Hey T,
Just sent you a couple of articles from Capitalism Magazine...my favorite resource, of course. Sorry it has taken me a while to respond to your last e-mail. I have been busy.
Unfortunately, I think that I have to disqualify myself from this debate entirely, according to your standards. You see, I have been very recently bought off by the energy companies. Actually, I have been receiving benefits from them my entire life! Even more so now that I am in Texas, of course.
You see, all of my life the energy companies have provided me with many of the things that I need to live. They fuel my transportation, they heat my homes, they fertilize the crops that provide me with foods (the vast majority of fertilizer is made from crude oil). Furthermore, they have enabled the scientific developments in areas such as medicine, computation and creation of new textiles and other advanced materials.
Without the energy companies, I could not even conceive of having a debate such as this! I would be far too busy eking out an existence--hunting for my food, fighting off predators and rival humans, tending a few meager crops and hauling putrid water from contested sources.
In fact, without the energy companies, I would very likely be dead by now! The average lifespan in pre-industrial Europe was 18 years. Maybe I would have made it to 25 and been an "elder" but I would probably have been killed off as soon as I was perceived as a non-contributing tax on slim resources. Of course, that all would depend upon me making it through my first five years--the vast majority of children did not back then.
So, according to you and Mr. Gore, I am not qualified for this debate because everything that I am, everything that I love and everything that I look forward to is made possible, directly or indirectly, by these energy companies that you demonize. Don't get me wrong, I look forward to the time when nano-engineered solar arrays completely replace our need for carbon based energy--that is about 10 years from now according to fairly reliable models. But the only reason that I look forward to that is it is CHEAPER. I will be able to devote the resources that I am currently, quite literally, burning to far more valuable pursuits.
Talk to you soon.
D
The following is my response:
Hi D,
It's nice to hear from you. I hope that you are doing well. Have you had a chance to check out any of the documentaries I recommended?
You are in a different position than those being directly funded to produce propaganda for the oil industry. You are not beholden to the oil companies in the same way. You are a customer not a client and there is a significant difference. I do understand that you are invested in the status quo as you enjoy the creature comforts and aspire to an upper class lifestyle.
The industrial revolution and organic chemistry have changed the way that we conduct our lives, but I don't believe that because a person only lives 18 or 30 years that their life is any less worthwhile, fulfilled, or meaningful. Many of the great heros of our age lived less than the average life span. I also find family farming to be a noble profession.
There are a couple of issues that I have with the concentration of power:
1. Traditionally the concentration of power leads to human rights and environmental abuses.
2. It makes it difficult to affect a change even when that change is clearly necessary.
You mentioned fertilizers in your email. An example of corporate negligence I would give is the Asarco fertilizer plant in Bopal, India. The management of the company did not feel it was cost effective to maintain the plant even though they were warned of potential calamity by on-sight engineers. The result was a leak that killed 20,000 Indians and crippled countless others.
I would rather pay a little more for organic foods than to have the blood of those people on my hands. This is just a small example, but if you do some research you will find that in the long run it is probably not a good idea to use chemical pesticides and fertilizers. They cannot be metabolized by animals, the run-off causes algae blooms, they deplete the soil in such a manner that once used they have to continue to be used and in larger quantities, etc.
Which brings us to morality. A french philosopher named Henri Louis Bergson wrote a book called The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, in which he discusses various levels of morality. The first level is the individual. One has to make sure that their basic needs for water, food, shelter, etc. are being met. The next level is the family, then the community, the state (nation), and finally the world. (By extension I would add all life.)
We have been given many gifts and privileges. Our basic needs have been more than adequately met. Therefore we are able (and I would argue that we are obligated) to focus our moral attention on those larger, all encompassing levels of morality.
I heard the former Treasury Secretary speak on Charley Rose last night and one of the things he mentioned was that a strong dollar means that in an exchange of goods Americans receive more than they give. Sounds like a swindle to me. The premise is (if you read between the lines) that in order for us to maintain a "high" standard of living we have to take advantage of others forcing them to have a lower standard of living. I think this is a fallacious premise. I much prefer the idea that we are all on the same side in this life and that we can all have our basic needs met without having to put each other down.
The former Treasury Secretary also spoke about the growing gulf between the upper and lower classes in America and the shrinking middle class. Haiti is a good example of what happens in a barbell economy. The land is devastated environmentally as the poor do whatever they can to meet their basic needs. The wealthy live in armed camps and cannot travel without body guards for fear of kidnapping. There has been a series of corrupt elected officials and dictatorships that have to be periodically removed by an organized group of armed dissidents. I fear that in the not too distant future we may be facing similar challenges.
I saw a video of John Perkins speaking at a Veterans for Peace convention. He wrote a book called Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. I haven't read the book, but I think that it would be right up your alley and he did cover the basic ideas in his speech. If you would like to read more of my thoughts on the speech go to Corporatocracy, Carbon Offsetting, Clean Elections.
One of the things that I did find interesting was his mention of the fact that CEO's are people. They have families and they care about the future of the planet, etc. However they often needed to be forced by pressure from the outside in order to make holistic changes. This is because they fear losing their lucrative positions. The CEOs need public pressure in order to show their share holders that changes are justified.
When the majority are being harmed (when I say majority I include not only the human majority, but the flora and fauna as well) such that the minority can fiddle while Rome burns then it is time to affect a change.
We spoke once about altruism. As I recall you mentioned that altruism requires suffering and therefore must promote suffering in order to be justified (this is a paraphrase from what I recollect). I think that idea has the facts reversed. Suffering exists. Altruism is a response to suffering. Therefore altruism exists because suffering exists.
We are all in this together. I want the same things for you that I want for myself as well as for everyone and everything else which is health and happiness.
I haven't had a chance to view all the links that you have forwarded, but I will as time permits.
Love,
T
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