On Sun, 21 Jan 2001, Dennis Perrin/Nancy Bauer wrote:
> There's no way one can fully step out of grim consumer reality, but one can
> make choices. All depends on what one is willing to give up. Personally, I
> avoid McD's (though my wife takes my kids there from time to time), the Gap,
> WalMart, Old Navy, Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, anything from Hormel or Tyson
> foods, and of course Nike. Drop in the slopbucket. I'm still connected to
> all kinds of criminal enterprises, I'm sure.
This is very much like the reasoning used by modern orthodox in re keeping kosher. They know it's impossible under modern conditions to follow all the rules entirely, but they argue you still get moral credit for making a good faith effort to avoid the obvious transgressions. In some ways the whole endeavor to avoid tainted products strikes me as a secularized form of keeping kosher, a way of signifying ritual cleanliness and keeping faith with the almighty (i.e., Society in all its potential). In which case, if it feels good, do it. So long as you're tolerant toward the existence of other secular religions, of course.
This reminds of a very old joke. A priest is talking to a rabbi, and asks him "So, you've never had a piece of pork?" And the rabbi answers,
"Well, just between you and me, once, in the spirit of free inquiry, I tried it. It wasn't bad. But how about you? Have you really never had sex?" And the priest answers,
"Well, just between you and me, I did have sex once, just to see what it was like."
"It's better than ham, no?"
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com