Silverstein's Society

Oh boy--this post is going to be painful for a select few, but I’m going to let the words flow and fly without any consideration for the bashing I could receive from my readers.  In this post I will attempt to construct my “picture perfect” utopian society.  I’ll be guiding you through my ideal government setup, my population’s personal values, and their attainable goals (if you will) within my fantastic society.  [Note that this is an environmental blog, so when I do speak of each of these topics within my utopian society they will be directly connected to the environment].

I’ll take a top down approach to the construct of my society, so let’s begin by discussing the backbone of my utopia: the government.  For me, a government should maintain an authoritative stature within a society.  Government is there for the sole purpose of protecting its citizens from physical harm.  They are to defend it’s population within times of war and they are to interfere when people’s well being is in jeopardy (mass sickness and crime).   People are going to say, “It’s impossible for American’s in this day and age to govern themselves without a set of rules.”  To that I say, my utopian society will take the constitution we have in place and directly abide by it.  Each and every amendment will be upheld and followed.  Pretty simple, right? 

As far as the environment is concerned, government is to stay out of almost all environmental affairs.   Citizens of my utopian society are allowed to use ALL natural resources permitting they own the land they want to use and in doing so they do not directly affect the physical well being of the current population.  Let me give you an example in case I’ve been a little unclear:  Let’s say that I’m a citizen of Silverstein’s Society and I own a factory that produces colored spray paint.  Factors of productions force me to pollute an immense amount of aerosol in order to produce my colored spray paint.  For five years, my business has flourished and the people living around the factory have maintained primo health until one day a resident of the neighborhood comes down with a fatal illness due to the aerosol in the air.  Because this pollution is directly affecting the health of people within my society, government would intervene and appropriate measures would be taken to shut down the factory until a “healthy” amount of pollution (assessed by government scientists) could be produced without harming the population. 

My population will model their feelings toward the environment very close to how a modern day cornucopian views the environment.  Unconcerned with the diminishing natural resource supply, people of my utopian society will use what their momma (Earth) gave them.  Each and every resource will be utilized.  Because their will be no limit to the amount of resources that can be used business will boom and industry will flourish.  Profits will be maximized and the “land of opportunity” will be taken to the next level.  I know that this ideology is on the extreme side, but this my time to be radical so leave me alone…at least for the length of this post.   

“Come and consume” will be the motto of my society.  We as American’s are obsessed with more of anything.  My society will be no different.  I think that sometimes we forget that it’s in a human’s nature to always want more.  Talk to any self-made millionaire—they’re never satisfied.  It’s that hunger that makes the world spin and allows for America to remain so prosperous.  

Based on the sole premise of economic prosperity, my population would not care about the well being other humans, so long as they haven’t broken any of the laws laid out by my government.   

I could go forever but I think you get where I'm going with this...

Quick recap: Government=constitution, flourishing industry, and profit maximization.  Sound good to you?

My work is done here.  I think I’m going to spend a night in the haystack…

As Real As They Come

As you all know (from previous blog entries) I come from the cornucopian school of thought where conservation doesn’t exist and resources are abundant.  At this point in my life I’m relatively uninterested in saving the Earth, as I believe a brighter youth will find ways to deal with our depleting natural resource supply.  

                                                             (Guess which one I am??)

With that said, let’s face the cold hard truth.  Had A Conservationist Manifesto (a book by Scott Russel Sanders) not been assigned as required reading for my political sustainability topics course you wouldn’t have caught me dead holding it let alone reading it. Why would a cornucopian like myself be interested in learning how humans are solely responsible for ruining the planet?  Do you really think I plan on making my own clothes?  Planting my own produce?  If there were money to be made at the cost of consuming resources, would I hold back?  Nonetheless, reading thus far has allowed me to remove myself from my beliefs and try to understand the “other side.” 

I have to give it to Sanders--his clear, insightful, and personal stories add a unique twist to his take on how to deal with the consumer consumption crisis.  The book begins with Sanders explaining an ever so common crisis in his hometown of Bloomington, Indiana. The events unfold like so: Businessman owns land.  Land is worth money.  Businessman sells land to developer.  Developer clears land and creates housing.  With opposition to this intelligent business transaction, local environmental activists begin to protest by camping out in the landowner’s trees refusing to let the developers develop.    Sanders commends their efforts pointing out that it is their responsibility to conserve and preserve the little undeveloped land in left in Bloomington.  This responsibility will be the preface for the entire book.  Sanders feels that we are all temporary members on an imaginary ark with the intelligence and knowledge to protect all living and non-living species.  

As the book progresses, he speaks of the immense amount of consumption American’s partake in.  It’s as if we have no regard for the past or future, Sanders says more eloquently.  We consume and consume.  All we care about are tangible items, no matter the expense it may have to our Earth.  One saying that I look to heart was when Sanders talks of advertisements and the messages they send to the consumer.  Stating, “Get more stuff. Grab, gulp, go!”—could be the mantra for our hectic, profligate civilization (Sanders 31).”  While pointing out the massive intake of resources the main focus of all of these “frightening stories” is to give advice on how “we” can stop all of this madness before it is too late.  Sanders proposes talking more pride in your local community.  Plant trees, walk places, ride a bike, buy local food.  Be active and don’t sit back for a free ride.  The choices we make, he says, will directly impact generations to come. 

As I have briefly begun to lay out the first 80some pages of the text, I think Sanders has a very clear objective.  We (Americans) are obsessed with materialistic items and money.  We do not care about the gift we have been given (Earth), and if we continue to abuse it, it WILL be gone.  He wants to educate “passengers of the ark” to be aware of this dilemma.  We must work cooperatively to solve these major issues.  Every act to stop the destruction of forests, every protest to stop polluting rivers, every conserved resource has a positive impact on the fight against exploiting our limited natural resource supply.  We must conserve and we must fight for as natural resources are a common wealth. 

Do I agree with his argument?  Can his objective be accomplished?  Let me break it down for you plain and simple.  I understand that we as a population are consuming resources at an unsustainable rate, but the bottom line is we, as a race, are greedy.  Money means power to vast majority of the population and for myself and most, if it comes at the cost of future generations…then let them figure it out.  Some may say—you’re being arrogant.  You haven’t created any offspring so how could you possibly care about future generations?  Maybe they’re right…Sanders does have a couple hundred more pages of convincing to do.  As of now, his objective isn’t going to come close to being accomplished.  I’m all about time efficiency and his proposals are anything but that.  Let me break it down again—I understand that when I buy a sweater from the GAP it is causing tons of pollution and creating lots of waste, but do you think I’m going to sit and knit a sweater for 3 hours?  Not even close.

Most definitely my harshest post-but I’m just being real people—go sleep in that haystack.