It’s the lack of thought that counts
The other day we were driving in a major Canadian city and a large wide heavy industrial truck trundled past with the slogan “On the Road to Net Zero” stuck on its side.
Whoever put it there probably realizes that the proposed destination does not permit trucks of this kind, yet they dutifully cheer on their own demise. Which oddly reminded us of the latest order of clothing to arrive from Amazon, also by truck, in a package claiming to be “reducing carbon emissions”.
Both offer up conventional pieties in an unconvincing, lackadaisical manner, as in the decadent phase of a state-imposed civic religion. It is like living in a society where it remains customary to offer oblations to the Olympian gods, while not giving two seconds’ thought to what Hermes would want you to do, or whether Zeus might punish you for denying hospitality to strangers.
The weird ritual quality to it all suggests the worst combination of conformity, cunning and indifference. Whether you call it “greenwashing” or mere hypocrisy, it is a rarity in the debate in that it irritates the zealots and the skeptics equally.
The former grumble that all these corporations genuflecting before the sign of Net Zero are just faking it while destroying the planet, and the latter that by carrying on with the pretense they are shoring up bad public policy.And both are annoyed, rightly, that this stuff is everywhere but doesn’t seem to mean anything. You can confront intransigence. But not mush.
The people who, for instance, make the garments in question are not lying when they say “Being earth-friendly is important to us.” We have no doubt that the majority of that firm’s employees, from top to bottom, really do care about the environment and like to go to bed at night thinking they haven’t spent the day helping wreck it.
The problem is that having agreed to the conventional formulation, like someone mumbling their way through the Lord’s Prayer while thinking about cooking some bacon for breakfast as soon as the dreary thing ends, they do not spend much time actually conforming their behaviour to their words, probably because they haven’t bothered discovering much about what it would require.
In the case of the trucking firm, the problem is that what they do is energy-intensive. And since wind and solar cannot power our economy, for reasons this firm certainly cannot control, the fact that they might at some point buy enough offsets or engage in other Jesuitical jiggery-pokery does not mean that they will not emit carbon.
It just means they’ve purchased the modern equivalent of an “indulgence”. Again, we do not accuse them of having worked through the whole thing and decided to fake it. On the contrary, we accuse them of having vaguely absorbed a few conventional pieties without careful consideration, made them into a slogan, and gone about their business.
You can find literally thousands of examples. Indeed, it is hard to find a product nowadays that does not merely claim to be environmentally friendly, but make a hoo-hah about climate in particular. Go ahead. Read the package, or the website promo, before you buy it. Whatever it is. And yet we are not on the road to Net Zero collectively because we are not on it individually. That people really think offsets somehow work doesn’t make it better. Especially if they go out of their way to avoid listening to any contrary claims lest it disturb their sleep.
P.S. We ourselves, since we do not believe in a man-made climate crisis, are not being lazy hypocrites in rejecting the advice on the underwear package to “Wash cold and save energy”. We strongly suspect that most people who buy such things don’t hunt through the packaging for ideological sore points.
(Just as most normal human beings don’t get riled up at those ridiculous notices telling you that everything you buy is known to the State of California to cause cancer, partly because they don’t read them.) But among those of us eccentrics who do, we strongly suspect that they wash them in whatever way they think will work, and those who choose to wash in cold water aim to save money not the planet.
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Barry from Victoria
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it’s a mistake to think the lunacy of the day is about what it purports to be. Communism was never about justice for the poor, it was about teaching the employee to hate his employer. Feminism was never about the rights of women, it was about teaching women to hate their own femininity. LGBTQ theology is not about helping such people to be accepted, it’s about getting people to hate their own natural selves. Finally, environmentalism is not about the welfare of the planet, it’s about teaching humanity to hate itself.
What ideology would propagate hatred? There is only one I can think of, and it is not Judaism, it’s gnosticism, in particular, the Sethian variety. Gnosticism teaches that the universe we inhabit is the creation of an evil being. The human soul is trapped in a malevolent substance. Logically, that means that the best thing that could happen, the only way to real freedom, is to destroy this evil world.
I could say more but it would sound like the mother of all conspiracy theories. And by the way, since the world is intrinsically evil, then nothing we do could be counted as sinful.
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Howdy
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The world is not intrinsically evil, and sin does not exist, nor the soul.
You write about the archons, Barry, and I find that a none-starter. It’s old tales.
For more:
https://gnosticismexplained.org/the-classic-gnostics-sethians/
One should research “the Eloheem”. Not ‘the elohim’, which has replaced the true word on search engines. The true word is in short supply these days by active removal.
Eloheem are the ‘workers’ of God, or the facets, the characteristics. Those that do tasks in God’s stead.
“Let us make him in our image” – our.
In Hindu tradition, the Loving All Mother, Parvati, has another name when she is a protector, Durga, and taken as a different goddess. Yet another when a young maiden, Lakshmi, again taken as a different goddess.
“She of a thousand names”. They all point to the same deity.
The Christian God is described in several forms, such as a dove, or the flaming bush. Same thing.
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Howdy
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Again, you might like to look at this, though Elohim is not the same thing:
http://www.myredeemerlives.com/namesofgod/adonai-elohim.html
I did not find this site by a search, I allready had it, but searching for the name anyway went as suspected and reveals the usual song and tiktok rubbish that people these days live for it seems, while the search engines are only too eager to hide what you ‘must not see…
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Barry,
I basically agree with much of which you wrote; however you concluded “And by the way, since the world is intrinsically evil, then nothing we do could be counted as sinful.” And I do not understand it.
Have a good day
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Howdy
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If sin is the default, Jerry, then why bother when it makes no difference.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Barry and other Readers,
“It’s The Lack Of Thought That Counts” And I don’t understand this either;+ or maybe I only disagree with this THOUGHT. I suspect many of us do not have a high opinion of “governments”..However, this morning I was questioning how old I was when we got REA on our farm. And I found the following which doesn’t answer my question but it describes an importance of good government.
“On May 20, 1936, Congress passed the Rural Electrification Act which was one of the most important pieces of legislation passed as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. This law allowed the federal government to make low-cost loans to farmers who had banded together to create non-profit cooperatives for the purpose of bringing electricity to rural America. Seventy-four years earlier to the day on May 20, 1862 President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act which offered free land for those willing to move to it and cultivate it. Both of these Congressional Acts were created for the same purpose. President Abraham Lincoln when speaking to a Special Session of Congress on July 4, 1861 best explained that purpose when he said it was the purpose of our government “to elevate the condition of men-to lift artificial weights from all shoulders-to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all-to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.””
Maybe this is why these two presidents are on Mount Rushmore with Washington and Jefferson.
Have a good day
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