Thursday, October 26, 2017

Horseshoes and Hand Grenades


Please be patient with me. The following is just a brush with a much deeper conversation.

Frank Robinson (still living) was a Major League Baseball baseball player. He has been attributed as the person who first said, "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." The quote appeared in Time magazine July 31, 1973. It is a quote I once said often. Another phrase I currently use is, “Green shaming is just another form of bullying.”

Green Shaming is a specific form of what is known as Culture Jamming, a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements. “There are four emotions that activists often want viewers to feel. These emotions - shock, shame, fear, and anger - are believed to be the catalysts for social change.” (quote source Wikipedia) Also from Wikipedia, “Guilt is a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realizes-accurately or not-that he or she has compromised his or her own standards of conduct or has violated a universal moral standard and bears significant responsibility for that violation.

So I will explain how “horseshoes and hand grenades”, Green Shaming and guilt tie in together for me today. But first I would like to mention briefly another conjoining term. Activism Ethics. Activism Ethics needs further open source study. There is research on this but most are on those sites where you have to have academic credentials to even read them. That is why I am an advocate of open source knowledge. (my website page on this is here)

As an lifelong political and social activist I have always tried to live by a set of values. Specifically the philosophy of Ahimsa. I also consider myself a Pantheist as it relates to nature worship and my desire not to be an Anthropocentrist holding myself above the rest of creation. I have always had struggles with that. But recently a situation has come upon me that has garnered much anxiety for me. Mice.

In my home I have always had mice and have used catch and release methods for years to deal with them. But these days my physical body is not well and it is difficult to do best practices with catching and releasing mice. I have been agonizing about it for about a month now. I recently came to a decision about it and now I find I am really getting stuck on Green Shaming myself and also struggling with my Activism Ethics.

Living in this modern world and society it is near impossible to adhere to these ethics. For instance how many of us actually do not participate in the use of plastics? Or the mining of rare earth metals that often come via some form of Indigenous Racism just as oil and other natural resources we use every day.

Bottom line I do not like Green Shaming of others. But I find I am adept at using it on myself. And as far as other activism I pour guilt on myself in regard to the mice of not really practicing Ahisma or Pantheism. As a means of justification many use what is know as “whataboutism”. Another action I abhor. Can ther be a reverse whataboutism to use on one's self like saying, “Ya, I kill and support racism but look at all these groups I support and rallies I attend. Don't that balance it out?”

So if I catch and release my mice directly into the garbage can with food, can it ease my mind that when the garbage man takes them to the dump they may survive? Or is it true that, "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades."? Do the Jains really never step on a bug? What do they feel and do if they do? As an activist is “cutting ourselves some slack” just a convenient excuse? Still wondering, no real answers. It all may may seem silly but the anxiety is real. What do you think?

Just for drill a couple of articles:



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