I have a suggestion for these holidays. The average American, according to the government, consumes six times more energy than the world average. Take whatever you spent on gifts last year, slash 5/6ths of it, and see what you can do with the rest - unless of course you make a charitable donation. You're broke anyway, right, so what's the harm? Chances are, your loved ones won't love you any less, someone in need will love you more, and your children might understand a bit more how the rest of the planet lives.
Those words are from a writer I greatly respect, Derrick Jackson, from his column entitled This year, why not try something different?. And fully agree with the sentiment, and a part of me says it would be healthy for many families.
My problem, or moral conflict, is my immediate realization that it would be disastrous for many more, families and individuals and communities. It is that moral conflict I wish to explore.
First, let me stipulate that many will have no choice. They are already forced to significantly cut their holiday spending. They may have lost jobs, or saw what could have been savings eaten up by the exorbitant gas prices in the first part of the year. Others recognize the loss of retirement accounts in the crash of stock values requires them to be less generous and certainly not extravagant.
As a result, there are retail establishments across the nation already closing outlets, with even more to follow the holiday season - perhaps they will sell what they can of Christmas inventory already brought.
Consider for a moment this list, which made the rounds of our school from our parent advocate (UPDATE - per the request of others, I am modifying what I was sent, because the original list is inaccurate - I am leaving only a few examples from the original list, all verified at Snopes.com, just enough to make the general point):
Circuit City stores 115 stores
Ann Taylor- 117 stores nationwide are to be shuttered
Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January
Zales and Piercing Pagoda closing 105 locations
Kirkland's 130 stores
Sharper Image - closing all 184, beginning in June, as part of liquidation
Levitz closing down remaining stores
Disney closing 98 stores
Home Depot closing 15 stores
Linens and Things closing all stores
Sprint/ Nextel closing 125 stores
Dillard's to close some stores.
Since then the list of companies and of stores has increased, as more announcements appear in the news.
So what's my moral conflict?
Other people's livelihoods are dependent upon the American people not radically changing our shopping habits. And as silly as it seems, often when we make what might be beneficial changes we do not fully consider the impact of our actions upon others, who perhaps through no fault of their own will lose the only job they have.
Let me explore it in another fashion other than shopping to illustrate this. I am naturally inclined to the idea of a single-payer health care system, perhaps even full nationally run health insurance. Then I stop and realize how many people have jobs in insurance companies processing claims. Now, that does not mean that we should not begin the transition, but will we do for the thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people who might lose their jobs? Do we have a plan to transition them to other kinds of work? Will there be any jobs at all, or if so, jobs that pay anything near what they were making? Or will this merely accelerate the process of wage depression? What if a major employer in a town is a claims processing center and it were to close, or substantially redeuce its workforce - what does that do to the revenue of other businesses in that town, and thereby also to the tax revenues for the local community, which it uses to fund police, fire, schools, etc.?
Last night I listened to Michael Pollan on Bill Moyers. I am sure like many others I found a part of myself motivated in the direction of buying less processed food, of encouraging local agricultural production by how I shop. Of course, I immediately realized why many people could not make such a change - cost and availability. After all, the mass produced food items often appear to cost less, and at a time when people are struggling to make ends meet it is hard to take steps that at least at first will cost more. Others are already working two jobs, and buy processed foods or eat at fast food because they lack time or energy (and think how devastating a diet of even the dollar specials might be). And simply put, there is insufficient local produce to support the food needs of most major metropolitan areas.
In reality, my personal moral conflict on this is probably less than what I might face had a children or so tight a budget that my choices are already somewhat limited. My wife has 4 relatively young nieces and nephews (with a fifth, her brother's first, on the way), and we will get them some presents, albeit less expensive. For them, time with her is what they most want, but they are all in New Jersey and is already becoming an extravagance. The adults in the family all accept that Christmas will be somewhat less generous this year. And we have already been changing our own shopping and spending habits, even before things became tight.
Please do not misunderstand this diary. On the one hand, as a statement of moral responsibility I fully agree with the sentiments of Jackson's piece. We should be trying to change our behavior, and to understand the impact of our continued wasteful patterns, as individuals and as nations. Think about it - if you drink bottled water, even before you consider the waste of the plastic in which it so often comes, consider the price: now that gasoline costs have receded, $1.89 for a 33.8 ounce bottle of your preferred bottled water is more than 4 times what you would pay for gasoline.
I am ultimately first and foremost responsible for the impact of my own actions. I should be aware of the advantages I have over others. Jackson's suggestion to cut 5/6 of our spending is very educational, as it would be to try living on the calories and nutrition available to most of the rest of the people in the world, or perhaps to go a week with only one change of clothes, having to wash and dry every night. We often do not realize how much, even when we cut back, we still have.
I am also a firm believer in Kant's categorical imperative, which in one format can be read as "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." This is where I begin to have a moral conflict, because were we all to immediately follow Jackson's suggestion, the impact on others would be devastating, as I have noted, even were we to give much if not all of what we did not spend to charitable organizations - for whatever good works they might do to ameliorate the effects of our lesser spending, since they are tax exempt we would still see the significant drop in governmental revenues.
Please do not get me wrong. I am not being George Bush, who after 9/11 told people to go shopping, although for all the ridicule he received for that message was actually in part correct, since so much of America's economy depends upon our retail sector.
It would be unfair of me to merely describe something as a moral conflict without making a suggestion of how to attempt to address it. Please note, I called it conflict, not "dilemma."
For me, the conflict forces me yet again to acknowledge that our entire economy is unhealthy and destructive, and that we need to be encouraging significant change in many sectors - food, medicine, transportation, retail, manufacturing, housing. Ultimately the changes can produce jobs that will replace those lost as our patterns - of shopping and eating for example - begin to change.
Pollan talked about how the agribusinesses dominate food and agriculture policy. It is one reason why we still have a diet overly dependent upon corn and soy processed into unhealthy and unnatural food items, and a monocultural agriculture that actually destroys the ability of the soil to feed us at the same time as it demands huge amounts of petroleum to fertilize and fight pests, and leaves our food supply scarily vulnerable to disruption, especially through deliberate action by terrorists. In agriculture and food policy, so many issues come together that it is not easy to attempt to change them by pulling on one thread of the integrated garment. And it is similar with our shopping and spending habits.
Ultimately we have to change - the world cannot sustain its current population at our standard of consumption and waste: were the entire world to live at that level, we would exceed the planet's carrying capacity by a factor of at least 4, and maybe more.
The moral conflict is not whether or not we should change, but how we can change in a way that is least disruptive of the lives of those who will most immediately feel the impact.
And after all, the preservation of jobs and incomes is not by itself a justification. Were the people to choose to stop buying and watching so much pornography, for example, I am not sure there would be that much sympathy for those whose incomes were thereby reduced or even eliminated!
There do need to be jobs for all those willing to work, and those employed in them must able to maintain a decent, if not extravagant, standard of living. I do not shop at WalMart, even when it is less expensive, because I neither like how it treats it employees, nor do I approve of the devastating impact it has on small and/or local businesses.
There is the old maxim, supposedly coined by David Brower of Friends of the Earth, to "think globally, act locally." The most local level is one's immediate family, then one's community. When one attempts to follow this maxim, one often comes up against governmental and corporate policies that make this difficult. We choose to patronize our local independent pharmacy rather than a chain. Some people do not have that choice: if they have ongoing medications they are required by their health insurer to obtain them through mail-order providers. This is justified on the basis of cost although we never seem to apply all the hidden costs, such as the loss of income within the community and thus a shrinking tax base. Nor do we ever fully apply the hidden costs of environmental damage, health, and national defense to the aspects of our economy - including food and beverage - that are so heavily dependent upon the excessive use of petroleum.
So here's one possible solution to the moral conflict with which I began. Act as an individual in as moral a fashion as you can. Urge by your actions as well as your words that our government begin to take the lead to reshape our economy in ways that are less destructive - of environment, health, local economies, and human dignity. Recognize that we are facing economic dislocation and restructuring, and insist that ALL participate in the costs that will incur so that NO ONE suffers unfairly.
Derrick Jackson ends his piece with a one-liner, which appears immediately after the paragraph with which I began. It reads:
And the planet itself can give thanks for being a few pieces of plastic less in peril.
We must remember that our actions have impact beyond our own immediately financial situation and comfort. These actions include the planet itself. They also include the lives and financial situations of other people. We must make change. We should do so in a moral fashion. We need to remain cognizant that we can act in a fashion that is fully independent of an impact upon others.
That's what often makes life difficult. Unless we deliberately choose to be oblivious, we should be able to make the connections between our actions and the impact of those actions upon others, often in ways that are potentially devastating.
That is not an excuse to NOT act. It may require us to change even more.
And with that, I think I have said more than enough.
Peace.