I don’t know how to put this succinctly, but I read recently about someone feeling like they’re an outsider looking into the world of “normal” people. I feel a bit of the opposite, like I’m a “normal” person just realizing how shit it is to be part of the problems in our world right now-I’d much rather be an outsider to all of it so I couldn’t accept responsibility. I’m just as much of a contributor to everything bad as any other peer in the world. It’s not like I can pinpoint one certain thing I do that makes me feel that way, but I realize how often I judge other people for thinking they’re the perpetrators in everything wrong with society, when I’m not doing anything that differently from the rest of them. It goes the opposite way in that no matter how helpful I think I’m being to contribute to some “greater good,” I still feel I’m doing the bare minimum, and feel culpable in my smallness and ability to enact long lasting in the way I’d like to see the world.
Depending on what problems you’re talking about, I think everyone is to blame to some extent. For example global warming is largely due to humans producing more and more energy to keep up progress, and here we are spending it on basically useless discussion.
I think you proved that point extremely well.
Global warming is not about producing more energy, it’s about burning fossil fuels instead of clean energy (renewables, nuclear…) and about wasting energy.
But it’s not as easy, technically everytime you use your car you become “part of the problem”, or everytime you buy some useless single-use crap from temu, but I think it’s unfair to blame yourself for it. The system allows and encourages wastes and “problematic behaviour” because it’s either more profitable (see bigger cars in the US) or changing is more difficult and politically inconvenient.