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I'm becoming a worse 'self sacrificer' as I get older. I just learnt to drive last year, and was given an old car. I love driving. I LOVE it. Last time I tried to ride my bicycle the chain came off, and I still haven't fixed it. That was 2 months ago. (Admittedly I haven't been allowed to ride a bike or drive for some of that time, for medical reasons.) I'm well aware that I'm pumping CO2 into the grim Melbourne smog as I motor to the milk bar, to uni (riding distance), and usually without a passenger which feels even worse. I gave up being a vegetarian too, although I make an effort to eat organic/free range meat.
I think there's a danger here. The notion of self-sacrifice (where the objects sacrificed are mostly the conspicuous consumption kind, like cars, flights over short distances and hifi equipment) assumes that one has the resources and the money to be able to give stuff up already. It also assumes, or makes a gesture towards assuming, that being ascetic is morally better, somehow. That viewpoint often intersects with a moral judgment of people who are economically and socially disadvantaged who are totally upfront about their desire for conspicuous consumption. Ie, disapproving of slum kids because they wear Nikes and drive hotted-up cars.
There's nothing like that in this thread, and I'm really glad. But sometimes I wonder how politically useful 'sacrifice' is, when the systems that make it possible for environmental pillaging to occur (capitalism, colonialism, imperialism) will just go on as normal. Defining oneself as a consumer, and hence beginning an environmental politic from the point of view of consumption, really doesn't deal with the fact that production of gas-guzzling cars, nuclear warheads, nuclear power, coal, uranium, etc go on regardless. 'Global development' also means that even without the economic participation of some 'first world' consumers, who are making sacrifices, whole populations in 'developing' states are being invited or coerced into becoming conspicuous consumers. For instance China, where the privatisation of the commons (kicking people off farms) coincides with government encouragement to 'be upwardly mobile! Get a job! Buy things!' In this context, people have little choice, and the self-sacrifice model seems hardly relevant.
So, personally, I'd rather be involved in the struggle to end those systems that oppress everyone in different ways than kid myself that my non-consumption will change anything. I'm no slum kid, but I've been relatively poor pretty much all my life. When I was a kid, we did live without electricity for a while, and despite my parents' romantic hippie dreams, it really sucked. No clean clothes! No music unless you ran a generator! %Best years of my life.%
Now I enjoy finally having enough cash to afford to run a car. I'm trapped in the system too, but I refuse to feel judgmental about that conspicuous consumption I can afford.
Sorry, that seems a bit Switchboard for a Conversation thread, but I think we have to connect the bigger picture with our personal habits. And not always in the manner generally taken for granted when people say, "Think global, act local." |
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