Talking to Karl at length tonight about activism. He got me thinking (as he usually does). Why haven’t I been an activist all along?—especially when it comes to causes that affect me directly (many orgs do) and/or where there are interesting people and projects. I think it’s threatening to me, in a way, and my tendency when being threatened by something is to fly above (abstract and mull over) the situation, delaying resoluion. I was thinking I might do this when it comes to activism, to keep myself from getting embroiled in the issues and, the thought goes, from getting hurt. In fact, I’m abstracting my role as an activist right now just by writing this paragraph.

In one sense this is a good defence mechanism (I’m definitely not getting hurt), but there are big disadvantages if, in fact, I’m feeling nothing at all. I’m struggling with this… but I know I don’t take the abstract fly-over approach for an issue if I have some preëxisting context or some clearer sign of personal impact. (In my sheltered life,) I feel a responsibility to be an informed citizen, but reading the paper every day so I can understand and respond to everything coming down the pike is a bit much.

So I think I’m struggling to find how and when this stuff fits into my already cluttered life. Especially the how part. I’m happy to be working for a company that considers itself environmentally friendly, but that’s about all I can say for myself. The real question is: How can I find out where I’ll have the most impact and, simultaneously, enjoy my volunteer work enough to not get frustrated? I don’t think it’s selfish to say I should get something out of it (even just a sense of having done my civic duty). It’s just practical.

Speaking of activism, earlier today I found myself in a long conversation with Greg about globalization. A box of electronic components arrived today from Taiwan, and we started thinking about who made them and so on. Did they come from a sweatshop? Or a place with decent labor practices?

Hard to say. Where do you get the hard data on companies and their labor practices, halfway across the world? (is this a web site idea? even if it is, you’d have to have the data first)

This also got me thinking about ways to balance capitalism with the desire to at least do no harm… but I don’t see feasible options here, unless companies either take this stuff to heart as part of their “brand strategy” (eg Aveda) or have a serious PR problem (like P. Ditty’s Haitian t-shirt sweat shops for his “Sean Jean” clothes) and need to address it by paying a higher price for fair labor.

Speaking of fair labor and such, I was reminded that I an idea long ago for a documentary film that takes an object, say a bag of potato chips, and examines the entire production, origins, use, and eventual death of that bag of potato chips. What does the life cycle look like? The bag of chips, lying in a landfill heap, is at once both a tiny, inconspicuous object (micro/macro with the larger pile of trash) and an illustration of so many larger things: natural vs artificial (the expanse between raw materials and final product), neglected environmental responsibility, industrialization, social issues (obesity, etc), globalization and labor issues, and so on..

I am scared by how big this idea sounds. It’s not necessarily any good, but it’s big. I think it takes someone like Godfrey Reggio (Koyaanisqatsi) to cover this kind of ground in a meaningful way.

Anyway, the really important bit here is to show a glimpse of an object’s impact on the world… and tie that back to society and responsibility and so on.

Another idea is to create a chart of these product life cycles. But unlike most corporate versions of this chart (which end when the product leaves the door), this life cycle would continue to consumption and eventual disposal (or, the myth thereof). Create a time bar for each product. The color of the bar at a given point indicates its place in the life cycle (raw material collection, production, shipping/sales, consumption, and eventual decomposition). The length of the line would indicate the length of the entire cycle. What would the line look like for an apple (minimal raw material collection, no production, short shipping/sales cycle, quick consumption, quick decomposition) vs, say, a light bulb (difficult raw material collection, a non-zero production cycle, longer shipping/sales, longer consumption, and longer decomposition)