There's one extra potential infuriating step on the good-people-trying-to-do-good-but-somehow-getting-caught-in-some-kind-of-capitalist-trap-where-they-end-up-contributing-to-the-problem loop that you describe. That's when, at the end of it, not only have the volunteer-minded-individuals done a favor for the industry that should be paying to clean up the environmental mess that they left, but also the good-hearted-volunteers have destroyed some kind of local industry or economy into the bargain too. This happens for instance when wealthy Westerners donate all their old clothes to poorer countries, thus obliterating the local textile industries and local knowledge. I do it myself sometimes (though sometimes I go out of my way to contribute to a battered woman's shelter, etc.) even knowing that I'm potentially contributing to the problem. These issues are so complex, and sometimes disheartening. If there are tires out there ... sometimes you just gotta stand in the mud and get them out?
It's very difficult to navigate. I worked for a fast fashion sweatshop company called Aeropostale and Nautica for years, and I do my best not to buy disposable clothing any more. I have jackets that are 15 years old. Jeans and shirts are tougher, they wear out.
Of course also if you’re gonna be fashion mavens like we obviously are, then our fans obviously expect a certain level of glamour and turnover. Sigh … it’s always a balance.
At Ulm Pishkun, the buffalo jump near Great Falls, MT, that is now a state park, Indigenous people gathered there for millennia to cooperatively hunt buffalo, which also benefited every other meat eating relative – bugs, bears, ravens, wolves, eagles, coyotes, et al – in the area. When archaeologists dug into it, they found a bone bed thirteen feet deep extending the entire mile length of the cliff. Which tells a couple tales: one, that's a lot of dead buffalo, which also means a lot of surviving everything else. And another would be the "Indians used every part of the buffalo" trope. Which is true, we just didn't use every single part every single time. That doesn't mean we were wasteful. But we did practice a reciprocal relationship with all of our relatives, which is what modern humans have veered wildly away from.
"Those with a vested interest in keeping civilized hierarchy intact like to spread the myth that not only was civilization inevitable in the forward march of progress, but something that your garden-variety human wanted. "
👆👆👆
I've always been skeptical about the entire concept of progress...and those who describe themselves as "progressive". Tbe term is inevitably elitist because it suggests there's one model of human happiness, and that other modes of existence are somehow incomplete.
Yeah, I use the term because liberal has been corrupted and the right is so far that moderate is now extreme... But it's rather condescending. I just want to be left alone. I'm tired of people who think that LGBTQ people existing and having the same rights as them is "shoving it down their throats," and with the failed coup traitor coming after my trans family, I will tell them this: we are not defenseless.
Thanks so much for the shoutout.
There's one extra potential infuriating step on the good-people-trying-to-do-good-but-somehow-getting-caught-in-some-kind-of-capitalist-trap-where-they-end-up-contributing-to-the-problem loop that you describe. That's when, at the end of it, not only have the volunteer-minded-individuals done a favor for the industry that should be paying to clean up the environmental mess that they left, but also the good-hearted-volunteers have destroyed some kind of local industry or economy into the bargain too. This happens for instance when wealthy Westerners donate all their old clothes to poorer countries, thus obliterating the local textile industries and local knowledge. I do it myself sometimes (though sometimes I go out of my way to contribute to a battered woman's shelter, etc.) even knowing that I'm potentially contributing to the problem. These issues are so complex, and sometimes disheartening. If there are tires out there ... sometimes you just gotta stand in the mud and get them out?
It's very difficult to navigate. I worked for a fast fashion sweatshop company called Aeropostale and Nautica for years, and I do my best not to buy disposable clothing any more. I have jackets that are 15 years old. Jeans and shirts are tougher, they wear out.
Of course also if you’re gonna be fashion mavens like we obviously are, then our fans obviously expect a certain level of glamour and turnover. Sigh … it’s always a balance.
They live to watch us strut the catwalk.
At Ulm Pishkun, the buffalo jump near Great Falls, MT, that is now a state park, Indigenous people gathered there for millennia to cooperatively hunt buffalo, which also benefited every other meat eating relative – bugs, bears, ravens, wolves, eagles, coyotes, et al – in the area. When archaeologists dug into it, they found a bone bed thirteen feet deep extending the entire mile length of the cliff. Which tells a couple tales: one, that's a lot of dead buffalo, which also means a lot of surviving everything else. And another would be the "Indians used every part of the buffalo" trope. Which is true, we just didn't use every single part every single time. That doesn't mean we were wasteful. But we did practice a reciprocal relationship with all of our relatives, which is what modern humans have veered wildly away from.
That's what we need to move back to, rather than greenwashing to make affluent people feel good as we consume the most and waste so much.
"Those with a vested interest in keeping civilized hierarchy intact like to spread the myth that not only was civilization inevitable in the forward march of progress, but something that your garden-variety human wanted. "
👆👆👆
I've always been skeptical about the entire concept of progress...and those who describe themselves as "progressive". Tbe term is inevitably elitist because it suggests there's one model of human happiness, and that other modes of existence are somehow incomplete.
Yeah, I use the term because liberal has been corrupted and the right is so far that moderate is now extreme... But it's rather condescending. I just want to be left alone. I'm tired of people who think that LGBTQ people existing and having the same rights as them is "shoving it down their throats," and with the failed coup traitor coming after my trans family, I will tell them this: we are not defenseless.