man & nature # 98 ~ stuff & guilt and getting to know someone through their pictures
Friday, February 13, 2009 at 10:39AM 
Some of my stuff • click to embiggenA couple days ago when we were discussing picturing ideas, re: the crisis, Mary Dennis - who it should be noted, started the topic with a previous comment - offered this comment:
In my mind I don't think it's as easy as sorting it into groups of perpetrators and victims and feeling angry at one and sorry for the other. For that matter, when it comes right down to it, I am both a perpetrator and a victim. I can't separate myself from the problem when I have bought into the consumerist system just as much as the next girl. I'm not rich but I do like my stuff. How 'bout this for an idea--a photo inventory of all the ways I have personally contributed to the care and feeding of the monster.
To which my immediate gut response was - Hey. Don't make me come over there and slap you, Mary.
Now, I don't actually know anything about Mary's political views. For all I know she's far to the right of Atilla The Hun or Dick Cheny (but I suspect not). However, her recent comment, re: her status as a "perpetrator", seems to be, IMO, a classic display of Liberal Guilt Syndrome.
From what I know of Mary and her pictures, it is difficult if not impossible for me to believe that she is some kind of spend-and-get maniac who has irresponsibly credit-spent herself into bankruptcy in the wanton pursuit of conspicuous consumption / wretched excess. In fact, most of what I know about Mary from viewing her pictures is that I think she is a kind, considerate, and caring person. Someone who possesses many personal qualities which separate her far from the maddening crowd comprised of those who use the notion of rational self-interest as a cloaking device for petty, self-serving, and self-aggrandizing egocentrism.
To some extent, it seems that Mary's self-flagellation is a reaction to the self-serving rationalization that most often emanates from the mouths of those living lives of wretched excess which states that if one is not living the life an ultra-ascetic, one has absolutely no moral, ethical, or rational basis for criticizing theirs - a notion that is about as pure as bullshit gets.
Having stuff is not, in and of itself, a crime against humanity. There is a distinct difference between being a responsible consumer and one who consumes to wretched excess. One very obvious difference much in evidence in our current crisis is that which distinguishes those who are still gainfully employed but mired in debt even to the point of bankruptcy from those who have lived responsibly and are managing to get by without losing it all.
my advice - Mary, unless by acquiring your stuff you are being driven to rack and ruin or by acquiring the means to acquire your stuff you are driving the world around you to rack and ruin, IMO you should just relax and enjoy your stuff.
Reader Comments (5)
Oh boy, I feel so much better I think I'm gonna run out and buy that 52 inch plasma screen TV I've had my eye on! Whew, what a relief.
Seriously though--you are kinda, pretty much, very nearly, damn close to the truth Mark. All that comes through in my images? And the few scattered thought turds I leave here and there on the internet? Man, I gotta be more careful! **LOL**
Just for the record, my finances are in good order, there's no rack and ruin creeping up the back staircase and I lean very liberal in my politics. And self-flaggelation unfortunately, comes pretty natural to me.
I just want the world to be different.
Oh yeah, that's flagellation, not flaggel-lation! ;-)
Can anyone be further right than that Cheney dick? And isn't it the "madding" crowd? We're all part of the problem as well as the solution here. I'm a pessimist - (wo)mankind has reached the end of its species cycle and will bow off the stage sometime in the near future. Just as bacteria on agar in a petri dish will reproduce until there's no room left and will pollute their environment until life becomes unsustainable so we are going. We'll join the dodo and all the others who we've pushed over the edge. I wonder what will replace us?
I tend to agree with Mike's pessimism, though I think it will take a little longer than "the near future" and I expect things will get pretty darned ugly in the mean time. I also think it might be that our numbers will be so reduced on our way to extinction that this becomes our salvation (as a species). We'd experience the collapse of civilization, if that is an accurate description of what we have now. Perhaps the end of the age of technology is a better description.
An interesting exercise to gain some insight into our personal footprint is to cancel your garbage collection service (those of us living in rural areas perhaps live this way already). Haul your own garbage to the dump, your own recycleables (sp) to the various recycling centers, only a few times a year.
I am amazed at how this stuff piles up from even a rather frugal and environmentally conscious lifestyle. And this is only a small fraction of my personal impact. Consider my portion of electricity generation, oil extraction and refinement, shipping, manufacturing of all sorts, agriculture, food processing etc., etc., etc. I don't see how it can possibly be sustained. There are simply way too many of us.
An Agent Smith Quote from "The Matrix"
"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure."