0036

More thoughts on the Waste Management mentality, and its ideological opposite: In principle, it comes down to a difference between thinking in terms of a linear process ( the industrialized, 'Waste Management' mentality), and thinking in terms of natural, circular processes. Simply put, lines vs. circles. Here's the Waste Management schematic:

raw material -> process -> process -> consume -> waste

We stupidly measure our standard of living by how much we are consuming, and by how many jobs are being created by all the processes involved. But we cannot ignore the hard fact that there are problems with both ends of this linear method. We consume stuff that is often scarce and is not replenished, and we generate waste that must be forever banished from our world because it is often toxic and we can't or won't neutralize it.

The 'ism' part of consumerism is when this becomes our belief system, when we even more stupidly assume that this is the only way we can live, that human life must by definition be toxic and wasteful. And if we think this way, even subconsciously, we will begin to loathe our very lives, and we will begin to assume a collective death wish.

Herein lies the connection to the Culture of Death. We secretly cringe at the news of another baby (another hungry consumer), and we secretly rejoice at decisions to abort or to engage in sterile sex. Contraception, abortion, sterilization and population control measures are accepted because, deep down, we believe human life is the problem.

Here, by contrast is the natural, circular schematic:

material -> process -> use -> changed material -> process -> another use -> etc.

This ideological concept has practical, concrete ramifications for me, and provides a very real motivation. I must, as part of my focus, look for ways to live in a non-consumerist way, and so test for myself whether the principle underlying the Culture of Death can be dismissed. For example, rather than relegating the art of recycling to a special every-other-week extraordinary effort, the challenge is to incorporate the circular mentality into my everyday life, a complete lifestyle thing. That is what I must be attempting.