The New Deplorability

Just-in-time and now in fashion (with a level of self-loathing and martyrdom intrinsic to Judiasm and Catholicism) a new “ism” has been born. It’s too late to contemplate, as Woody Allen might, if I want to belong to a club like this since I’m already very much a member.

Along with following the logic of the sciences that without a doubt prove we have some disturbing environmental challenges upon us, I’m beginning (in environmentalism as religion terms) to “loathe” my own existence. I regularly contemplate ways in which I can reduce “my environmental footprint” and live more lightly.

Corporations are on the “original sin through capitalism” band wagon too. In some states, they’re busily working on ways to trade credits with each other so that overall, they can continue to pollute “in moderation” relevant to their industry “footprint.” Back off!! We've paid for the right to do business with our heads in the sand! Of course the flaw is that the credits don’t dissuade the continuing creation of our “objects of modernity.” Plastic tubs, possessions, and exhaustive varieties of extraneous shit we’re not sure we need but that we’d miss for sure if it didn’t show up on the shelves of Target (pronounced Tar-gjay).

Environmentalism, like Catholicism, is beginning to really thrive on the “original sin” concept. Our way of life and our creature comforts are evil. You’re evil. I’m evil. The radiation your monitor is emitting as you sit there reading, is evil.

So which path do we take? Inherent evil like the Catholics do, redeemable in pollution credits? Or should we follow the Jews and instead create environmental holidays and ceremonies to help us remember and re-experience the suffering of the planet? Actually, that’s already happening, no holiday creation necessary.

The Christians, to gain acceptance fast, pasted their celebrations over the Pagan ones. Ritual pasties (can we get those stitched with purple pentagrams?). The concept of recycling is actually “ancient.” Italians built churches over the Etruscan sites. Ramses II, in the 13th century, scratched out Hatshepsut’s name (damn broad!) so his name would be memorable in the 350 cities+ he conquered. "Where the Goddess (or Earth) is in decline, thou shalt run screaming" is perhaps how the text of our religion of environmentalism shall begin.

But not all environmentalism is about paying back in various forms what we take away from the earth by existing. Some of it, like the slow food movement, instead chooses to revel in life and it’s pleasures. Slow food celebrates the earth and our acts of “taking” from it. Back to the old ways. Move over Monsanto and Kraft Foods, Chez Panisse has got the gun to your back. But how? Here's a hypothetical news headline: 6.2 Billion Head Off to “Live on the Land.” Somewhere there’s a mid-point to be reached. Declaring trans fats on packaging is just the tip of the globally warming iceburg we’re all sitting atop.