I love to count stuff for no reason other than the sheer joy of it. What pleasure in knowing that I spent ninety-seven dollars and twenty three cents on fried rice in 2007, that I save 990 won every time I ride my bike rather than take the bus somewhere, that 22.5 km/h is a good pace on the bike, that it took David 10 months to get through a 2.06 pound container of garlic salt, and that Jamal still owes me $9.37 from college! I'm still disappointed that I haven't used google maps to figure out how far I travelled in Southeast Asia in 2008/2009.
It is thus with many elations that I report the following (pretend it's November 20th):
- Tolstoy died one hundred years ago today and I have still yet to read his "Confessions." I doubt I'll ever read "War and Peace," and I don't even really aspire to.
- I committed myself to vegetarianism precisely one year and six months ago.
- I committed myself to veganism sometime close to one year ago. No exact records were kept.
And, the big one: from the point of view of the present moment,
- I came to Korea 4 years ago, yesterday.
Also, a big event that for a while I thought would be important but which I guess I missed:
- Sometime in over this summer, the amount of time that's passed since I (and a few of you) finished school elapsed the amount of time spent in school. Is there a name for said milestone?
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Either there's been a strange confluence of events or I'm determind to seek out the hypocrisy in everything
A few days ago, Anna of Madison in June (link on the left) passed on a link to this post, entitled "Of Minds and Bodies...the Final Frontier from the blog "The John Brown Party." It was the first time I had heard of the blog, and despite the slightly apocalyptabastic title that for some reason reminds me of a screamo song*, the post/essay really resonated with me.
The post contrasts First Worlders' near-unanimous opposition to the practice of "clitoridectomy (knicking or cutting of the clitoris) and infibulation (surgical closure of the labia majora)" with our apparent acceptance of 400,000 breast augmentation procedures, 350,000 liposuctions, 150,000 nose jobs, and 2.5 million Botox injections in 2008 in the USA alone, and also mentions the increase in other varieties of "vaginal rejuvenation surgeries." It's easy to argue that the two are completely different - after all, the Kenyan women we see on the news are likely to be being dragged kicking and screaming into a ramshackle tent, whereas our neighbor drove her- or himself to the clinic in her/his own car and is paying with his/her own (well, maybe borrowed) money. Since we generally believe that one has the right to decorate or mutilate one's own body as he or she sees fit, but not to cause harm to another, we clearly have some grounds to criticize what's going on in those dark and distant lands.
But, as the post points out and as I agree, this requires a less-than-nuanced understanding of what it means to "see fit," or, in better words, to want something in our (or perhaps any) culture. (Is it wrong of me to invoke Schopenhauer here? "Man can indeed do what he wants, but he cannot control what it is that he wants.") Of course, in the case of cosmetic procedures, the patient chooses the surgery. But does the patient freely choose the emotions, or perhaps the complexes, that make him feel the procedure is necessary? Who would freely choose be dissatisfied with her own body? Would you choose to feel that the best way to spend your hard-earned money would be to drop several hundred or thousand dollars shifting fat from one part of your body to another, shaving off a few millimeters here and there, having some plastic buried under your skin, or having bones broken and reset, in an effort to get others to think of you differently? Or to help you think of yourself differently?
We need to acknowledge the massive amount of psychic pain and secret self-loathing that make such actions as above seem desirable. And what can be the source of this pain except those that benefit from it - celebrities and athletes and shoe companies and movie studios and fashion magazines and, in some cases, physicians themselves?** If we are committed to a sort of liberal utilitarianism - which seems to me to be the philosophy underlying the "do everything you can to please yourself, but stop short of harming others" attitude that deems clitoridectomy evil and vaginoplasty reasonable - shouldn't we be as, if not more, angry at those who instill in boys and girls and adults and children these deep senses of shame, of ugliness, and of imperfection, as we are at the barbaric tribesmen (and women) we condemn for perpetuating a vile tradition?
In case you don't believe that such psychic pain exists, the post provides a few numbers, including the following: "Perhaps most striking is how early in life these values are formed, as 51 percent of girls aged nine and ten (that’s fourth grade, people!) reported liking themselves more when they were on a diet, and perhaps most striking, 42 percent of first-third grade girls reported wanting to be thinner." I don't know the source for this data, but it meshes with my daily experience: I hardly know any unmarried women who don't either profess to be on a diet or feel guilty for not being on one. Nor do I know many men (though of course the pressure on men is nowhere near as strong as the pressure on women) who don't wish they worked out more, who are proud of being a little flabby, or who honestly lift weights in order to improve their health. Nor am I exempting myself - I can't remember the last time I went a day without flexing my abs and trying to find a six-pack in the mirror.*** I'm too ashamed - whether of my body or of my vanity I can't quite tell - to tell you what's there.
The point of this is not at all to demonize people who elect to have cosmetic surgery, who are most likely, whether they acknowledge it or not, already suffering from self-esteem issues. Nor is it to pardon those who force painful and debilitating procedures on unwilling women. The point is that everything that we complain about when we complain about forced clitoridectomy is present right here, right now, in front of our own faces, in every skinny blonde on a box of Special K, in every commercial where a soccer star walks around showing off his body, in every diet book, in every fashion magazine, on every episode of Jersey Shore (which I haven't ever seen, but yes, I'm comfortable making the assertion), in every bottle of Coke Zero, Taylor Swift song, and perhaps most insidious of all, the way we speak to and interact with one another. In fact, I can hardly think of a place where it isn't.
What keeps us from seeing the situation for what it is? If I were anything other than a little pipsqueak wannabe psychologist who thinks he knows what's going on because he once read a lot of Nietzsche, I might venture a guess: It's easier to get angry at things that are far away, because we are not responsible for changing them, because it's not possible for us to change them, except by maybe sending a check to someone who makes a promise. It's easier to get angry at people far away, who can't explain themselves to us, who can't ask us what makes us so blameless, who can't point out that we've been duped. It's easier to be incensed by something that can fit into a TV screen or a photograph, like a distressed girl and a rusty blade, than by something whose violence is hidden beneath lipstick and lab coats and locked doors. And it's easier to condemn specific violations of individual rights than systematic ones, because how the hell do you stop a system, particularly without stopping the parts of it that (you believe) serve you, that provide you with what (you think) you need?
Of course, what we think we need is the problem. Who benefits when we think we need to spend hours in gyms to look good, to buy vitamins and supplements to be healthy, to buy cosmetics or clothes to be desired? Certainly not us, who get stuck in the cycle of work-buy-sleep-work-buy-sleep, who have to bear the burden of not being wanted, of not living up to some distant model. Rather, it's those who earn a profit by making the products, manufacturing desire for them, hiding the truths about them, and shipping them all around the world.
What I'm suggesting is that, rather than get angry at a bunch of people who will never see us or care what we think, we can take a look at the products we buy, the procedures we undergo, the corporations and institutions we thereby support, and the way we interact with other adults and children. Nearly everything we do, if followed honestly, will probably lead us back towards some truth we'd rather not have known. Of course, it probably doesn't hurt to send a few bucks to a charity if you're so inclined, though, as the John Brown post says, it's more sensible to spend money on mosquito nets. But sending money is the easiest part, and that's why it's most appealing. It's possible to send 10, 100, or 1000 dollars and then stay the course. It's not possible, I don't think, to take an objective look at the meanings and effects of what we do without deciding that we ought to be doing something different.
I haven't made the "confluence" in the post's title clear yet. I think all this stuff about African clitoridectomies illustrates the point that we are often on the look-out for acts violence that we can't do anything about while at the same time ignoring the acts of violence that we can. Recently I've run into more evidence of this. A few weeks ago, one of my coworkers found a kitten while walking to work. It was bleeding, having apparently fallen off of a building or been nicked by a car. He brought it in to the office, kept it there through his class, then took it to a vet afterwards. My other coworkers were visibly, understandably, justifiably**** upset about the the kitten. What crazy asshole driver would be so terrible as to run over the sweet little thing? And who would just leave it on the street to die?
All very noble sentiments, but - how many people chose to forego the pork come lunchtime?
I'm not trying to call my friends (or readers) hypocrites; I'm trying to show that we often have a tendency to latch on to the outliers rather than the mainstream, the random rather than the predictable, the senseless rather than matter-of-course. The Matter-of-Course, in fact, requires this tendency if it is to continue. If we weren't able to trick ourselves, or let ourselves be tricked, into dividing animals into those who deserve our sympathy and those who don't, we would have to face up to the cognitive dissonance entailed by the great amount of unpleasantness in our daily habits. What would happen to the profits of the those who raise and process and advertise and distribute pork, who deal in the daily slaughter of living, feeling beings? And if it weren't so easy for us to find pretexts for differentiating between the physical and emotional trauma of forced clitoridectomy and the profound psychological discomfort and insecurity that make elective surgery possible, where would all the magazines and models go?
Which brings me around to what (I thought) I really wanted to talk about: North Korea's recent artillery attack on the island of Yeonpyeongdo in North Korea. 4 people dead, 16 injured, 200 or more evacuated, many more with ruined businesses or damaged property, and lots of scared schoolchildren and 18 year old boys in the military who were supposed to be on vacation this week, but wound up on red alert instead. Yes, Kim Jong-Il is an evil, crazy bastard. He's unpredictable, and savage, and dangerous. He and the government/army he leads are responsible for the murders and slow deaths of uncountable innocents, most of them probably citizens of the country whose interests he purports to be acting in. These pieces of knowledge are not new; they have been confirmed day-in and day-out for decades (see this 36-page list of all of North Korea's aggressive actions since the 1950). Everyone is right to be angry.
So we think, reasonably,"someone's got to stop this guy." Of course, we can't. We as individuals can't do anything to effect a change of his heart, to alter his capabilities, to empower his citizens, or anything like that. So we feel hopeless and enraged and stifled and maybe a little useless. But then, I realize, by stating it the way we have, by putting a name and a face on the problem (which I think is all tied up with the tendencies I talked about above), we've in a certain sense already taken a step away from solving it. The important thing is not stopping him, per se, but stopping the evil and suffering he's responsible for. And once you are thinking in terms of stopping evil and suffering, well, even if you can't have any influence on Dear Leader, you can have a fair amount closer to home. There may not be an individual that you can shake a stick at and call an evil bastard, but there's plenty of suffering around, which means plenty of opportunities to cause a little less (if you can stare down the cognitive dissonance) or even to remedy some.
I don't think I need to elaborate here on which kinds of suffering I think it's easiest to stop. Nor do I want to presume that what's easy for me is easy for anyone else, or that other should be contributing in the same ways I try to. But there are enough problems that almost anyone can channel one of their proclivities into something useful and beneficial and kind. In all likelihood, many of you probably already are, and even more than me.
I'm not exactly sure what I'm hoping everyone will take away from this behemoth of a post. I hope it hasn't come across as preachy or judgemental or anything like that. It just frustrates me that people so often display the best intentions, but are kept from fully realizing them. I suppose it has been one of my goals for a while now to actually work towards that, to try to replace armchair outrage with useful acts.
You are all excellent people.
_____________________________________________
*Ah, it's Thrice - Of Dust and Nations, which is pretty much like Ecclisiastes turned into a rock opera.
** Part of Premise 4 of Derrick Jensen's Endgame: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized.
***With all likelihood, it was my probably my last day in Sadhana, since there were very only three mirrors there, none of them body-length. I was not alone in feeling a great sense of relief after realizing I had spent 3 or 4 days without thinking about or caring what I looked like.
****Did you know that justifiedly is not a word?
The post contrasts First Worlders' near-unanimous opposition to the practice of "clitoridectomy (knicking or cutting of the clitoris) and infibulation (surgical closure of the labia majora)" with our apparent acceptance of 400,000 breast augmentation procedures, 350,000 liposuctions, 150,000 nose jobs, and 2.5 million Botox injections in 2008 in the USA alone, and also mentions the increase in other varieties of "vaginal rejuvenation surgeries." It's easy to argue that the two are completely different - after all, the Kenyan women we see on the news are likely to be being dragged kicking and screaming into a ramshackle tent, whereas our neighbor drove her- or himself to the clinic in her/his own car and is paying with his/her own (well, maybe borrowed) money. Since we generally believe that one has the right to decorate or mutilate one's own body as he or she sees fit, but not to cause harm to another, we clearly have some grounds to criticize what's going on in those dark and distant lands.
But, as the post points out and as I agree, this requires a less-than-nuanced understanding of what it means to "see fit," or, in better words, to want something in our (or perhaps any) culture. (Is it wrong of me to invoke Schopenhauer here? "Man can indeed do what he wants, but he cannot control what it is that he wants.") Of course, in the case of cosmetic procedures, the patient chooses the surgery. But does the patient freely choose the emotions, or perhaps the complexes, that make him feel the procedure is necessary? Who would freely choose be dissatisfied with her own body? Would you choose to feel that the best way to spend your hard-earned money would be to drop several hundred or thousand dollars shifting fat from one part of your body to another, shaving off a few millimeters here and there, having some plastic buried under your skin, or having bones broken and reset, in an effort to get others to think of you differently? Or to help you think of yourself differently?
We need to acknowledge the massive amount of psychic pain and secret self-loathing that make such actions as above seem desirable. And what can be the source of this pain except those that benefit from it - celebrities and athletes and shoe companies and movie studios and fashion magazines and, in some cases, physicians themselves?** If we are committed to a sort of liberal utilitarianism - which seems to me to be the philosophy underlying the "do everything you can to please yourself, but stop short of harming others" attitude that deems clitoridectomy evil and vaginoplasty reasonable - shouldn't we be as, if not more, angry at those who instill in boys and girls and adults and children these deep senses of shame, of ugliness, and of imperfection, as we are at the barbaric tribesmen (and women) we condemn for perpetuating a vile tradition?
In case you don't believe that such psychic pain exists, the post provides a few numbers, including the following: "Perhaps most striking is how early in life these values are formed, as 51 percent of girls aged nine and ten (that’s fourth grade, people!) reported liking themselves more when they were on a diet, and perhaps most striking, 42 percent of first-third grade girls reported wanting to be thinner." I don't know the source for this data, but it meshes with my daily experience: I hardly know any unmarried women who don't either profess to be on a diet or feel guilty for not being on one. Nor do I know many men (though of course the pressure on men is nowhere near as strong as the pressure on women) who don't wish they worked out more, who are proud of being a little flabby, or who honestly lift weights in order to improve their health. Nor am I exempting myself - I can't remember the last time I went a day without flexing my abs and trying to find a six-pack in the mirror.*** I'm too ashamed - whether of my body or of my vanity I can't quite tell - to tell you what's there.
The point of this is not at all to demonize people who elect to have cosmetic surgery, who are most likely, whether they acknowledge it or not, already suffering from self-esteem issues. Nor is it to pardon those who force painful and debilitating procedures on unwilling women. The point is that everything that we complain about when we complain about forced clitoridectomy is present right here, right now, in front of our own faces, in every skinny blonde on a box of Special K, in every commercial where a soccer star walks around showing off his body, in every diet book, in every fashion magazine, on every episode of Jersey Shore (which I haven't ever seen, but yes, I'm comfortable making the assertion), in every bottle of Coke Zero, Taylor Swift song, and perhaps most insidious of all, the way we speak to and interact with one another. In fact, I can hardly think of a place where it isn't.
What keeps us from seeing the situation for what it is? If I were anything other than a little pipsqueak wannabe psychologist who thinks he knows what's going on because he once read a lot of Nietzsche, I might venture a guess: It's easier to get angry at things that are far away, because we are not responsible for changing them, because it's not possible for us to change them, except by maybe sending a check to someone who makes a promise. It's easier to get angry at people far away, who can't explain themselves to us, who can't ask us what makes us so blameless, who can't point out that we've been duped. It's easier to be incensed by something that can fit into a TV screen or a photograph, like a distressed girl and a rusty blade, than by something whose violence is hidden beneath lipstick and lab coats and locked doors. And it's easier to condemn specific violations of individual rights than systematic ones, because how the hell do you stop a system, particularly without stopping the parts of it that (you believe) serve you, that provide you with what (you think) you need?
Of course, what we think we need is the problem. Who benefits when we think we need to spend hours in gyms to look good, to buy vitamins and supplements to be healthy, to buy cosmetics or clothes to be desired? Certainly not us, who get stuck in the cycle of work-buy-sleep-work-buy-sleep, who have to bear the burden of not being wanted, of not living up to some distant model. Rather, it's those who earn a profit by making the products, manufacturing desire for them, hiding the truths about them, and shipping them all around the world.
What I'm suggesting is that, rather than get angry at a bunch of people who will never see us or care what we think, we can take a look at the products we buy, the procedures we undergo, the corporations and institutions we thereby support, and the way we interact with other adults and children. Nearly everything we do, if followed honestly, will probably lead us back towards some truth we'd rather not have known. Of course, it probably doesn't hurt to send a few bucks to a charity if you're so inclined, though, as the John Brown post says, it's more sensible to spend money on mosquito nets. But sending money is the easiest part, and that's why it's most appealing. It's possible to send 10, 100, or 1000 dollars and then stay the course. It's not possible, I don't think, to take an objective look at the meanings and effects of what we do without deciding that we ought to be doing something different.
I haven't made the "confluence" in the post's title clear yet. I think all this stuff about African clitoridectomies illustrates the point that we are often on the look-out for acts violence that we can't do anything about while at the same time ignoring the acts of violence that we can. Recently I've run into more evidence of this. A few weeks ago, one of my coworkers found a kitten while walking to work. It was bleeding, having apparently fallen off of a building or been nicked by a car. He brought it in to the office, kept it there through his class, then took it to a vet afterwards. My other coworkers were visibly, understandably, justifiably**** upset about the the kitten. What crazy asshole driver would be so terrible as to run over the sweet little thing? And who would just leave it on the street to die?
All very noble sentiments, but - how many people chose to forego the pork come lunchtime?
I'm not trying to call my friends (or readers) hypocrites; I'm trying to show that we often have a tendency to latch on to the outliers rather than the mainstream, the random rather than the predictable, the senseless rather than matter-of-course. The Matter-of-Course, in fact, requires this tendency if it is to continue. If we weren't able to trick ourselves, or let ourselves be tricked, into dividing animals into those who deserve our sympathy and those who don't, we would have to face up to the cognitive dissonance entailed by the great amount of unpleasantness in our daily habits. What would happen to the profits of the those who raise and process and advertise and distribute pork, who deal in the daily slaughter of living, feeling beings? And if it weren't so easy for us to find pretexts for differentiating between the physical and emotional trauma of forced clitoridectomy and the profound psychological discomfort and insecurity that make elective surgery possible, where would all the magazines and models go?
Which brings me around to what (I thought) I really wanted to talk about: North Korea's recent artillery attack on the island of Yeonpyeongdo in North Korea. 4 people dead, 16 injured, 200 or more evacuated, many more with ruined businesses or damaged property, and lots of scared schoolchildren and 18 year old boys in the military who were supposed to be on vacation this week, but wound up on red alert instead. Yes, Kim Jong-Il is an evil, crazy bastard. He's unpredictable, and savage, and dangerous. He and the government/army he leads are responsible for the murders and slow deaths of uncountable innocents, most of them probably citizens of the country whose interests he purports to be acting in. These pieces of knowledge are not new; they have been confirmed day-in and day-out for decades (see this 36-page list of all of North Korea's aggressive actions since the 1950). Everyone is right to be angry.
So we think, reasonably,"someone's got to stop this guy." Of course, we can't. We as individuals can't do anything to effect a change of his heart, to alter his capabilities, to empower his citizens, or anything like that. So we feel hopeless and enraged and stifled and maybe a little useless. But then, I realize, by stating it the way we have, by putting a name and a face on the problem (which I think is all tied up with the tendencies I talked about above), we've in a certain sense already taken a step away from solving it. The important thing is not stopping him, per se, but stopping the evil and suffering he's responsible for. And once you are thinking in terms of stopping evil and suffering, well, even if you can't have any influence on Dear Leader, you can have a fair amount closer to home. There may not be an individual that you can shake a stick at and call an evil bastard, but there's plenty of suffering around, which means plenty of opportunities to cause a little less (if you can stare down the cognitive dissonance) or even to remedy some.
I don't think I need to elaborate here on which kinds of suffering I think it's easiest to stop. Nor do I want to presume that what's easy for me is easy for anyone else, or that other should be contributing in the same ways I try to. But there are enough problems that almost anyone can channel one of their proclivities into something useful and beneficial and kind. In all likelihood, many of you probably already are, and even more than me.
I'm not exactly sure what I'm hoping everyone will take away from this behemoth of a post. I hope it hasn't come across as preachy or judgemental or anything like that. It just frustrates me that people so often display the best intentions, but are kept from fully realizing them. I suppose it has been one of my goals for a while now to actually work towards that, to try to replace armchair outrage with useful acts.
You are all excellent people.
_____________________________________________
*Ah, it's Thrice - Of Dust and Nations, which is pretty much like Ecclisiastes turned into a rock opera.
** Part of Premise 4 of Derrick Jensen's Endgame: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized.
***With all likelihood, it was my probably my last day in Sadhana, since there were very only three mirrors there, none of them body-length. I was not alone in feeling a great sense of relief after realizing I had spent 3 or 4 days without thinking about or caring what I looked like.
****Did you know that justifiedly is not a word?
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Confession: I hardly know what I'm doing or how or why.
On Saturday night I hosted my fourth "Eco-film Night" at my friend Sandy's used book store/health food cafe'/craft-and-flea market headquarters/drum circle loft/local theater setting/vegan cookie haven. The movie I chose was Our Daily Bread [official site here, my advertisement here], a commentary/narration-free walk through some of the places and processes that bring us plants, animals, and minerals to eat.
I had shown three films before: What A Way to Go, about peak oil and its ramifications for the American dream; FRESH, about a few farmers in the USA working to improve the health of people, communities, and soil through organic and sustainable agriculture; and Baraka, another wordless film composed of time-lapse shots of nature juxtaposed with ones of cities, with intermittent footage of religious ceremonies and traditions that, the implication is, may be nearing extinction.
I don't usually watch the films in advance, both because I want to share in the experience of learning with the audience and because I can't stand watching movies alone. {For one, exactly to avoid this kind of slothtertainment, I chose not to purchase a couch or recliner, so it's hard to just lounge around and watch; for two, I could be reading, writing, or studying Chinese or Korean, or, come to think of it, napping; for three, I can never pick which documentary or Korean film is most important and most deserving of my attention at any given moment.} Just for safety's sake, though, I watch a minute or two here and there in order to make sure the file works properly and that there's nothing that will embarrass me in front of my viewers.
Thus, I didn't give Our Daily Bread a full screening before distributing flyers, inviting friends and strangers, and unleashing it upon all those kind enough to trust me to pick some images and information to stick into their heads. The photo gallery on the website primarily shows farmers and crops, probably to pre-empt the "it's just another whacko PETA flick" response, which, I must admit, I also try not to engender. I did peruse the film briefly, noting that there was one scene of a cow being skinned (major goosebumps) and a few more of chicken coops (which I already knew were nasty), but, trusting that an award-winning, legitimate, big-release European film wouldn't be too gory, I didn't do much more.
What a surprise come movie night! Pig('s carcasse)s, cloven in half, hung on a conveyor belt being vacuumed; chicks in baskets and on conveyor belts and in machines with indiscernible functions; bovine coitus interruptus; two men removing a (dead? it was hard to tell) calf from a hole in its mother's abdomen with bare hands; piglet castration; pig-gutting machines gutting pigs and the ensuing tumbling and sorting of various viscera; a fish-slicing contraption straight out of a Terry Gilliam movie; prodding pigs with electric wands; putting cows down with a tazer, bleeding them out, and cleaning up afterwards.
None of the scenes were exceedingly gruesome, particularly when compared to something like candid PETA videos, and there was no scary mood music or narrator to remind you how terrible it all is. Just the sounds. Of the tubes. Of the hoses. Of the belts and gears and planes and sprayers, the pigs and chicks and the wind and the knives. Nobody wants to work there. Nobody wants to be there. Nobody even wants to see other people being there, to be forced to know that people are there. That the animals were there, and will be there again once the belts are turned on in the morning. Which, of course, is now, somewhere.
Well, maybe not nobody, but at least a few people. In other words, a couple audience members walked off from or out of the screening, one overcome (a friend of his later told me) by the images and one (this is my intuition speaking) somewhat defiantly refusing to be forced to confront them. Many others closed their eyes, or lowered their heads, or took extended bathroom breaks. All of which left me feeling very...odd.
I often wish that people knew these things, or that they would accept their knowledge of them. But how can one present them without coming across as offensive, judgemental, righteous, or smug?
And how personally should one take those charges when leveled against them? I get so frustrated at my and others' ability to dissociate - I had an argument with a colleague a while back who was angry at one of his students for pulling the legs off of a butterfly. Cruel and unnecessary, for sure. But worse, more deserving of scorn and ridicule, than trading a few bucks for something to grill? Why is it so easy for us to focus on small, specific abuses and ignore the systematic ones?
If I knew that, maybe I could answer some other questions, like: what should I do in a situation like that? How can I encourage someone to extend his butterfly-sympathy to cover other animals, too? Should I trust in the power of argument and logic straightforward syllogisms? (Has that always worked me? Does it now?) How careful should I be not to vilify and threaten? Should I stay silent, tacitly valuing my friend's comfort and my easygoing relationship with him over the undeniable, physical, unimaginable, easily reducible frustration and pain of an animal in captivity? Hope that my influence may somehow rub off (as others' has rubbed off on me), that my aura may bleed into his? Along similar lines, what kind of movies should I show? The ones that get good reviews, that make people feel good, that nobody walks out from, that don't seem to change a thing? Or the ones that make people uncomfortable, that make a little less likely to come back, that make me feel like the bad guy, the harbinger of unpleasant truths?
Thankfully, more people have thanked me after the film than walked out in its midst. One Korean told her friends (who later told me) that she had never understood why someone would want to be a vegetarian, but that she understood better after watching. Another, my Indian neighbor, who grew up in villages where animals were almost like family members and crops were tended by hand, told me that he and his friends had learned a lot, and wouldn't allow me to apologize for subjecting them to the unpleasant scenes.
So, yes, that is the state of things. My head is all jumbled up with pride and regret and shame and gratitude and who knows what and it feels like I can barely put a coherent sentence together.
Thank you for your kind attention. Please come to my next screening.
I had shown three films before: What A Way to Go, about peak oil and its ramifications for the American dream; FRESH, about a few farmers in the USA working to improve the health of people, communities, and soil through organic and sustainable agriculture; and Baraka, another wordless film composed of time-lapse shots of nature juxtaposed with ones of cities, with intermittent footage of religious ceremonies and traditions that, the implication is, may be nearing extinction.
I don't usually watch the films in advance, both because I want to share in the experience of learning with the audience and because I can't stand watching movies alone. {For one, exactly to avoid this kind of slothtertainment, I chose not to purchase a couch or recliner, so it's hard to just lounge around and watch; for two, I could be reading, writing, or studying Chinese or Korean, or, come to think of it, napping; for three, I can never pick which documentary or Korean film is most important and most deserving of my attention at any given moment.} Just for safety's sake, though, I watch a minute or two here and there in order to make sure the file works properly and that there's nothing that will embarrass me in front of my viewers.
Thus, I didn't give Our Daily Bread a full screening before distributing flyers, inviting friends and strangers, and unleashing it upon all those kind enough to trust me to pick some images and information to stick into their heads. The photo gallery on the website primarily shows farmers and crops, probably to pre-empt the "it's just another whacko PETA flick" response, which, I must admit, I also try not to engender. I did peruse the film briefly, noting that there was one scene of a cow being skinned (major goosebumps) and a few more of chicken coops (which I already knew were nasty), but, trusting that an award-winning, legitimate, big-release European film wouldn't be too gory, I didn't do much more.
What a surprise come movie night! Pig('s carcasse)s, cloven in half, hung on a conveyor belt being vacuumed; chicks in baskets and on conveyor belts and in machines with indiscernible functions; bovine coitus interruptus; two men removing a (dead? it was hard to tell) calf from a hole in its mother's abdomen with bare hands; piglet castration; pig-gutting machines gutting pigs and the ensuing tumbling and sorting of various viscera; a fish-slicing contraption straight out of a Terry Gilliam movie; prodding pigs with electric wands; putting cows down with a tazer, bleeding them out, and cleaning up afterwards.
None of the scenes were exceedingly gruesome, particularly when compared to something like candid PETA videos, and there was no scary mood music or narrator to remind you how terrible it all is. Just the sounds. Of the tubes. Of the hoses. Of the belts and gears and planes and sprayers, the pigs and chicks and the wind and the knives. Nobody wants to work there. Nobody wants to be there. Nobody even wants to see other people being there, to be forced to know that people are there. That the animals were there, and will be there again once the belts are turned on in the morning. Which, of course, is now, somewhere.
Well, maybe not nobody, but at least a few people. In other words, a couple audience members walked off from or out of the screening, one overcome (a friend of his later told me) by the images and one (this is my intuition speaking) somewhat defiantly refusing to be forced to confront them. Many others closed their eyes, or lowered their heads, or took extended bathroom breaks. All of which left me feeling very...odd.
I often wish that people knew these things, or that they would accept their knowledge of them. But how can one present them without coming across as offensive, judgemental, righteous, or smug?
And how personally should one take those charges when leveled against them? I get so frustrated at my and others' ability to dissociate - I had an argument with a colleague a while back who was angry at one of his students for pulling the legs off of a butterfly. Cruel and unnecessary, for sure. But worse, more deserving of scorn and ridicule, than trading a few bucks for something to grill? Why is it so easy for us to focus on small, specific abuses and ignore the systematic ones?
If I knew that, maybe I could answer some other questions, like: what should I do in a situation like that? How can I encourage someone to extend his butterfly-sympathy to cover other animals, too? Should I trust in the power of argument and logic straightforward syllogisms? (Has that always worked me? Does it now?) How careful should I be not to vilify and threaten? Should I stay silent, tacitly valuing my friend's comfort and my easygoing relationship with him over the undeniable, physical, unimaginable, easily reducible frustration and pain of an animal in captivity? Hope that my influence may somehow rub off (as others' has rubbed off on me), that my aura may bleed into his? Along similar lines, what kind of movies should I show? The ones that get good reviews, that make people feel good, that nobody walks out from, that don't seem to change a thing? Or the ones that make people uncomfortable, that make a little less likely to come back, that make me feel like the bad guy, the harbinger of unpleasant truths?
Thankfully, more people have thanked me after the film than walked out in its midst. One Korean told her friends (who later told me) that she had never understood why someone would want to be a vegetarian, but that she understood better after watching. Another, my Indian neighbor, who grew up in villages where animals were almost like family members and crops were tended by hand, told me that he and his friends had learned a lot, and wouldn't allow me to apologize for subjecting them to the unpleasant scenes.
So, yes, that is the state of things. My head is all jumbled up with pride and regret and shame and gratitude and who knows what and it feels like I can barely put a coherent sentence together.
Thank you for your kind attention. Please come to my next screening.
Saturday, November 06, 2010
Post Transfer 2 of 2: Report on the State of My Garden in Late October
I returned to the field the other day, dismayed to see that the cold had taken its toll on the sesame leaves and basil. All was wilted, and most was eaten by bugs. There were a few pleasant surprises though.
For instance, here we see that as late as late October, cherry tomatoes are still growing.
Being a novice, I didn't realize how much staking and stringing the little guys need, so most of the fruits had fallen to the ground. Nonetheless, it looks like one made it to fruition while on the vine. Success! Even the big tomato plant, which only bore one or two tomatoes throughout the summer, had some big, green fist-sized ones on the vines.
Hrm, something is amiss:
Who is that lurking in "my" garden?
A real live rabbit, enjoying some rotten sesame leaves and my neighbor's fairly healthy-looking pepper plants. I found it odd that the little critter preferred the peppers to my carrots. A true Korean rabbit, I suppose.
Yours truly, hard at work. Speaking of carrots:
I didn't weigh them, but I'm guessing it came out to about 4 kilos. Pretty good for one inexpertly-planted row. Enough for 2 weeks of carrot and cilantro soup!
The weather is cold enough that nothing else will grow - the mint, basil, sesame leaves, green onions, chives, tomatoes, and pumpkins are all on their last legs. Plus, I wasn't motivated enough in the early autumn to plant any winter greens or radishes. Thus, there's nothing left to be done at the Teot-bat until sometime next spring. Rabbit friends, you have my permission to eat any and everything; all I ask is some fertilizer in return.
For instance, here we see that as late as late October, cherry tomatoes are still growing.
Being a novice, I didn't realize how much staking and stringing the little guys need, so most of the fruits had fallen to the ground. Nonetheless, it looks like one made it to fruition while on the vine. Success! Even the big tomato plant, which only bore one or two tomatoes throughout the summer, had some big, green fist-sized ones on the vines.
Hrm, something is amiss:
Who is that lurking in "my" garden?
A real live rabbit, enjoying some rotten sesame leaves and my neighbor's fairly healthy-looking pepper plants. I found it odd that the little critter preferred the peppers to my carrots. A true Korean rabbit, I suppose.
Yours truly, hard at work. Speaking of carrots:
I didn't weigh them, but I'm guessing it came out to about 4 kilos. Pretty good for one inexpertly-planted row. Enough for 2 weeks of carrot and cilantro soup!
The weather is cold enough that nothing else will grow - the mint, basil, sesame leaves, green onions, chives, tomatoes, and pumpkins are all on their last legs. Plus, I wasn't motivated enough in the early autumn to plant any winter greens or radishes. Thus, there's nothing left to be done at the Teot-bat until sometime next spring. Rabbit friends, you have my permission to eat any and everything; all I ask is some fertilizer in return.
Post Transfer 1 of 2: Report on the State of My Garden in September
After several months of ceaseful, effortless cultivation, the beloved Teot-bat has finally delivered. Of course, I had snagged a cherry tomato or two and a few fistfuls of mint leaves and basil in the past, but now, apparently, the combination of the late-August rains and the cooler weather of September has led to some truly monstrous growth.
Chives and Green Onions:
A pumpkin, chive, and green onion pancake.
Thank you, Teotbat.
Basil and Sesame leaves, each about a meter high. Some nice green onions on the left, too.
Some truly beautiful Cilantro/Coriander, Chocolate Mint, and Thyme:
!A CARROT ERUPTION!:
Better pick that Okra, too:
(Actually, it was already too late for the Okra. Mathan, my excellent Indian neighbor, tells me I should have picked them when they were still soft.)
Chives and Green Onions:
Harvested: Green Onions, a sickle, and 1/3 of a shoe.
Also harvested: basil, a carrot, and 2 ziploc bags
Daegu NoksaekSari Organic CSA Distribution Complex:
THIS IS THE WHY:
A pumpkin, chive, and green onion pancake.
Thank you, Teotbat.
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