Ways I'd Like To Rejig Society (or, Unfucking A Couple of Things That Are Fucked)

I had a strange and memorable conversation with a dear friend a few years ago. We were talking about cosmetic companies testing their products on animals. Awful, she said, disgusting. Shouldn't be allowed. 

So, you check the labels when you buy make-up, then? To make sure it's cruelty free?

Oh no, she said with a brisk shake of the head. Can't be bothered with all that.

I think this illustrates the way a lot of people feel about this and other related issues - animal testing, food production, sweatshop factories, poverty and hunger, forced labour and modern slavery, climate change, mass extinction. Sure, we know there's a problem, and in general we think this stuff shouldn't be happening. But... the way we live is so easy. So comfy. Let's just draw a discreet veil over all the stuff we wish wasn't happening so that we can just carry on the way we are.

This is why I believe that, unlike economics, sustainability needs to apply from the top down. If new standards for businesses, new legislation, were to exist, the choices available to the everyday consumer could be made less damaging. It's easy to choose cruelty free when all of the options are cruelty free. You don't need to check your labels for the leaping bunny when cruelty free and sustainable is simply the default. 

I'm not really sure why FairTrade, cruelty free, organic and eco friendly options are still considered a bit niche, and items made by desperate people in horrific conditions using toxic chemicals are the acceptable norm. I hope to see this change - really change - within my lifetime.

Some people may feel a sense of resistance to the idea of having their options for consumption limited. We are used to choosing from a vast menu of options for everything - from wedding dresses to peanut butter - and we don't really want this to change. But who would knowingly choose children's toys containing lead and mercury, or a plastic lunch box that potentially releases carcinogens into your food? To say nothing of the hazards for the people who have to make such things. In his book Consumed, Benjamin Barber writes, "We are seduced into thinking that the right to choose from a menu is the essence of liberty, but with respect to relevant outcomes the real power, and hence the real freedom, is in the determination of what is on the menu."

Businesses and governments love to put the onus for change on the individual consumer, rather than accepting any limitations on their greed and rapacious behaviour. But no one individual can do everything, even if they felt inclined, when as we have seen, many simply aren't interested in doing things that aren't easy. In a world where we still have to employ people to pick up litter thrown on the ground, we can't expect every individual to make every choice for the good of the whole planet. And adding more and more green choices to the smorgasbord of options already available can't be the answer on its own - as Annie Leonard notes in The Story of Stuff, "It's simply not possible to get 100 percent agreement from nearly 7 billion people on any issue, and our ecological systems are on such overload, that we simply don't have time to try. Imagine if we had had to wait for 100 percent consensus before getting women the vote or ending slavery: we'd still be waiting."

I believe that we can build a less environmentally destructive, more equitable society. I also believe that as things currently stand, we need legislation to help us do so. 

Similarly, when we talk about sustainability - or, more to the point, when our so-called leaders talk about sustainability - the emphasis is always on preserving the status quo. As John Michael Greer demonstrates in the introduction to his book Green Wizardry, "Consider the endless bickering over the potential of renewable energy in the media and the internet. Most of that bickering assumes that the only way a society can or should use energy is the way today's industrial nations use energy. Thus you see one side insisting that windpower, say, can provide the same sort of instantly accessible and abundant energy supply we're used to having [...], while the other side - generally with better evidence - insists that it cannot. 

"What inevitably gets missed in these debates is the fact that it's entirely possible to have a technologically advanced and humane society without having electricity on demand from sockets on every wall across the length and breadth of a continent. [...] What stands in the way of this recognition is the emotional power of today's ideology of progress, with its implicit assumption that the way we happen to do things must be the best, or even the only, possible way to do them."

Imagining other ways of living can be uncomfortable, even scary. This, I suspect, is how a lot of people feel with regards to the idea of buying less. It's a limitation. A sacrifice. A loss of freedom. Naturally, we chafe against even the idea of restraint. We are so used to having whatever we want, preferably immediately, that alternatives seem dismal, frightening, unpatriotic. Certainly I have felt that way, even though my attempts to buy less have increased my resilience, self-esteem, appreciation and contentment almost from day one.

Ultimately, however, these are the changes we need to make - as a society, we must learn to consume less, waste less, and cooperate more. Because we have already done damage to the Earth, our home, through our current mode of living, and as this century wears on and the results of that damage become ever more apparent, we will need to adapt if we wish to survive. 

Up until fairly recently, I've been frightened of these changes. Dreading them. I couldn't picture what a society might look like that could weather the future and the crisis we face. However, John Michael Greer's Green Wizardry, with its discussion of appropriate tech, made me feel far more hopeful. And if you'll forgive me referring once again to The Story of Stuff, I found much to be optimistic about in Annie Leonard's description of her living situation, which I would very much like to emulate:

 "It's really just a bunch of good friends who chose to live near one another - really near, like next door. We find life easier and more rewarding because we focus more on building community than on buying Stuff. We share a big yard; we often eat meals together; but each family has its own self-contained home into which we can retreat when we want to be alone."

In Leonard's community, even watching TV is something that people generally do together. Stuff is shared between families so less resources are used on buying new items. Services are shared too - plumbing, cooking, babysitting, repairs, carpooling. (I WISH I had had this as a new mum.) If someone is sick, the community steps in again for rides to the doctor, childcare, even bringing flowers. 

If we could shift to a society set up like this, we could buy less and lose nothing.