Down the Rabbit Hole of Responsibility/Peace in Oneself, Peace in the World
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/bitter-sweets-inside-big-chocolate%E2%80%99s-child-labor-problem/ar-BBqc4as?li=BBnb7Kz
That boy's eyes are breaking my heart. His name is Ibrahim and he harvests cocoa for a living in Africa. It's dangerous, hard work and he's just a boy. And I just ate chocolate on my oatmeal. I know most people would say, "nothing I can do about that" and move on, but that's not the point of this blog. This blog is about our emotions and how they impact us. His eyes are impacting my emotions.
Obviously, the chances that he's ever picked a cocoa bean that I ate chocolate from is pretty much non-existent. But that's irrelevant. He and his haunted eyes are just a window into an industry and a group of people who are suffering because I, and you, support the practice by eating chocolate.
So what can I do? Well, I could stop eating chocolate. My money would no longer be supporting other people's suffering. I'd be free from responsibility. Hooray! I'll sure miss my chocolate, but that's a small price to pay to know that I will no longer be responsible for the look in his eyes. Excellent. Done. I'll go eat a banana instead. It's healthier anyway. Wait. What? Bananas are harvested by child labor too? Okay. Fine. No more bananas. But I'm really hungry. I'll get a burger. Dang. Nope. Besides the cruelty to the cow, there's the significant issue that rain forests are continually being cut down to let cattle graze, so I can eat a burger. The more rain forests we lose, the less ability we have to sequester carbon, the more global warming we are causing, the more the sea levels rise, the more people will suffer. Okay, this is beyond ridiculous. I'm just gonna sit here on my chair and refuse to eat until I figure out what to do. Crap! This chair is filled with harmful chemicals and was probably made by child labor too! Almost certainly someone suffered for it somewhere along the way. WHAT CAN I DO???
The reality is that even if I gave away all my possessions, waved good-bye to my loving family, and headed to Africa to become a cocoa harvester, it would only be a symbolic action. It wouldn't change anything in any large-scale way. The people ultimately responsible for continuing the suffering of other people, the heads of the cocoa companies, the banana companies, etc., wouldn't even know what I had done. If they somehow did know about it, they wouldn't care. If they somehow cared, it still wouldn't change their decision to let other people suffer.
The reason they wouldn't change their decision is not because they are evil. It's because we have allowed a global economic system to develop that is based on the suffering of other people. Trying to create change by clamoring for it, one situation at a time, will never do anything except allow the system to stay in place. If we really want things to change, we have to become a group of people who will no longer accept a little boy's suffering so we can eat chocolate, or bananas, or... The only way to do that is to turn inward.
By turning inward, we can examine our emotions and find our own solutions as to why we're so okay with other people suffering for our benefit. If enough people do that, we can create a culture where individuals take responsibility for their emotions and the outcomes of their emotions. By creating peace in ourselves, we will bring peace to the world.
I understand your point of view, but I'm afraid I'll have to disagree. This is akin to refusing to shop at Wal-Mart because you think they treat their employees badly. I live a rock's throw from Berkeley, so I hear this kind of Socialist sentiment all the time, as our local Liberals clamor like sheep to follow the latest short-sighted cause, in search of self-righteous emotional (to your point), self-gratification. Logic actually begs the question: if we all boycotted and were actually able put Wal-Mart out of business, where would all these 'under-educated' people work? In fast-food I suppose, resulting in part-time teenagers going back to the sofa for TV or video games. But then the standard of living would further degrade for these families because they would now have to pay premium prices at mom'n-pop shops rather than discount prices at big-box stores. If we all stopped eating chocolate, perhaps that little boy might end up in the poppy fields 'under' a drug lord, rather than 'beside' his mother...
ReplyDeleteMy point is, I think we only 'pretend' to eliminate suffering - through 'deductive' actions like boycotting a particular way of life - in order to selfishly smother our emotional guilt, which only serves to limit options for those who are actually suffering. A more 'productive' approach might be to focus on education - less emotionally satisfying & much more difficult - which would actually increase options and empower workers to secure more satisfying work.
Now I'm going to seemingly contradict myself by admitting that I'm actually a committed, active boycotter! I don't eat 'unhealthy' corn, which has virtually destroyed our food supply, thanks to government subsidies. I also stopped consuming 'healthy' almonds because these water-thirsty orchards continue to multiply exponentially, at least here in drought-ridden CA. I'm emotionally content though, because I consider these actions to be 'productive' rather than 'deductive', relative to the health of our bodies and our natural resources. Migrant workers could just as easily harvest 'drought-tolerant' and 'non-fructose' crops on these huge corporate farms.
As you say, I'm only one person, so my actions have virtually no effect on 'The' world. Even so, I'm emotionally content in the knowledge that I am doing what I consider to be the right thing for 'My' world, resulting in Personal peace, which brings me back to your central theme...
Okay, so I'm going to start by doing my best to ignore the fact that you likened me to a "short-sighted", "self-righteous", "liberal" "sheep".
DeleteThen I'm going to destroy your first two paragraphs by saying that you were apparently so caught up in what you perceived to be a political statement, that you completely missed what I was saying. At no point was I advocating boycotting. I was actually saying that it's a pretty pointless activity. That we should, instead, look to create peace in the world by creating peace in ourselves.
To then say that I was attempting to "selfishly smother (my) emotional guilt" makes me want to vomit and completely misses the point that what I'm advocating won't do a damn thing for the little boy whose eyes haunt me. Thus, it does NOTHING for my "emotional guilt". Beyond that, education has consistently failed people in third world countries when it comes to things like better jobs. If there are no jobs for the educated, it really doesn't matter how much education you have. So, in my opinion, education is the emotional guilt-smothering approach. "Throw a school at those kids. It'll all work out in the end. I'm sure of it." Whatever.
As for your third paragraph, the line you draw between "productive" and "deductive" seems arbitrary to me.
Finally, it seems like you have this notion that I'm Sally Struthers, trying to get you to "save the poor children". In reality, seeing that child reminded me that if we were all taking care of our responsibility to ourselves, there would be no suffering children. Our responsibility it to take care of our emotions. If we did that, we would achieve real peace in the world. That's not some "Kumbaya", pie in the sky idea. It's a recognition that we can't change other people, we can only take responsibility for what we find in ourselves.
I hope all of that clears some things up for you. I don't agree with the points in your comment, but I do appreciate that you commented. Dialog is what helps us understand each other better.
After re-reading your post more carefully, I came to appreciate the underlying message that you were trying to delineate. It is certainly consistent with your overall philosophy (as I understand it) and, although I get that you feel like I am totally missing your point, in spite of my tendency to resort to hyperbole, I really do get it. I think...
DeleteMy apologies if it seemed that I was attacking you personally. I really was not. I was referring to Society (in general) and Local Liberals (in particular) - your only involvement was that you indirectly pushed one of my buttons. Unfortunately, you were speaking in the 'First Person', while I was in the 'Third Person'. I know that 'Merwinly' (a sensitive, THINKING person) does not deal with issues on a strictly superficial basis, but the majority of the population where I live does exactly that. Most of my friends are Liberal 'birds-of-a-feather' who are genuinely shocked when I don't mindlessly bow to the regional 'party line'. Since I am a self-proclaimed, unapologetic 'black sheep', they delight in ganging-up on me, in an attempt to justify their collective point of view... which only serves to trigger my rebellious instincts, rather than my 'under-developed' diplomatic skills. This is just is a 'dance' that we are all used to doing together - they tolerate me, and are amused - for my part, in spite of NOT being 'of-a-feather', I actually love them all, and genuinely appreciate the diversity that they bring to my life. Unfortunately, our 'dance' is quite brutal by nature, and I'm afraid that my 'all-against-one' reflexes were triggered before I had a chance to digest your true meaning. Well, enough about my unconventional relationship with the upside-down world I choose to live in. I guess I was just born to swim 'upstream', and trophy-hunting anglers tend to be drawn to my splashes...
Even though I am more 'conditioned' to dealing with the coarse, the rather than the sublime, I really can appreciate the subtleties of point that you were making... when I am calm, and focused enough to embrace it. I would even go so far as to suggest that we all ('Third Person'), personally, owe it to ourselves to take individual stock of, and responsibility for, the subjective content of our ongoing emotional stream-of-consciousness. Only then, would a more altruistic reality be able to emerge from our greater 'collective consciousness'.
Thank you for re-reading the post and recognizing your mistake. That winner-take-all mentality that goes with modern national politics and apparently the people in your area is why I have no more to do with it. It's no longer about "how can we help people?" It's about "how can I beat someone into submission with my opinion?" I understand how you could get caught up in that, but try to remember that I don't even know what the party line is. So it's literally impossible for me to be spouting it mindlessly.
DeleteI'm completely aware of your ability to appreciate the subtleties of my arguments. The idea that you couldn't would never cross my mind. I was a bit frustrated that you didn't appreciate those subtleties however. Thanks again for re-reading the post and giving your thoughts. I do appreciate that.
Well Anonymous, your first two paragraphs so completely misunderstand my post, that I am having a hard time fully processing the rest of your comment. I'll try to re-read it again later and come up with another response at that time.
ReplyDeleteFair enough. I will re-read your post.
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