We can learn from ‘Groundhog Day’
It’s Groundhog Day. Again.
This year is the 30th anniversary of the release of the movie “Groundhog Day.” I have watched it almost every year — with the exception of these past few years when it was just too close to reality. But I’m ready again to hear all the funny lines that I know so well, and I want to be reminded again how people can aspire to be their better angels.
If you’ve never seen it, the main character Phil (like the groundhog), played by Bill Murray, inexplicably relives the same day over and over. The movie chronicles his evolving response to his situation as he moves from the gleeful and self-centred “I can do whatever I want without consequence” through depression and unsuccessful suicide attempts to reach a state of empathy, altruism and love.
The almost universal support for the movie from Catholic, Jewish and Buddhist religious leaders, as well as Wiccans, is noteworthy. Finding common ground among disparate groups is rarely easy. And when we do, especially in these highly divisive times, we need to nurture and maintain those connections.
What we have in common are The Commons, defined as the “broad set of resources, natural and cultural, that are shared by many people (that includes) forests, fisheries, or groundwater resources” by The International Association for the Study of the Commons. It even extends to knowledge, digital, health and cultural domains.
Garrett Hardin’s 1968 essay “The Tragedy of the Commons” gave little credit for the human ability to put public interest before self-interest, especially with human “breeding.” The tragedy was that “most people who anguish over the population problem are trying to find a way to avoid the evils of overpopulation without relinquishing any of the privileges they now enjoy.” Although Hardin has been justifiably criticized for his racist and eugenic solutions, our general unwillingness to relinquish our privileges is certainly a barrier for climate action as well.
Hardin’s example was about a common pasture where “tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land.” The system breaks down when individual herders add more sheep. They individually profit from the sale of the extra sheep, but the land gets overgrazed, hurting everyone.
In contrast to this is the work of Nobel Prize economist, Elinor Ostrom, who “showed that when natural resources are jointly used by their users, in time, rules are established for how these are to be cared for and used in a way that is both economically and ecologically sustainable.”
As the movie “Groundhog Day” illustrates so well, real change is difficult. Whether it’s personally or collectively, it can take a long time but, as the popular saying goes, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity.
So, what will you do differently the day after Groundhog Day?