Post by bhushraislam145 on Mar 9, 2024 5:53:08 GMT
We like to think that if we are guilty, everything depends on us. We control the ropes and, in principle, we can also save ourselves if we change our lives. What is difficult to accept is that we are reduced to the purely passive role of a helpless observer, who can only sit and watch what the future will be like. To avoid this situation, we are willing to take on frenetic and obsessive activities: recycling paper, buying organic food or whatever.
Just so that we can be sure that we are doing something, that we are helping in some way, just like a football or baseball fan who supports his team in front of his television screen shouting and jumping from his seat in the superstitious belief that, in some way, it influences the outcome.
It is true that the typical form of fetishistic denial about environmentalism is: “I know very well that we are all threatened, but I don't really believe it; So I'm not ready to do anything radical and change my lifestyle.
But I postulate that there is also an opposite form of denial: "I know that I cannot influence the process that can lead to my ruin - like an earthquake - but it is very traumatic for me to accept this; That's why I can't resist the urge to do Europe Cell Phone Number List something, even though I know it's insignificant in the end." Don't we buy organic food for the same reason? Who thinks these semi-rotten, overrated organic apples are healthier? The point is that, by buying them, we are not only buying and consuming a product, but we are also doing something significant, demonstrating our capacity for global concern and awareness, participating in a noble and enormous collective project.
I think this is no longer an isolated phenomenon, but is assuming a central role in how capitalism works today. The best example is what I call The Starbucks Logic: what you always find when you go to a Starbucks coffee shop. Basically the message is true: "Our coffee is more expensive, but one cent of each cup goes to the children of Guatemala, five cents goes to water and blah, blah, blah." In other words, the logic is as follows: «In the old days we were consumers and then we felt bad, and if you wanted to claim to be ethical, you had to do something to counteract it.
But here we have simplified everything for you, we created the product, you can stay only as a consumer because your altruistic nature and solidarity for the poor is included in the price.
I remember when I was young, those on the left talked about this urgency: "You who live in your developed world, in your ivory tower, are you not aware that children in Africa are dying of hunger?" Have you noticed that people now like Bill Gates to talk that way? Because? The message is this: “Let's stop our boring debate about capitalism, socialism, etc. People are dying of hunger. Let's all get together: businessmen, government men, NGOs, and do something. In other words: "Don't think. Beam".
Or, in the opposite way: "Do, so that you don't have to think." What I find disgusting are all these advertisements in the newspapers or on television usually of a black child with crooked lips and then the slogan: "For the price of a couple of cappuccinos, you can save his life." But we know what the real message is: «For the price of a couple of cappuccinos, you can forget about the child. You have done your duty. “You can go have your cappuccinos.