Towards a theory of personal agency

Work in progress
This post continues from So…what then.

There are some individuals who do have the power to change the world. The leader of a powerful nation can choose to bomb or not to bomb another country. The leader of a political group can choose to support or oppose attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But these individuals haven’t conjured this power from thin air. If some individuals have specific power it’s because we, the collective humanity, have given over this power.

There are many political and social theories which describe this process.

Previously I spoke about how powerless I feel to improve the state of the world, but that my individual powerlessness joins with others to form an all powerful collective humanity. The conundrum is, that at both the individual and collective level I have no agency to change the world.

At what quanta of people is my agency strengthened?

I stand on the sidelines. I can shout and wave as much as I want but I won’t change the outcome of the game. To do so, I must be on the field.

Social media, letter writing, disconnection = sidelines

Collective action…joining a team, this puts you on the field.

We all need to be on the field.

If you write a list of qualities you expect in a leader, the current crop would struggle to tick off the list between them. They are not our leaders because they are excepetional people. They were either the only option presented, or they were supported by the majority of people who actually played the game.

Distressingly, that majority seem to be entirely self-interested or perhaps evil.

Our* lack of collective action sets the conditions for poor leaders to gain power.

* By ‘our’ I mean particularly those of us in democratic, developed and supposedly enlightened countries.