08 October 2010
The Story of The Story of Stuff
I heard a portion of a lecture from Annie Leonard on KUOW tonight about environmental stewardship, civic engagement, and doing so with enjoyment rather than being "martyrs for planet Earth", and what I heard was great. Yes, I've heard the heel-digging and theoretical counter arguments by a guy who seems overly confident (some or many of which I think are valid clarifications or corrections, despite the very abrasive tone of voice of the presenter) to her pretty alarmist "The Story of Stuff" assertions, but I still think she has an important and valid message to share, particularly her motivational plea in this lecture that we return to a more engaged citizenship connected with its government rather than mindlessly consuming ourselves into meaninglessly materialistic living while assuming the government is running itself just fine without us. You can find the lecture on KUOW's web site.
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The truth is, they both have important and valid messages. I'm sick and tired of arguments that are used to "indoctrinate" and rally the populace to push for an agenda that isn't balanced. In the long haul, extremism on either side of an issue creates even more crises...it doesn't solve anything. The world's problems are many faceted and complex, and they require complex solutions that don't tip the scale too far in either direction, or we'll have more huge messes to clean up.
I sometimes feel like leaning out my window and hollering, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it any more!!" But the truth is, I'm gonna have to take it because people are what people are, sad as it may be, and I'm one of them.
At least I recognize that I sometimes take a position on an issue without having all the facts or history or a complete understanding of the complexities, and I remain open to truth. The problem is that the "truth" may not be easy to recognize, no matter how "right" an argument may sound. Perfection has certainly eluded mankind thus far.
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