Gordon Fitch wrote:
>> Hence, every attempt to solve that which concerns all must
>> fail, since it would have to start with one individual or
>> another -- unless you postulate some kind of group mind,
>> which seems rather in the right-wing bag.
Doug Henwood:
> No, that's not what it means at all.
But that's what it says -- to me, anyway. The desired meaning seems to be someone's grandmother's "You can't fix the world all by yourself." I must add, as I imagine my commie grandmother would if she were here, "but you can start." So an attempt by an individual to solve that which concerns all could succeed, after all.
> I pressed it into service to say
> that there's no way that individual consumption practices can
> extricate oneself from an exploitative society. You can use free
> software, but you've got to run it on machines made by evil large
> corporations. You can shun meat and spare animals, but what about the
> migrant workers who pick the cucumbers?
>
> One of my favorite little factoids: organic produce requires more
> stoop labor than the ordinary kind. So is it more "moral" to eat
> organic food?
I don't know -- I eat organic food out of selfish resentment towards IFF and other enterprises of chemical fraudulence. My vegetarianism is similarly self-centered, as is my playing with Linux. For most people, the logic of eating organic food (or using Linux, or taking the bus to work, and so on) is liberal, capitalist, reformist logic -- what we use will grow and be enhanced because energy will flow into it / rich people will make money off it and some things will thereafter be nicer. There may be side benefits for small property owners or workers into the bargain, but _as_such_, not as being liberated from capitalism and class war. Nevertheless, the logic doesn't run in reverse -- we can't create anarchy and communism by gobbling McOffalburgers and driving Cadillacs as far as I know.
However, I think there's some utility in taking steps which one thinks are probably completely ineffective in the world because of their spiritual benefits. I've heard that the first rule of revolution is "Don't let the bastards get you down." And if factory meat, IFF, or Microsoft get me down, it cheers me up to take a walk.
If someone thinks there's more to it than cheer, though, I say let them run it on out. Who knows? Food Not Bombs serves only _vegan_ food, so I give them vegan oatmeal cookies. Maybe they're onto something.