on Flowers and Inequalities
I've sunk into a new phase of over-consciousness. I don't think this is the first time it reaches such extremes, but it's making living an urban life unbearable. Shopping poses the most difficulties. I can hardly bring myself to picking up products from large industrial producers. If I buy these bananas, I take part of the responsibility for eradicating small producers and spreading industrial agriculture, leading to uncontrolled urban exodus while fields are turned into toxic pesticide zones to create the produce the rich world demands.
I look at a pepper from Spain and think of the tons and tons of plastic used up to cover hectares of land with greenhouses around Almeria, the north-African migrant workers exploited by the land owners or business managers, these workers handling pesticides as carefreely as olive oil, promised papers, next year, next year. I try to find an avocado and only find some from Israel, and think of the conflict over water resources waging between Israel and Palestine, Israel benefiting from upstream sources and controlling whatever goes further, producing water intensive goods for export and cash. The simplest products, like green beans or peas, seem to have seen more of the world than me, and as I stare at the origin tag, I see a destructive trail dangling behind them, covering up the shop, the people with environmental poison and social crushing, all for our benefit, all because we want peppers and avocado and bananas and pears and tomatoes, now. And hovering on the other side of the trail, mountains of one use packaging piling up.
On those rare days when I can buy a meal entirely out of local organic products, my soul is at rest, for a brief moment, I can eat without the bitter aftertaste of guilt.
Oh, so you'd rather help Brandenburg farmers than Chilean ones, hu, said Popular R. before disappearing to the kitchen at work yesterday.
The question is, why should Chile, Chile of all places, with all its dry land and deserts, produce the food we want? To hell with David Ricardo and all those "comparative advantage" economic theorists.
Worrying about the consequences of every aspect of your lifestyle can become maddening, which is why few people keep it up. The natural phychological reaction is to block these thoughts off, and think Happy Thoughts.
Examples of Happy Thoughts:
Spring is coming, let's plant some flowers!
Let's stop worrying about life, and get married and have four kids!
Il faut s'occuper de son jardin.*
If you fill your little world with positive energy, it might ripple over to the people around you.
Anybody would care for more wine?
I'm getting to the point where I can't blindfold the thoughts away anymore. I need to act, I need to ensure that I can consume sustainably. When I look for a new place in July, the distance to the next organic co-operative will be top of the list of decisive factors. And this is only a first, necessary step. In the end, it all comes back to the parallel world of revolutions...
However, if I once again glimpsed at the Big Picture, the Universe, Eternity, the Insignificance of Life, I might just slide back into the Flowers for Happiness Philosophy.
(Are those bulbs organic and fair trade?)
*I knew it would be pointed out that Voltaire wasn't exactly the Blindfold Yourself Happy type, but if you keep this last line of Candide as it is, I would argue you can still use it as a proto Happy Thought.
I look at a pepper from Spain and think of the tons and tons of plastic used up to cover hectares of land with greenhouses around Almeria, the north-African migrant workers exploited by the land owners or business managers, these workers handling pesticides as carefreely as olive oil, promised papers, next year, next year. I try to find an avocado and only find some from Israel, and think of the conflict over water resources waging between Israel and Palestine, Israel benefiting from upstream sources and controlling whatever goes further, producing water intensive goods for export and cash. The simplest products, like green beans or peas, seem to have seen more of the world than me, and as I stare at the origin tag, I see a destructive trail dangling behind them, covering up the shop, the people with environmental poison and social crushing, all for our benefit, all because we want peppers and avocado and bananas and pears and tomatoes, now. And hovering on the other side of the trail, mountains of one use packaging piling up.
On those rare days when I can buy a meal entirely out of local organic products, my soul is at rest, for a brief moment, I can eat without the bitter aftertaste of guilt.
Oh, so you'd rather help Brandenburg farmers than Chilean ones, hu, said Popular R. before disappearing to the kitchen at work yesterday.
The question is, why should Chile, Chile of all places, with all its dry land and deserts, produce the food we want? To hell with David Ricardo and all those "comparative advantage" economic theorists.
Worrying about the consequences of every aspect of your lifestyle can become maddening, which is why few people keep it up. The natural phychological reaction is to block these thoughts off, and think Happy Thoughts.
Examples of Happy Thoughts:
Spring is coming, let's plant some flowers!
Let's stop worrying about life, and get married and have four kids!
Il faut s'occuper de son jardin.*
If you fill your little world with positive energy, it might ripple over to the people around you.
Anybody would care for more wine?
I'm getting to the point where I can't blindfold the thoughts away anymore. I need to act, I need to ensure that I can consume sustainably. When I look for a new place in July, the distance to the next organic co-operative will be top of the list of decisive factors. And this is only a first, necessary step. In the end, it all comes back to the parallel world of revolutions...
However, if I once again glimpsed at the Big Picture, the Universe, Eternity, the Insignificance of Life, I might just slide back into the Flowers for Happiness Philosophy.
(Are those bulbs organic and fair trade?)
*I knew it would be pointed out that Voltaire wasn't exactly the Blindfold Yourself Happy type, but if you keep this last line of Candide as it is, I would argue you can still use it as a proto Happy Thought.
blurbed by blinky at 11:43 pm
1 Comments
it isn't fair to take an example of quietistic happy thoughts from Voltaire, of all people. Can you think of anyone else in his era who stuck his neck out more for people he didn't personally know?
Anyway, apart from that, I'm all for fomenting revolution. The best way to put your conscience at rest is to select a little branch of activism, concentrate on that, on what you can do to change things, and then accept the idea that you've earned the right not to think about everything that's going on across the planet.
It's kind of a student thing anyway. When you know longer have the time or incentive to read so much about these things, and you're caught up in a full time job, you'll find less time to worry about all of these genuinely worrying phenomena.
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