#106-2008-05-13

Little People Performing Big Scale Acts of Human Kindness
By W. Owen Thornton

I’ve been thinking a great deal lately about the individual’s relative powerlessness to change big stuff.  I think these thoughts have rolled around inside of me this year in part because I’m an undergrad student who, within that role, has very little power.  As a second year student, I have about as much power as a gnat.   Not that I bemoan this position or even think it is wrong (it may indeed be appropriate to have so little power), it’s just a fact that dangles in front of my face.

And I’m not sure I would be practicing human kindness within these pages of the internet if I were to talk about my concerns of the earth by mentioning that others are doing harmful things … is it kind to point that out?  And if I talk about these things, can I do so in a generic enough form so I do not actively produce a direct unkindness towards someone else?  Well, perhaps I can talk about what an individual can do to change the world in a theoretical manner and still remain kind.

Here are the kinds of things where I have seen humanity’s failings:

• building monstrous vehicles in the wake of a combined energy and environmental crisis
• watching international games from a country where horrific human abuse occurs daily
• buying goods from inexpensive stores … stores that squeeze (harm) their suppliers, and may allegedly abuse their employees
• companies that earn millions annually pulling out of Canada and harming our economy and their faithful employees, while expecting me to continue to buy their goods, so they can rebuild their plant in Mexico, take advantage of paying them low salaries (wrong upon wrong) all for the sake of increasing the bottom line (perhaps benefiting my RRSP) … for a few years until Mexican salaries increase to the point it’s no longer profitable to produce there (and then where do they go?).

What is our problem?  How do we get ourselves into these situations?  Manufacturers only produce large-scale vehicles because people will buy them.  Should they have refrained to build them on principle or gone out and done what their corporate entities were meant to do: make money?  Despite some dire economic forecasts, it appears we still have enough affluence that people can afford to buy large vehicles.  In a free market economy it is improper to limit what people can do and how they can make a living.  But it would be nice if we, as a people of a society and culture thought for a moment about the repercussions of our actions.  Just because we can do something, does that mean we SHOULD do it?  And if we cannot seem to do the right thing, if the profit motive is so strong that we can do things to damage our environment, then is it ‘improper’ for a nation to make laws limiting this kind of product from being built?  I’m afraid we would see this as government interference.  So can we govern ourselves?  That doesn’t appear likely.  We may yet choke to death on the very exhaust created from the right to buy and drive these vehicles.  When will we begin to do the kind thing instead of the profitable/convenient/cool thing?  When will we begin to lead with integrity rather than from greed?

Look.  I’m not throwing stones at others.  I’m as caught up in all this as everyone else.  I’m already suffering from bruises.  I’m not throwing stones as much as I’m throwing boomerangs, okay!  Or maybe I am throwing stones, only it looks a lot like I’m juggling them and some of the times I miss and they bang into me!  For you see, I’m caught up in all this too.  I am not perfect in any way, though I admit that I have never seen the need for a vehicle the size of an SUV unless people have a practical application for it, which means to me, regular, daily use of all that interior space.  You cannot justify owning a big vehicle because you need to handle the occasional 2x4, or take your family on a two week vacation while all the rest of the time you spend driving it with one person inside it.  (I watched a series of mini-vans drive by me while waiting to cross the road at the university and every single one of them had only one person in them.  Some of those vehicles could have up to eight people in them, but none of the total number of occupants reached half of that number.  If short-term need is your criteria for buying a large vehicle remember that you can rent a vehicle for those one-off purposes.  The money you save in gas the rest of the time because you’re driving a smaller vehicle will pay for the rental.  And in doing this, you save the environment as well!

If living in a free market economy and the profit it generates explains some reasons why we do things contrary to the benefit of our own species and environment, then lack of foresight explains many others.  I don’t think we intend to wreak havoc on the environment when we first design something harmful to us.  We design things because it’s handy, needed, inexpensive, cool, profitable or desired.  These are all admirable reasons for doing something except the “cool" option.  But just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should do something.  In the 1950s at the World’s Fair life was supposed to be so much better because it would be a throw-away society.  We’ve created that society but now we don’t have anywhere to throw all that stuff away.  Humanity needs to start using its gift of vision!

I remember when things used to be made with such quality that we would repair things.  Now for every dollar we save, we have six months less use of out bad products and we turn around and buy something new again.  My mother and father used the same toaster forever.  In the 25 years I’ve been married, the conventional, affordable toaster lasts about 3-5 years and after that time period, it becomes part of the landfill.  If you could find anyone to repair it, the base fee for looking at it would cost more than it would to replace it entirely.  How DID we get to this silly place?  Why don’t we ever think of these things?  How did it become acceptable to us?  Who brought us to this position? 

Mistaken good intentions are another reason why many will watch international games from a nation whose leaders murder defenseless monks because the monks are … inconvenient.  Perhaps it was a good thing to give international games to such a country because holding these games in conjunction with their atrocities has focused the world’s attention upon that nation.  But what was hoped for, that the nation would clean up its act before its crimes upon humanity were exposed didn’t happen.  Maybe something good will come of these circumstances.  But today granting this nation an “international games” looks like a mistake.  Instead of compelling the nation to improve human relations, granting it the games highlighted its barbarism.  Now, to be fair, we must attempt to do the right thing, in hopes of generating the right response.  That the proper response does not occur cannot be said to be our fault, unless we didn’t think enough to realize that the “proper response” was nothing more than wishful thinking!

And lastly, who doesn’t want to save a buck?  We all do, right?  So going to a corporation that builds large stores close to groups of neighbourhood businesses, where the big box can overwhelm a host of small, family businesses while that large company bullies its suppliers and abuses its staff must be okay, because we saved five bucks on that dispensable toaster!  We work hard for our money and we have a right to buy the most we can for as little as we can.  That means the big store drives out the little guy and we win … while a host of others lose.  But we don’t spend a great deal of time thinking about THAT either!

I think the single greatest sin we perform in regards to these issues is that none of what we do to create the scenarios we find ourselves in are bad but when they accumulate, we all look … pretty unkind.  We simply do not place the forethought into our actions that is required.  But I don’t know how to change things.  I don’t think many of us do and I don’t think we feel like we have the power to do much that really matters.

Okay.  I do have an idea.

We need to become kind to ourselves and our fellow human beings.  The kinds of things I’m talking about, the kinds of things I just do or buy may cause or support phenomenal harm to be brought upon others.  Because I want to save a buck or because something’s convenient for me or because I like to watch sport without thought of the repercussions on the lives of millions of innocents I do a great many acts of unkindness.

• People lose their jobs
• People lose their businesses
• The environment is harmed, resulting in draughts, floods, lower food production …
• People lose their lives
• Garbage dumps fill at alarming rates

In truth I think I’m the last person in the world to advocate boycotts or to stand in a picket line.  But I quietly attempt to do the right thing most of the time.  I still fail, and I will point out two failings that I am most currently aware of but here’s what I think we should all do.  When we see a problem each one of us should stop contributing to it … within reason.  I find myself, as much as possible, avoiding businesses that I know bully staff and abuse their vendors.  I no longer buy candy from the manufacturer who pulled out of Smith Falls, Ontario and moved their plant to Mexico to pay poor people a bad salary in order to save three cents per candy bar on the production line.  I don’t buy frozen fruit from the company that pulled their packaging plant out of the Niagara area (resulting in hundreds if not thousands of lost acreage of lost food production) … nor will I knowingly buy vegetables from the corporation that pulled its packaging plant out of southwestern Ontario.

Just as an aside, isn’t it astounding that it makes economical sense to close an existing plant and throw all those people out of work, only to rebuild another plant just like it in another country, negotiate lending rates, reestablish all your supply lines, hire new staff (which you can pay a fraction of that you paid to the old staff) and you can still save money?  And in the process you take advantage of an unsuspecting people by paying them low salaries.  Where is our humanity?  I think it has gone into our greedy RRSPs.  I can’t explain it otherwise.  But if you look at this scenario on the facts, are you not astounded that someone can look you in the eye and say that doing all these things is “good business?”  Certainly they cannot say it contains any good will or human kindness … unless it is human kindness to build up the value of the stocks in our RRSPs.  Both the people laid-off permanently and those the company will employ in the future at a fraction of the previous salaries are victimized.  Why then, when we see the combined unkindness dished out to our fellow human travelers do we even have companies like that in our RRSPs?  The answer, my friend, is not blowing in the wind, but that it brings us good returns.  But is that what we’re all about?  I know we have to look after ourselves, but don’t we also need to look out for the rest of us?  If we’re all so busy making a buck that we don’t care about what’s happening to the people around us, then one day we will fall victim to the chopping block.  (Where’s our visioning now?)  Maybe in an hundred years, it will make sense to move the plant back to Canada and then we can be paid the fraction of a salary that the rich people in Mexico used to receive.

I’m not foolish.  I don’t think I’m making a great huge difference in not buying certain things from companies who do these sorts of things.  And sometimes, I might make a mistake as I buy the same thing from a subsidiary that is still owned by the same firm, but at least I know I tried to do the humanly kind thing buy not giving these companies my hard-earned cash!  You’ll never see here, on these pages, (at least as far as I can see) any recommended boycott against any specific company or nation or whatever, but when you see injustices, I encourage you to stand up for your fellow citizen, nation, environment (and for your self – ask yourself what kind of world do you want to live in?) as best as you can and make a stand.  I think in part I cannot recommend a boycott because I’m beginning to think we might have to boycott everything … because there’s an injustice in everything.  (In Southwestern Ontario strawberry farmers, who grow smaller, sweeter berries, are plowing under their fields because they cannot compete with bigger, less tasty berries flown in from southern climes.  It is cheaper (and more environmentally damaging) to charter a plane and fly less sweet, less tasty berries to this part of the world than it is for farmers to grow sweeter, better tasting berries down the road.  And again I ask you, how did we get to this very weird place?)

Do I get it right all the time?  Do I avoid all the evil nasties out there?  No.  We recently had a hedonistic spending spree as we’d been a long time holding out on getting some quite necessary things.  You know the kind of situation I mean.  I was down to one pair of jeans and my pillow was as flat as a pancake and there were several other things we really needed.  One was a small bookshelf for my office to contain my text books and course notes.  But doing the right thing sometimes has a point of diminishing return.  How many places do you drive to looking for a single, relatively inexpensive bookshelf, even if you are driving in an environmentally friendly car?  And so, we bought that $20 bookshelf from a conglomerate that bankrupts small stores in small towns and squeezes suppliers, compelling them to build plants in China where they too can underpay employees to do what people used to do in North America.  But that’s the ONLY thing we purchased there and we did it because we couldn’t find what we were looking for anywhere else.  I want to do better.  I want a better, kinder world for all of us.  But in buying this product from the corporation that I bought it from, that means I probably unwittingly bought something from a supplier company that in order to sell it to the retail chain, had to go build a plant in a developing country where they too pay people a horrific wage.  So in one dumb act to save money, I probably contributed to the problem by supporting several companies doing the things I have been ranting about.  So that purchase may place several strikes against me.  I admit it.  The purchase was an unkind act.  You do what you can.  Sometimes ‘the man’ has you over a barrel.

And sometimes, my favorite confection … well … there’s only one manufacturer that makes it and it is the company that recently left Canada for Mexico.  I do buy it … once in a while.  But I do buy far less often than I used to (for all sorts of reasons, including my waist-line) and so while I still mess up upon occasion, I know I’m making an impact because the company has a few less bucks a year, anyway.

So here’s my blanket apology.  I am sorry for the things I do which knowingly or unwittingly promote unkindnesses to my fellow human beings.  Sometimes you just have to let ‘the man’ win because to do the truly right thing means doing other wrong things to achieve your goal.  I could have continued to look for that bookshelf at a kinder store, but how much more of the environment did I want to trash by driving to three more stores?  To those good companies I should and fail to support, I am sorry.  It’s hard to be perfect in the complex world of international conglomerate companies.  Someone told me recently how hard it is to be an ethical investor.  Companies are so large that invariably they are involved with something we would disagree with.  What are you going to do?  Do you stop buying a book from X because a related company Y makes bombs?  It’s hard.  It’s hard to know what’s right.  It’s hard to even think that one of us can do what is right and feel like it makes any kind of impact at all.  But I believe we do make an impact.  If we vote with our feet, when it comes to making purchases or viewing international sport or whatever, companies and nations will eventually get the message and perhaps, they will begin to do the right things.  I believe we can make a human kindness difference, one purchase, or perhaps, one non-purchase at a time.

Remember to practice human kindness towards one another eh?

Owen

You can print off a version of the article here.
June 2008 Article 3