Do not carry their guilt
I'm finished carrying the guilt of the ruling class. This mental shift came to me years ago, I think the tipping point was around 2016. I had read an article in a business trade magazine showing stats about how Alberta's urban recycling programs were sending something like 80% of recycling waste to landfills (I think they've since improved). Later that week as I dutifully sorted the bottles, cans and cardboard, stressing over the cleanliness of the vessels and scanning for any items that might negate the whole bin from being recyclable, I became fatigued by the sense of guilt I felt. Like if I didn't do it right, I wasn't doing my part. If I didn't take responsibility for this garbage, I was failing the planet. A quiet rage welled inside me, "they create all of this," I seethed, "like parents feeding children garbage, then blaming children for poor nutrition," "they aren't just downloading responsibility onto us, they're downloading their fucking guilt".
The neoliberal myth of individual responsibility in the face of capitalist-driven crises was being exposed real-time in my mind. I hadn't read any theory or economic philosophers to get me to that point, I was just done feeling so goddamn guilty about everything – industry, pollution, poverty – while industry executives continued to push growth-at-all costs, let-the-plebs-figure-it-out economic horseshit. I cared deeply, still do! I wanted to help make things better, still do! But I would no longer carry the guilt of the wealthy.
Half of the world's CO2 emissions come from just 32 fossil fuel firms*. The top 10% of income earners drive more than half of all consumer spending*. The wealthiest 10% of the world’s population was responsible for two-thirds of global warming from 1990 to 2020*. We are not generating issues of over-consumption and pollution, they are.
Capitalists have a choice, and they choose capital. They always have, and they always will. They do not feel guilty about their choices. They don't have to. They live in maximum comfort, every need attended to, with enough resources hoarded to support their small circles for centuries. They believe they can buy their way out of climate collapse; they're buying and building off-grid estates in remote locations*, building private space stations* and elaborate bunkers*, and scheming to upload themselves into the cloud*. "According to the Knight Frank Wealth Report 2025, nearly half of global family offices surveyed plan to expand their allocations to “defensive real assets,” with rural land topping the wish list."*
They truly think they won't have to endure the harshest impacts of the climate catastrophes they've created. They're downloading those consequences onto us, along with their dirty, sickly guilt.
Meanwhile their wars and extraction industries are ramping up, consumer protections are dropping, and corporations are being favoured above citizenries (yes, even in Canada, where Bill C-15 is being pushed through, which would "would allow corporations to be exempt from most Canadian laws"*). Genocides are politely tut-tutted but otherwise wholly condoned, because those lives are simply in the way of resources.
Stop carrying their guilt.
We MUST recondition our minds in defiance of neoliberal paradigms of "individual responsibility" and instead embrace collective action.
Last night as I was trying to settle my mind before bed, a clear, sturdy thought came to me: "this is a marathon now, not a sprint".
To harness our ability to resist we need clear minds and clean communication. I will beg you once more, stop letting the algorithms overwhelm and numb you, wean yourself off Instagram, Threads, and Facebook, they are stealing more from you than you know. I will write more about that soon.
Loud reactivity is no longer the way, in fact that mode is now working against us. More than anything we must take as much time as we can to focus and learn. Observe, communicate strategically, find a path through the noise.
And above all, stop carrying their guilt.