Your reasoning is sound I admit but I think it's hard to be up to date on every issue and sometimes I just have to decide what feels right. Should I buy this fruit that's out of season in my hemisphere? I pick no. Should I take a drug to make me thin? I pick no. Should I kill the spider in my bathroom or gently move him to the window. I pick window. Should I go by bike or car? I try to go by bike whenever possible. I mean, I have no idea if it's somehow beneficial to the general well being not to kill the spider in my bathroom but it feels right. Will all those ugly memes adversely impact the lovely photographic ambience of Turtle Paradise? I pick Paradise. That said, you make many valid points about bigger issues than the ones I mentioned above. I would very much like to become a vegetarian but my wife is a total carnivore. Life is complicated.
You're absolutely right, of course. It's impossible to be up to date on all issues, or even most issues. We have to act on instinct or go with whatever feels right based on life experience. I'm glad you put spiders out the window, I do too.
Oh this is such deeply bracing and striking and delightful writing to go with my Monday morning coffee! I concur that it is vitally important to identify the logical fallacies in our discourse. This is always extremely difficult, but somehow it intuitively feels like the problem has gotten worse in the last three decades or so. I can't prove that it has, though.
I also deeply relate to Ruben's observation, here in the comments. At some point, when any one of us works through the logical assertions around some situation that demands our attention, we always get to a state of uncertainty, where our personal expertise or knowledge fails us. At that point, we're forced to rely either on our gut or other people's viewpoint, which we hope is informed by wisdom or expertise. I get to this point frequently when dealing with medical professionals and automobile mechanics. I just have to trust that they're not trying to screw me. I listen to their opinion, then go with my gut. The uncertainty surrounding that decision doesn't go away. I just have to decide to live with it.
On environmental issues, so many people seem to want to get to some state of certainty or purity, like making only personal choices purged of environmentally negative consequences, or supporting only consumption and economic growth purged of any need to worry about impacts on human health or non-human life or cherished things beyond price that by their nature can't have a dollar value attached. People have an idea that you can get to sin-less-ness. Which I don't think we can.
I don't think of that as nihilism or despair. It's just life as an embodied creature in the universe. We acknowledge it, and then do the dishes, turn the page, take care.
It certainly feels like it's gotten worse lately, especially if you pay attention to social media where anything that appeals to emotion gets the most attention. Not that appealing to emotion is bad! We need to use emotions, values, intuition, gut feelings, as well as logic to make decisions. But it's so often manipulative and the main emotion in play is anger.
On the environmental side, I know what you mean about people trying to be pure. Like wanting to end fossil fuel use immediately for example. It's just not possible to do and still keep everyone fed and warm. On the flip side, business as usual is doing immense environmental damage. Acknowledging physical reality, letting go of some emotional attachment to beliefs, allowing logic into the debate, doesn't mean we have to abandon ours values.
You're right, immense damage is being done. I need to think more about what I can do about that, or in response to that. Beyond writing snarky things, that is. It's too easy to forget about holding on to values. Makes me think about the Serenity Prayer, for some reason.
I'm sorry you felt the need to use the CIA-created term "conspiracy theory"...but that is not my primary comment. Before I make my point...a story.
When I was a child we had two beeves we raised together, a red steer and a black steer. The local butcher drove around in a white van. He shot the animal on site, and cut it up, and then went back to his tiny shop (where a relative of mine worked as butcher's assistant) to process the meat. We always spent the day away on butchering day. The black steer went first. Two years later, we returned home on butchering day to find the red steer very much alive. With a call to the butcher, we learned what happened. When the red steer saw the white van, he went berserk. Imagine, seeing you best friend shot, and butchered before your eyes. That steer probably was waiting for his turn to come. This old-time butcher would NEVER shoot an animal if it knew it was going to die. He said it ruined the meat from the adrenaline and other chemicals a frantic animal produces. He had to come back another day in his car to shoot the steer, and then quickly come back in the white van.
I am a vegetarian. I have PTSD. It is crazy for anyone with PTSD to eat any meat filled with terror hormones...which pretty much is ALL meat except animals killed by ambush. I first became vegetarian in 1986 for ethical reasons. In 1999 I almost died from a yellow fever vaccine. I contracted yellow fever from the live virus in the vaccine. I then was at death's door from 2000 to 2004. I NEVER saw any practitioner. I CURED myself. One thing I did was become vegan overnight. It was one of the most difficult things I ever did...but it saved my life. I was following the the Dr. Lorraine Day holistic cure plan. After I recovered, I went back to being a vegetarian. I was left with MCAS, and drinking a gallon of goat milk a week is a major part of my healing diet. I believe being a vegan for a limited time is nessecery if one's body is highly toxic, as my body was. To stay on it full time, one would have to work extremely hard to get all the nutrients they require. However, an unhealthy vegan diet would still beat the average American diet, as far as health goes.
Your reasoning is sound I admit but I think it's hard to be up to date on every issue and sometimes I just have to decide what feels right. Should I buy this fruit that's out of season in my hemisphere? I pick no. Should I take a drug to make me thin? I pick no. Should I kill the spider in my bathroom or gently move him to the window. I pick window. Should I go by bike or car? I try to go by bike whenever possible. I mean, I have no idea if it's somehow beneficial to the general well being not to kill the spider in my bathroom but it feels right. Will all those ugly memes adversely impact the lovely photographic ambience of Turtle Paradise? I pick Paradise. That said, you make many valid points about bigger issues than the ones I mentioned above. I would very much like to become a vegetarian but my wife is a total carnivore. Life is complicated.
You're absolutely right, of course. It's impossible to be up to date on all issues, or even most issues. We have to act on instinct or go with whatever feels right based on life experience. I'm glad you put spiders out the window, I do too.
Oh this is such deeply bracing and striking and delightful writing to go with my Monday morning coffee! I concur that it is vitally important to identify the logical fallacies in our discourse. This is always extremely difficult, but somehow it intuitively feels like the problem has gotten worse in the last three decades or so. I can't prove that it has, though.
I also deeply relate to Ruben's observation, here in the comments. At some point, when any one of us works through the logical assertions around some situation that demands our attention, we always get to a state of uncertainty, where our personal expertise or knowledge fails us. At that point, we're forced to rely either on our gut or other people's viewpoint, which we hope is informed by wisdom or expertise. I get to this point frequently when dealing with medical professionals and automobile mechanics. I just have to trust that they're not trying to screw me. I listen to their opinion, then go with my gut. The uncertainty surrounding that decision doesn't go away. I just have to decide to live with it.
On environmental issues, so many people seem to want to get to some state of certainty or purity, like making only personal choices purged of environmentally negative consequences, or supporting only consumption and economic growth purged of any need to worry about impacts on human health or non-human life or cherished things beyond price that by their nature can't have a dollar value attached. People have an idea that you can get to sin-less-ness. Which I don't think we can.
I don't think of that as nihilism or despair. It's just life as an embodied creature in the universe. We acknowledge it, and then do the dishes, turn the page, take care.
It certainly feels like it's gotten worse lately, especially if you pay attention to social media where anything that appeals to emotion gets the most attention. Not that appealing to emotion is bad! We need to use emotions, values, intuition, gut feelings, as well as logic to make decisions. But it's so often manipulative and the main emotion in play is anger.
On the environmental side, I know what you mean about people trying to be pure. Like wanting to end fossil fuel use immediately for example. It's just not possible to do and still keep everyone fed and warm. On the flip side, business as usual is doing immense environmental damage. Acknowledging physical reality, letting go of some emotional attachment to beliefs, allowing logic into the debate, doesn't mean we have to abandon ours values.
You're right, immense damage is being done. I need to think more about what I can do about that, or in response to that. Beyond writing snarky things, that is. It's too easy to forget about holding on to values. Makes me think about the Serenity Prayer, for some reason.
I'm sorry you felt the need to use the CIA-created term "conspiracy theory"...but that is not my primary comment. Before I make my point...a story.
When I was a child we had two beeves we raised together, a red steer and a black steer. The local butcher drove around in a white van. He shot the animal on site, and cut it up, and then went back to his tiny shop (where a relative of mine worked as butcher's assistant) to process the meat. We always spent the day away on butchering day. The black steer went first. Two years later, we returned home on butchering day to find the red steer very much alive. With a call to the butcher, we learned what happened. When the red steer saw the white van, he went berserk. Imagine, seeing you best friend shot, and butchered before your eyes. That steer probably was waiting for his turn to come. This old-time butcher would NEVER shoot an animal if it knew it was going to die. He said it ruined the meat from the adrenaline and other chemicals a frantic animal produces. He had to come back another day in his car to shoot the steer, and then quickly come back in the white van.
I am a vegetarian. I have PTSD. It is crazy for anyone with PTSD to eat any meat filled with terror hormones...which pretty much is ALL meat except animals killed by ambush. I first became vegetarian in 1986 for ethical reasons. In 1999 I almost died from a yellow fever vaccine. I contracted yellow fever from the live virus in the vaccine. I then was at death's door from 2000 to 2004. I NEVER saw any practitioner. I CURED myself. One thing I did was become vegan overnight. It was one of the most difficult things I ever did...but it saved my life. I was following the the Dr. Lorraine Day holistic cure plan. After I recovered, I went back to being a vegetarian. I was left with MCAS, and drinking a gallon of goat milk a week is a major part of my healing diet. I believe being a vegan for a limited time is nessecery if one's body is highly toxic, as my body was. To stay on it full time, one would have to work extremely hard to get all the nutrients they require. However, an unhealthy vegan diet would still beat the average American diet, as far as health goes.