 |
Extinction Collage Deb Wiles Deb Wiles is a multidisciplinary visual artist and writer who lives and works in Toronto, Canada. Presently she runs an art school from her home studio, and paints like a mad thing. You may check out her artwork, read press about her work, and / or contact her by visiting her website at www.debwiles.com |
Forget the Sin
Sept. 5, 2008Deb Wiles
Ok, I've just arrived home from my local grocery store. I like the store; it's big, but family owned.
They now sell organics as well as environmentally friendly products.
While there I became very irritated to see that the organic local (Ontario), garlic and onions were packaged in those plastic net bags. There are two problems with this: 1. those bags maim & kill birds; we have known this in North America for about 20 years now, so why is it still legal for producers to use these bags? 2. The thing that really drove me over the edge was to see producers that are growing organically using these bags. One would hope that growers of organic produce would be environmentally conscious, but apparently not.
I see this as indicative of a larger social problem.
The problem of the Other. (Thank you Sartre, for naming it.)
I've come across this phenomenon, amongst the so called living, breathing human population whom I consistently make the mistake of endowing with the capacity for thought, and also the mistake of believing that as they possess this capacity that they would use it with regularity. I'm no longer interested in the pat excuse that people are not educated...they are educated but, sadly it seems, not use their capacity for thought to think.
In the eighties I discovered that people didn't, as we anarchists called it, link oppressions. There was a lot of talk during that period in 'radical', and pseudo political circles about the politics of privilege & oppression: who was oppressed, who wasn't, how they were or not etc., etc. Many groups of oppressed peoples were loudly lobbying for their rights, and "all the power to ya", I say. But disappointingly the politics were one of separation & hate, of dog eat dog, rather than one of unity & compassion & love. People could have been comparing situations, taking stock of similarity, then joining together and lobbying. Since then the NDP and then the Liberals have jumped on the bandwagon and made quite a hefty stack of social policies. Seems like a good idea, making good ideas into policy, but policy often has a way of killing an idea. Making something into policy is writing it in stone (to use an old expression), and then for the hereafter the policy sits open to misinterpretation in the best case, and adhered to in the letter of the law in the worst case. The idea is slaughtered in the process, and dies. Those bureaucrats applying the policy do not necessarily posses any understanding of the spirit of the policy/law, and even if they do are not endowed with the power (within the bureaucracy), to apply it as they see fit.
We, as a culture, readily make social policies, and cheers are often raised. But when it comes to passing a policy to ban the little plastic net bags that onions are packed in, or if we try to ban all pesticides, or replace the combustion engine, nothing seems to happen.
When will people start connecting the dots?
They now sell organics as well as environmentally friendly products.
While there I became very irritated to see that the organic local (Ontario), garlic and onions were packaged in those plastic net bags. There are two problems with this: 1. those bags maim & kill birds; we have known this in North America for about 20 years now, so why is it still legal for producers to use these bags? 2. The thing that really drove me over the edge was to see producers that are growing organically using these bags. One would hope that growers of organic produce would be environmentally conscious, but apparently not.
I see this as indicative of a larger social problem.
The problem of the Other. (Thank you Sartre, for naming it.)
I've come across this phenomenon, amongst the so called living, breathing human population whom I consistently make the mistake of endowing with the capacity for thought, and also the mistake of believing that as they possess this capacity that they would use it with regularity. I'm no longer interested in the pat excuse that people are not educated...they are educated but, sadly it seems, not use their capacity for thought to think.
In the eighties I discovered that people didn't, as we anarchists called it, link oppressions. There was a lot of talk during that period in 'radical', and pseudo political circles about the politics of privilege & oppression: who was oppressed, who wasn't, how they were or not etc., etc. Many groups of oppressed peoples were loudly lobbying for their rights, and "all the power to ya", I say. But disappointingly the politics were one of separation & hate, of dog eat dog, rather than one of unity & compassion & love. People could have been comparing situations, taking stock of similarity, then joining together and lobbying. Since then the NDP and then the Liberals have jumped on the bandwagon and made quite a hefty stack of social policies. Seems like a good idea, making good ideas into policy, but policy often has a way of killing an idea. Making something into policy is writing it in stone (to use an old expression), and then for the hereafter the policy sits open to misinterpretation in the best case, and adhered to in the letter of the law in the worst case. The idea is slaughtered in the process, and dies. Those bureaucrats applying the policy do not necessarily posses any understanding of the spirit of the policy/law, and even if they do are not endowed with the power (within the bureaucracy), to apply it as they see fit.
We, as a culture, readily make social policies, and cheers are often raised. But when it comes to passing a policy to ban the little plastic net bags that onions are packed in, or if we try to ban all pesticides, or replace the combustion engine, nothing seems to happen.
When will people start connecting the dots?
