Welcome to a new diary series! In ECSTASY diaries, we'll be exploring ways to cut down on consumption in general and environmentally damaging consumption in particular. We all know our consumer culture is profoundly harmful to the planet...but what can we do about it?
This series was triggered by G2Geek's terrific diary, "Climate Action: A Call To ARMS!" The idea for a consumer-withdrawal support group, analogous to the Giving Up Smoking diaries, emerged in the comments...and since I love a RCA (Really Cool Acronym), you're now in ECSTASY. We'll be here every Sunday as long as our energy holds out.
As our lives come under greater corporate control, we're going to find that one of our only remaining sources of power is non-cooperation — opting out of a corrupt and dehumanizing system. Because the system is built around the requirement that all of us proles continue to CONSUME the stuff we're offered, non-cooperation means non-consumption.
And breaking up with consumer culture is hard to do. We (all of us) have gotten used to our conveniences...but I'd rather do without them if it can bring us closer to a sustainable world. Hence the need for E.C.S.T.A.S.Y.
Some of the things we can talk about:
What are the different ways in which our consumer habits affect the environment? How much information is available to us about the ecological impact of the manufacture, transport, packaging and use of the products, food and services we buy? How can we get more information about this...and how can we make sure our information is correct?
Is it possible to be an environmentally-friendly consumer — or is the very act of consumption, as the word suggests, inherently eco-hostile? I am reminded that in the 19th century, "consumption" meant tuberculosis, a wasting disease. To be consumptive was to face a death sentence.
What tools are available for us to reduce the impact of our purchases? Of our use of energy? How can we help other people find their own ways to stop being consumers and start being sustainers?
I learned this song at summer camp about forty years ago. The last two verses are more recent additions.
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How can we overcome our addiction to convenience and reduce our participation in a commercial culture that's wreaking havoc on our world?
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After initially proposing this diary series in a comment, I emailed the DK Greenroots google group, asking for input and volunteers. I got quite a few responses. Here are some of them:
I could write about landscaping with native plants and planting rain gardens, xeriscaping etc.
I could also chip in occasionally with emphasis on meat production and agriculture sustainability which accounts for approx. 20% of GHG
I'd be glad to participate in this series, especially talking about
local food production vs. large scale factory farming and the
subsequent trans-global shipping (and petroleum-based fertilizing).
terrific idea. sustainable consumption is so important.
This sounds like a great idea.
Only one caveat: everybody who writes these diaries should avoid preachiness at all costs. Otherwise, you can expect the series to flop. Presented with a good sense of humor - which isn't to say this isn't a serious matter - very serious - I think it would fly better.
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I don't know about you...but I can't afford a Prius. I drive a 15-year old Subaru station wagon with a whole bunch of liberal bumper stickers, including one that says "Question Consumption." And every time I drive my daughter to preschool or run an errand in the car, I deplore my own hypocrisy, and I make excuses. "It's 20 degrees out, and it's raining! I can't ride the bike in this weather! How serious am I?
Does the computer time I donate to the World Community Grid (5500 hours as of Thursday night) balance the energy I use by leaving my laptop on when I'm out of the house? Does the fact that my local electric company lets me pay extra to use power from 100% renewable sources count?
When my five-year-old daughter wants a toy, she's not shy about instructing us to buy it. Sometimes we do, depending on our resistance level at the moment. Sometimes we say no, and sometimes we duck the issue with a "Maybe later" or, more simply, "Hey, look over there!" How do we keep our kid from getting infected with consumption...given that she's surrounded by consumptives? And how soon does she get to discover that grownups have probably destroyed her world utterly and completely? (I mean, right now, she thinks that because I send letters to Barack Obama, he's one of my friends; last year she asked when she could have a playdate with Sasha and Malia.)
My in-laws live in India. We fly there to visit about every other year. Is buying carbon offsets from TerraPass actually worth it? Should I buy Gaviotas Offsets instead? Is it all a scam? Even if it's a scam, should I do it anyway, in order to establish that there is a precedent for the marketability of environmental compensation strategies?
Disentangling one's self from the bonds of consumer culture without trauma is all but impossible. On the other hand, if we don't do it for ourselves, it's going to be done for us, and it won't be fun.
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G2Geek made a very salient point in an email exchange with me a few days ago as we discussed plans for this series:
The key to this on dKos is to turn necessities into virtues and then into pleasures as far as possible. Interestingly, the word ecstasy comes from a Greek word for "stepping outside of oneself." This is exactly the implication we need here: we are encouraging people to step outside of the usual preoccupation with self, and embrace a larger scope of personal meaning in relation to an inescapable greater good.
(snip)
If you look under the surface of the definitions of civilization that are not pejorative, what one finds are two common denominators that are causal for the rest of the elements of those definitions:
One, violence within the society decreases over time.
Two, knowledge held by the society increases over time.
From those two elements, the rest follow.
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Speaking of preachiness, how do I/you/we avoid it? Right now, when I'm not morally outraged, I'm full of doom-inflected, self-pitying whinging. The only things that get me outside this crappy existential condition are my work (I sing and I teach singing), my kid (and that, as I mentioned, is positively fraught with connotations), my wife and my garden. To what extent am I justified in unloading all the terrible news about the environment on the other parents in our preschool when they say, "Warren, you look worried. Is everything okay?"
Yeesh. My father and mother went around turning off the lightbulbs my brother and I left on, with the usual "This costs money!" admonitions. Now I've got two reasons to follow wife & kid around, flipping switches: the state of the planet, and the state of the checkbook.
So that's one reason to do this diary series: we need to hear from some other morally outraged, doom-inflected, self-pitying whingers out there, so we can take comfort in knowing we're not alone.
Another reason, of course, is that when the ECSTASY Diary comes up on a Sunday morning, I want to be able to say something like, "I rode my bike seven times this week!" or "I found a way to cut our household electricity use by twelve percent," and get a bunch of pats on the back. The more of us are involved, the more suggestions we can make and the more reinforcement we can give.
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Midge says it pretty well, doesn't she? "So much great entertainment being produced for our consumption." As an ethnomusicologist, I am inspired by other cultures which include all members of a society in the act of musicking. The notion that music, dance, poetry, painting, acting and other arts are ab necessito the province of highly paid specialists is not universally accepted.
I'm going to do an ECSTASY diary on making musical instruments from found and recycled materials...and making your own music from those instruments. If we are to survive the coming centuries, we must relearn some fundamental human skills: how to make music with one another; how to tell stories to one another; how to celebrate with one another — without reliance on the artifacts of the commercial entertainment business.
The notion that we must be passive consumers of culture has already taken a massive hit from the growth of internet-based information distribution. The System has begun to fight back (as witness the SCOTUS' Citizens United decision). If we are to prevail, we have to get better and better at meeting our own needs in all domains, rather than reflexively consuming entertainment because it's more convenient and because we can.
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What can we do about it? Cindy has the answer:
The ECSTASY diaries are going to be about saying "Yes" to saying "No."
Let's find ways to live without manufactured convenience...and let's find ways in which we can live better. Let's share our ideas and reinforce our actions.
What have you done to teach yourself how to live more lightly on the earth? To live more joyfully? To teach others?
Have you figured out ways to economize on fuel? Ways to motivate your neighbors to carpool to work or shopping? Ways to increase happiness that don't involve new appliances?
Our planet needs us to stop consuming and start sustaining. Please join us in ECSTASY every Sunday, and we'll talk about ways to make it happen, and ways to get our neighbors, families and friends involved.
Let's End Consumption, and Save The Air & Sea, Y'all!
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Note: The Cindy & Midge comic is something I've had in my files for a long time. I recently googled the headline phrase and got a link to John Zerzan's "Elements of Refusal." There was a final panel, all text, which read "Why not get together with some friends soon and say NO! Say no to the draft, or work, or religion, or authority figures, or school; say no to television, patriotism, political ideologies, any of the thousand and one ways in which this society keeps you from realizing your own needs and desires. You'll find the more you do, the more you'll like it! Just say "Fuck Off!!" - you'll get a lot of satisfaction." I had included that panel at the very end...but Photobucket deleted it. No great loss.
ECSTASY will be appearing here at the Great Orange Satan every Sunday as long as our energy holds out. If you are interested in hosting an ECSTASY diary, please contact me (my email address is given in my profile).