Dirty Hands

We live in an age of great contradiction. The people, corporations and systems that are doing great harm have it all worked out that they do so with our consent. We can try to invest in socially responsible funds, shop for food at local Farmer’s Markets and personally boycott certain products, but let’s face it— we still end up supporting the giant machine that is steamrolling over the forests and crushing the moral arc of justice. Who can live in this modern age doing our work as it must be done and keep our hands wholly clean?

 

I can’t, for one. Here’s a time to confess that I watch things on Amazon Prime and count on them carrying all my books. That I’m weirdly loyal to Bank of America by convenience and habit (though here my daughter is convincing me to switch to a credit union) and have all my savings in Morgan Stanley. That I’m in the million-mile club of United and still depend upon burning fossil fuel to do my humanitarian educational work. Facebook has not only been a way to keep in contact with a large community of like-minded people, but a venue for announcing books and a film and concerts that I need people to know about , as well as make my constant comments of resistance to the very machine I’m reluctantly supporting. Spotify is supporting my new Podcast while taking money away from musician friends. I don’t buy a lot of new clothes, but the ones I do are probably made in sweat shops in Asia.

 

Do you get my drift here? I hate Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and these other heartless capitalists and everything they stand for—and yet I help make them possible and feed their bank accounts. By refusing their services, the ways I conduct my business of resistance and hopefully healing grows smaller. What to do? I can feel a little high and mighty walking, bicycling and bussing in my local transport, being a lifetime mostly-vegetarian, refusing fast food chains and Walmart and perhaps soon, supporting my local credit union, but still the world is set up to make me complicit. Don’t know if there’s any dirt about Blogspot, but here I obviously depend upon it and deeply appreciate the opportunity to share these thoughts. It’s a conundrum. 

 

No solution to offer here, no tidy moral to the story. If I had to come up with one, I would just suggest “Do less harm and use these opportunities of expanded speech, travel, wealth to speak out against corporate greed and speak up for our humanitarian promise. And wash your hands as best you can."