Ice Bucket Challenge

My friend nominated me for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge last night, and I must admit, I’m not sure how to proceed. A not-so-small part of me had hoped the whole phenomenon would sail by on the newsfeed without demanding my engagement. It’s gotten politically contentious, and I generally try to avoid politics on facebook.

I tend to say facebook is not the appropriate place to hold these conversations. I also know, however, that I have friends on both sides of the spectrum, and I don’t fancy a fight with any of them. My cowardice withstanding, I do truly think social media is a space fraught with pitfalls for thoughtful debate. So much meaning is lost when we send a brief text-based message. Our meaning is then invented or assumed when it’s received, and so the space is rife with miscommunication. Too much miscommunication on hot-button topics flying around at lightning-fast speeds reinforces divisions, rallying people into their opposing camps, making it feel safer to lob vitriolic grenades at the other side.

Personally, I don’t want to take to the trenches. It makes me uncomfortable when issues get framed as either-or—turned into false dichotomies, as they’re called. Tell people it’s This Way or That Way and we tend to form warring tribes, each tribe fighting valiantly for their cause. Yet, it seems to me that in these conflicts, we don’t often fight for the cause by working constructively toward our goal. We just fight the other side. It’s as if we expect by tearing someone else down that we’ll magically achieve our aims. This is the case even when there’s overlap in the goals of each side, which seems to me is often the case. At least some central principle or core truth we all seek.

You see, I’ve been paying attention to the news and commentary on the Challenge. It’s pretty incredible—both the Challenge and the dialogue about it. It’s made national news and is starting to shake people out into two camps: Ice Bucket is the greatest thing ever versus Ice Bucket is everything that’s wrong with the USA. And, there are arguments on both sides.

On the Greatest Thing Ever side, you’ve got that in the eight and a half months of 2014, the ALS Association has raised about 25 times more money than in the same timeframe of 2013 (over $50 million as compared to $2.1 million). That’s incredible, especially in an economic climate that has been wildly unkind to charitable giving. Beyond the shear amount of money raised, awareness is skyrocketing. More people are talking about the disease, it’s effects, and the challenges faced by those living with it and those working against it than maybe at any other time in its history. Being a relatively rare disease (as compared to those such as cancers), it’s unprofitable for pharmaceutical companies, so they don’t develop treatments. This makes the enhanced funding particularly critical for an ‘orphan disease’ like ALS. It’s bringing hope to people who personally struggle with the disease, for those whose loved-ones are facing its terrible symptoms or have already passed on from them. And quite simply, the quirky nature of the Challenge has brought some joy, added laughter to a summer when many are wanting for the lack of it.

On the Everything Wrong with the USA side, you’ve got the waste of resources: money to buy the ice that could be going to the ALS Association, clean drinking water dumped over thousands of heads—without direct purpose—when half of disease worldwide can be traced to a lack of access to sanitary water. Worse yet, they say, this isn’t even a boost to charitable giving, but only shifting dollars that would go to other charities, negating the net benefits. Most insidiously, the drive behind people taking up the Challenge isn’t necessarily altruistic but more often a new expression of narcissism, the video-selfie claiming a cause while actually aggrandizing the individual. Where were your donations before it got popular? Why do you need ‘likes’ to work for or donate to the cause? There are folks posting Ice Bucket videos to facebook who can’t tell you what ALS is. Overall, it exposes the conceit of the nation—a country where we are so awash in privilege and material excess that we’ll discard the most basic necessities for sustaining life, even celebrate the act of doing so, heedless of the fact that we could literally save lives by merely giving to others what we throw away in service of our own egos. And, as my friend Andy Smolski has pointed out, by focusing in on a spectacle such as the Challenge, we ignore the debate that needs to take place, over the public responsibility to support the work of the ALS Association (and like organizations). In doing so, we unintentionally excuse the public disinvestment in issues of health and well-being.

At the same time as our newfeeds are filled with friends and family being doused with chilly water, profound conflicts are raging, at home and abroad: Ferguson, Missouri; Israel and Gaza; Ukraine and Russia; Syria and Iraq. That’s not to mention battles we’ve grown numb to in South Sudan, confrontations over disputed islands in Southeast Asia, a wave of Central American children coming to the US to escape violence and economic destitution in their home countries. Another affliction, Ebola virus is devastating communities and health systems in Western Africa. Upheaval in our weather: droughts choking farms, diseases ravaging crops in areas once protected by climactic barriers, shrinking ice caps and growing deserts. Our world is full of chaos, fighting, struggle.

I guess this boiling mountain of strife and suffering didn’t offer enough opportunities for us to spew the full weight of our Pugilist’s Thesaurus at each other, though. That’s amazing, considering these conflicts touch on so many raw wounds from inequality to religious and racial tensions, from grand scale geopolitical maneuvering to niche arguments over the ethics of developing and administering experimental medical treatments in the international context. We needed another fight, another chance to take up arms in verbal jousting as we battle for the moral high ground. Why couldn’t we avoid this fight? Why couldn’t we approach each other like people dealing with people?

In another version of the Ice Bucket Challenge, I see things playing out this way:

A young man, confronted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis decides he wants to make a difference in the effort against this disease. He notices some folks raising money and awareness for the fight against another affliction, by dumping ice water on their heads and calling more to do the same, and he adopts it. Something is different: the timing, where he lives, his abnormally large number of digital friendships, something. It takes off, catches like wildfire. Friends, whole families, sports icons, film celebrities, thousands upon thousands from across the country taking up the Challenge, passing it on, and donating to the ALS Association. Money is pouring in, in unprecedented amounts.

Amidst all the laughter and joy and help for a good cause, while allowing a little personal embarrassment, some folks notice a small hitch. This thing has grown so widespread, it might actually be doing unintentional harm. These folks speak up, praise the support given and the generosity shared, and encourage others to join in. But, ask that when others do join in, they consider finding a way to save the water.

The Ice Bucket crew doesn’t get angry and defensive, because they haven’t been attacked. They acknowledge there are other ways to keep this great thing rolling.

Maybe we can collect the splash back from our daily showers, put some reusable ice packs in to cool it down and dump it over our head while standing in home gardens, watering the tomatoes at the same time.

Maybe we could animate a filmstrip of Stick-figure Selves dumping a truckload of ice water over their heads, then calling out others to do the same—as well as give a few bucks to a good cause.

Maybe we can also keep in mind the other struggles taking place right now, which also need our care and attention—our collective action.

My philosophical bent is generally towards integration. I think we’re better together than apart. I think when we bring concepts into context, we understand them better than when we pull them into abstract isolation. I think we accomplish more when we join forces than when we bicker and fight and hurl insults.

The folks taking the Ice Bucket Challenge, they want to chip away at some of the pain in the world, and they want to build stronger friendships while they do it. The folks that want everyone to stop doing the Challenge, they want to minimize waste and shift resources to people who desperately need them, to chip away at some of the pain in the world, and I bet they wouldn’t be sorry of stronger friendships while they do it, either. These are the concepts (ease suffering, build relationships, ensure the planet provides for all and keeps doing so), and the context of this situation is—broadly—a better world.

Now, I know this is idiotic over-simplification. A better world can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. These things, these meanings don’t all line up; sometimes they even conflict. Sometimes one group specifically thinks the eradication of another IS the only possible better world.

That doesn’t mean my philosophy is bunk, because To Ice Bucket or Not To Ice Bucket doesn’t require any destruction to be resolved. And, I’ll bet you that deep down, folks can always uncover an option other than destruction that leads to a better life for themselves, a better world for us all.

So, I’m not going to Ice Bucket. I will donate to the ALS Association, in support of all whose lives are touched by the disease. In special recognition of the Westerfields in Puyallup—my thanks to you for all the kindness you’ve shown me over the years.

I am going to challenge myself—and anyone else with the patience to read my obnoxiously long essay—to forgo the trenches. Escape the misguided and phony battles. I'm challenging myself to engage more, even when it might upset somebody. I'm going to try and work through the rough patches, to build understanding and shift the focus towards gaining mutual benefit.

We can all work towards a better world through our compassion instead of our violence, through unity instead of division. We don’t have to choose This Way or That Way. We can choose a way that gets us all at least a little closer to where we all want to be. I think, but I could be wrong.