In class we discussed how many people of today are somewhat naturaly greedy. I feel this is very true. Many people, not all, buy things that they can not afford and dont need. I see this all the time with people i know. Why is it that people do this? Is it because it makes them look good having fancy things? I think people just need to step back and look at what is most important in life.

Greed and Voluntary Simplicity

As we have discussed in class, Greed is something that many people are infected by. With this said, I believe it is a "disease" that is all too often over-diagnosed. As previous posts have stated, money is something we all have to have to survive. It is no longer possible to depend solely off the Earth. There are many people who have a strong desire to gain wealth exponentially without any regard to the negative consequences it might impose on the environment or other humans. I believe we have a predisposition as humans to always push our boundaries and expand. It is an innate quality we share with no other species on this planet. Exploring "new lands" has come to and end because we have been everywhere. If we cant expand outward, what do we do? Expand upward with the construction of skyscrapers and other mega structures that would have never even entered the dreams of our ancestors. As far as voluntary simplicity goes, outside of a few environmentalist and naturalists, I strongly believe it is not something we desire. One example of this is the economy. It is well known that the economy has totally derailed. Today, every news station, media outlet, and government official talk of nothing other than "fixing the economy". Sure it has to be fixed, but why are we so desperately trying new repair schemes? Why is it such a big deal that so many people are now jobless? If we lived in a more self-sustaining world, one with more voluntary simplicity, this would not be such a big deal. But we do not live in such a world. We are not meant to live in such a world. As I said before, we as humans are hardwired to always be moving forward. Stepping back in time would go against our natural drives and instincts. We are fixing the economy, making new jobs, all to be able to buy more stuff. In our world with the frontiers already explored, purchasing stuff to move up in the world is equivalent to exploring new territories. Humans have a drive to always improve and move forward, whether it is land or lifestyles.

Voluntary Simplictiy

During class we discussed the idea of voluntary simplicity. I think this is a very difficult idea for most of us to grasp or to try to take on ourselves. The definition includes "the more desirable is whatever is less expensive.." I think that this is an idea is too hard for Americans to think about. Today we are almost "programed" to think that bigger is better and the more expensive things in life are better then the cheaper things. Clothes for example: you can find a shirt at a "high class" store for $90 at one store, but then you can go to a "lower class" store that has the same exact shirt (or one that looks very similar to it) for $10. I think that I personally would rather have the less expensive shirt. Voluntary simplicity is an idea that should be considered in most people's lives, but also is something that would be very hard to do. Most people love shopping and even consider it a hobby, so to take that from them would be a very hard thing to do. Even trying to make these people shop for less expensive items would also be hard to do, because it goes back to the idea that "bigger and more expensive is better." This whole idea would need to be changed for voluntary simplicity to come into picture. With the economy as bad as it is, this idea might not be that hard to put into perspective.

Greed

The thought that greed is a trait of the human species is interesting to me. I do not believe that every single human being is greedy and are driven by getting more stuff. I think that some people, especially those CEOs and higher ups in companies are driven purely by money and give the rest of us a bad rap. This is VERY evident in our economy right now. Most people that I know, while they work hard for their money and like to spend their money on nice things, are not purely driven by it. They enjoy time with their friends, family and do not believe that the only time that they can have fun is when they are living above their means. We have to have some income and some money to survive in this world, we can't live purely off the land anymore.

Animal Magnetism

Before you think I’m a spammer who stumbled onto this site whilst searching for Bruce Campbell trivia, I should mention that I am a TMC alumna and a current philosophy PhD student at UC (aka Iris Spoor). I was kindly invited by Dr. Langguth to join in this interesting topic, so I want to thank him before I begin. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t googling Bruce Campbell trivia, of course, but I wasn’t only doing that.

The debates on this blog and in environmental ethics in general, are interesting and increasingly germane. The climate change issue has been a significant one for some time now and as science rapidly reveals more about nature and ourselves we are forced to confront difficult ethical questions. I hope to be able to contribute in a number of relevant debates (particularly concerning the ethical treatment of animals from a consequentialist and a Kantian perspective), but, I wanted to briefly post concerning aesthetics.

Aesthetics often enters into debates about environmental ethics, or any debate about nature in general, because our appreciation of it certainly has an aesthetic component. In this post, I wanted to briefly discuss Edmund Burke’s discussion of the ‘beautiful’ and particularly the beauty of animals.

For Burke, beauty is associated with the passions belonging to society (I.viii). Burke subdivides this into the society of the sexes and general society (I.viii). The passions belonging to generation, unlike those belonging to preservation, are based on pleasure (I.viii). The base passion associated with generation is lust (I.x). Human beings, however, attach a social quality to the passions associated with generation, thus, choosing a mate is more complicated for mankind than other animals (I.x). The passion generated by this is love (I.x) and the object of this passion is “the beauty of the sex” (I.x). Generative love, then, is mixed with lust (I.xviii), but the love associated with society in general “is called likewise love” (I.xviii). It arises from beauty as well, but has no admixture of lust. Therefore, beauty is a social quality.

Love is further defined as “that satisfaction which arises to the mind upon contemplating anything beautiful, of whatsoever nature it may be” (III.i). Burke distinguishes between love and lust, or desire because a man (in his example) can lust after an un-beautiful woman, for instance, and feel no such desire for a beautiful animal or man (III.i). So, the the likewise, or social love applies to all of society, not just the sexual society of men and women. The object of social love, then, is the “great society with man and all other animals” (I.xviii). So, animals, from cows to koalas can inspire this social love by virtue of their beauty which can give us a “sense of joy and pleasure in beholding them” (I.x). Burke is puzzled as to why man should be affected by animals in this way, so he just attributes it to Providence (I.x).

Burke’s account of love and beauty, obviously, is only one narrow (and quite strange at times) view of the issue, but I think he hits on a strong point with the above. Many of the animal rights crusades center around what are sometimes known as ‘charismatic mega-fauna’. ‘Save the Whales’ immediately comes to mind (though Burke might think a whale should inspire feelings of terror). A whale, dolphin or wolf is generally thought (and is in my opnion) to be a quite beautiful creature. If earth worms or slime mold were endangered, I think, one would be far less likely to see a bumper sticker sporting their images.


There are many movements to save non-charismatic creatures, of course, but I wonder if the beauty of certain animals and the ‘love’ this inspires has a lot to do with which animals are preserved and supported. Perhaps we have found part of the answer to Burke’s question as to why human beings seem to be able to develop a social attachment to certain creatures. Or, perhaps, it is just an example of human bias and emotion affecting what should really be scientific debates. One should recall the fairly recent contorversy in which dolphins (beuatiful, intelligent creatures) were being ensared in tuna nets. I'm simplifying here, but a great international protest was launched and tuna sales plummeted. But--we must ask--who speaks for the tuna? Or, why do the dolphins merit more tenacious support? Any thoughts?






PS—In case you were wondering why Bruce Campbell trivia would direct a spammer here, I have no answer. In fact, I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t have, until now, of course, given how many times I’ve mentioned him in this posting. In any case, I don't think it will hurt the blog to have a shot of Campbell with some charismatic mega-fauna. ;)


Iris Spoor

Voluntary Simplicity

I think that voluntary simplicity is an interesting idea, especially in our culture today. Desiring things that are better for the human community, but nature in particular. When people go in to a store and buy things, they are thinking abou how their purchase may effect nature and the envionment. Our society is more worried about what our purchase says about us or what we want. When peope gon shopping they don't think about all the other shirts or purses or items that they have. They are focused on what they want at the time. I think it would be a good idea for our society to live more simply. It would be hard, but if we our society would just cut back on buying and having more and more, the natural and human communities would be a little better off. You can't make people completely change their whole lifestyle, but it is about baby steps with cutting back so that we can get to an endpoint that will make more people happy and make the community better off. Our society needs to make compromises. We need to cut back so that we can stop using up all of the resources and having way too many things. I think that voluntary simplicity is an idea that many Americans should consider trying to veer away from our wasteful ways to better the communities around us.

Blog #4

In the last class the discussion of consumerism really interested me. Americans in the past had comsumed and comsumed to their limit. We allways want the next big thing and if we can afford it, we buy it. I feel that additicon to buying is the reason we are in our finical problem. Americans wanted to have that bigger house but they couldn't afford it but they still went ahead with it. People want things to go back to the way they were but maybe we shouldn't. I feel we we shouldn't live to our limits. We need to be happy with the things we have. After this finical problem is fixed Americans will think before they spend or will they? I feel that people at first will hort thier money but then we will go back into the same cycle. What does anyone else think?