School's out for summer, and the boys are excited!!
I expect it now, but it is still rather strange: school being over is entirely anti-climatic. You bust your butt for months on end, never able to feel like you are more than an hour ahead of the game, constantly taking on new and unexpected challenges and then poof - it is all over - nothing.
No complaints. We have been to the river everyday. After a few short breaths from Owain, he loves it and could play all day. I can work on the garden, wood and other projects without feeling a rush to get it all done. I have even read a few pages in a book.
I sort of feel rather trendy, but I am thinking a lot about local food. Time magazine had an article about it and Barbara Kingsolver has a book out about it. Plus I heard an interview with another author about only eating local food for a year - and they lived in Vermont. How do I eat locally? It sounds so simple and basic, but it is not that easy. I had a banana today. Sure it was organic, but how many gallons of petroleum were used to get it here? And do the workers make any money to live? What about lemonade? I live on iced tea and lemonade all summer. Summer is supposed to be the easy time for us here in Wisconsin. We have an abundance of vegetables to eat and we are becoming better preservers. We just finished our tomatoes and beets from last summer. But Owain and I do love avocados. And lemons. And limes. I could go cold turkey this summer and I think about committing to the idea a lot. What is making me be lazy and noncommittal? Does anyone else feel the way I do? Is anyone successful at eating only local food? The trend is 150 miles away or less. Sometimes I become bogged down and think what does any of it matter? That is sad though. Thankfully, I have some inner bug inside my genes that gives me joy and fulfillment from giving society the middle finger. Eating locally though is simply more than the middle finger. It is loving the earth, my body, loving God. It is also being creative and resourceful. Perhaps as I feel more rested during summer vacation I will have a stirred energy to take it on. Anyone else up to the challenge or have good reasons why?
I have been thinking about boys. I live with two, I am one, and the students I struggle with the most at school are boys. Some of my struggles dawned on me the last day of school - too late for this year. We celebrated the last day with fun activities and one was the whole team playing capture the flag outside. I had a blast running around, screaming and tackling students. I finally clicked with one boy who drove me nuts all year with his cocky, mister popular attitude. I was chasing him and he dove head first into a safe zone (hula hoops, one person only, on the opposite side). I loved the slide and congratulated him on it. Later in the day I slapped him on the back and said, "nice slide." We finally had a connection. How can I have a connection with so many of these boys when we are stuck inside a room all day seated at our desks? Next year I am going to push hard to have outside days and activities early on and often. I felt like I was a counselor at camp again. I had no trouble connecting with the boys at camp: we played all day long.
Thinking more about local eating, I started fishing. My dad used to take us fishing when we were younger - more male bonding time. I fished once so far, more to be with Owain. Isn't that the point? I have a friend from school, the environmental ed teacher and local homesteader, who is going to take me fishing on the Red Cedar some times this summer, and Greg and I will take a weekend fishing trip. It is exciting to have male bonding by doing something, possible catch and eat local food too. I am practicing bow hunting also. Perhaps in a couple of years we will hunt turkey or deer? Again, local food.
I discovered opera. For Timpano night I always order opera from the library. After the party, I put a Rossini C.D. on and stopped and listened. Wow! The passion and evolution of music blows me away. I have recently placed many opera works on hold from the library and am enjoying Verdi and Mozart the most. My favorite is to work in the kitchen (cook or wash) and listen. I have romanticized the kitchen because late one night in Florence, below our window, Julianne, Charis and I heard a person washing their dishes and singing along to an opera. My roommates are not as keen on the opera so it is not heard that often.
People at work asked me what I am doing this summer. I joyfully say, "nothing." I have planned it that way and am excited. Of course nothing does not mean that, but I am trying to stay on the farm. I am excited to be with Owain and play with him. Charis deserves sainthood for her love and care for Owain. I am excited for Dennis to come out. We are only going to be gone for one week up to the cabin in the U.P. Hurray for being with Charis and Owain and becoming slow, and local?
Jay
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
School's Out For Summer
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23 comments:
Jay- Laura and I have enjoyed reading your blog and keeping up with what you and Charis are doing. I really appreciate your posts because they often have a perspective different from mine and it gives me lots to thinking about.
In particular I found this post interesting and wanted to add my perspective and get your response. I believe that while eating locally sounds like a good idea it is not, both for practical reasons and philosophical ones.
The reason that people eat food that is grown far away is because it is cheaper. And it is cheaper because it took fewer resources to grow it, even when you take into account the shipping. Agriculture has the greatest environmental impact of all of human activities. Look at satellite images of earth. Most of the land that isn’t in a natural state isn’t strip mines, oil fields, urban sprawl or landfills. It is cultivated land. And yet the amount of land that is devoted to agriculture has been steadily declining over the last 50 years, even as food production has gone up. The reason is better farming techniques, genetically engineered crops, pesticides, better transportation, and large farming operations. Local, organic farming is far less efficient, and hence more expensive both in terms of money and in consuming natural resources.
To see this, look at places where people do eat locally grown food without modern farming techniques, either in the U.S. 100 years ago or in the third world today. So much of people’s lives are devoted to just getting enough to eat that they don’t have the time or resources for anything else. And this is true of society in general. It is only when large numbers of people come together and freely trade that people really advance. In our free market society everything is made to maximize the benefits with the least use of resources. Food is grown wherever in the world it grows best. Products are made where ever they can best be made. Services are provided by the people that are best able to do them. And it was this efficiency that freed the human mind. Without this efficiency life is dominated by superstition, sickness, subjugation of women, bigotry, social stagnation, and tyranny.
I don’t see the benefit to eating locally. You will only deprive yourself of some of the advances that humans have struggled for over the last couple of thousand years. But the point of those advances is to give individuals freedom, so if it makes you feel better, go for it. But do not do it to spite society. Ultimately it is society and the institutions that are a part of it that give us a good life. If you give the middle finger to society you are giving the middle finger to that which gives you the freedom to live as you wish. And you can’t be happy hating that which you depend on.
Society is just a tool, and like all tools it is only good or evil to the extent that we choose to use it.
Thanks for your post Jay! I really admire your desire to eat locally. It's funny because one of the assumptions I've had about the farm is that you get to each so much from the land around you. It is a wonderful thing. And now it seems like you're stretching yourself even more, that's fantastic.
Nathan and I buy our produce and most dairy from a farm in IL. They give us mainly what is in season with a few items that are not local but organic and fair trade. Even in our small experience with local food it has been challenging, in a good way. Lord knows I wasn't buying collard greens at the store . . . it made me think outside of my little cooking box, try new things . . . and also gave me a little taste of what it must be like to actually live off of the local land around you.
And to give up avocados . . . oh lawdy, that's huge! Keep us posted on how it all goes!
See you at Golden!
B.
ah yes, be a yokel, buy local. it's a worthy cause that gets much respect in my book. i am a farmer's daughter, afterall. forgive me but i didn't read the previous responses, so i might repeat. BUT what i wanted to say is that it absolutely can be done. i have a friend in montana who made it her family's goal to do this for one year... eat entirely within the foodshed (200 miles) including their 2 year old and the baby in her womb. it was hard but valuable. it is indeed possible, even in a place with a 90 day growing season. i'll dig up some resources from her and pass them on.
as for giving the ole middle finger to society, yeppers, it needs to be done every once in a while... or maybe more than that!
salud!
It sounds like you're asking the right questions as you make your food choices. Eating locally is definitely an important part of the picture. My concern, however, is that reducing our food choices to any single value loses the big picture of why we're doing what we're doing.
For example: should you buy the local tomatoes in June that have been grown in a hothouse heated by fossil fuels or buy the ones trucked in from a warmer climate? (Perhaps the answer is to use the canned ones you grew yourself last summer). I've read that rice brought in by ship from Asia actually uses less fuel than rice grown in California. If the options available include conventionally grown local produce or organic produce from South America, which is the more sustainable choice?
Then there is the question of our responsibility as global citizens. Do we, as the wealthiest members of a global community, have an obligation to consider the impact of our food dollars beyond our local community? Are there times when our dollars might be wisely invested in helping farmers in other parts of the world, particularly if we can invest those dollars in encouraging fair trade and sustainable growing practices in other parts of the world?
To me, buying locally is an important value. But it is one that I hold in tension with many other values when voting with my dollars. I've come to the conclusion that there is no easy system that ensures that I will spend and eat according to my values. The best I can do is to become informed about the issues, ask lots of questions, and raise my own consciousness so that I can make intentional choices about everything I consume. I'm certainly not there yet, but I'm growing in process!
Alex and Barbara, Isabel/Blair :D and Karen,
Thank you so much for responding. One of the major purposes of our blog is to create dialogue about ideas for living a better, more intentional life, and your thoughtfully-crafted comments are a joy to behold.
Alex, I truly appreciate your different and well-considered viewpoint. It has stirred wonderful conversation for Charis and I on our walks. Many questions are brought to our minds and hearts. The biggest and best question for me is this one: Is a capitalist society better? Believe me, I understand the irony of me, a rich, white male in America, asking this question. Sure, in an immediate sense it is better, because I have the time to sit down on the internet and ask this question, as well as create art and enjoy other activities my leisure time has to offer. Besides, I can take medication for my arthritis, my mom has survived cancer twice, and I can listen to John Coltrane and Brahms whenever the mood strikes. But does this mean I should enjoy the good without examining the bad?
I think the definition of “progress” can be limiting. It is my understanding that hunter-gatherer societies only worked a few hours a day, with the rest of the day free for play and being with family (this probably somewhat depends on your definition of work.) One theory is that the oppression of women and embrace of power and greed did not come to the forefront until the time of industrialized agriculture, when one had to own land. As soon as I own land, I start thinking in terms of “mine” and “yours” and also have to develop a system to keep others away from my things. In a hunter-gatherer society would Charlie Parker have existed? It’s fun to think about. I know we can’t necessarily go back, and I don’t mean to romanticize that lifestyle, but I like to ponder the what-ifs.
And I still wonder about the banana farmer. Is he better off working for a dollar a day for Dole so I can buy their bananas cheaply? Our country may help the farmer “survive” by buying his crops, but the fact remains that we’re keeping him just barely alive to serve our own purposes. What if he had a small piece of that banana farm to grow all his own crops? He would be working for himself and feeding his family. In that climate, he could easily provide what he needed for his family. In terms of all this great land being used for agriculture, you are right, but it is not being put into the mouths of hungry and starving people. My own state is covered with corn fields, and there is not one place you could stop along the side of the road and pick an ear of corn to eat. None of the corn is sweet corn, it is all feed corn for beef and dairy. Do you know how much corn it takes to create a pound of beef? Many mouths could be filled with all of that corn. Who can afford the beef? Rich white Americans like myself.
I do not see the current economic system - designed to help corporations increase in profit - as ultimately benefiting people, particularly the non-Western cultures we’re exploiting. I do appreciate and benefit daily, in more ways than I am aware of, the good things this society has to offer, and I personally consider it my responsibility to question the things that trouble me.
Please, Alex - and all reading! - keep the discussion and ideas flowing. I love to be picked apart and disagreed with. How else can I experience beyond my own narrow perspective?
Jay
Wow, these are great comments. I am formulating a response while we are away this weekend and will post it when we return...
In the meantime, I want to pose one question to Alex (Ladies and Gentlemen, the brilliant Mr. Alex Collins, who helped me pass my Physics For Slow People class in college - no small feat):
Do you think it's possible to view agriculture through any lens other than the economic-model paradigm?
I'll be back!
Charis
--with regard to the banana farmer:
i agree with you in that we are not necessarily providing some great service to the banana farmer, that we are not bestowing on him our gratitude by way of giving him the privelege of growing our absurdly underpriced bananas. and that yes, he could choose to be a subsistence farmer and feed his family and not be under the thumb of the man. BUT... i do have to say that it can be a somewhat arrogant notion (that i am guilty of at times, no doubt) to believe that he WANTS to be a subsistence farmer. that he would prefer to live outside of the capitalist cycle, to be "noble savage" so to speak. i think this is a very romanticized notion. from my own research and experience with people in such circumstances, while they may not be pleased with their wages, their job conditions, etc. they in no way want to go back to a subsistence way of life. they want the coca cola, they want the new roof on their house, they want their children to be educated and not to be campesino farmers like themselves.
clearly this isn't the case in all places, at all times... many of the latin american land redistribution schemes have revolved around the masses of poor demanding their own land to grow their own food (much to the pleasure of many opportunistic socialist regimes) ie: brazil, venezuela, et al... but it is a generalization that i think gets overused up here in the great white north (and i dont necessarily mean canada!)
hmmm, que mas, que mas? that's my first thought, but there are many more on the previous responses. but they must come at a later time when isabelita is not fighting sleep so loudly in the background. sigh.
but thanks for the fab dialogue. feels good to use the ole noggin again. this particular subject, and many more that spin off of it, put me in great debt and never did land me that great job so i suppose i should atleast use them here on this wonderful blog!
ciao!
blair
alex said: Local, organic farming is far less efficient, and hence more expensive both in terms of money and in consuming natural resources.
I wanted to address this point-- while i agree on some the points of "efficiency" i think that saying that the agro-industrial complex is more economical and less "consuming" than organic farming is looking at a very small portion of the problem and failing to look at longer term implications of industrial ag. yes, organic farming takes more hectares per crop, but only in the short term. the reality of industrial ag is that its intensity wreaks havoc on the land, sucks it dry, and renders it agriculturally fruitless over time. the land gives out, there is no time or room for rejuvenation and as time goes on the land will become less productive and the need for supplements must increase to continue growing or even maintaining productivity. efficiency goes down the tubes when you look at all the factors.
if you look at the issue as "industrial ag only takes x amount of land to grow x amount of produce" then sure industrial ag is less land intensive but in the short term. not to mention that the amount of resources (petrochemicals, water, mechanized equipment that also needs petroleum, etc) continue to increase the impact on the land being farmed in addition to the land it relies on for the aforementioned tools and resources. not to mention the transportation of industrial ag produce... being that efficiency is the bottom line, those crops tend to be shipped far and wide, which continues decreases the efficiency being touted as its success.
when you look at the whole picture, it's hard to argue (for me) that industrial ag is less consuming, not to mention efficient.
phew. did anyone make it through that?
blair
ok, my secret is out, i dont proofread before posting. sorry! forgive me.
Alex,
I can think of several metaphors for what society might be: society is a mother, society is an inheritance, society is a rulebook, society is a taskmaster, society is a flowchart, society is a map, society is a script, society is a palm pilot, society is a prison, society is a theme&variations...But I don’t understand how society is a tool. Maybe the metaphor is too elusive for me. Can you explain?
-Matt
Thanks for your response Jay. Laura hates discussing anything remotely political, so this exchange is a real treat for me.
The big question: Is a capitalistic society better? It is one of my favorite questions to think about also. I hope my perspective will add to the discussion.
First, I don’t normally use “capitalism”; I use “free market”. The term capitalism and the definition (the economy is controlled by the holders of the means of production who operate them for profit) was developed by Karl Marx and his followers who were critical of the system.
To understand free markets you should look to the proponents of it such as Adam Smith or Ayn Rand. They do not argue for free markets on economic grounds, but on moral grounds. When Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations he was taking the relatively new concept of freedom (all men are endowed with the inalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”) and applying it to economics. The main characteristics of a free market economy are:
1. The freedom of individuals to pursuit self interest -I have the freedom to buy a loaf of bread for a dollar because I want the bread more than I want the dollar. The baker has the freedom to sell it to me because he wants the dollar more than he wants the bread
2. Division of labor- I have the freedom to buy my bread from a baker rather than make it myself.
3. Free trade- I have the freedom to buy from any baker for any price that we agree on without anyone placing conditions on it.
Free market is not to be confused with lazier-faire. Free market theory recognizes that government plays an important role in ensuring that the exercise of one person’s freedoms does not take away another person’s freedoms. The goal of a free market system is not to maximize profit, but to maximize the freedom of individuals.
Personally I do not look at different economic systems as capitalism vs. socialism vs. communism etc... I look at them as free vs. not free, or since there are no perfect examples, I look at what degree of freedom individuals have. Any system other than free market is based on the premise of limited the freedom of the individual to work, trade, and pursue their self interest.
Of course there are always advocates for limiting individual economic freedoms. (As Bob Dylan wrote: “Keeping people from being free is big business”) Usually they argue that freedom should not be the ultimate goal, but instead economic equality or more recently, economic sustainability. But let me talk about the concern you brought up: economic imperialism aka exploiting other countries.
As I understand it, the reasoning goes that the US uses its economic power, covert operations, and the threat of it’s military to force other countries to trade with us on terms that benefit the US and hurts the local population. My observations do not support this conclusion.
If the US exploited other counties it would follow that if we defeated a country in war, then militarily occupied it, administered it’s internal affairs for years, and had a great deal of trade with it, then that country should be very poor from being exploited. But has that happened? Japan and West Germany where occupied by the US following WWII. Those countries have the 3rd and 4th largest economies in the world with high standards of living for their citizens. South Korea wasn’t defeated in war, but we still basically militarily occupy the country. South Korea has the 15th largest economy in the world. I know from personal experience that when the South Korean company Hyundai came to my local area and opened up a computer chip plant that it did not look like America was exploiting them. Its neighbor North Korea has not been trading with the US, and therefore we never had the chance to exploit it. I do not consider them better off.
Consider the example of the banana farmer. Most of the bananas imported into the US come from Costa Rica. The United States Fruit Company (now Chiquita) maintained large plantations in Costa Rica and throughout Central America. According to critics it was the prime example of US exploitation of another country, and we still perceive the Costa Rican as being stuck working on a plantation for a dollar a day. The reality is Costa Rica is having a high tech boom with new investments from Intel, GlaxoSmithKline and Procter & Gamble. Only 20% of the population still works in agriculture. 22% work in manufacturing and 58% in the service industry. Of course the other countries in Central America did not fare as well and most have GDP per Capita’s that are less than half of Costa Rica’s. But those counties have less involvement with the US, not more. In fact most of them (El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras) started having real problems when Cuba and the Soviet Union started trying to bring about revolutions there. Off course there is also Panama. The US has had a strong presence there since we built the canal and in the 1980’s we invaded their country and over-throw their government. This is a perfect opportunity for the US to exploit a country. Panama now has the highest GDP per Capita in all of Central America. I do not contend that Costa Rica and Panama are well off only because of a US policy that was always benevolent. But I do claim that trade with the US makes countries better off than they are without US involvement.
Finally consider the examples of Cuba and Puerto Rico. US companies are forbidden by law from having economic dealings with Cuba, however Cuba can, and does still trade with the rest of the world. Puerto Rico is a US holding and is subject to US laws without representation in the US congress. Clearly if the US exploited other countries then Cuba should be better off then Puerto Rico. But I have not seen any Puerto Ricans risking their lives in homemade rafts to cross the ocean to escape their home and get to the US.
So in conclusion, I do strongly believe that a free market (or “capitalist” if you prefer) society is the best. I look forward to reading your thoughts and expanding my perspectives on this complicated question.
-Alex
alex wrote: Of course the other countries in Central America did not fare as well and most have GDP per Capita’s that are less than half of Costa Rica’s. But those counties have less involvement with the US, not more. In fact most of them (El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras)..
i think it matters what you call "involvement." the united states was quite involved in many central american countries... whether by under the table paramilitary funding, overt coups, calculated economic manipulation, supporting institution violence against the masses. none of those countries fared well. the deaths tolls are in the hundreds of thousands or more. and we were quite involved.
blair
Matt-
I guess that reference is a little obscure.
A tool is something that is used to accomplish something else. For example a hammer is used to build a house. I think of the institutions, relationships, and culture that make up a society not as an end unto itself, but as a tool created by people and used by people to survive. We do not rely on our physical bodies to deal with nature as animals do. We adapt our society to provide us with the things we use to live and thrive.
So take agriculture as we were discussing in the previous blog entry. The agricultural institutions that make up part of our society (such as farms, markets, farm equipment manufacturers, farmer’s co-ops, etc…) exist in order to feed the people of the society. To the extent that these institutions work, by supplying the most people with the highest quality food, with a minimum of expenditure of resources, these institutions are “good”. If these institutions do not accomplish their goal, and do not provide food for the people, and in the extreme case lead to famine, these institutions are “bad”. And if these institutions are used by, say by a dictator, who confiscates crops from the farmers to feed his armies while the people starve, then these institutions are “evil”.
I noticed in your examples you saw society as a mother, rulebook, taskmaster, prison, etc… All of which suggest control. My point is that I don’t believe that society controls people; I believe that people control society. And in a basically free society such as ours, I believe that how a person chooses to use society has far more effect on his life then society itself.
-Alex
Thanks Alex,
I think I understand more clearly where you are coming from now. You wrote that you: "don't believe that society controls people." Especially in a "good" society in which people are free like the one that you live in. Is that a fair reiteration of what you've said?
-Matt
Matt-
Yes, I think that is fair. It is an analogous argument to “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Not that the guns don’t help, but whether it is murder or self defense depends on the nature of the person shooting the gun, not on the gun itself. To try to tie it back to the original point, I feel that we who are consciously trying to live better lives that have a positive impact on our fellow humans should not eschew society based on the argument that society is flawed and/or inherently unjust and therefore any use of that society perpetuates those flaws. Rather we should recognize that society exist in it present form because it has evolved to provide its members with tools to manage our interactions with nature and each other, and by embracing and working with it we increase our ability to manage our interactions in a positive way and ultimately contribute to the further evolution of society that further empower our posterity.
Or at least that’s what my fortune cookie said-
Alex
So Alex, I totally understand your point. You are saying that these systems in themselves are not evil, that they exist solely to serve us, the people. This seems like a fairly sterile assertion to me, though. Don't you think that a system that is about building wealth ultimately rewards power and then (often) corruption? As Blair alluded to, a whole lot of people in Central America have died because the US has had a financial and political stake in their country. What I'm trying to say is that in my mind, the free market economy doesn't stand on its own in a pristine box. It has to be viewed with its many ugly trappings. The economy is hopelessly intertwined with politics, resources and power. This country has got some serious problems. If the system in itself is neither good nor bad, what is worthy of/fair to critique?
Lastly, and more randomly, if the free market system is actually in place so that we can be free, why do so many of the people I know feel chained to their job, chained to their mortgage, chained to their credit cards, chained to all the shit in their house?
Charis
ah yes, the paradox of a free society... that so called freedom from government and freedom from market constraints, means that we become slaves to the excess. right oh, charis.
as for the idea that the "system" is this seperate entity (sp?) removed from the meddling hands of those who stand to profit from it... reminds me of that saying, "guns don't kill people, people kill people." well yes, that may be so, people do kill people. BUT it is stil necessary to consider the role of the gun. Back to the heavy Central America example... the people killed people but they did it with an awfully big gun. call it what you will.
-blair
oh, and might i add that i love me some lostview farm blog! and all of the intelligencias that comment on it!
-blair
Sorry it took me so long to respond to your points. I spend a great deal of time examining my own beliefs as I wrote this. It seems to me that we looking at similar questions in our lives, but we are starting from very different places. It is much easier for me to keep this type of introspection private, but I am learning much more by sharing it with others.
Yes I do believe that a system that is about building wealth and acquiring power does ultimately lead to a corrupt system, such as feudalism. But as I stated in my previous post, a free market system is not about building wealth and acquiring power. It is about maximizing personal freedom and limiting others power over the individual.
Freedom in this context assumes that individuals are born with inherent freedom that only the actions of other people can take away. For example the first amendment does not say that people have a right to free speech. The first amendment assumes that people are born with the ability to speak freely, and it prohibits the government from passing laws that would take that away.
And yes our system can and should be examined. In order to avoid confusion let me make two distinctions:
1. Between good/bad in a functional sense and good/evil in a moral sense.
and
2. Between society as an integrated entity and society as people and the systems that they use.
A society can be examined as either an integrated entity or as people and a system. Both views are logically defensible. But I argue that it is more useful to consider people and system as being distinct, where we judge the system in a functional sense and people in a moral sense.
To judge them as an entity would force us assume that people lack a free will that is independent of the system they are in. A person would then be an automaton lacking free will that is helpless from the programming of society, thus deigning him his humanity (a Clockwork Orange, if you will). Also the integrated entity view would ascribe a morality to a system. If good and evil are inherited in a system than we must assume that a system that is used for evil purposes can not also be used for positive purposes, and more dangerously, that a system that is good can not be used for evil.
To judge people and the system as distinct recognizes that morality is a human characteristic. It forces us to deal with the individual’s free will and thus his humanity. It recognizes that a system can function poorly, despite the good intentions of the people involved. Most importantly in warns us against creating any system that bestows too much power in too few people’s hands, because it is impossible to create a system that is free of the human element and susceptibility to corruption.
And finally, the reason that people feel chained to their jobs, mortgages, credit cards, or enslaved by excess:
With freedom comes responsibility. The two can not be separated. But that responsibility for your own life in a free society can be daunting. Rather than face that, people would rather create an external entity that they can focus their resentment on. And misplaced resentment can be comforting, but it is not helpful, and at worst it is self destructive. In my opinion a free society helps the individual to obtain their desires and mitigates those limits placed on us by nature. If you blame society for your problems, and therefore avoid society you are only limiting yourself. However if you look inward and identify the choices you are making and the consequences of those choices then you can make better decisions and use society as a tool to better your life. In short we are not enslaved by excess, but by our desire for excess. If you fail to realize this and try to escape from society, you will still be carrying that conflict around with you and it is this internal struggle that makes one feel chained.
-Alex
Your arguments make sense, Alex, and I’m so glad you’ve taken the time and effort to share your beliefs in a more public setting, as I believe a good dialogue is one of the best ways to not only learn from each other but also re-visit, examine and define our own philosophies, which is never a bad thing. In fact, I wish we lived closer so we could have this discussion in person!
As you said in your post, we’re approaching similar problems from different paradigms, and because of this, I sense that we may be in danger of reaching a point where the snake is eating his tail. My take is that you are more clear-cut, pragmatic, scholarly, and optimistic in your approach while I am more random, ethereal, intuitive and cynical. We could probably argue all day about how many actually hold power in this country and how far we’ve strayed from the constitution over the years, etc., but I’m going to stick to the argument within the general framework of agriculture, simply because that’s where it started, and our heads might explode from all of the details and directions otherwise.
What’s hard for us here at the farm is that we feel surrounded by a culture (and I mean this in the broadest sense of the term) that we feel ultimately rewards competition, instant gratification and the bottom line, and doesn’t have much patience for beauty, slowness or connection, which in my humble opinion, once practiced, begin to take on deep meaning. Another way of putting it is that we live in a system that does not necessarily reward that which is just, but rather that which is economical, which, in my mind, are not often the same thing.
I also have to admit that even though you insist it can and must be done, I’m still struggling with the idea that a human-born system can stand separate from the humans who created and now participate in it. Not to get off topic, but take the Bible for example. This is a book that is believed by Christians to be the word of God. But the Bible has a whole heck of a lot of centuries of human fingerprints and agendas foisted upon it, from crusading emporers to the powerful church, and in my opinion we must be willing to view it through this lens in order to understand it more fully.
You know, Alex, this is going to make me sound certifiable I’m sure, but I’m pretty much equal parts hippie and hillbilly these days, no longer hold to a hard-line political or religious affiliation, and sometimes feel like I’m growing more feral by the hour. The only thing I’ve really got to go on these days is my faith in the mystery swirling around the interconnectedness of living things: my investment in the core and greater community of people I live with, my relationship to the animals I enjoy for companionship and those that sustain me as food, and the fact that I can put a tiny seed in the ground and nourish it so that it, in turn, will nourish me. Not to mention the spiritual/transcendentalist reciprocity I feel with nature around me as a whole.
What I’m talking about is hard to put in to words because it’s unquantifiable. It’s based on feelings and my own deep beliefs based in the experience of getting my hands in in the dirt, eating tomatoes I grew from seed, and buying or trading for milk or a pig from my neighbor, thereby building and encouraging my community to grow and succeed together. I agree that (most) agriculture is hard on the land, but our county was once populated almost entirely by small dairy farmers whose ancestors immigrated here in the 1800’s. They’ve got roots and history in this place. Now, we are fortunate enough to live next to two of the only existing small dairies left around here. Moving to a small farm in a rural location and getting to know our neighbors has helped us to feel this loss in a deep way. We’ve watched the big operations go up, where trucks have to come in twice daily just to extract the giant green mountain of cow shit that accumulates from the hundreds and hundreds of cows all penned up together on concrete floors. This may be cheaper, but how can it possibly be better? I look at this kind of “progress” and it just feels perverse to me.
Maybe history will prove me right, maybe it will prove me wrong. I just look at what’s happening around me and take in to consideration our unwillingness to curb our addictions to finite resources and our blindness to sustainability and think to myself, in the long run is bigger really better?
~Charis
Alex and all,
Thank you, thank you, thank you for intelligent, creative and stimulating ideas. I could not have anticipated all of the good thinking this post has stirred up.
Alex, you said: To judge people and the system as distinct recognizes that morality is a human characteristic. It forces us to deal with the individual’s free will and thus his humanity. It recognizes that a system can function poorly, despite the good intentions of the people involved. Most importantly it warns us against creating any system that bestows too much power in too few people’s hands, because it is impossible to create a system that is free of the human element and susceptibility to corruption.
I agree. This whole wonderful discussion came about because I was curious about local food. I wonder if the system of corporate agriculture is a system that bestows too much power into too few hands? What is my obligation as a privileged person to fight this and how do I live a better, moral and positive life? Is trying to eat only local food a way to do this?
Jay
Jay-
I believe that “power” is often misunderstood, therefore let me state my basic assumptions about power.
1. As a working definition I consider power to be the ability to make ones will manifest.
2. In general, people are limited in making their will manifest by either nature: (You can not live to 200 years old) or other people (you can not kill your neighbor without the police arresting you). Therefore we can consider two broad categories of power: power over people and power over nature.
3. Power is specific. The ability to control one thing does not necessarily mean the ability to control another.
4. In general, power over nature is not zero sum. One person’s power does not necessarily take away from another person’s power.
5. In general, power over people is zero sum. One person’s power over another person does take away that other person’s power.
6. Therefore the goal of our society should be the maximizing power over nature and minimizing power over people.
To illustrate this consider the questions of power inherent in agriculture. Underling all agriculture is people’s will to live and nature’s demand that they produce food in order to live. The impact on people of limits on producing food can not be overstated. Our society’s present day concerns are absolutely trivial compared to the big four of history: famine, pestilence, war, and death. Of these famine is arguably the worst. Famine has killed half of the populations of entire counties. The consequences of limited food production: famine, hunger, and malnourishment, has brought untold misery, hardship, and death. A successful system of agriculture would give people power over natural limits of food production (such as in the Irish potato famine) and prevent people’s power over other’s food production (such as in the Soviet famines of the 1930’s).
The current system of agriculture in the US is remarkably successful. To prove this there is one fact that trumps all others: In the US the poor are fat. Obesity rates in the US are closely linked to poverty. Whatever else one thinks about problems with agriculture in the US, the fact that we produce so much food so cheaply that even the poorest are able to overeat, is far, far better than the historical norm of starvation being commonplace.
But just because our current system of agriculture is successful does not mean that it will continue to be so. And specifically there are two main concerns:
1. Can we continue to have power over nature for growing food? (The sustainability question that was posed in previous posts.)
2. Can we prevent a few people from gaining power over our food production? (The corporate agriculture question that Jay asked)
Power over nature sounds scary. As typified by the Frankenstein allegory, when humans supplant nature with their imperfect intellect disaster will follow. In agriculture this argument says that current farming techniques create an imbalance in nature by consuming finite resources and will lead to infertile lands and crop failures. However the plain evidence shows that this is not the case. Dwindling resources have consequences. If farmland was being consumed several things would have to happen. Yields per acre would be going down; use of fertilizers and the amount of cultivated land would be going up, and as a result food would be getting more expensive for lower quality. But just the opposite is happening. Even lands that were decimated by the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930’s are producing crops. And this is the same farm land that has been in use for hundreds, and in some cases in Europe, for thousands of years. Our current farming practices are not only sustainable, but are improving. The belief that they are not is mostly based on the false idea that we will run out of resources. However history has consistently showed the resources become more abundant due to increases in technology improving production of those resources or replacement by more abundant and cheaper alternatives. (If you are interested in my perspective of sustainability in our society I point you to the works of Julian Simon at //www.juliansimon.com/writings/.)
Power by people over food production is much more relevant. There is a perceived danger of this arising from the division of labor that is a necessary aspect of free markets. If, as I stated earlier, freedom can not be separated from responsibility then if someone else is responsible to grow your food then you lose some of your freedom. But people still choose to participate in free markets because they gain much more freedom then they lose. When a person is responsible to produce everything that they consume their life is very limited. But when they participate in a free market they have the advantages of more efficient production with a corresponding increase in freedom to do what they want. The division of labor in our agricultural system works because it benefits both sides, the producer and the consumer.
Also protecting the individual’s freedom in a free market is that even though a few corporations may dominate production, they are as dependent on the market as anyone else. They still have to buy supplies on the open market. They have to hire workers. They compete with other companies. They have a few large customers that have strong negotiating power. If they raise their prices competition will undercut them. They are responsible to their investors and all of their customers. The ultimate test of someone’s power over people is the men with guns test. If a person doesn’t do what another wants, will men with guns show up to their house? No corporation in the US, no matter how large, can reasonably manage to threaten someone’s life and get away with it.
However that is not true of the government. And in that lies the true threat. Most of the famines of the last 100 years were caused not by nature, or by corporations, but by government. The US government is one of least corrupt government in the world (that may sound funny until you look at how bad other governments are), but they still the biggest threat to our food supply. The latest example is bio-fuels. ADM can not force people to buy their corn based ethanol, but the government can and has. And the results are predictable. Food prices are going up and more land is going into cultivation. (On a side note, drilling for oil in ANWR had a footprint of about 2000 acres. How many acres of land will it take to produce enough ethanol to equal the amount of energy ANWR would produce?) And this is part of many subsidies, tax breaks, regulations, and tariffs that support the agricultural industry and limit people’s power over our food supply. One might see these examples and focus blame on corporations. However that is only half of the story. The bigger impact on politics is actually that large industries employ many voters, either directly or indirectly. These programs are sold to the public for laudable purposes, such as saving small farms, or protecting local workers from unfair overseas trade. But the end result is that people are forced to pay higher prices than they would otherwise choose to for the benefit of someone else. And if they don’t they will eventually be arrested for tax evasion or similar crimes and sent to jail.
In conclusion, if you are fighting modern farming you are fighting a system that has effectively eliminated hunger, malnutrition, and famine in the western world. If you want to fight against the potential abuse of power of agriculture, work for a government that protects free trade, because corporations (or anyone else) can only compel you through the government. As for eating locally, if it gives you a sense of self-reliance or accomplishment, go for it. But in terms of fighting a system of power, to be honest, I believe that it is tilting at windmills.
- Alex
P.S. This post probably has some of my most contentious ideas. I look forward to anyone’s response.
in response to alex's last paragraph... i think it's simply incorrect to state that industrial agriculture has, "effectively eliminated hunger, malnutrition, and famine in the western world." these issues have certainly not been eliminated, not even in the richest of countries in the western hemisphere. and the list is much longer, among the poorest countries, of continued rates of malnutrition and starvation. whether developed or undeveloped, these countries have never been liberated by the likes of industrial ag. i argue that they rift between those with adequate food to eat and those without has actually grown over the last thirty-forty years.
for an interesting parallel to industrial agriculture and it's "successes" and the relevant rates of hunger-- look no further than argentina. it is the third most agriculturally productive country in the western world (behind the US and Canada) and leads the world in many of the most prominent agricultural exports... yet in the economic collapse of 2001, the numbers of those suffering from malnutrition and starvation skyrocketed. in a country once known as the "breakbasket of the americas". one problem, among many, was that the agricultural system was developed (via US policy and agribusiness) for export, not domestic consumption. diversity of food stuffs was greatly reduced by this export-oriented economy, which supported much of the argentine economy as a whole. with the overall economic collapse, came the collapse of the agricultural sector as well, and with that came the pulling out of the rug from the beneath the masses. the safety nets were gone... no health care, no education, no public works or wages for public workers. hyperinflation made the scarcely available food unattainable and those with any money found it pretty much worthless. the peso went from 1:1 (with the USD) to 4:1 overnight. it was catastrophic. and the people began to starve. industrial agriculture was not there to bail them out (although some of the larger corps did begin sending soy produced originally for livestock fodder to red cross shelter as emergency rations for children. uh, thanks??). and this is in one of industrial agricultures shining examples of "success."
and this is just the western hemisphere. nevermind the problems of genetic modification among traditional foods (primarily rice) in places like india or oil/nut plantations in southeast asia. the examples are massive and seemingly unending.
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