George's Will's Great Detachment

 

Just add people

I've been broadening my "algorithm" to include more conservative voices.  I want to be able to see both sides of issues, to avoid living in a silo where I am right all the time and never learn anything but what my own brain tells me.  So, I read George Will a bit more often than I used to.  So far so good.  Sometimes I am shocked to find myself agreeing with him.  Sometimes, it's more like "hmm, I didn't think of it that way."  

Today's opinion piece in the New York Times  was in the realm of:  "Now hold on there, George!"  Here's the trigger:

When you look at these trends through a political lens, the power of the autonomy ethos becomes clearer. In general, conservatives believe in economic freedom (low taxes, fewer regulations) but social obligations (faith, family, flag). Progressives tend to favor economic obligations to reduce inequality but more social autonomy to live whatever lifestyle you choose.

Could be a case over-simplification, could be my own over-reaction, but I was reading his discussion of the trends toward this "great detachment" that we seem to be experiencing in the US and nodding my head right up until he put the progressive label on me and then completely got it wrong.

Well, he got me wrong.  And he got Ethical Culture wrong.  That's probably because Ethical Culture is so tiny-small and more than a little bit of a hairball these days.  So let me back up to the moment before my brain heard the sound of screeching brakes.

Will is arguing---along with Curt Collier and others who pay attention to the trends of the past half century or so---that social engagement is falling in the US and that that, to a large extent, is due to the emphasis on individualism and the elevation of efficiency and wealth as the two primary goals of life.  (Neither of them have particularly emphasized the efficiency part, but it's hiding in plain sight when they talk/write about this.)  These issues were factors in American society much before either of these guys---or most social scientists---quite figured it out.  

Felix Adler spoke repeatedly about the mistake of centering one's life goals on the accumulation of wealth.  He spoke of the duties that such accumulation created and the obligation to veer away from the hoarding mindset to one of sharing and investment in a better future.  He also reminded us that, while our supreme aim is to become better, more ethical human beings, we could never do that without engaging with other human beings in relationships founded on mutual respect and concern.  Efficiency and emphasis on individualism and the accumulation of wealth for its own sake were all factors that worked against us in becoming the ethical beings that we might want to be, and his whole platform was aimed toward overcoming those factors.

Or so it seems to me.  Now I have to go back and document each point that I raise in that last paragraph, since these are impressions, the sense of Adler's writing---and my overall understanding of Ethical Culture---that have been formed in recent years by reading (and editing) some of the many lectures by Adler (and others) that have never made it very far outside of the building at 2 W. 64th Street in Manhattan.  

When I do get that documentation accomplished, I should probably explain to George Will that it is not a political thing, but a worldview thing---a religious thing, if you will.  Will is careful to note---  

I want to reiterate something. These are averages. Be careful how you apply social science data to your individual life, because your life is filled with things social science can’t see: your unique circumstances, tastes, spirit.

---to which I reply "Well done, George!"  But more love and more marriage are not necessarily the answer to our "great detachment."  And neither of those things are political and should definitely not be turned into political positions.  Indeed, I would be more pleased to have the "progressive" label a little less liberally applied to anyone to the left of Attila the Hun.  

The Progressive Movement of the late 19th and early 20th century was assisted very strongly by the Ethical Culture Movement.  No matter whether EC was in the driver's seat or part of the team pulling the wagon, Adler and his philosophy was part of the impetus to improve the community, and the focus was on creating and maintaining relationships across all of the boundaries that human biology and thought sought to create.  That, I think, is why our great detachment has occurred: When we fail to see that social good based on ethics is, after all, social, we lose both the social and the good.  

Our great detachment is accompanied by great division, as we divide ourselves into groups (conservative vs progressive!) (male vs female) (white vs non-white) (Christian vs non-Christian) (American vs non-American) (etc.) (and so on) (endlessly).  When ethics is made central in our lives (and our thoughts), then every single thing that we do---drink water, eat food, wear clothes, breathe air, vote, buy a house, read a book (and so endlessly on)---connects us to other humans.  Our awareness of that fact is the beginning of acknowleging and engaging in a relationship that links us to where the water came from, how we use it, where it goes when we are through with it, even the systems that turn hydrogen and oxygen into water.  We are never alone when we take that sip of water.  

Similarly, we are not alone when we walk through the grocery store, pushing our cart.  Nor in our car driving to work.  And so endlessly on.  Will is emphasizing romance and love for a single other human as the significant factor in the great detachment, but the detachment is more fundamental.  When we fail to see the human faces around us as persons with whom we (already!) have a connection, we fail to allow ourselves to experience the connection that we need to remain human, and we deny ourselves the opportunity to become our better selves.  

 

The Ethics of Printing

No yellow, no print; no chip, no print;
I've had enough!

Long, long ago, in galaxy far . . .

Well, back when I got my first desktop computer (IBM PC, two floppy drives, 128K RAM) and a dot-matrix printer, the whole set up, including the word processing software to run it (WordStar, baby!) cost $5000.  I had to take money out of my retirement account to pay for it because it was, actually, a major life investment.  And it paid off.  I ran two non-profit organizations with that computer, and my husband completed his bachelor's degree just before his 50th birthday.  Major life investment.

Since then I've gone through several changes in operating software, multiple word processing programs (does anyone use WordPerfect anymore?), and a few printers.  I'm about to say "enough!"  

Where this is headed is the same place that Cory Doctorow is going with his "enshittification" writings.  (He did start talking about this well before the new book, so it's not like there weren't warnings.)  For me, it's the printer.

The fun thing about those old dot matrix printers is that, if you were cheap (I like to think of myself as thrifty), you could re-ink the ribbon and keep using it for years.  Nowadays, we have printers with ink "cartridges" that you just pop in when you need 'em.  They even print in color.  But the cartridges are getting more and more expensive.  And while they can be recycled, they are not easily refilled and reused.  HP is among those who have set their equipment up to check the cartridges for embedded chips that indicate that the cartridges were manufactured by HP.  No HP chip, no print.

I just had to order new cartridges for my HP Officejet Pro because the yellow cartridge ran out of ink, and the printer would not print without it.  Not even in plain old black (of which there was a plentiful supply remaining).  Ordering meant that I had to interrupt my work to deal with the problem.  I checked a local office supply store and Amazon and decided that I would order the overnight delivery from Amazon because I was just too tired to drive to the store and get the yellow cartridge.  Amazon promised to have it at my door by 8:00 a.m., so I went for the whole thing and ordered the entire set of four cartridges.

Amazon, however, failed to deliver.   Around 11:00 the next morning, when the notification indicated that the cartridges would in fact be delivered the next day, I went to the office supply store to buy the yellow cartridge.  Interestingly enough (not), when I got back home, the package from Amazon had been delivered.  Later than promised, yes, but earlier than their faulty notification system indicated.  

I popped in the locally purchased yellow cartridge and went back to work.  But the whole incident grated.  The price of the set of cartridges is more than the cost of a new printer (admittedly a cheap one).  The whole set up is just that:  cheap equipment, expensive operations.  This happened with Adobe Acrobat.  It is happening with Windows (now they want us to throw out our old--still functioning--computers to upgrade the operating system).

I've had enough.

I am shopping for a new printer now.  This old one is starting to have some problems with the duplex function, so I am expecting that it will be wearing out soon.  The non-yellow cartridges still have some ink in them, so I will use the printer until it stops working or another cartridge runs out of ink, but, when it stops working--for whatever reason--I'm hauling it to Best Buy for recycling.  I will also buy a NOT-HP printer, because I am through supporting their business model.  And I will get a printer that uses ink tanks instead of ink cartridges.  

I still try to use less paper, avoiding printing unless it seems absolutely necessary.  I print on both sides whenever I can--and, when I clean out old files, I use any single-sided sheets that I can find for printing drafts.  But paper is not the only concern in printing, and the (next?) biggest concern for the environment seems to be the plastic waste that is generated because of manufacturing practices and the business model.  I broke with Adobe.  Now it's HP's turn to lose a customer.  I'm looking at Microsoft and Google next.  Amazon needs to be on the list as well.  

Yes, I am setting myself up for more work.  More trips to the store, less convenience.  I may actually have to learn new ways to use the computer, but I really am tired of being used to make billionaires richer while they turn the planet into a garbage dump.  I'm just going to have to go to bricks and mortar stores, shop around, and appreciate the experience of being a customer, not a cash machine.

Religious Wars and Their Ethics

A nativity to celebrate (and remember)

I've been digging around in old journals again, looking for tidbits for the Bibliography of Ethical Culture.  I renewed my membership in the Center for Inquiry, appreciating, as I do, their support for separation of church and state in Texas.  I participate in the Hill Country Freethinkers Association, which is, I believe, an affiliate of CFI.  Good people, good conversations.  We have a variety of religious beliefs, which we express easily and comfortably, respecting our differences and the nuances of belief that can come with many years of life and whole lot of PhDs at the table (plus one JD for seasoning).

CFI's journal, Free Inquiry, has a handy archive.  Of course, I'm going to check it for articles by Ethical Culturists (as far as I can recognize them).  EC writers were evident in the early issues, but not so much later on, so this effort may not take a great deal of time.  Indeed, the tone of the journal, after those first few years, seems a little more stridently anti-religious with the occasional active "debate" between Christians and freethinkers (I've only examined issues through 1999, so this is just an assessment of these early years).  

One issue that caught my eye, because I am now thinking about time and how we relate to it, is the Fall, 1993 issue, which focused on the question:  Should secular humanists celebrate rites of passage?  The issue talked about naming ceremonies, confirmations, weddings, memorial services and Christmas.  I tend not to think of Christmas as a rite of passage, but there it was:  Tom Flynn writing about "The Trouble with Christmas," a substantially shortened version, I assume, of his book of the same title.  Judging this issue by its cover--and its table of contents--it rather feels like there is a bit of a religious war in these pages.  Not that that is the viewpoint of the Editor, Paul Kurtz.  In this same issue, his "Letter from Berlin" says, very clearly:

Organized humanists—relatively small in number—believe deeply in democracy, tolerance, and human rights.

I'll take him at his word.  I have yet to read his contribution to The Ethical Forum (another short-lived Ethical Culture serial), but, just checking its contents, he seemed to refer to religious humanism in a positive way.  (I will report when I get a chance to sit down and read it more fully--and add The Ethical Forum to the Bibliography.)

All of this is context for my reaction to "The Trouble with Christmas."  It is one thing to recognize the history of the celebration, as far as we can know it, and its origins in the pagan celebrations of the winter solstice.  It is not entirely surprising to sense the negative judgments of those who associate the event with current religious belief systems and see the hypocrisy of the capitalistic version(s) of the holiday.  What struck me about Flynn's argument was the determination that humanists--being enlightened about the roots of the holiday--should then ignore it because we are no longer subject to the whims of nature.  That is, we know that the earth circumnavigates the sun on a tilted axis in a not-quite-perfect circle, which gives us seasons that we are able to predict.  Knowing the science, we no longer need to celebrate the return of the sun, so we can, in effect, ignore the solstice.  After all, most of us are no longer farmers, and we (mostly) have electricity.  Flynn says: 

Men and women can view the phenomena of nature with understanding and respect, instead of with superstition and uncomprehending fear.

A valid conclusion, but not, in my thinking, a justification for rejecting the season.  Flynn's perspective is remarkably urban, remarkably technological, remarkably ethno-centric (ignoring the achievements of Native Americans in understanding solar cycles) and, unfortunately, pre-climate change.

Two things struck me as I was (lightly) exploring this issue of Free Inquiry:

1. I am still repelled by language that denigrates another's religious belief--or, more specifically, denigrates another human being for holding the beliefs they do.  If I am free to believe as I wish, then others should be equally free.  If I am not to be persecuted (or insulted) for my beliefs, nor should any other be.  These diatribes against people of various faiths are no different--and no better--than the preacher who thumps his bible and shouts tirades against the godless secular humanists.  It is an unnecessary religious war that is fed by denial of "democracy, tolerance, and human rights."  Focus on that, I say, not whether the baby Jesus was born in a manger and angels sang "Joy to the World."
2. The earth does indeed circle(ish) the sun on its tilted axes in its elliptical orbit and (I believe) we'd damned well better remember that.  It's a big deal for the tiny human ants living on its surface, messing with natural systems and forces that we cannot control, but we surely have screwed up.  This doesn't mean that we must now seek new ways to worship or pray to those screwed-up systems for relief from the big heat (or the big wind or the big water), but our "understanding and respect" might well extend beyond our own personal comfort to consider the human systems that we have created and continue to permit to alter and--for the sake of our human survival--damage our planet, consider and begin working to halt the damage and, if possible, reverse it.

I disagree with Flynn's reasoning, and I disagree with his conclusion.  I do not participate in Christmas celebrations to any great extent for mostly personal reasons.  The Ethical Society of Austin has an annual Solstice Celebration where we share songs and stories and favorite readings.  Last year I read "The Hunting of the Snark, Fit the First" to those gathered.  This year, I think I'll read "Fit the Second."  The language and rhythm is worth hearing (to my mind) even more than the "nonsense" words, despite the fact that it has nothing to with the season.  It is, in any case, a moment to share with friends and enjoy each other.  

Privately, I have been known to light a candle to celebrate the returning of the light.  Even as far south as Texas is, those short days and long nights can be dreary.  If I happen to notice the date on my calendar and have enough mental bandwidth to connect it to the movement of the sun, I have lit that candle in solitude and gratitude, happy to think of longer days and mehr licht.  

Is that a primitive response to nature?  Is that an ignorant response to the solar cycle?  No, it is my human acknowledgement of my human connection to the environment in which I live and--with "Fit the Second"--will be my human acknowledgement of my human need to connect with other humans with peace and goodwill.  We don't have to buy a tree, decorate our house, or go into debt with excessive gift giving to maintain either connection, but, I believe, we need both.  In the first days of winter, it's good to take a moment to appreciate both.

Every Sperm Is Sacred (Not)

World Population Day, July 11
Commemorating the day (in 1989) when the world's population
reached 5 billion

I had a good laugh recently about a serious subject.  My subject in this post is not sperm, but the joke is, although, I suppose the joke is not funny either.  Jessica Grose has written an excellent piece for the New York Times talking about male fertility, as in male sperm counts seem to be on the decline--worldwide.  Her point is that new and more persuasive research is validating the conclusion about sperm rates, noting that it is time for a shift in the viewpoint that tends to blame women for any issue related to fertility.  That is, just as men (IMO) need to step up and do their fair share of work around the house and family, they also need (in Grose's opinion, with which I concur) to accept that it takes two to tango and/or make a baby, so get a check up, for garden seed.  OK, she was more polite.  But the effects of plastic on the endocrine system--which makes sperm--which makes babies--is becoming ever clearer through the research that is being done to figure out what effects our extensive use of fossil fuels is having on our bodies.

One small paragraph in Grose's fairly long essay, just quietly and gently inserting itself before the discussion moves on, stated a point that was already fairly shouting in my mind by the time I got to it:

At the very least, men should be aware that half of all infertility cases are caused by male infertility. Not just because it may make them start embracing healthier lifestyles if they hope to have children some day, but also because if they are intimately aware of their own deficient sperm, they might be more motivated to push for the policy changes that would really help fix male infertility on a larger scale. [emphasis added]

Yea, verily.  Perhaps men, with their well-known fascination with their own junk and its potential uses, might pause their intense focus on the body part and look at the system that makes that body part so important.  No, not orgasm, but the purpose of that orgasm, which is not fun and games but survival of the species.  The fun and games part is just part of the incentive to produce the orgasm which is in turn meant to promote the survival of the species.  The sensation of orgasm, in evolutionary terms, is a by-product, not the ballgame (no pun intended).

I have been continuing my search for publications by Ethical Culture's thought leaders in various serials over the past few days.  One such serial is Free Inquiry, a publication of the Center for Inquiry.  (My work with that serial is just beginning, but already I can note that Ethical Culture's presence was much stronger in FI's earliest years than in later years.)  One item that sparked my attention, however, was its cover story for Spring 1999:  "The Population Bomb--The Fallout Continues," illustrated with a mushroom cloud.  The articles and opinion pieces inside range from "India's Population Time Bomb" (Paul Kurtz) to "Playing with People's Lives" (Craig Lasher) and reflect what we have heard for some time about the concerns with increasing population on a finite planet with finite resources.

These articles caught my attention because the opposite stories have been filling our news media recently, given some impetus by figures in the current administration, to reflect concern that, in fact, the birth rate is declining in many countries, causing concern (drama) about population decline.  That, in turn, has led to recent moves by the current administration to incentivize birth and push back against various forms of birth control.  I thought, seeing the FI issue, how ironic that we have seen such a turnaround in public discussions.  And yet, the same arguments against the concerns related to over-population and now for the concerns about population decline are still very much present, wolves in sheep's clothing.

• Women must have all possible babies (no birth control, no abortions, no choice).
• Men must make sure that women have all possible babies (men are still the majority in all US halls of government, with, perhaps, some local exceptions).
• Some people--meaning white people--are still more important than others (not all countries are seeing this reduction in fertility, but they are not "white countries").

Oddly enough, in re that latter bullet, those non-white countries have less robust economies.  Is there a correlation between those economies and the prevalence of plastic?  I couldn't say, since my experience in a couple of those economies is older than the FI issue that I was reading.  Certainly there were plastics in the supply chain, but the lifestyles were (in those days) seemed less reliant on plastic-packaged "convenience" items.  My perceptions and recollections are insufficient for any conclusions, but they are enough to raise the question.

And that question brings me back to the joke.  Grose ended her essay with the suggestion that, instead of our national anthem, we should start playing "Every Sperm is Sacred" at national sporting events.  I had to laugh when I watched the video.  But I am deadly serious--if the bros are so damned concerned that we are in a population decline, why don't they address the root cause for their own infertility?  Why don't they spend some time solving the problem of excess plastic in our environment and our bodies instead of looking for ways to blame women for both the cause and effect of the mess they have made? Not that I'm advocating for more sperm, mind you, but all of us would be a lot healthier if we weren't eating and breathing plastic.

BeltBusters and Other Hyperbolic Foods

 

I had a small window in which to find something to eat a few mornings ago.  I had fasted for some bloodwork, forgot to pack some nuts to tide me over, and had another appointment coming up.  Rather than go for physical therapy (and a fair amount of exercise) on an empty stomach and nothing but water since the night before, I thought it prudent to stop at the nearby Jack-in-the-Box for something to take the edge off of my hunger.  That's when I read their breakfast menu and realized that it was packed with prompts to overeat.  Words like "loaded," "extreme," "ultimate," "jumbo," and "supreme" prefixed almost all of the items on the menu.  

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, but I hadn't been to Jack-in-the-Box for several months, and my eating habits have changed substantially.  I am now more aware of carbs and proteins, looking for vital nutrients wherever I can find them.  As I try to confront my past eating habits and make new ones, I have become somewhat sensitized to the degree to which we are bombarded with messages that push us toward (unhealthy) food in excessive amounts.  It's no surprise that those messages are generally not promoting green things.

I decided to check the other fast food menus in the area.  Burger King tended to have adjectives related to its name:  Bacon King, Big Fish, Royal Crispy Chicken.  Sonic also played on its name with SuperSonic, but generally just named the item and indicated whether something was its "regular" size or larger.  Whataburger was even plainer in its naming practices, just naming the item and then allowing for extra ingredients.  That includes "double meat" and "triple meat" options, so we are still looking at oversized meals.  Regardless of the names, extra large portions were readily available.

The pressure to eat more and more is not just our moms telling us to clean our plates (although that might be a good place to do some rethinking).  We are influenced by advertising on television as well as other media.  Billboards invite us to stop and eat.  Even at the grocery store, we are nudged in the direction of buying more with "jumbo" and "giant" size packaging and special deals that have us buy items in multiples and "save."

Even our concern for the environment can take some of the blame.  While those "giant" packages give us more to consume, they also take less packaging, giving us a real saving on the use of non-renewable materials for packaging.  Americans literally waste a third of the food we grow.  Knowing that, I find myself sometimes eating a bit more than I need to just to keep from wasting the food.  (Faulty logic, I know.)

Certainly obesity is a national crisis, ending lives prematurely and undermining quality of life in the years leading up to death.

What to do?

Perhaps we could start with a conversation about food.  How do we center it in our personal lives and in our Ethical Societies?  This is not a conversation about veganism, although that conversation might at some point be appropriate.  It is a conversation about how we value food as a means to build community, about how we center food as a focus of celebration and occasion, how we are affected by the availability of foods, how advertising shapes our relationship with food.  From this conversation, we might see some changes that we can make in our foodways--at home and at our meetings.   We might also see some changes that we'd like to see in our community--whether it is finding better sources of food or improving health education in our public schools or looking more closely at the food pyramid above and figuring out where to go from there.

Food Pyramid:  Copyright © 2008. For more information about The Healthy Eating Pyramid, please see The Nutrition Source, Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, www.thenutritionsource.org, and Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy, by Walter C. Willett, M.D., and Patrick J. Skerrett (2005), Free Press/Simon & Schuster Inc.”

Reflections on Indigenous Peoples' Day

Muriel Tillinghast @ BSEC

I recently visited (October 8) the Sunday meeting of the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture. The speaker was a dear friend, Muriel Tillinghast, whose topic was the Indigenous Peoples' Day holiday. We talk about Native Americans little enough in Ethical Culture, though some of Societies do ritually include a land acknowledgement in their meeting programs, that I felt a need to attend the BSEC meeting as much to support Muriel as to hear what she had to say on the topic.

What Muriel had to say was quite powerful.  She talked about history (real history, not the mythology that we were taught in school), language, population (and population decimation through disease, violence, and the genocidal destruction of a primary resource for survival), the very real contributions of Native Americans to this nation.  Muriel also emphasized the existence--and neglect (or worse)--of indigenous people throughout the world.

In the discussion that followed, BSEC members talked about what they had done in the past--and could do in the future--to support Native Americans and learn more about reparations.  One suggestion related to supporting higher education by donating to the American Indian College Fund.  It happens that I agree with that strategy; it's an easy, arm-chair Ethical Action and is one way to work toward achieving the recommendations of UN Sustainable Development Goal #4:  Quality Education.  SDG 4 targets 4.3 and 4.5 are also served by this action.

Several members left the in-person BSEC meeting as soon as it ended to go to a local PowWow.  The Sacred Springs PowWow was held here in my city this weekend.  I didn't attend, but my family did (and came back with multiple tee shirts).  These events are ways to experience elements of the culture of indigenous peoples and learn a little bit about beliefs and crafting practices.  The entrance fees and the purchase of products and foods can contribute to the community.  I was pleased to see that multiple powwows are held around Texas at various times of the year.  Check in with this site to see when and where powwows will be held near you.  (And don't forget to follow the local protocol for visitors.)  I think my family will want to go to more of these events because, yet again, here is an opportunity to show and teach my great-granddaughter about the present as well as the past of our diverse nation.  

There are other ways to be supportive of the indigenous peoples' of our country.  It would, however, be more respectful of those communities to reach out to the various organizations that represent Native Americans in your area to see how you can connect with the programs that they offer and be supportive.  What do they need allies to do?  Would they be interested in speaking to your Society?  Are there issues on which you can jointly participate in advocacy?  Can you begin calling out (and calling in) those in your community who speak ill or falsely about history and living people?  Get started with a simple search:  "Native American community near me."  It's way past time to make up for Columbus!

25 Ethical Actions You Can Perform in the Privacy of Your Own Home

Ethical Culture is committed to Ethical Action.  Some folks call it Social Action.  Others stick with Social Justice.  There are differences between these labels, but all of them are pointed toward a central aspect of Felix Adler's "new religion":  That we seek to be better, more moral humans; that we can do so by acting more morally; that we will learn to do better with practice.  That, at least, is my interpretation of what I read in some of the addresses that Adler gave to the New York Society for Ethical Culture and other groups in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In leading various Ethical Action committees (for the Ethical Society of Austin and the American Ethical Union), I have observed that many speak of--and practice--Ethical Action as a group activity conducted in the community.  I tend to think that it is how we live our lives--in our ordinary daily activities--that we also put our Ethics into practice, which makes those daily activities Ethical Actions.  

Ethical Society of Austin joins protestors at the Texas Capitol

(Adam Gravois makes an important point)

Here are some examples of Ethical Actions that we can practice in our daily lives.  Almost all of these actions are directed toward the environment--reduced use of resources and recycling of used resources.  Even so, some of these actions can also lead toward some social/community connection as well as involve our Ethical decision making in shopping, both of which will have an effect beyond our homes.  Indeed, all of these actions connect us to the planet and those who live on it, reminding us of the importance of even the smallest action.

Five in the kitchen:

• (2) Rinse and recycle metal cans (after air drying).  Be sure to drain all liquid from beverage cans before placing them in your recycling bin.
• This seems like an obvious thing to do, but I've seen wet cans tossed into the bins often enough to understand that not everyone is thinking about the future growth of mildew in the bin and in the recycled cans.  The time delay between the tossing of the can and the actual recycling process can be lengthy enough for all sorts of toxic items to grow, coat the bin(s), and escape into the air.
• (3) Load your dishwasher carefully, being mindful of the physics of water flow to assure clean dishes.  Run the dishwasher only for a full load (top and bottom!).  Consider turning off the heat drying cycle and allowing your dishes to air dry.
• My late husband and I had many discussions about the physics of water (it goes down and around, not up or through solid masses) and how that related to the dishwasher.  Now I cringe when I see dishes piled in such a way that water flow is blocked.  Not only is this dangerous (surfaces not cleaned and sanitized), but it is a waste of water and electricity when the machine can't do its job properly.
• I allow my dishes to air dry when the washing cycle is finished.  This saves a bit of electricity (which makes me feel somewhat less guilty about relying on a machine to wash my dishes).

Five in the bathroom:

• Turn off the water in your sink when you brush your teeth.
• Consider purchasing toilet paper made from recycled paper.
• Soft, fluffy toilet paper is made from fresh-cut trees which have longer and more flexible fibers.  Recycled paper can get the job done without the luxury of wiping with a soft, fluffy item which is sourced from a vital, slow-growing resource.  
• Check the label on your toilet paper (or contact the manufacturer) to see whether it includes recycled paper and how much.  
• I use Who Gives a Crap brand toilet paper.  This company uses post consumer waste to make its recycled toilet paper.  It also makes toilet paper from bamboo, a fast growing grass (no trees needed).  
• (2) Recycle the wrapper and toilet roll core.
• If the wrapper is plastic, it needs to go along with your other plastic bags for recycling.  If paper, just put it with the rest in your bin.
• Yes, the cardboard core is recyclable.  (It's also good for crafting and, with a slit up the side, bundling messy computer wires.)
• Consider saving your leftover soap pieces to make a "new" soap ball.
• OK, I haven't made a soap ball yet, but I'm saving the soap slivers.  I will, no doubt, make a big deal out of shredding the slivers and making the ball--when the time comes.

Five in the living room:

• Turn off unnecessary lights.  
• Do you really need to run the TV in the background?
• (3) Magazines can have longer lives after you've finished with them:
• Check with a local senior facility to see if they can use the magazines for their residents.
• If there are lots of pictures, check with a local school to see if teachers can use the magazines for projects (or for reading).
• If all else fails, recycle the paper.

Five in the closet/laundry:

• Wear your clothes longer.  
• Purchase durable fabrics in "classic" styles that can be worn year after year.  This will help cut the cycle of "fast fashion" and, ultimately, reduce the amount of clothes thrown into a landfill.
• Unless you are outside in the Texas summer and/or doing heavy manual labor, chances are you can wear that blouse/shirt more than once.  This will reduce the frequency of laundering your clothes and the expenditure of energy resources to do it.
• Hang dry your clothes rather than using the dryer.  This will extend the life of the fabric (less loss of fiber) and wearability (less shrinkage).
• Yes, things will be rumpled.  Straighten the cloth as much as possible while still wet.  Iron only if you really must.  Strut the rumpled look when among friends.  😏
• Wash your clothes in cold water.
• Wash only a full load of clothes.
• Yeah, yeah, the manufacturer has settings for smaller loads, using less water.  It still uses electricity for a full cycle.  

78 degrees in the summer;
68 degrees in the winter.

Five for the whole house:

• Set your thermostat on 78 for the summer, 68 for the winter--and don't touch it.
• Switch to LED lightbulbs.
• Turn off the light and the ceiling fan when you leave a room.
• Use natural light as much as possible.
• Change your A/C filters regularly.

Most of these things reflect a degree of "common sense" and promote frugality.  Who Gives a Crap Toilet paper is not frugal in terms of the cash that I pay to buy it, but, since I'm not flushing trees down the loo, I am happy to spend the money.  I'm not so good at using natural light when it is available, but assorted nurses have entered my home and started messing with the blinds often enough that I am catching on.  All of this "small stuff" takes some practice and attention to detail until it becomes a habit.  The tradeoff in cost/effort vs benefit may well be in our improved sense of commitment to the earth and our fellow earthlings (of all species) as we succeed in reducing unnecessary demands on the planet's resources and increase our progress toward being the kind of person that we wish to be.

Being in harmony with nature

I'm looking for information about Sustainable Development Goal #1 (End Poverty) to work on a project for small societies in AEU.  As always, when I start dinking around on the internet, I find side paths and assorted rabbit trails that lead me in other directions.  This is never a bad thing as far as I am concerned.

Today I stumbled across Harmony with Nature.  The first thing that struck me was the image of the solar system with the planets in motion.  It's mesmerizing.  It is also humbling to see the scale so graphically and realize how small we are just in terms of our own solar system.  The image label is fairly direct as well:

The solar system reminds us that, just as the Earth is not at the center of the Universe, neither are we humans the center of the Earth.  We, along with the rest of the natural world, are all interconnected within the larger web of life.

Harmony with Nature is framed by the perspective that Nature itself has an inherent right to exist, to thrive, and to evolve.  This requires a non-anthropocentric relationship between humans and Nature, given our "shared existence on this planet."  Earth Jurisprudence, the legal provisions that recognize the rights of Nature, is beginning to point to one of those rights as the right to well-being.

This is a new line of thought for me, but it fits very well into my current study of the relationship between religion and the environment.  It appears to be a secular statement of the way in which our attitude toward the land beneath our feet supports/determines/reflects the way in which we treat that land.

Although I didn't initially find what I was looking for in regard to poverty, serendipity worked in my favor today to move me along the path to a clearer understanding about the relationship between the reality that we humans construct and the reality that is.  We can quibble and argue about how much we, as humans, can really see of reality.  After all, we are limited by our human senses and what our brain then makes of what we sense.  Somewhere beyond the quibble, I believe, there is a concrete reality--a material universe--which we interpret in various ways.

One of the ways we in the Western world have interpreted that reality is to think--and then act as if--the world is ours to do with as we wish.  It is ours to own, to make use of, to modify, to destroy.  Sometimes we justify that with the notion that we were given the right to do so by a deity.  Sometimes we justify that with the sure belief that we have the right of might (and science)--as long as we have the technology to reshape the planet and exploit it for our needs--why not?

Now perhaps we should look at human law (a human construct) and natural law (the final judge of our existence).  Then perhaps we can consider reshaping human law to take into account the strength of natural law--the law that turns rain to acid and wind to destructive storms and green valleys to dust bowls.  As Ethical Humanists we trust in the goodness and respect the worth of all human beings.  We do not base our understanding of what is good, what is right, what is moral on laws given by supernatural hand.  Nature, however, is an immensity that, I think, we ignore and disrespect at our peril.  We won't, after all, destroy the planet, no matter how hard we try, but we can make it uninhabitable for humans.  Perhaps human law should make it clear that violating Nature's laws puts us all in jeopardy.

Civil Disobedience and Social Change

BreakFree2016 is a global movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground.  The group organized protest actions worldwide in May.  Five of these actions were planned for the US.  Over a two week period there were 30 "escalated" actions, involving 30,000 people on 6 continents.

While I had already posted the Disobedience video on the Ethical Society of Austin website so that members could participate in these actions as a digital witness, we watched it together during our Sunday meeting on July 3.  A day before the nation would be celebrating its 240th year of independence, we had an opportunity to revisit social movements of the past through this movie.  We were well aware of July 4 and its meaning.  Indeed we decorated a little with flags and some star-spangled centerpieces for our tables.  But, when we joined hands and sang "We Shall Overcome" with Pete Seeger, we were all in the mode of thinking about how far we had come in 240 years.

Not far enough.

The video provoked discussion of its focus--fossil fuels and the need to keep them in the ground--but also the broader issue of how to bring about social change on the many issues that confront us as a nation, indeed as a planet.  Some took the view that protests of the sort planned by Break Free were not effective, were actually futile; rather the route to social change, they thought, is through education and one-on-one conversations.  Others echoed the images of the film itself--the struggle of migrant workers, the civil rights movement, the non-violent but highly effective actions of Mohandas Ghandi--and brought more social change issues to the dialogue--Mothers Against Drunk Driving, anti-slavery and suffragist movements, all of which involved civil disobedience when dialogue had failed to bring the desired change.

We could all agree that change is hard to see close up.  Many of us also agreed that we may not be able to effect great changes on our own nor even live to see the changes we hope to bring about.  Still we asserted that we can take action in our own lives, making the small changes that are part of the cumulatively greater changes that are needed.  

In his 1876 founding address, Felix Adler issued a clarion call:

The world is dark around us and the prospect seems deepening in gloom, and yet there is light ahead. On the volume of the past in starry characters it is written—the starry legend greets us shining through the misty vistas of the future—that the great and noble shall not perish from among the sons of men, that the truth will triumph in the end, and that even the humblest of her servants may in this become the instrument of unending good. We are aiding in laying the foundations of a mighty edifice, whose completion shall not be seen in our day, no, nor in centuries upon centuries after us. But happy are we, indeed, if we can contribute even the least towards so high a consummation. The time calls for action. Up, then, and let us do our part faithfully and well. And oh, friends, our children’s children will hold our memories dearer for the work which we begin this hour.

Adler was speaking of the founding of ethical culture, yes, but ethical culture was founded for the deeds yet to be undertaken by its members, disregarding creed and working not only to build the literal edifice of the Meeting House but the moral edifice of ethical humanism on a global scale.  Working, to be sure, in the practical everyday world of need and suffering and petty human failures while seeking a better way to treat each other with respect and compassion.  We are a long way from the high goals set at the beginning of our community, but we have the encouragement of our past to buttress our efforts while the future pulls us forward along our path.  Indeed, Adler thought of that, too, when nearly 50 years after giving his founding address, he spoke to English ethical humanists about meeting the challenges still being posed to the moral commitment of ethical culture:

The radiant future stretches forth its arms toward us, and binds us to be willing servants to its work, willingly to accept those limitations of the individual will which are indispensable in the service of a far­off cause, a service which at the same time disciplines and ennobles the individual himself. 

Social change is a struggle.  It demands that we take the long view, that we accept incremental progress as steps on the long path ahead of us.  It also demands commitment to that long path and even some degree of sacrifice, if self-discipline is indeed a sacrifice.

Whether or not civil disobedience is the answer to causing change, it will likely remain one of the options for many.  For ourselves, today, we may consider what the long-term goal is and what actions we can personally take to work toward that goal.  If the goal is to keep fossil fuels in the ground, what can we do to make that happen?

• Educate ourselves about the presence of fossil fuels in our daily lives.
• Reduce our own consumption of fossil fuels.
• Educate and encourage others to do the same.
• Seek ways to influence decisions about fossil fuel extraction (advocacy, public education, divestiture).
• Act up?

What else?