regarding my society, which I don’t actively try and change. Here’s a vague list: War, economic system (the fed/central banks), government systems such as prison, elections, IRS, corporate crime and lack of transparency, yada yada yada. But there’s another part of the system that I’m not happy about, and you shouldn’t be either- it’s our part.

We have WAY more power than we give our selves credit. We just don’t give the credit because it’s scary to even think of sacrificing what we are used to: money, cars, our home, family time, fun time, etc. Well I’m here to tell you we can change the system (the world) for the better without any big mobs, any possible violence, and any loss of money (actually the opposite), with only an an initial hit to ‘perceived comfort’. Sound good? Well I’ll bet you still won’t even try after I mention it.

How many of us complain about the media, and recognize how incomplete and unfair it is, while owning and actually turning on our TV to those big corporate owned stations? How many of us complain about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, but go shopping for some crap we don’t need, instead of calling our congress person or finding appropriate grassroots movements to support with that money instead? How many of us walk the malls every weekend, sit in front of the TV every evening, and vote for who we see most on it every time? Being a better citizen in this day and age is not a physically challenging feat. Shoot, we don’t even really have to get up. We live in an age where a lot of information is free and widespread. We can’t know everything we need to as responsible citizens from the internet. But we can sure do a lot more informative research about the companies we buy from, the governments activity and policies we ignorantly complain about, and the groups that might be trying to change things than we do.

I can’t imagine how strong one would have to be to be the next Gandhi or Martin Luther King, but if even a fair chunk of us challenge our own existence, we won’t have to find out. No one has to risk their life. No one has to show supreme mental fortitude and strength. No one has to make improvement their passion for it to happen anymore. We can all just do a little and change a lot. We just stop buying what society is selling just because it’s selling it. Let’s start determining what companies win out, what government is allowed to do, and what a modern civilian means by thinking about and choosing a very slightly different path in our own social lives. There are a lot of people doing good in the world, but if citizens just role over to every idea they hear from society, old negative habits of this network of human activity are going to die slowly and hard instead of quick and painless.

Just think about next time you do anything you normally don’t think about.