I think it is a problem that is unfixable within any one lifetime though, VP. The fact is that people are a product of their environment and this environment is authoritarian and paranoid.
I don't disagree, in fact the logic of neo-lib "free market" economics thrives in a climate that makes people turn inward, so there's almost (if, like me, you're a cynic about power) an economic imperative for govts "owned" by capital to close down alternatives to a consumption-based lifestyle and it's accompanying politics of self.
I also agree that a solution, of whatever scale, will take lots of time and commitment, factors which rule out any engagement by those concerned with the accumulation and exercise of revolutionary power, at least in my experience.
The overwhelming majority of those I have casual contact with -- at work, casual acquaintances and so on -- buy into this. There are very few that actually question it. Talking the issues through helps immeasurably, but you have a minority voice with occassional contact versus a constant stream of media buy-in to the larger environmental norm (exacerbated by the fact that paranoid authoritarianism sells papers, so they are encouraged to print lots of it). The problem grows worse, not better.
And yet, even if we are "a lone voice crying in the wilderness", a drop of water constantly dripping on the granite of media opinion, we still need to do so, because to withdraw from any engagement against power has the same effect as actively participating with power.
For me, a great example of the "dripping water" action is the shift, over 20 years, of my dad from a tory-voting aspirational "dragged myself up by the boot-straps" member of the lower middle classes, to a socially-concerned active member of his community, not because circumstances have forced him to be, but because he's been fortunate enough to be exposed to people (friends and relatives) who challenged the version of reality he'd bought into.
I can only see it changing via some kind of extreme event that causes a sudden and widespread seismic shift in attitudes, which I am not hopeful for.
I can understand that, especially as "extreme events" are as likely to forth reactionary responses as revolutionary or evolutionary ideas.
Frankly, years of being battered by the march of authoritarianism has made me give up, in many ways. I used to be considerably more politically active (as did my whole family) -- now we all seem to be worn down by it. I'm not proud of it, but I do these days seem to be increasingly restricted to contributing money for other people to do the good work for me, whilst I just concentrate on me and mine.
All any of us can do is what we can, when we can.
It doesn't help that I live and work in places that are filled with reactionary right-wing types, of course. I spend so much of my conversation with people arguing about issues where it just seems like me against a world of petty-minded bigotted authoriarian free-marketeers. It's one thing to be in a crowd where you have moral support for your views. It's quite another to be a lone defender of the faith. It wears you down.
The current (large) crop of reactionaries are pretty much the logical (and, I suspect, planned for) result of Thatcherism, of detaching social conscience from governmental practice. If you're not reared in an environment where concern for others extends beyond the immediate (one's family and close friends), then "selfishness" (in the broad sense of the word) is an obvious result, very much "there is no such thing as society, only communities of individuals" made flesh.
That's what motivates me, though. That's what stops me from being worn down. The thought that as long as react against rather than comply with that way of thinking, that it can't be properly realised, the ideas of community and solidarity can't be erased.
