The Path to Change

Is it ever justifiable to steal from the rich to give to the needy? Is it ethical to do something bad in order to do good? I’ve been faced with this question since I was old enough to understand the concept. In college, I did a big presentation on "The High Cost of Low Price" about Walmart's practices overseas. Is the quality of affordable life for an American worth more than the quality of life for a Chinese? Walmart isn't the only one either, obviously. Monsanto is attacked all the time for using harsh chemicals to mass produce food. On one hand, the corporation is efficiently feeding millions of people for a price most can afford. On the other, they’re polluting the earth and poisoning those same people in the process. Which issue is worse: the fact that they’ve genetically modified the crops to not produce a seed so that they’ve effectively monopolized everything that grows; or that they’ve genetically modified the crop to withstand the environmentally destructive chemical Roundup so that they can rapidly and easily produce food for the masses; or that they’ve pumped the markets with food that most likely causes cancer?  Well, all of them are horrible. But what is the alternative?

It seems impossible to feed billions of people around the world while adhering to high eco-friendly standards. My time at the Art Farm in Pennsylvania was eye opening for me; there was a lot of philosophical and societal discussion between myself and my host. To sustain a healthy planet would require big super-polluter corporations to revamp their foundational practices and every neighborhood to invest in a community organic garden powered by human labor. Wouldn’t the former cost way too much in the short term for its people to care? Isn’t the latter what existed before the boom of industrial agriculture? Why did we fall away from that? What happened to our sense of community?  The issue here is so much more convoluted than just, “Why don’t people want to have a garden in their backyard?” More and more questions come up in that discussion. Why don’t people want to take time out of their day to tend to their garden? Why do people work so much? Why do people avoid social interactions with their neighbors? Why do people rely on technology so much? Why is there SO much trash and pollution in our oceans? Why is the global temperature rising at record speed?

One of the things it really boils down to is population. Why must we mass produce food? Because there are too damn many people to feed. Why must we suck all the fresh water out of the ground to use in showers, toilets, and watering plants and cattle? Because there are too damn many people to feed. Why must we suck all the fossil fuels out of the earth to power technology? Because there are too damn many people to feed. Why must we cut down all the trees to build houses and print newspapers? Because, well….

 The trend is obvious, and it’s not because humans are inherently destructive; it’s because humans are reproducing at a rate faster than the earth can sustain us. And the limited resources drive our greed and carelessness. Our sense of delayed gratification is stifled by the need to act on making our lives here on earth enjoyable, which means sacrificing time for future generations to make use of time for the current ones… which seems hypocritical when it comes to the people who pop out kids and claim their undying love for them yet make very little effort to sustain the very earth that will nurture them… But that’s a tangent I won’t get into today.

Monetary exchange for time is not helping this situation. If I could, I’d turn every town’s money bank into a time bank. In York, PA, there was this community-run time bank where people could provide a service for another member of the community in exchange for someone else’s service. If Sally needed her shower fixed, she could put out a request for a plumber to spend one or two hours’ worth of their time to take care of it. Bob is a plumber, so he fixes Sally’s shower, and in return earns an hour to spend on someone else’s service. Bob wants to repair his son’s bicycle but doesn’t know much about mechanics so he spends the hour that he earned at Sally’s to request someone else’s time to fix the bike. It’s pretty close to how our career systems work today, but instead of socially prescribing someone’s time as more valuable than someone else’s through monetary exchange, the time bank system would allow everyone’s time to be equal, eliminating this desire for power and money. It’s not a perfect system, but if it’s even slightly better than the one we have now, wouldn’t it make sense to consider it?

This post is quite erratic and fueled by my irritated mood while I sit here and drink coffee out of a polystyrene cup. I constantly feel like a hypocrite, especially on days when I’m conceitedly announcing my philanthropy. I’m forced to circle this discussion back to the original question: Is it justifiable to do something “good” when it’s done using a “bad” practice? Is it truly an altruistic act to give away free coffee to people by using a Styrofoam cup made by the disastrous petroleum industry? Am I doing good for people by working for a circus that uses tens of thousands of gallons of water and dumps horrible waste into the drains and landfills? If I turn my back to this institution to make the statement that I refuse to support it, is that going to stop it from continuing its destructive practices? Perhaps, rather than only voting with my wallet to put the efforts of positive social change into someone else’s hands, I can take it into my own by sharing not just my physical capabilities, but my mental and academic capabilities as well while I’m here. I’m stumbling today. I feel numb. I don’t have answers. I feel unable to control my mind and body.  What am I even doing here?

Our minds are beautifully complex. Will we ever fully understand our consciousness? As a reminder to you all and myself:  Keep the peace today. This too shall pass.