Bike Shirt
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.
In the previous post about the problem with cars, Eleutheros wondered if "Maybe I'm just in the same fog I find others in when it comes to other supposed mechanical conveniences."
And it made me wonder, IS the transportation issue an intractible issue with no immediate sustainable solutions? And that made me wonder further, "What are our big issues? Just what's wrong with this body corporate?"
I'm of the mind that our transportation systems are one of our world's and our society's biggest problems. The problems inherent to our transportation system include, but are not limited to:
1. It is built upon the mathematically impossible assumption that we will continue to have an on-going source of cheap fuel
2. Its benefits are wayyy surpassed by its costs (in Kentucky alone, auto wrecks alone cost the state some $25 billion annually according to one report from the state police - that's not counting environmental costs, urban sprawl costs, oil depletion costs, costs to our grandchildren, etc, etc, etc)
3. Dependence upon foreign fuels have fueled poor policy decisions, pushed us to support some unsavory characters (Saddam not the being the least of these)...
...For starters.
Clearly, for me, our current transportation solutions are one of our great problems. Another example: The way we procure the stuff we need and want on a daily basis would be another biggie.
Our shopping patterns at Walmart, Kroger, Big Lots, etc, are built upon dependence upon cheap labor from around the world (at sometimes irresponsible costs), environmental degradation, over-dependence (again) on fossil fuels and an over-dependence upon pre-packaged stuff.
I'll stop there, for now. I bring this up to ask the question to you: What do you see as our big problems as a culture (Let's say 1 to 3 big problems)? Terrorism? Poor church attendance? Pollution? Jobs? Abortion? Gay marriage? Communism? Capitalism?
I'm inviting you to convince me of your issues. Keep it concise but make your case. Let' s not deal with solutions at the moment, just the problems. I'll follow up with a solutions post at some point.
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ADDENDUM: Contrary Goddess has this to offer on the topic, in a bit of coincidence.
24 comments:
Well, I won't argue the cases, but here's my top 5 picks in no particular order:
*Catastrophic climate change &
Peak oil (both feed into your transportation issue, Dan, and I have argued for a multi-pronged response)
*Just Peacemaking, beginning in the Middle East
*Interfaith dialogue/peacemaking
*Electoral and other reforms to make our government more responsive to citizens and citizens more involved.
*Changing the global economy--partly in smaller directions--local and regional--and partly in changing the character of global trade in more just directions.
That's fine, you can just state what you think your greatest concerns are...
1. Religion
As long as people follow superstition and keep believing in things which defy logic, claiming they are ‘true’ simply because a number of people believe them, as long as Christians, Muslims and Jews are each convinced that their way is the only way and everyone else is wrong (/heathen/wicked/evil/damned) then there will continue to be war and hatred in the world. Once humanity takes on responsibility for its own actions, instead of blaming everything on an inscrutable, intangible and highly-unlikely deity, only then will we truly be civilised.
2. Education
The greatest asset any human being has is their mind. The best way humanity as a whole can advance and improve is to make the most of those minds. Michael WW mentioned electoral reform to increase participation – but democracy only works if the population is capable of understanding and forming an intelligent opinion on the issues put before the electorate: They can’t do that unless they have been well educated to bring out their critical faculties, build their background knowledge and give them the ability to articulate their ideas to others.
3. Climate Change
All of it is for nothing if we get wiped out by turning the planet against us. We live in a terribly thin layer around the surface of the earth and it is a delicate equilibrium that keeps the temperatures bearable and the air breathable in that layer. Our continuous, profligate consumption of the earth’s resources is pushing the boundaries of that envelope and we are far too close to a deadly tipping-point.
Dan, I think you might want to edit #2 because I don't think you mean that transportations costs are surpassed by its benefits, which is what I'm reading -- costs of transportation (of people and goods) are hidden, subsidized, and way exceed the benefits of said transportation.
That said, I think my latest post says what I think the root of the problem is: consumerism. Another form of gluttony I suppose (and testified to by the obesity rate). Entitlement. An unwillingness to do with less, a lot less (not just a roll of recycled paper towels less). Etc. All this is one thing.
Thanks, CG. You were correct, of course. Problem corrected.
Thanks, Liam and CG, for the contributions. I'm pondering 'em.
Looking over these 'what's wrong' points, I first find myself separating a few out, such as climate change which is for a fact happing, but there is no clear preponderance of why or that we can do anything about it other then accommodate it. Also the notion of education since I see that as one of the major problems, not a solution. People are born with the ability to think critically and communicate effectively. What passes for education now of days just interferes with that.
The rest of the point listed: Transportation, global economy, electoral reforms, and nearly every other ill besetting us .... I must wonder how many of those would evaporate if we just got shed of our consumerism.
1. Terrorism. Period.
If you would have asked Allied soldiers standing duty at the Ardennes Forest on December 15, 1944, what their biggest problems were, they would have answered, "The cold." Or "Homesickness." Or "Boredom." Or "Bad food."
But if you would have asked the same question on December 16, 1944, every soldier would have said, "The German soldiers."
Terrorism is not so much a problem to us Americans when it is in Iraq or Spain, but when the bombs explode at the River City Mall or the Oxford Mall or at the Murrieta Mall, it will be the major problem.
And who knows, this could be the year that these things happen.
Well, Larry, if you think terrorism is that large a problem (and it IS a problem--I included it in my two on peacemaking), then you must hate the way the Bush admin. just keeps making it worse, huh?
Well, Michael, I do disagree with many of the Bush Administration's policies on handling terrorists. I tend to agree with Toby and Willie in their song, "Beer For My Horses":
Justice is the one thing you should always find
You got to saddle up your boys
You got to draw a hard line
When the gun smoke settles we’ll sing a victory tune
We’ll all meet back at the local saloon
We’ll raise up our glasses against evil forces
Singing whiskey for my men, beer for my horses
I have to disagree, Eleutheros; children are born without any ability to communicate intelligently; they have to learn to speak, they have to continually be stretched to expand their vocabulary and unless they are educated throughout the early years of life, they will never get beyond the basic ego-selfishness of infants and learn that there are greater things out there than ‘I want.’
Also, with regard to consumerism, isn’t that really a side-effect of capitalism? If the market is king then buying and selling things better than other people becomes a measure of your success, so people keep refining the art and finding new and better ways of selling unnecessary stuff to the poor schmucks who haven’t learned how to say no! Should we drop Capitalism in order to stamp out Consumerism?
Larry, good to see that not all Americans are still panicking after 9/11/2001 ;o) but I think there are quite a few Iraqi and Spanish (and other!) families who would find your attitude a tad offensive…
Michael, I think that terrorism, while it is certainly a ‘big deal’ is really a symptom of other problems, not a root problem in itself. The ‘War on Terrorism’ is a hotspot in the continuing tug-of-war between two different philosophies of life. If we could find peace in that conflict then the terrorism would simply evaporate without its raison d’être.
Larry, I prefer Willie's other song without the Toby influence:
There's so many things going on in the world
Babies dying
Mothers crying
How much oil is one human life worth
And what ever happened to peace on earth?
We believe everything that they tell us
They're gonna’ kill us
So we gotta’ kill them first
But I remember a commandment
Thou shall not kill
How much is that soldier’s life worth
And whatever happened to peace on earth?
And the bewildered herd is still believing
Everything we’ve been told from our birth
Hell they won’t lie to me
Not on my own damn TV
But how much is a liars word worth
And whatever happened to peace on earth?
Dan,
Glad to see that humor is still alive at this site. And you got me on that one.
Willie wrote the 2nd song on Christmas Day 2003 and then used it to help raise funds for Dennis Kucinich's '04 Presidential run--though not very successfully. Willie correctly predicted that few, if any, radio stations would play his peace song.
Terrorism cannot be fought by war--it creates more terrorists. You can take a bazooka to a swamp and shoot at mosquitos, but you won't get very far. You have to drain the swamps where the mosquitos breed. We have to drain the swamps that breed terrorists.
One reason I support Kucinich's idea of a Department of Peace is NOT because it will be an instant cure-all. It won't. But there's the old saying about how if you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. I think the Dept. of Peace would give us more tools in our toolbox.
Liam:"children are born without any ability to communicate intelligently;"
Not even close. Children are born with innate ability, predisposition, and desire to communicate. Children learn whatever language they are exposed to (through the infantile Language Acquisition Device [LAD]) and the urge to do so is so strong that in the case where children are mentally intact but not exposed to any language, where they have been raised in isolation by nonspeaking, mute or deaf caregivers, they invariably make up their own language.
It is the educator's myth that if we do not actively intervene in children's development, they will remain infantile. Just the opposite is true. The less we muck with their development thus interfering with their participation in real life, the greater their development.
As to consumerism being a function of capitalism, I'd say it's just the other way around. Capitalism is a function of consumerism.
this isn't a solution to terrorism but it is why pacifism isn't a solution to it at all (unless being killed by the terrorists is a solution as far as your concerned). In short, the Moriori slaughter by the Maori in December of 1835, referenced in Jared Diamond's Gun's, Germs, and Steel.
Eleutheros, I think we might be arguing different points here. I absolutely believe that young children have both the capacity and the compulsion to learn and my definition of ‘education’ is facilitating each child’s natural desire to learn. My point was they are born with ability to learn to communicate, rather than the innate ability to communicate immediately. (Babies don’t come out of the womb ready to argue Aristotle!)
Can you justify the proposition that Capitalism is a function of Consumerism though? My first thought is ‘cause and effect’; that there’s been capitalism around a lot longer than we’ve had consumerism. There has always been a merchant class buying and selling goods, but it’s only in recent decades that ‘shopping’ has become a pastime for many people.
Contrary Goddess, are you maybe confusing a desire to seek peace with a refusal to fight?
Liam:"Babies don’t come out of the womb ready to argue Aristotle!"
Babies have no need nor desire to argue Aristotle. But from that point on the best and most efficient way to "facilitate" the child's desire to learn is to not interfere with it, not to substitute institutionalization for a child's natural tendency to parody real life and then participate in it.
Liam:"Can you justify the proposition that Capitalism is a function of Consumerism though?"
First let's make sure we are talking about the same thing when we say Capitalism. A lot of people use capitalism as a synonym for free market, free enterprise, or laissez-faire. But I am restricting my use to the definition of viewing human labor as capital, a commodity to be bought and sold at a profit the same as if it were goods and materials.
Consumerism has been around forever. It is just in the last few decades that we (of western European descent) have lit the candle at both ends and several places in the middle to consume up the Earth's resources and exploit its people in our idleness and consumption.
In Dickensonian England the workhouses and factories where the poor choked their lives away were for the purpose of allowing the wealthy (few) to be unabashed consumers. Czarist Russia impoverished its people so that a few people could be consumerists. The only difference between them and us is that we have taken it to a global scale and we are willing to rape the Earth and future generations in order to push our consumerism and idleness even farther.
So I don't think a case can be made that those making economic decisions said among themselves, "This idea of capitalism is neat, and, oh, since it happened to create all this stuff, let's be consumerists." Rather it was a desire for a stuff-ful life that made, and has always made, people pitch about for some way of squeezing the life out of others so that they can have an easy and opulent life.
"this isn't a solution to terrorism but it is why pacifism isn't a solution to it at all (unless being killed by the terrorists is a solution as far as your concerned"
I'm not sure what you're saying here, CG, or what it has to do with the topic: Are you saying ending consumerism isn't a solution to terrorism?
And I'm not sure why, in your mind, pacifism (which may get you killed) is any less valid than fighting back (which may get you killed), if that was your point.
On the education argument, I don't think anyone here is against education per se. We all think we need to be better/more wisely educated to avoid some of the devastating problems of the world.
Eleutheros and others don't think public education (ie, gov't education) has proven itself well at all in this regards and, I believe they'd say, it is the enemy of real learning.
I think there's something to that, but I also think there's something to learning in the midst of people who don't think as you do.
In the anti-gov't-education corner, it could be pointed out that those whose parents or community educate them (the Amish, for example) probably have a greater success of keeping the kids at home, physically and spiritually-speaking.
I understand certain very real benefits of the home education approach and don't criticize those who go that route, but still prefer the home education/public school education approach myself.
I'm a product of public schools and don't know that they were any more responsible for "brainwashing" me to accept the status quo than everything else around me. But then, I had parents who worked to ward off the brainwashing with some genuinely good values.
Eleutheros (or others), am I wrong in thinking that you think that we need to educate the populace at large better? If so, what model do you prefer - strictly the model of example?
Dan,
I and those of my thinking don't expect much success in cracking this walnut. But I'll go another chorus here. Dum spiro, specto.
Imagine you found a population of people feeding its children poison and as the child got older they fed them a little less poison all along with the result that their health improved a little. Would you say that those people are caring for and are responsible for their children's improved health?
Government schooling (and any schooling modeled on the government model) has as its purpose, it's raison d'etre, to make children jaded and compliant to the demands of government and society. Self-fulfillment, curiosity, self-determination is the natural state and birthright of human beings and where it is not culturally and institutionally interfered with, it is what the people enjoy.
Inevitably when the question of "education" comes up, the schooling apologist will ask, "Well, if you think government schools are bad, what do you propose as an alternative or substitute." That would be exactly like finding my above population and asking, "Well, if you think the poison we give our children is bad, what would you give your children instead of the poison?"
Nothing. I'd give them nothing. Once I realized I was poisoning my child, I'd stop doing that. I wouldn't look about to find something else to give them to take the place of poison.
The often heard protest of "I went to government schools and it didn't do me any harm" sounds so much like the line from the 50's song about smoking, I've smoked 'em all my life and I ain't dead yet.
No harm, ya think? Are you not looking about and saying, "Well, if people didn't get an education they'd be ... well ... uneducated, wouldn't they?" Has it never occurred to you that the academics that the child gets in a full year of school most often could be done by a reasonably intelligent child in about two weeks. I have often said to educators, "You think the child needs to be in your, say, 5th grade math class an hour a day for a year? Give them this choice, show you can do ALL the math in this text book and you can take an hour off each day for the rest of the year and do what you like." Now make the same offer for reading, spelling, science, etc. Most children would be outta there so fast the screen door wouldn't hit them on their way out.
But we must needs convince them that the ONLY route to escape a life of being uneducated is to spend the bulk of their waking hours sitting where they are told and doing what they are told and attending to what they are told. That way, after years and years of that, they can tolerate doing the same thing in industry.
I find it fascinating that so many people avow that they have not been brainwashed by the government schooling and yet the outrage over that arrangement escapes them entirely.
Now, having said my refrain, I have a dinner riding on the inevitable comment someone will still make, "But if you are against government schools, what do you propose as the alternative?"
I think it's worth pointing out that government "education" is an experiment which has had about a hundred years and many billions (trillions?) of dollars put into it, and its results are there in the open for everyone to see. Is there anybody who is not a bit pleasantly surprised when they encounter someone who has extensive knowledge of some subject, or exhibits even a noticeable degree of critical thinking ability? Aren't these still exceptions? I don't know what the current illiteracy rate is for high school graduates (even as measured by the meager standards of educationists), but what level could possibly be acceptable when they have had these people under their thumbs for TWELVE years?
The whole enterprise seems to me not much more than a jobs program for people who don't see enough dignity in the title babysitter.
I am rather perplexed by Eleutheros’ proposal to avoid any cultural or institutional interference in a child’s discovery of the world, as the logical conclusion of this is such an extreme ‘hands-off’ approach to raising children as to be unacceptable to any parent and probably any non-parent either! The whole of the society in which we live is an institution, not just the schools. I don’t believe many parents would think abandoning their child to its fate is a good idea to avoid any guilt at the otherwise inevitable passing on of their own cultural biases to the next generation. The Lord Of The Flies is a powerful piece of fiction but I would not want to live through it on a global scale!
Beyond that I am wary of commenting further on education in this thread now. In the UK the state school system is hardly the envy of the world, but it isn’t nearly as bad as you all seem to be implying US Government Schools are. But if it’s that bad, why isn’t it more of an issue at the polls? The schools are run by the government. The government is elected to reflect the will of the people. If the government is not doing it’s job, sack it and get one that will! But then I think that would lead us into a deeper and more complex discussion of what might be going wrong in America today…
pacifism is not a way to counter terrorism -- it doesn't just get you killed, it gets your entire society obliterated (there are no more Moriori).
not being a consumer may be a way to counter terrorism.
Pacifism may not be the way you wish to counter terrorism, but it certainly is one way to do so. You may die using peace-making practices to stop terrorism, but then you may die using war-making practices to stop terrorism (as I've already pointed out).
You are free to not embrace peacemaking practices, CG, but it IS a viable method. If you're using the chance of dying as an indicator for an approach's validity, then there are no approaches that are valid.
There are many examples of just peacemaking practices having peaceful results. In Nicaragua, for instance. In the Civil Rights movement here. In S. Africa.
In every approach, there is a chance of dying. War guarantees dying on somebody's part. Just peacemaking is the only approach that at least holds out the possibility of a peaceful, non-deadly resolution.
Embrace it or don't, but you can't say that it isn't a solution.
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