Commentary: On The Turning Away It's far too easy to convince oneself that as an individual, one can't significantly affect the world at large. For some time, I have harboured the suspicion that the amount of information that our society is exposed to is rapidly approaching (if it has not already reached) the point that one can fundamentally alter it about as easily as one can change the course of the Amazon.

Or, as John Brunner's character Chad Mulligan put it in STAND ON ZANZIBAR: "What I really need is to be able to turn into a million of myself and go out and have a million separate conversations because that's the only way you ever establish communications. The rest is just exposure to information, and why should anybody look at one wave on a sea?"

In some ways, of course, this is reassuring, because it means that while I consider it unlikely that the world will become a much better place from my perspective, I also consider it unlikely that it will become much worse.

I realize, nevertheless, that if I have the attitude that, as an individual, I can't make a difference, I certainly won't. So I do what I can: I vote when the opportunity is afforded me, after having examined the issues at hand; I try to be the best friend that I can be to those I care about; and I try to understand how the world is put together, that I might better understand how I could change it. . .without destroying that which I sought to preserve or encourage.

10 August 1995

modified 9 February 1996

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