Rant on Passive Selfishness
As a warning before this gets started - this is a rant. I mean in against no one person. Its something I've had in my head for months, maybe years, and finally started to jumble together coherently.
This society is a paradox. We want quality, we want low prices. We want no taxes, yet we want the benefits which taxes pay. We want to be more environmental, we want to see people be friendlier, yet we will not cross the street to say hello to neighbors, not spend that extra dollar on meat because we need it so desperately. People want, and they want, and they want. In a consumer based culture, the consumer based culture America has created and foisted upon the world, this is how we think, how we are structured to think.
Its so damn arrogant, its so damn annoying and frustrating and stupid. We suckle from the mouths of people who slave away in factories, to people who turn vast swaths of land into rows and rows of corn, corn they don't even own. We don't understand what it means to live, what it means to be self sufficient far, far too often. We take these daily blessings for granted, and look for others to blame. We curse the smokestacks of oil and coal, we swear profanities at the farmers who kill their own strawberry fields (this happened just this week, in Florida) rather than ship them. We call them selfish. Do you know why the oil flows? Why the farmer destroys his own life work? Because we need it to fly all over the world, to ship cheap goods from cheap labor from Taiwan and Korea and China. Because the farmers who only get a dollar a pound for their strawberries are getting 25 cents a pound now instead. They can't afford to ship them out without taking a loss. They can't keep the seeds for themselves, because the company they have a contract with for seeds owns the right to its genes, and won't let them replant unless they buy again.
We curse people for being fat, for having bad health... because processed foods are now cheaper than natural ones? Because companies spend millions advertising their triple-double-quadruple cheeseburgers for 1.99, made from slaughter houses where the cows can't move or turn, are stuffed with corn and sprayed with ammonia as part of the cleaning process. We mourn the loss of the small businesses, the mom and pop stores, yet WalMart and Mcdonalds still finds our dollars. We want results and change but so few devote themselves to the cause. More often than not, we say these people are on the fringe of society, even mad, even foolish. Yet we continue to curse the very machine we helped to make. Oh, I'm culpable to this horror. I'm just as much to blame, for I'm a spoiled rich kid from Long Island, raised where everything was found with the push of a button or flick of a switch. I hated big business while I sucked down a frosty from Wendy's, craved the latest book to be owned and on my shelf, read only once but greedily mine. I could be a self-righteous bastard who could blame with the best.
I want those times to be over. I don't need meat on my plate every night. I don't need to own every book and game I want to read. The extra dollar I spend at a mom and pop store is worth knowing that the food is local, or the work was handmade. Will I always get this right? No. That shouldn't stop me from starting to make some changes. Taking books out of a library instead of fueling mall chains. Sharing games and resources with friends, maybe even making a system for it. Take a minute to look through my favorite restaurants to see if they use local food, promote sustainability. Don't complain about bringing my own bags to the grocery store and the 'inconvenience'. Yeah, I could keep scoffing at the insanity of this - changing my habits to try and change an industrial complex much larger and much older than me. I could make excuses, about how India or China creates more waste than we do, about how I already do a little, so why make such a fuss.
What if more than just one person, or a few isolated groups stopped buying from Mcdonalds? Or donated 5 dollars to their local library while they used their services for free instead of supporting Barnes and Noble? What if more people tried to excel at crafts like Jess does (one of her most endearing qualities), making their own hats and jewelry and bowls? What if we could, at least just a little, stop needing the corporate machine to give us everything we want? We owned and possessed a little less, but took a little more pride and joy in what we had? Its a challenge. Its one I give to myself first and foremost, and I suppose now I take the question and pass it on towards all of you.
This society is a paradox. We want quality, we want low prices. We want no taxes, yet we want the benefits which taxes pay. We want to be more environmental, we want to see people be friendlier, yet we will not cross the street to say hello to neighbors, not spend that extra dollar on meat because we need it so desperately. People want, and they want, and they want. In a consumer based culture, the consumer based culture America has created and foisted upon the world, this is how we think, how we are structured to think.
Its so damn arrogant, its so damn annoying and frustrating and stupid. We suckle from the mouths of people who slave away in factories, to people who turn vast swaths of land into rows and rows of corn, corn they don't even own. We don't understand what it means to live, what it means to be self sufficient far, far too often. We take these daily blessings for granted, and look for others to blame. We curse the smokestacks of oil and coal, we swear profanities at the farmers who kill their own strawberry fields (this happened just this week, in Florida) rather than ship them. We call them selfish. Do you know why the oil flows? Why the farmer destroys his own life work? Because we need it to fly all over the world, to ship cheap goods from cheap labor from Taiwan and Korea and China. Because the farmers who only get a dollar a pound for their strawberries are getting 25 cents a pound now instead. They can't afford to ship them out without taking a loss. They can't keep the seeds for themselves, because the company they have a contract with for seeds owns the right to its genes, and won't let them replant unless they buy again.
We curse people for being fat, for having bad health... because processed foods are now cheaper than natural ones? Because companies spend millions advertising their triple-double-quadruple cheeseburgers for 1.99, made from slaughter houses where the cows can't move or turn, are stuffed with corn and sprayed with ammonia as part of the cleaning process. We mourn the loss of the small businesses, the mom and pop stores, yet WalMart and Mcdonalds still finds our dollars. We want results and change but so few devote themselves to the cause. More often than not, we say these people are on the fringe of society, even mad, even foolish. Yet we continue to curse the very machine we helped to make. Oh, I'm culpable to this horror. I'm just as much to blame, for I'm a spoiled rich kid from Long Island, raised where everything was found with the push of a button or flick of a switch. I hated big business while I sucked down a frosty from Wendy's, craved the latest book to be owned and on my shelf, read only once but greedily mine. I could be a self-righteous bastard who could blame with the best.
I want those times to be over. I don't need meat on my plate every night. I don't need to own every book and game I want to read. The extra dollar I spend at a mom and pop store is worth knowing that the food is local, or the work was handmade. Will I always get this right? No. That shouldn't stop me from starting to make some changes. Taking books out of a library instead of fueling mall chains. Sharing games and resources with friends, maybe even making a system for it. Take a minute to look through my favorite restaurants to see if they use local food, promote sustainability. Don't complain about bringing my own bags to the grocery store and the 'inconvenience'. Yeah, I could keep scoffing at the insanity of this - changing my habits to try and change an industrial complex much larger and much older than me. I could make excuses, about how India or China creates more waste than we do, about how I already do a little, so why make such a fuss.
What if more than just one person, or a few isolated groups stopped buying from Mcdonalds? Or donated 5 dollars to their local library while they used their services for free instead of supporting Barnes and Noble? What if more people tried to excel at crafts like Jess does (one of her most endearing qualities), making their own hats and jewelry and bowls? What if we could, at least just a little, stop needing the corporate machine to give us everything we want? We owned and possessed a little less, but took a little more pride and joy in what we had? Its a challenge. Its one I give to myself first and foremost, and I suppose now I take the question and pass it on towards all of you.