I was reading The Age Of Consent recently, and though I remain skeptical of George Monbiot’s grandiose plans for a new world order (after all, anyone who speaks of anything resembling a new world order is going to sound a bit loony), I do agree with what he says near the end of the book. It boils down to this: if my book has you nodding your head in agreement, then I have both succeeded and failed—succeeded because I’ve convinced you my proposal is the right one, and failed because your first response wasn’t immediately “what can I do now do bring about the bloodless revolution?”

Monbiot is less than satisfying on this front; he throws out some ideas for how people can turn his manifesto into reality, but everything is prefaced with the warning that those who start the revolution are rarely the ones to profit from it. Anyone who knows me knows my views on things like mass protests and consumer boycotts are dim at best. It’s not so much that they’re bad as they are distracting; the powers that be have figured out how to turn the full force of a large anti-war protest and turn it into a glancing blow. Media and politicians alike denounce violent protest as a threat, regardless of who provoked whom, and ignore peaceful protest as the words of a marginal few. Instead of reusing old tactics and rhetoric from the flower generation (protest songs? really?), it’s time to move on and figure out what new forms of action exist. What can we, as individual citizens, do to make the most impact today? What’s our best chance of affecting change, considering that many of the old ways (and even some of the new ones) are now hopelessly marginalized and neutralized? The world will not be saved by the likes of the Huffington Post; so what in its place?

Sadly, this is where I falter; I honestly don’t know. Part of the situation might be the framing of the problem; is it possible to improve the current international system of trade and justice by augmenting it here and there with charity (the classic “fly to Africa and build water pumps” scenario), or is the system hopelessly unworkable? What if you believe the latter, as an increasing number of people do these days? Are you wasting your time hoping for a revolution that will never come?

All I’ve gained thus far from Monbiot’s book is a newfound appreciation for international politics and a more acute sense of the inequalities between the developing world and the developed world. As for where I should direct my energies, I’m still as lost as I’ve always been.