blog.eliduke.com

the other night in portland nate, emily, kris, and i were sitting around the house and somehow got on the topic of buying/selling/supporting things that you disagree with in some way. the example we were playing around with involved a record store in which you are the owner. you have complete control of what goes in and out. would you sell blatantly racist music?

what if a local black musician walked in one day asking if he could give you copies of his new record to sell, entitled “kill all the white man”. would you sell it? what if a local white musician walked in one day asking if he could give you copies of his new record to sell, entitled “kill all the black man”. would you sell it?

we were going back and forth about this for a while. other types of things came up as well: factory farmed meat, sweatshop clothing, blood diamonds, etc etc. and then something dawned on me that i’ve been playing around with in my mind for quite a while: it is impossible to be completely free of the poisons and destruction and brutality and still be a part of civilization.

poisons and destruction and brutality are inherent in the system.

you can buy all the grain fed, sweatshop free, green, fair trade, vegan, free range products you want (and better that than the alternatives), but they’re still probably wrapped in plastic and trucked 1000 miles.

i try my best to be a positive force in the world: i’m vegan, i don’t own a car, i live meagerly. but i’m still part of the system and i still buy food from grocery stores and i still flush the toilet and i still buy iPods and i still drive a car when i’ve got one. as long as i’m still here (in the civilized world) there’s no way to be completely free from it.

normally i don’t write about what other people are writing and normally i don’t forward interesting articles along to my friends, but the most recent post on SVN, Who wants to live in The Real World?, is really great.

The Real World must be a truly depressing place to live. It’s apparently a realm where new ideas, unfamiliar approaches, and foreign concepts always lose. I’m told that the only thing that works in The Real World is what its inhabitants already know and already do. No matter how flawed or inefficient that way may be.

People who live there are said to be living Real Life. An existence filled with pessimism, despair, and every shade of pitch black imaginable. Yet strangely, these people living Real Lives seem not to be interested in getting out. They are not looking for a change of scenery of the dreary Real World.

Instead, they’re actually trying to recruit! In arguments everywhere, they’re trying to convince those of a sunnier demeanor that they must convert to Real Life or perish. That resisting the Real World is futile. This call persists even in the face of contrary experiences. Tales of people who actually did things differently and still lived to see the sun rise in the morning.

Please don’t be fooled, there’s nothing even remotely attractive about The Real World. It’s a bleak mirage suitable only as a place of communion for those who have lost all hope.