George Monbiot has a hell of a point...
Oct. 12th, 2010 01:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vostoklake... that we should stop seeking to bury our values and instead explain and champion them. So... here goes.
Listen here, you guys out there: I ride an electric bike even though it's slow and inconvenient and sometimes tiring because I don't want to be responsible for burning fossil fuels. I deliberately run a low-budget, self-reliant musical operation because the mainstream music industry disgusts me. I'm working in indexing because I didn't want to fit in with the self-congratulatory culture of academia. I lead a low-budget, frugal lifestyle by choice, and I don't envy those Captain Creeps in their McMansions and bourgemobiles, I just want to stop them enjoying those things at the expense of the vast majority of the planet, and indeed the integrity of the ecosystem itself. My politics are simple - I want to help build an ecologically sustainable high-tech culture, where all citizens can contribute and participate (not just a smug, self-congratulatory elite), and we save resources by minimising waste, greed, violence and social exclusion.
YES I MAKE THINGS HARD FOR MYSELF. Because those are my values. And I think that if everyone adopted those values the world would be a kinder, nicer place. So I try - and fail, because I'm a human being - to live as an example of what is possible if you live in the Real World of Horrible Jobs but don't let yourself become a part of it.
And, yes, there's a tiny part of me which would love to "give up", to learn to schmooze, to create music or write books that would sell (by telling people the lies that they want to hear), to live in air-conditioned comfort and be able to buy everything and everyone I wanted to. Because, once again, I'm a human being. But I think the essence of being a human being is to know which is the winning side, and still to choose the other - to do things not because they're convenient or fun or easy, but because you've made a choice.
Listen here, you guys out there: I ride an electric bike even though it's slow and inconvenient and sometimes tiring because I don't want to be responsible for burning fossil fuels. I deliberately run a low-budget, self-reliant musical operation because the mainstream music industry disgusts me. I'm working in indexing because I didn't want to fit in with the self-congratulatory culture of academia. I lead a low-budget, frugal lifestyle by choice, and I don't envy those Captain Creeps in their McMansions and bourgemobiles, I just want to stop them enjoying those things at the expense of the vast majority of the planet, and indeed the integrity of the ecosystem itself. My politics are simple - I want to help build an ecologically sustainable high-tech culture, where all citizens can contribute and participate (not just a smug, self-congratulatory elite), and we save resources by minimising waste, greed, violence and social exclusion.
YES I MAKE THINGS HARD FOR MYSELF. Because those are my values. And I think that if everyone adopted those values the world would be a kinder, nicer place. So I try - and fail, because I'm a human being - to live as an example of what is possible if you live in the Real World of Horrible Jobs but don't let yourself become a part of it.
And, yes, there's a tiny part of me which would love to "give up", to learn to schmooze, to create music or write books that would sell (by telling people the lies that they want to hear), to live in air-conditioned comfort and be able to buy everything and everyone I wanted to. Because, once again, I'm a human being. But I think the essence of being a human being is to know which is the winning side, and still to choose the other - to do things not because they're convenient or fun or easy, but because you've made a choice.
