Saturday, March 24, 2007
Roughing it in Manhattan
An article in yesterday's New York Times on a strange kind of homesteading in New York City (which I will post on my articles page) leaves me between amazed and sad. Even if everything is true that's asserted by the most hopeless global warmists, it is inconceivable that there is any purpose to doing without toilet paper other than to feel at one with fourth world societies. What is it about some Americans that they feel good when they try so hard to deny the world and selves in which they live? Is it really about guilt, do you suppose? We have so much and some have so little? How does this family's using computers at a community center actually make any difference to anything? If everyone in America only used community services rather than one's own, it would save a bit of electricity, mean fewer computers manufactured, fewer administrative demands on various people, ultimately fewer jobs and reduced production. Using no toilet paper or anything else disposable and having worms in your garbage rather than sending it to a landfill or recycling means a ranker home to which fewer people will visit meaning less demand for transportation. Recognizing that such people may be motivated by essential kindness, they also have an over-developed sense of self-importance, I'm afraid. Real problems need real solutions (and the problems aren't even accurately defined yet).

Acting primitive in the middle of New York City in 2007 is neither germane nor useful, and it's silly.

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Permalink | | posted by jau at 8:12 AM


2 more:
Anonymous Anonymous — at 12:52 PM, March 24, 2007:
It's a desperate attempt to achieve some sort of moral validation without having to deal with actual deities, who have a tendency to frown on human stupidity, especially when it's being sold as a virtue.

I will not cheer when they come down with some hideous disease; but neither will I mourn.
 

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Blogger jau — at 1:56 PM, March 24, 2007:
Well said. I hadn't thought of seeking moral validation but I think that's probably behind huge amounts of do-goodism. I've been thinking it was only guilt but I think you're right. It's awfully human to want and seek approbation but best not to come from guilt nor ride on someone stupid's coattails, eh? I mean, if the emperor's friends take off their clothes, they're just as naked and foolish as the emperor himself.
 

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