Photo: Coolerlifestyle.com
Donald Trump was just elected President of the United States. I’m not American so, in the aftermath of the news, I went surfing. It was one of the best days so far this season and I found myself with a bunch of other like-minded non-Americans who’d chosen to spend the morning (or the day) getting wet, charging a massive western swell in some (very) rare sunshine and pretending that the whole world existed only in each set.
Then I got back to Victoria, British Columbia.
One of my biggest problems with Canadians is that we’re quick to judge what goes down in the US; especially politically. It seems we feel able to hitch our opinions to a high horse and parade it around our social healthcare and other semi-European institutions. We like to feel that what happens in the US could never happen in Northern Turtle Island, even though it’s happened before (check the Wikipedia article on Stephen Harper, or take a look at the “charter of values” that Quebec keeps trying to pass) and is happening now.
Whatever.
Driving home from that surf I thought about Chomsky, that perfect tube I ate shit on, and what the two had in common. Other than nothing, there was actually a lot the two shared. When you have an hour and a half to think about it, you start making connections that wouldn’t be so obvious in the lineup. By the time I pulled into town I’d had the entire revolution figured out. And it would be a revolution started by surfers.
Noam Chomsky, one of the better-known anarchists on the planet and a living legend when it comes to political dissent, has long been a fan of unions. I know to the average American the idea of a union isn’t cool. And who can blame the average American – there have been decades of anti-union propaganda floating around. The trick is not to think of unions as, well, unions. Think of them as a group of people working together to a common end.
In the Chomsky way of thinking, a union is basically a collection of workers unified under the idea of better wages and better conditions, banding together to have some form of solid political representation in Washington that might work to undermine lobbyists and other corporate interests. As surfers, we’re already of common mind – well, until we start debating quads vs thrusters vs single fin, for example. We’re surfing, and we’re drawn together simply to surf (other than the odd asshole).
We also experience the environment differently than other people. What happens to the water happens to us. Unlike a lot of people (with many exceptions, like rock climbers, mountaineers, etc.), we spend a great deal of time worrying about what an El Niño will do at our local break; we watch the weather, tide charts, swell maps and a bunch of other stuff almost as much as a meteorologist; and we’re pretty good at predicting things once we get the hang of it. What draws us to the ocean – sick waves – is dependent on the ocean.
In this time when so much of the internet is abuzz with worry over what a Trump presidency might mean, there are a few things we can do to ignore the bluster and focus on what’s important: smashing the system every time we paddle out.
The Surfrider Foundation was founded by surfers concerned for their local break. It brought a bunch of people together, each one caring for a part of the planet. It’s grown, stretching across the world. There are other organizations equally concerned with getting locals out, together, to work on issues that impact the community (some that aren’t as full of shit as Greenpeace). Even among people who are sort of cool, like climbers. Looking at this through the Chomskyan lens we can start to see that connection.
If we look at Surfrider or any of these other organizations as a “union” (in that it represents a group of people, is informed, and has shared values and goals), then we can see how Chomsky’s thinking isn’t all boring labor and “economic value.” It might be about finding a group that fits your values and getting together to create some positive change. Even if it isn’t political.
When life gets too political, or too full of static, most of us go surfing. Sometimes, that might just be the answer.
