All the troubles in the world that are "Somebody Else's Problem"

 

Douglas Adams describes a "Somebody Else's Problem" field or an S.E.P. in Life, the Universe, and Everything as follows: "An SEP is something we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody else's problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it's like a blind spot." The book goes on to say,  

An S.E.P. can run almost indefinitely on a torch or a 9 volt battery, and is able to do so because it utilises a person's natural tendency to ignore things they don't easily accept, like, for example, aliens at a cricket match. Any object around which an S.E.P. is applied will cease to be noticed, because any problems one may have understanding it (and therefore accepting its existence) become Somebody Else's Problem. An object becomes not so much invisible as unnoticed.

The S.E.P. drive was Douglas Adam’s snarky description of how you could land a spaceship in the middle of a cricket match in London without anyone noticing. But today, in an age where we can pick and choose our news sources, where we can look at say half a cricket field and not even the whole pitch, we have all fallen prey to many S.E.P.s. These are a few that I can sort of see, by squinting, but I know there are others I am failing to even acknowledge, let alone address.

First, there’s the coronavirus. Everyone thinks they are doing the “best they can” to not spread the virus. Everyone is upset at all those other people who are spreading the virus. Yet when polled, only 6% of Americans have not seen anyone outside their immediate household without a mask on. 94% of us are cheating. This is not Somebody Else’s Problem. All of us need to look in the mirror and say, “I have to do better.”

Second, there’s a fascist doing his damnedest to steal the 2020 presidential and senatorial and other elections by voter suppression, destroying the vote by mail option, encouraging use of electronic voting machines that have been demonstrated connected to the internet and hackable, and other means. This is not Somebody Else’s Problem; this is every Americans’. If we were to accept it as OUR problem, we call a general strike, 5 or 10 million people protesting until he is impeached and the post office restored. May and June demonstrated that people can protest. Is the Post Office not worth protesting for?

Third, there’s the little matter of systemic racism, or Racism as it is better called. Failure to acknowledge that the United States is run by racist economic, social, political and environmental policies all of which have to be addressed and corrected IN OUR LIFETIMES is racist. It’s not not our problem. It's not enough to not wear a KKK hood or to donate to the UNCF. We must demand equal economic opportunities for everyone, social opportunities, political opportunities, environmental opportunities IN ADDITION to having police stop killing our Black and Brown citizens and imprisoning children at our border and expelling people legally here.

Racism is NOT somebody else’s problem. You may not know what to do right now. After all, we’re in the middle of a pandemic and the worst economic depression in 90 years and there’s a fascist in the whitehouse, but we need to acknowledge our need to do something, and that it is our problem.

Fourth, we as a country are one of the world’s largest polluters. The harm to the environment may already be irreversible, but for sure, the more we pollute, the more irreversible harm will happen. This falls on all of us. For example, use of nonrenewable plastics is anticipated to grow more than 10 fold in the next five years. For example, the process of building a battery powered car produces 15% more emissions than a similar sized gas powered car, but nobody tells you that. For example, how many of us are going to hop on a jet plane to somewhere, anywhere, the second this COVID-19 problem is solved? We all need to take a long hard look at our environmental footprints - they will not wash away like footprints in the sand.

Most of us have problems that are uniquely our own. Unemployment, illness, mental and physical, disabilities, dependencies, in ourselves and our family members. Homelessness or the threat thereof. Heck, 15% of Indiana households are behind on paying utilities and could get utilities cut off (starting tomorrow). We all have problems. But we need to own the collective problems, too.