Annie in Japan (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} lostinabento) wrote,@ 2008-09-11 13:30:00 |
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michael pllans "Why Bother?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/magaz
"For Berry, the deep problem standing behind all the other problems of industrial civilization is “specialization,” which he regards as the “disease of the modern character.” Our society assigns us a tiny number of roles: we’re producers (of one thing) at work, consumers of a great many other things the rest of the time, and then once a year or so we vote as citizens. Virtually all of our needs and desires we delegate to specialists of one kind or another — our meals to agribusiness, health to the doctor, education to the teacher, entertainment to the media, care for the environment to the environmentalist, political action to the politician.
As Adam Smith and many others have pointed out, this division of labor has given us many of the blessings of civilization. Specialization is what allows me to sit at a computer thinking about climate change. Yet this same division of labor obscures the lines of connection — and responsibility — linking our everyday acts to their real-world consequences, making it easy for me to overlook the coal-fired power plant that is lighting my screen, or the mountaintop in Kentucky that had to be destroyed to provide the coal to that plant, or the streams running crimson with heavy metals as a result."
yeah, specialization is the blessing and bane of modern times.
"Maybe going green will prove a passing fad and will lose steam after a few years, just as it did in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan took down Jimmy Carter’s solar panels from the roof of the White House."
he did?! why'd he take them down? do they cost maintenance money? i figure once they're up there, they can't be as expensive as installation. why not just leave it there?
"Or you could try this: determine to observe the Sabbath. For one day a week, abstain completely from economic activity: no shopping, no driving, no electronics."
isn't this ironic? the things we do to make a living... aka produce, travel, work... actually mess the environment up. what we need to do is become slugs. and just don't do any kind of economic activity.. and that will help the environment! i've thought about this a lot, though. that we constant produce and consume, produce consume produce consume, but what's the net benefit for everyone? what are we doing as a sum whole? it actually helps the economy if we are more wasteful and more reckless with expenditures. so, i shouldn't save things... i should just throw stuff out.. b/c garbage can create jobs, too! and recycling! and then jobs give people income so then they can buy things! ah, it just makes my head spin.
"It is one of the absurdities of the modern division of labor that, having replaced physical labor with fossil fuel, we now have to burn even more fossil fuel to keep our unemployed bodies in shape."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/magaz
"For Berry, the deep problem standing behind all the other problems of industrial civilization is “specialization,” which he regards as the “disease of the modern character.” Our society assigns us a tiny number of roles: we’re producers (of one thing) at work, consumers of a great many other things the rest of the time, and then once a year or so we vote as citizens. Virtually all of our needs and desires we delegate to specialists of one kind or another — our meals to agribusiness, health to the doctor, education to the teacher, entertainment to the media, care for the environment to the environmentalist, political action to the politician.
As Adam Smith and many others have pointed out, this division of labor has given us many of the blessings of civilization. Specialization is what allows me to sit at a computer thinking about climate change. Yet this same division of labor obscures the lines of connection — and responsibility — linking our everyday acts to their real-world consequences, making it easy for me to overlook the coal-fired power plant that is lighting my screen, or the mountaintop in Kentucky that had to be destroyed to provide the coal to that plant, or the streams running crimson with heavy metals as a result."
yeah, specialization is the blessing and bane of modern times.
"Maybe going green will prove a passing fad and will lose steam after a few years, just as it did in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan took down Jimmy Carter’s solar panels from the roof of the White House."
he did?! why'd he take them down? do they cost maintenance money? i figure once they're up there, they can't be as expensive as installation. why not just leave it there?
"Or you could try this: determine to observe the Sabbath. For one day a week, abstain completely from economic activity: no shopping, no driving, no electronics."
isn't this ironic? the things we do to make a living... aka produce, travel, work... actually mess the environment up. what we need to do is become slugs. and just don't do any kind of economic activity.. and that will help the environment! i've thought about this a lot, though. that we constant produce and consume, produce consume produce consume, but what's the net benefit for everyone? what are we doing as a sum whole? it actually helps the economy if we are more wasteful and more reckless with expenditures. so, i shouldn't save things... i should just throw stuff out.. b/c garbage can create jobs, too! and recycling! and then jobs give people income so then they can buy things! ah, it just makes my head spin.
"It is one of the absurdities of the modern division of labor that, having replaced physical labor with fossil fuel, we now have to burn even more fossil fuel to keep our unemployed bodies in shape."
