Monday, April 02, 2007

Spoiled, Wasteful Wankers

So, I was thinking about the disagreement between Richard and the Mystic, and it brought up this thought that occasionally flits through what passes for my mind, and, since everybody on the whole internets wants to know every little such thing, I thought I'd write about it. And it goes like this:

I grew up on a farm (technically my folks' place was separate, carved out of the farm; but once you climbed over the barbed wire fence, you were on my grandparents' place. That was the farm. But this was a purely de jure distinction. It was really all one place.) on the very easternmost edge of the Ozarks. (It was rather hilly, but not mountainous by any stretch of the imagination. But then you could say that about most of the Ozark plateau. Still, to give my folks trouble I sometimes call them 'hillbillies'.)

Anyway.

Even though I've always had a comfortable life (e.g. I don't remember a time without television--though I do remember us having a black-and-white t.v. (egad!), I often think back to some of my earliest memories of the farm, and how my grandparents lived--and, consequently, how we lived much of the time--and I think things like "If my students saw this, they'd think it was from the nineteenth-century." (I took one of my grad school girlfriends back home once, and she eventually blurted out "I just can't believe you came from here!"...though that may be a slightly different point.)

Anyway.

My grandparents were conservative, oh yes they were. God-fearin', hard-workin', no-nonsense, no frills, and not a terrible overabundance of gentleness or compassion, it sometimes seemed. And one thing they were ostentatiously not was wasteful. They weren't, like, Amish or anything, but it wasn't uncommon for things to be identified as 'wasteful,' and that was a reasonably-serious indictment. They weren't nuts, but they would do things like save wrapping paper on the perfectly reasonable grounds that it just didn't make sense to throw away something that was perfectly good, only to buy the same danged thing again later. That kind of stuff.

Now, I'm no paragon of virtue. In particular, I'm a rather wasteful person, mostly on a account of being disorganized, capricious, and just generally not too swift (as my dad would say--and, as a matter of fact, has said on several occasions.) But um...at least I feel bad about it. So I guess that's something.

What I don't understand is why people in general are so bloody wasteful now. I'm not all twisted up about it or anything, I just don't get it. Isn't there some point at which conspicuous consumption becomes simply embarrassing? I can understand not wanting to be bothered to conserve...what I can't understand is what seems like a positive desire to waste. Sometimes I feel like I'm surrounded by those cartoon millionaires who light their preposterously fat cigars with $100 bills. I feel like my jaw's hanging open much of the time.

I'm genuinely puzzled about this, and I don't want to turn it into a liberal-versus-conservative point, but I will say that one sort of additional sense of puzzlement about this is that conservatism will--rightly or wrongly--always be associated in my mind with my grandparent's rather frugal habits. So it's particularly puzzling to me that conservatives seem to me to be not only disinterested in conservation or frugality, but downright hostile to them. I mean, heck...for example, I actually like SUVs*, but I'd feel downright guilty--and not for the ordinary liberal reasons--for having such an ostentatiously wasteful mode of transportation. But sometimes it sounds almost as if conservatives believe that if we don't all drive SUVs the economy will crumble or something.

(Let me add for balance that those liberals who think, e.g., that recycling is one of the most pressing moral issues of our time also bug the hell out of me. It's not the recycling to which I object, since I do it when it is even remotely convenient. It's rather the weird puritanism that sometimes seems to be floating around in the background. Some liberals recycle with what I'd call the appropriate attitude--to wit: goddang this is kind of a pain and it probably ain't gonna do any good anyway but it's better than nothing. I'm not wild about the ones who are all self-satisfied about the fact that they drove their hybred down to the recycling center and spent half an hour getting everything into the right dumpsters. I used to do that crap until I realized what a fruitless waste of my time it was. My policy now is: if they pick it up at the curb, then I recycle. Otherwise it's simply unlikely to be worth the effort.)

Uh...so where was I? Oh yeah, wastefulness. I mean, seriously. Basically everybody I know now is--by the standards of the real world of most actually human beings who have ever lived--rich as bloody Croesus. We've all got ridiculously comfortable (though not palatial by today's American standards) places to live, reliable cars, nice, warm clothes, more food than anyone could ever possibly eat...we live like kings. Better than kings--better than any kings who actually ever lived, anyway (until recently). But almost nobody seems to really understand how good we've got it. And most of us (me included), continue to want at least just a little more.

So this is related to a point that Richard and the Mystic agree about--that our desires are being manipulated and distorted, even to the point of grotesquerie. I guess I have nothing much to say about this really other than: it seems to me that there ought to be a rational equilibrium point somewhere between living on the edge and devil take the hindmost and contemporary American middle-class grotesquely conspicuous consumption. That's all.

* Note: that is, I like driving them and riding in them, but I hate the damn things when I'm surrounded by other people in them. Largely because most other people haven't the foggiest clue how to drive.

12 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, the obvious point to make here is the inextricable link between waste and modern consumer capitalism...so what the hell, I'll make it.

10:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What you are speaking about is manufactured need. In light of the fact that most of us have everything that is necessary, the market responded by creating "needs." I need an Escalade, I need a wardrobe change, etc...

I had very humble beginnings. We had food to eat, a television and radio, but for comparative purposes we were poor. My mother had to rent my schoolbooks. She could not afford to purchase new clothes for me, so she relied on my grandparents to chip in. There were Christmases where every gift was from the Salvation Army. At the worst point we were literally homeless. We lived in a tent just outside of a theme park and ate powdered milk and puffed rice.

Now I am making 40K a year. Not too bad but by no means well-to-do (especially by Chicago standards). Nevertheless I am living more comfortably than my mother ever has. Albeit, I don't have the financial commitment of children but my point stands. Truthfully I would be satisfied if I (1) had comprehensive health insurance or (2) the income necessary to pay for my own health care. Other than that, all my desires are pretty much fulfilled (though I would like to travel).

My lover, on the other hand, grew up pretty luxuriously. It is a source of friction between us when he always wants more things or "better" things and I seem complacent in his view. I just dont buy into the notion that more and better things means increased happiness. Even when living in the great outdoors I managed to have fun (granted, I was a child). These experiences give people perspective.

Ultimately the blame lies in the American belief that the next generation should "have it better" than the one before. This logic is a slippery slope if I ever saw one. In fact, I think you and I are seeing the slippage occur today. Sometimes I think there'd be nothing better for our country than a good old fashioned depression or some other such crisis.

Struggle and hardship build character. I think your parents would agree.

--Anonymark

12:36 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't think you meant to say that we all have ridiculously comfortable places to live, unless of course you mean your readers, in which case it might be true.

Otherwise, that is a slap to the face to many. Not me, but a lot of folks here in the U.S.A.

Other than that, if you recycle because it's picked up at the curb...well, thank god no liberal had anything to do with that.

This post strikes an odd pose of being for conservation, but uh, not really, because that would be wussy and liberal-ish. It also strikes the pose of being against wanton waste but not, uh, because it is the behavior of assholes.

I'm not sure what you are trying to express. Do you want to consume more, but have liberal "guilt?" Or do you want to conserve more, but can't handle the liberal "wussydom" that follows?

If you need to (or want to and actually do) drive in the snow or dirt, SUVs are fine (scale of vehicle to be determined). That's fine with me. If you do it to feel tall and proud and important, well, let's talk about issues. Let's just guess about how that dichotomy breaks down.

I suppose what you are saying is that if you are not forced to do it, you aren't happy with the whole "save the environment" thing. That is fine, I will admit I don't recycle because it is easy, but rather because I will be fined if I don't.

That said, as a college student in Ithaca, NY in the early 90's, I had to buy a $3 tag for every bag of garbage I put out, and I had to recycle aluminum, glass, cardboard, and paper, or risk a hefty fine if I put in the garbage can.

That is liberalism at work, and I can't see the point in proudly not recycling or doing other things that are environmentally "correct" wihtout government assistance/coercion.

Did I miss something?

3:07 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro," so said Hunter S. Thompson.

What does that say about us academic types? Maybe not weird enough when it comes to doing some real philosophy.

I think Global Warming is going to make the detailed debates (social justice, ecofeminism, enlightened global capitalism, animal welfare, etc.) entirely moot.

Maybe Thoreau has something to say when he talks of the need for wildness. I can't say really except that if he is resuscitated and trotted out as nothing more than a literary or philosophical curiosity, then we are just wanking about all this.

The problem is that apocalyptic visionaries make for poor strategists and even poorer cheerleaders. Strange how much in common the far right and the far left have in terms of their eschatologies. Each with a disfunctional and maladaptive worldview of needing (or perhaps secretly wishing for) things to get worse before they can get better.

3:47 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This has got to be the strangest list of comments following a post I've ever seen on this blog.

The first comment is intelligent.

The second one is kind of a life story with a slight critique of increasing desire with each generation?

The third is very strange, but I think it's clear that he is mad that Winston doesn't find recycling productive (and I think perhaps Winston is ill-informed as to the benefits of recycling, as well) but most of the comment doesn't make very much sense. He says things like noting that the post strikes an "odd pose of being for conservation" because, allegedly, Winston believes that conservation is "wussy and liberal-ish" when he never says that at all.. he says that he thinks the effort is not worth the result from recycling. That's a far cry from "wussy and liberal-ish", but incorrect, nonetheless, in my opinion.

I imagine it's the same as voting - your one vote won't do crap to solve political issues just like being one man taking his recycle to the recycling center won't do anything to help solve pollution issues, but that's a dangerous trap to fall into.

Anyway, the third post probably could've used some more thought, no offense, but I just don't really understand what kind of a point you're making. Are you saying liberalism is bad by using scare quotes with "correct" in the term "environmentally correct"? I don't get what's going on there.

And then the FOURTH post..I just have no idea what it's talking about. Seems like, when the going gets weird, the weird at least post strange comments if they don't turn pro.

I'm sorry if this offends anyone, and maybe I'm just not getting what people are saying when it's right in front of me, but I've read it a couple times over and the only posts I find comprehensible are the first two (the second one seems kinda more anecdotal than philosophical, but that's cool). I don't understand these last two. Anyone want to explain what they were saying for me a bit more?

1:41 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

Alright, I'll fess up - that last comment was me. I guess I shouldn't be a wuss and go anonymous with it just 'cause it might come across as abrasive (though it wasn't at all intended to be).

3:11 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Hmm...that's not a sock puppet...more like...just an avatar or something.

No harm no foul.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm inclined to agree with your claim about the weirdness of the comments.

3:32 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

I agree with everything Winston says, and that everybody should agree with Winston more, and send him money.

Oh, and that he's really hottt because I am a really hottttt grrrl and I think he is hottt which confers status on him because I am hottt and think he is hotttt.

Oh and I am also a really smart philosopher and I think that Winston is even smarter than me which is really harddddd because I am really smartttt.

3:35 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

P.s. that previous comment was not from me--I mean, not from Winston Smith--but, rather from somebody else. I mean me. Um..... S. Puppetopolis....no, no, too obvious...um, maybe Sock P. Uppet...

4:35 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

Yup, that just made this the official weidest string of commentary on this blog to date.

Also, calling yourself "sock puppet" when spouting..um..masturbatory self-aggrandizement.. is not exactly the kind of link most readily forge on their blogs.

haha =)

5:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I used to enjoy recycling back in the 70s when it was hard because they let you break your own glass. Now Monday comes and I have to break down and bundle the freaking corrugated with twine, and the thrill is gone.

But frankly I find recycling less a liberal passion than something suburbans can agree on, even maybe particularly Republicans.

6:15 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Um, actually I was defending YOU, Mystic, from the inevitable charge of quasi-sockpuppeting.

So a little more graciousness is recommended.

11:03 AM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home