Over Indulgence: My Confession.

I can’t sleep these days. I lay in bed for at least an hour every night. Sometimes 2 or more hours. This is after I’ve turned off the lights, shut down the computer, and closed my book. I lay there. Heavy. Overwhelmed. And thinking. I can’t quit thinking about my over-consumption. I talk about how much I can’t stand materialism and commercialism . . . but I buy right in. And I’ve come to the sad realization that all my talk about sustainability and what little acts that I do are nothing more than token attempts at appeasing my guilt and to make me feel better because I’m “not as bad as that person”.

I’m giving up beer for a while. I’m fasting from beer because I am a saint. Who else gives up beer? Nobody but me. But even if I only have a couple of beers a week, that’s over $500 a year. More than what 40% of the people in the world make as income. I’m giving up beer. I am a saint. In it’s place, I’m sitting in a coffee shop with espresso machines whirring away and sipping on a $4.00 strawberry/banana smoothie. I am a hypocrite. I am the antagonist.

When I can’t sleep because I’m tossing and turning and crying thinking about all the poor people in the world, I turn on my $300 iPod and allow music and Wendell Berry essays to lull me to sleep. I am a saint. I am a hypocrite. I am running from my guilty thoughts.

I share 5% of my income to global small businesses via Kiva. 80% of the people I support through Red Cowboy are women. And all of them are in the third world. I’ve made 39 loans while the average user only has 2.4. I am a saint. Oh wait . . . I have a $2300 computer that’s 2 years old and I need a new one. A $1000 camera. And countless other little pieces of metal with little wires and little circuits. I am a hypocrite. I am full of shit.

I don’t watch television. The only show I watch is LOST. So maybe 2 hours a week. Tops. I tell myself I’m an intellectual and that I’m a better person for reading books rather than watching American Idol or Dancing With The Stars or insert any other reality show here. I am a saint. I tell myself this myth to make me feel better about my self. It’s a shame that we bought a $600 flat screen HD television to watch LOST and play the Wii. And I spent more time on my computer than 10 average people combined. I am a hypocrite. I am my own worst enemy.

I’m aware of the injustices that go into the global food market. I haven’t eaten fast food in almost a month, have given up soft drinks (for the most part), and only buy free-range meats. So I make my own blackberry jam, can my own pickles, and make whole-wheat organic bread. I am a saint. The only small catch being that I do so with a $100 bread maker and continue to eat out 2 or 3 times a week and over-eat when I do. I am a hypocrite. I go to sleep on a full stomach of Ben & Jerry’s $3 ice cream.

We use cloth shopping bags. Look at us. We don’t use god-awful plastic bags. We care about the environment. I am a saint. I’m glad I bought 5 of them when 2 would have done the job. I am a hypocrite. I care more about appearance than I do function.

I haven’t bought any clothes in nearly 6 months. And only a few things over the last year. Mostly from thrift stores. I never go to the mall except for movies. I don’t like to shop. I am a saint. But I take pride that my utilitarian jeans and solid shirts are more powerful than fashion. I enjoy looking plain. I enjoy feeling better than people stuck in the vicious cycle of trying to stay cool. I am so much better than them. I am a hypocrite. I am ashamed of my own thoughts.

I don’t buy books. I go to the library and check them out. I even am intelligent enough to read 1 a week. I read big books too. The big kind with 300+ pages and big words like Straussian and antinomy. The kind that talk about economics and theology. I am a saint. It’s almost comical that I pay hundreds of dollars for domain names and hosting space that is neither material or tangible so that I can blog and podcast my pretentious little thoughts for the world to see. Millions of people across the world own little to no physical property such as land, home, or necessities. I own a whole variety of “virtual worlds”. I am a hypocrite. I am a cyber landlord.

I don’t use gasoline lawn mowers. How brutish would that be? I have a manual reel mower and I cut my grass and pull weeds with my own bare hands and my own human strength. As the blades move manually as I walk, the sharp cutting sound is music to my ears. I sneer at the neighbors across the street. I make my own pillow from the feathers of cat tails in the neighborhood retention pond. I have reclaimed and reimagined the wasteland that is the suburbs. I am a saint. I lay my head on my pillow every night in a comfortable bed with sheets with high thread counts and down comforters. And two of my rooms sit empty while people sleep under boxes on the cold streets. My closet is full of clothes that I wear once every couple of months if at all. Perfectly good shoes sit on my shelf next to my extra blankets and coats. I am a hypocrite. I horde my privacy.

I am so thrifty and conscious. I’ve changed all of our light bulbs to compact fluorescents. We keep our house at 60 degrees in the winter and 76 degrees in the summer. We hang the majority of our clothes on drying racks. I drive a Vespa that gets 75 miles a gallon. I pass Hummers and use a choice word under my breath as I weave past them. I am a saint. Meanwhile I give my dog some of his $65 vitamins every night with his $30 dog food, his $5 treats, his $15 blanket, his $5 spray, and his $20 toys. When we go out of town, we pay $25 a night for him to get a good night’s sleep at a kennel. My dog lives, eats, and plays better than most of the children of the world.

I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I.

Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.

I am a hypocrite. Hear me roar. I sip my smoothies and blog with my expensive technology. I listen to my indie music with my utilitarian wardrobe. Don’t mess with me! I give money to the poor. I pay extra to get our electricity from “green energy”. Come! Come follow me. Downward mobility is the way to go. But wait . . . I am not going downward. I’m accessorizing my middle mobility. This is not change I am doing. This is not life that I’m creating. I’m perpetuating a myth. I’m soothing my guilt. I am the great politicizer. The great moralizer. The great theorist! Come and hear my new theory on economics. I have something new to share with you about politics. Tomorrow I will espouse upon my new theology. My affluence grows and so does my imagination. Let me tell you about it. But first let me go throw up.

Ha!

I am broken. I am ashamed. I am full of shit. And that’s no where near harsh enough. Welcome to my inner dialogue every night.

P.S. I’m not depressed.

P.S.S. I was just sitting on the front porch with Jack and Mason Jennings’ Jesus Are You Real (listen to it here) came up on my Hope Playlist. These words have an interesting way of refreshing me when I get overwhelmed. Cranking the volume to 11 doesn’t hurt either.

jesus my life does not feel the same
new things happen everyday
things i can’t explain
but i am not a man of faith
i’m a man of truth
but is this feeling in my heart
is this feeling proof

when you do not know you know
when you know you do not know
and when you think you do you die
and when you do not think you grow
are we left here in the dark
or are we left here in the light
it seems to me that both are true
and its up to us to know what’s right

And all I do is doubt you God
All is do is love you God
All I do is question you
What else can I do
This world was never solid ground
Religion can not help me now
All I do is search for you
What else can I do
And when I say I search for you
I mean I search for peace
I search for hope I search for love
And one day for release

God give me strength to accept the things
that i just can not know
and even when i lose control i will not let you go

The Consumptive Church: Appeasing The White Man’s Guilt.

The Context For My Starting Point, Different Starting Points, The Religious Industrial Complex, Opium & 3 Legged Chairs, The Model Speaks Volumes, The Medium Is The Message

I suppose I’m close to finally wrapping this thing up. At least from the critique side of things. Although as I’ve said before, critique is a form of construction . . . so hold off on the “Josh is always negative comments”.

I was reading Eugene Cho’s thoughts the other day on Buy Nothing Day and he makes some good points. His basic premise was that it’s easy for guys like me (white, affluent, etc) to support Buy Nothing Day once a year. I can afford to be “holier-than-thou” on the day after Christmas, because my lifestyle affords me the opportunities the rest of the year to buy what I want to when I want to. Whereas, for a lot of people, standing outside in freezing temperatures on the day after Christmas for electronics and children’s toys is more of a necessity.

For me it’s just as much a privilege not to buy something that particular day as it is for me to buy something on any other day. I can afford to opt-out of Black Friday. I can afford to opt-out of mass consumerism for a day. Because my lifestyle still affords me the luxury of opting-in on other days.

In hindsight, choosing to buy nothing like I did, had less to do with my critique of consumption and more to do with the privilege that has been afforded to me as a middle-class American. It had more to do with me wanting to appease my guilt for my consumption throughout the rest of the year than it did with me challenging the systemic injustices of hyper-consumption itself.

I get that. I really, really do.

While I think The Consumptive Church is only possible in an affluent white man’s world, I am also becoming painfully aware that critiques like mine are only possible because of the larger framework of that same affluent context. Perhaps these critiques really are more rooted in appeasing my guilt than they are in deep fundamental change.

In these critiques of mine . . . these “opting-outs” of conventional consumptive patterns, I’m afraid that the larger myths of consumption to satisfy might still go un-critiqued.

My favorite stanza of lyrics of all time comes from Ryan Sharp in I, Obstruction:

Just get rid of all your crap now
Just give it to the poor
So that they can have your crap now
So that they can want some more

What scares me more than anything about my life, is that my critiques will begin and end with nothing more than a shifting of my crap and affluence from me to someone with “less”. That I will do nothing more than shift my consumptive patterns from me to the third world.

At some point my critiques have to be more than economic restructuring. More than a shifting of politics. More than a reallocation of resources. At some point they have to challenge my hyper-consumption at it’s roots.

I don’t think consuming is a bad thing. If I don’t consume food and drink I die. If I don’t consume wood and gas, I don’t stay warm in the winter. If I don’t consume cotton and polyester, people will laugh at my hairy chest and I will freeze in the elements. Consumption is a part of life.

It is the hyper-consumption that has to be critiqued. It is the hyper-consumption that has to be challenged.

The question is not whether or not I need food and drink, but whether or not I need as much food and drink as I do. It’s not whether or not I need clothes to cover my body, but whether or not I need a closet full of overpriced, transient clothes made by 14 year olds. It’s not whether or not I need oil to get from place to place, but whether or not I need oil ensured by war and for my decadent disposal.

The question is not whether or not capitalism is a valid economic system, but whether or not capitalism as a consumption-based system where spending, owning, and hoarding are the leading virtues is better than capitalism as a production-based system where saving, sharing, and the common good are the leading virtues.

I need a better critique. I need a better alternative. I need to move beyond appeasing my guilt and towards embracing the common humanity that I share with everyone else. A critique that comes from below as opposed from the top, or worse yet . . . in the middle of.

Then I listen to the last lines of I, Obstruction:

It turns out I am the obstruction
Turns out I have been one
To loose them or enslave them
And just leave them all undone

Listening: But I Tell You by The Cobalt Season

Let Me Just Say This While I Still Can.

Because soon (a couple more years) the political climate will not allow it.

Terrorism is a growing threat. It is a threat that can not be beaten by conventional warfare. It’s not like there are some Germans standing behind this line that we just have to line up with and exchange tactical military procedures. Terrorists are pros at guerrilla warfare. Hit and run. Use children and women. Suicide bombers. Decentralized in nature and speedy in movement. A faceless army. No face. No centralized brain. But plenty of hands and feet.

If you kill Hitler, a movement dies. If you kill Bin Laden, a movement grows. Much like the martyrdom of the saints was reason for the growth of Christianity . . . marginalized people will always give their allegiance to the martyrs. In many ways this is formative to their identities.

I’m afraid to admit that in the coming years terrorist attacks at malls, subways, airports, and shopping centers will become much more common place. What we see happening in the streets of Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq will increasingly be taking place in “Western” places.

When this begins to happen on a regular basis . . . the tide is going to turn in public sentiment. Even more so than what we currently have.

At that time people are only going to see through the lens of fear and security. Fear of the unknown is going to become the great enemy. And our insecurity about getting attacked is going to lead us to this desperate place.

Right now we aren’t desperate. But in the coming years when our bubble gets broken, our security is no longer secure, and fear is the driving force in our trips, flights, shopping, and travels to name a few, we will become desperate.

Terrorists are already desperate. That’s why they become terrorists.

So we will have 2 groups of desperate people.

One group trying to get rid of the other at all costs. And the other group trying to get rid of the other at all costs.

In our “defense” of our family, land, and security . . . we will become reactionary. We will still try to fight conventionally. Which is a nice way of saying that we will try to get rid of all the bad guys and when there are no more bad guys we will win.

The only problem with this is that we’re not going to be able to kill all of the bad guys.

So we need to look at what causes terrorists to become terrorists. What causes innocent little boys and girls to become destructive, angry, vengeful people.

The same thing we will have to ask of our children.

And the same thing we will have to ask of our politics and economic policies that create vacuums in which terrorism can exist, grow, and thrive.

Now this is where I say what I need to say before it becomes even more politically incorrect than it already is.

The American way of life (insert “Western world” if you don’t want to feel as guilty) lives in a hyper-consumerist culture. This over-indulgence on material things at the expense of everything else not only affects us. But it affects those across the world who go “without”. When they see our gross marketing, over sexualized, sugar-coated entertainment culture . . . the vain decadence of it all . . . it creates a fragile fault line. The wealth that we enjoy the benefits of . . . creates imbalance in the rest of the world.

Our hyper-consumerist, hyper-material, globalized world is built on the backs of colonialism.

Do I think it gives terrorists and extremists a free pass on their hate and attacks? Absolutely not.

But instead of being reactionary, which will never work in this type of conflict . . . perhaps we should be asking ourselves what role are we playing in creating a world that this type of violence becomes acceptable? And what right do we have to claim that this violence is horrendous and then practice violence ourselves against our enemies?

I know the claim will be made that these conflicts are religious in nature and not economic. Perhaps so. But I think they are more economic in nature. Religion just becomes the fuel for the fire. The thing that the culture uses to justify the morality of their actions.

Their minds are made up. Just like ours. They are made up because they go without a voice and without power. Ours are made up because we stand on top of the hill and have the power. This is the source of the problem.

The fact that we both use religion to justify the morality of our violence is simply the excuse we use to absolve ourselves of the guilt.

Towards the Political Center.

I think both sides of American politics are starting to realize that extremism and polarizing politics are not as “fashionable” as they once were.

I’m still not confident that the reason politicians are beginning to shift towards the center are because they have truly have a heart change or just for pragmatics after seeing the polls. But at this point, I think I’ll be happy with either. Baby steps right?

On the Republican side of things . . . the leading candidates for their party at this point are Rudy Giulanni (a pro-gun control, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, 2x’s divorced) and Mitt Romney (who also supports gay-rights, gun-control, and abortion rights). Even John McCain (who I think is starting to flip as much as John Kerry did) is a much more centered and social Republican than his predecessors.

On the Democratic side . . . Barack Obama is leading the way in a centered and honest platform. While I think Hillary is slippery and changes to her surroundings everytime you see her . . . even that is a sign that she is respecting the polls where people (us) are wanting something much more centered and less extreme. And outside the presidential race there is a reason why Joe Lieberman is so popular.

Just on a side note, I think the fact that she keeps pulling the “Bill” card so often in the early stages . . . is a sign that she’s unsure of her standing in the Democratic party. So she keeps reminding her party of her husband who everyone in their party loved.

All of this to say . . . that I think politicians are finally starting to realize how tired most of us are with partisan and polarizing politics. And while there are still “true Democrats” & “true Republicans” . . . I think a much more moderate middle is emerging that is post-partisan . . . in the same way that many are becoming post-denominational . . . relying less and less on labels and more and more on values and issues. Perhaps even a generous politics. Although that might be a bit too ambitious at this point.

And while there are still extremist and polarizing figures on both sides (H. Clinton, Sharpton, Falwell, Robertson) and the constituents that they represent . . . I’m inclined to think that the majority is now with the moderate middle. Although I don’t think we realize it yet. We are a group that is still finding its voice and trying to connect with a larger community and platform after so many years on one end of the spectrum of the other.

I think the days of the Moral Majority are over. And now what is taking shape is the Socially Responsible Majority made up of the Cultural Creatives. Again . . . mark my words . . . the presidential election will be determined by this middle group of 20-35 year olds who are web, tech-savy, socially responsible, and culturally creative.

[tags]Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, Mitt Romney, Bill Clinton, Rudy Giulanni, Republicans, Democrats, Partisan Politics, Cultural Creatives, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Al Sharpton, Partisan Politics, Moral Majority, 2008 Election, John McCain[/tags]