shame

Every time you spend money, you cast a vote for the kind of society you want

Aoife O'Riordan, , , 9 Comments

Have you ever seen a thing and thought to yourself, “that thing there is both true and.. kind of disingenuous? Maybe a bit problematic?” Agreed with something while simultaneously thinking it’s fairly dodgy?

Take a look at this quote:

Every time you spend money, you're casting a vote for the kind of world you want

Yep. I can’t argue with the truth of the statement- the fact that our money does support the companies making the things that we pay for is not something that we can get away from. I’m generally in favour of people voting with their wallets. If my money goes toward a sustainable, local business that provides great working conditions from its employees and sources its products ethically? That’s obviously a hell of a lot better than that same money going towards a company that tears apart communities and environments.

But it’s a problematic statement to make, as well. Because- like more kinds of voting than most of us are comfortable admitting- voting with our wallets isn’t something that we can all do.

Can you afford to vote?

When I have money to spare, I buy ethically sourced products and try to be careful about where my money is going. I minimise the amount of my money that goes towards people that I know to be seriously unethical. It’s something that I keep in mind. I do my best.

But I can’t do it all the time.

It’s unavoidable that the people who are most screwed-over by our economic systems are those who are least able to exercise choice in what they spend their money on. If I’m completely broke, I don’t get to decide to spend my money on sustainable products. I need to eat and I need new socks and I get what I can afford. Yes, that means that sometimes I buy things made by people I know to be dodgy. Yes, I would prefer if it wasn’t so. But there’s not much I can do about it.

Except when there is.

Sometimes, of course, I’m not flat broke but I don’t have a massive amount of disposable income. Then I’m faced with only having the basics, all sourced ethically, or else getting some dodgy things and having money for little luxuries. That’s the choice. And a lot of the time, yes, I choose to take care of myself. Most people do.

I’ve heard a lot of people talk (often loudly) about how they only buy things that are organic, free-range, fair-trade, locally sourced, and all of the rest. I rarely hear that from someone who can’t afford not only their basics, but also the odd treat, that way. And yes, affordability is about time as much as it is about money. I can have cakes if I can buy them, or if I can bake them.

If I had enough disposable income to afford the things I need to keep going, the little luxuries that keep me happy, and to do so ethically, I’d do that. But if I have to make choices, then, well.. those choices will depend on a lot of factors. 

And I’m not sure those choices make as much of a difference as we tell ourselves they do.

What are we changing, really?

The idea that we should purchase ethically sourced and produced things from people who treat their workers well is a great one. And it definitely has the potential to make a certain amount of difference. But it’s not going to fix everything.

Not everyone can buy more expensive things that were produced ethically- the very system that makes it important leaves many of us without the resources to do it. When the problem is that people’s resources and work are being stolen from them or auctioned off for far less than they’re worth, are they really going to have much left over for buying things sold for what they are worth? Of course not. The cards are stacked against people from the beginning.

And it’s not going to fix things. Even if everybody in the world bought ethically sourced products from fantastic businesses all the time, we’d have, at best, a precariously balanced kind of good. We still have a system ripe for exploitation. One that would require constant vigilance on the part of, it seems, absolutely everybody in order for it to work to make a decent standard of living for everyone. Even a profoundly flawed system could work okay if everyone in it was decent, upstanding, good people who always work ethically towards the common good. But we don’t live in a world where that’ll happen, and we evidently don’t have a system that is robust enough to work with flawed people without leading to ridiculous exploitation.

Shaming

Oh, I love talking about shame, don’t I? Shame gets on my nerves. A kind of shaming that really gets on my nerves is where people who are privileged to have enough resources to regularly support ethically sourced products and businesses (yay!) seem to think that absolutely everyone has a moral obligation to do the same.

No.

The people who are most messed-around by a system are not those who have the greatest moral obligation to do something about it. They’re the people who often end up doing so, yeah. But that’s mainly because nobody else will.

But people- even people who aren’t in a great economic situation- have the right to make decent lives for ourselves. And blaming the worst-off people for a situation that is not of their making, because in some small way they don’t have much options but to contribute to it? That’s just not okay.

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Every time you spend money, you cast a vote for the kind of society you want
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But I like to like the things I like! Sacrifice, enjoyment and ethics.

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , , 5 Comments

“You can tell I like food too much”

I really, really dislike it when people say that. The most recent time someone said that to me was today, and I was at a loss as to how to respond. I know that what the person meant is that they would like to be skinner, but food is delicious so I eat too much of it and now there is too much of me. They say it with a rueful, regretful tone. If only they had more control, if only food didn’t have such power over them, their virtue would shine through their lean, lean bodies.

I’m always amazed at how our society manages to make a sin, make a wrong out of our most basic desires. There’s a pervasive idea that virtue and goodness are things which happen when we prevent ourselves from experiencing ‘too much’ enjoyment. Especially when what you’re enjoying is something basic, something uncomplicated. People don’t get called sluts or pigs for enjoying too much opera, or too many good books.

The thing about opera and good books, of course, is that you have to learn to like them, and not everyone has the combination of resources, inclination, cultural and social incentives, and time to do so. No matter how gluttonously you devour yet another deliciously marvellous book, no matter how delightfully the prose sends a shiver up your spine, you would never be expected to show regret in your enjoyment. Enjoyment of a good book sends a signal that you are a person who is educated and classy enough, intelligent and cultured enough to choose to do so.

Food, though? We think of food very differently. Where enjoying a good book is purely enjoyable, food is fraught. It’s tied up with bodies, with perceived attractiveness, with class, with self-control or ‘letting yourself go’. It’s not just pleasure, it’s a guilty pleasure. From carrots to cookies, every item of food comes with its own moral weight, its own message of virtue or sin.

But you know something? Food is lovely. Food is delicious, and it is satisfying in a way that nothing else can be. And while it can worry and evoke guilt, it can also comfort. A month or so ago, I made a rather terrible cheesey pasta bake, which I managed to ruin in precisely the same way that my granny sometimes used to ruin macaroni cheese. At the end of a long day, I could imagine nothing so comforting as this lumpy, grainy sauce, tasting like my granny swearing blind to my mother that she hadn’t done anything wrong and hadn’t left it, not for a second, and didn’t the child like it anyway*?

I don’t think that we should need excuses to enjoy food, though. Not that we were ‘good’ and went to the gym earlier. Not even that it’s been a long day and this tastes just like the way my granny made it- although that is always wonderful. In and of itself, food can be delicious. We have to eat it several times a day- why shouldn’t we enjoy each of those to the full? Let go of guilt, of a sense of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ foods, eat when we are hungry and until we are full, savour and enjoy each bite to the fullest extent? Forget about ‘too much’, and enjoy as much as you do, like as much as you do, take as much pleasure from food as you can? Can’t we let go of rueful, self-effacing resignation, of judging and being judged as greedy, of giving calories a moral weight, and simply like to like the things we like?

.

*turns out she was right, actually. I didn’t leave it either- I managed to mess it up in an entirely more creative way. I’m not going to tell you what it is, though. Making lumpy cheesey pasta sauce like my granny did sometimes is something I’m going to keep between me and her memory 🙂

But I like to like the things I like! Sacrifice, enjoyment and ethics.