Picture this…
There’s a life raft floating in an open sea. It’s crowded with a dozen wet, weary, hungry people – survivors of a shipwreck. On the horizon there’s the faint appearance of land, but it’s far away. Food supplies have run out, but much worse is the fact that the boat has sprung a leak and has slowly begun to sink. Everyone’s cell phone has long since died, and there’s no hope of rescue. Time is tight, the situation is quickly worsening, and the life of everyone onboard is at stake.
In desperation, the survivors begin debating among themselves – how should they confront their dilemma? One passenger starts by saying: “Look, nothing matters if this boat sinks. We should bail! Bail for all we’re worth!” He looks around, expectantly, the importance of his suggestion readily apparent. Another takes up his cry: “Yes! We should bail! Start bailing everybody!”
Before the other people can decide on this proposition, another calls out, saying “Wait a second! If we all just bail, then the boat will keep on sinking. We’ll eventually get tired, and we’ll end up drowning in the end. What we clearly need to do is patch the boat.” “Who’s with me?” the second speaker asks “who’ll help me patch the boat?” Immediately another survivor takes up the cry, shouting “Yes, we must patch! Patch or perish! Everyone start helping patch the boat!”
Confronted with this new suggestion, the rest of the passengers once more pause, while the bailers angrily retort “Whada’you mean, patch!? What if we can’t patch it? What if it takes too long and we sink before it’s fixed? No, no my friends, the only logical thing to do here is to bail…”
“Hold on a minute.” A third voice then declares. “I think you’re both dead wrong. There’s land off the starboard bow – I can see it. It’s a long way away, but if we all paddle as hard as we can, we can make it there before we sink or starve.” Upon hearing this new idea, another passenger takes up the cry “Yes, we must paddle! Land is survival! Everybody, stop what you’re doing and paddle for your lives!”
“Paddle!?” remark the bailers, incredulously. “Why I’ve never heard such an asinine idea…”
“Delusional!” cry the patchers – “You’ll be the death of us with your paddling nonsense…”
“Actually”, offers a fourth passenger, interrupting the incensed bailers and patchers and the indignant paddlers… “I think you’ve all gone batty.” The argument subsides as everybody turns to face the speaker. “Clearly our greatest challenge is that we’re starving to death. We’re too weak to patch, paddle or bail, and if we don’t get food soon, we’ll all perish from hunger. It ‘s obvious that first, we need to catch some fish.” At this statement, another passenger chimes in “Egad! She’s right! Hunger is death! Fish is life! Everyone, everyone, come help us catch fish!”
“Fish!?” cry the paddlers – “What a daft idea!”
“Preposterous” add the bailers…
“Ill-advised” add the patchers… “I mean, we clearly can’t patch and fish at the same time…”
In the middle of the boat, now filled noticeably with water, the four groups face each other warily while the remaining passengers look on – doubtful, unsure of what to do or of which way the argument will go.
“Alright then everyone”, a bailer says – slowly, deliberately – “Lets all get to the matter at hand here and bail out this boat. We’ll use these two cans, and everyone else use your hands. Don’t mind these others”, he directs dismissively at the scowling patchers, paddlers and fishers, “lets get to it”. He then grabs a can and starts bailing. However, not more than two scoops of water are thrown over the side of the boat when his arm is grabbed.
“Oh, how like a Bailer” sneers the patcher who’s now snatched at the bailer’s can. “We need this to patch the boat with, thank you very much. Come on everyone, get all the material you can and lets get patching.”
At the same time, a fisher grabs at one of the paddles, saying “Thanks, I’ll take that! We can break the paddles and use them as stakes to spear fish.”
“Over my dead body!” yells an incensed paddler, leaping to grab the paddle first.
In an instant, the boat erupts into a melee, with bailers, patchers, paddlers and fishers locked in a struggle over tin cans and paddles. As the water is even higher now, it’s harder to keep one’s footing, and the combatants lurch, stumble and fall across the boat…
“Give me that can, you bastard!”
“Help! Patchers, to me!”
“I’ll paddle YOU goddamnit!”
“Fish THIS you little…”
“Paddle I say! For God’s sake PADDLE!”
The boat begins rocking dangerously while the opposing groups continue to struggle. Water has now risen to just below everyone’s knees, and in desperation a voice suddenly calls out loudly:
“WAIT! STOP!”
Coming as it does from among the four passengers who until now had stayed out of the conflict, the new voice causes the battlers to briefly pause, disengage, and turn to the speaker. She clears her throat, and then she says…
“Listen, this is madness. If we spend our time fighting each other, we’re guaranteed to drown or starve to death. I think there’s merit in each proposed solution to our plight… would we not be smarter to split up and do them all, or to take turns doing each of them, as we need to?” The speaker looks imploringly at the other passengers, holding her hands out to her sides, entreating. She continues… “Bailing and patching deal with our immediate concern, which is to stop sinking. Fishing addresses our medium-term problem, which is keeping ourselves fed long enough to get to shore. Paddling is our ultimate, long-term goal, which is to get us back on dry land. Don’t you see? They all work together!”
A hopeful smile spreads across the speaker’s face, buoyed by the obvious logic of what she’s said. The other three uncommitted passengers nod their heads thoughtfully. The combatants stand, almost stunned, as the implications of the speaker’s words dawn on them.
Silence falls on the boat, apart from the lapping of water, now knee-high, against the gunwales. Above, a circling seagull lets out a thin, keening cry.
And then, the silence is broken…
“But… paddling is the ultimate goal. You said it yourself. We can’t be distracted by other tasks. We’ve ALL got to paddle!”
“Just one minute! Admitting that bailing is more important than fishing is to say that drowning is worse than starving. This is preposterous, and I simply will NOT believe it.”
“Wait, if we all start fishing, who’s to say the fishers will even let us get to the other tasks?”
“But… I’m ideologically opposed to patching!”
At this the groups begin to once more circle each other in the middle of the boat, with the lone speaker from the uncommitted passengers standing between them, attempting to keep the sides from once more having at it. As the sides close in, she looks imploringly at the last three passengers… “Please” she pleads… “Help”.
To her great relief, and just before the combat breaks out again, another of the three remaining passengers finally speaks up, saying “Wait…. Wait. I agree with her. This conflict is futile. It’s clear that none of these propositions is sufficient to save us. Each one has a weakness.” He pauses to look at the remaining two uncommitted passengers, and both nod their heads approvingly.
A look of great relief lightens the face of the woman in the midst of the melee. She knows that with four people agreeing, they will likely have enough sway to quell the in-fighting, to organize the passengers, to enact the various proposals cooperatively in pursuit of their goal. “Thank God” she thinks… “we’ll survive this yet…”
The speaker then continues… “Yes, we agree with the woman who just spoke. This entire conflict is pointless. If none of the propositions is good enough, then we’d only be deluding ourselves by backing one over the other. If it’s impossible to tell which is better, then we’d only be choosing the lesser of evils. And this, my friends, we shall not do.” Upon uttering this final point, the speaker pauses for effect, letting the gravity of his words sink into the others on the boat. Finally, he finishes…
“We won’t be caught up in a false contest of one flawed solution over another. For this reason, we three have decided… to boycott the process.“ With this, the speaker turns, walks over to the other two uncommitted passengers, and all move unsteadily to the bow of the boat. They make a solemn performance of sitting deliberately, now waist-high in water, arms folded.
The woman at the centre of the patchers, paddlers, bailers and fishers has just enough time for her expression to change from relief to incredulity. Her lips slowly move as she begins to mouth the words:
“What the serious fuu…?”
And then WHACK! A wildly swung paddle knocks her on the head as, with a collective snarl, the patchers, paddlers, fishers and bailers once more jump at each other. The woman careens across the boat, stumbles over the gunwale, and plunges into the sea.
Oblivious, the combatants lunge back and forth across the now dangerously waterlogged and listing boat. At the bow, the three abstainers begin a searching philosophical discussion of just what, given the circumstances, would constitute the perfect, fool-proof strategy to save them all. Amidst a rigorous interrogation of whether one can even meaningfully speak of “saving”, they excitedly develop an idea for a clever Facebook meme that mocks the patcher line. All agree to post and Tweet it when they finally get to shore.
Amidst the shouts, grunts and groans, and the sounds of clanging tin cans and snapping paddles, the conversation of the abstainers continues. They break only when the water finally laps around their shoulders, and they find themselves, to their great surprise, no longer seated in the boat at all, but instead floating in the open water.
The last thing the abstainers see before they sink below the waves is a sputtering fisher, wild-eyed, gripping a broken paddle in his hand and laughing…
“Ha-HA! Take that you bloody paddler! Take that!”
These final words echo across the waves, then silence.
In minutes, the only evidence of the boat and its passengers is a floating tin can.
Overhead, the seagull once more circles, lets out a cry, then heads toward the shore.
Image Credit: Lost at Sea, by Michael Ross, 2007, www.michaelrossart.com
funny, however Interestingly the boat crew have not attended to the most vulnerable in the “picture this…” — the child. (i.e; has been excluded). Not all leftists are, “in the same boat ” so-to-speak,’ (e.g: the grey haired man leaning over the boat looking green perhaps close to spewing lung butter. Perhaps he is too sick to do either task? Read as: ability.) Leftists’ have different variables, opportunities, life chances and personal motivations for what they are fighting for. Are they fighting for themselves or fighting for the collective? If they had co-operated (made it to shore); would the facebookers and tweeters still have followed through with mocking memes? That’s the big question.
Hey Jonathon,
You make a good point about motivations. I think one of the problems on the Left (which I am definitely a member of), is that the diversity of reasons why people are motivated to get involved, and the diversity of opinions on what is to be done and on where we’re going, need to somehow be productively integrated. Diversity can be a strength, but unless there is a basis of unity and a strategic, coordinated plan for action, then diversity can devolve into sectarianism, in-fighting, and ineffectiveness. Unless there can be some synthesis of this diversity on the Left, I feel society, “the boat”, has little chance of dealing with the crisis it faces.
you also make a good point however sometimes the coordinated plan for action can cause inaction (as seen in your example) because people often are too busy talking about what to do, rather than actually doing it (again, as with the example). in the meantime, people are suffering while those with privilege and considered ‘ruling elites” (decision makers, those with loudest voices) are often at an advantage as they have more privilege, benefits, etc. it comes back to the fact that life/society is more complex than your parable. we are not all “in the same boat.” if you gave some of the crew men life preservers, that would be more accurate representation. A lot of leftists have more resources to stay afloat longer, and therefore the motivation is different for them than those more disadvantaged. its hard for individuals who have more advantages or resources to “picture this” if one does not have the lens to do so.