Gobbledegook Logic (or Who Moved My Trapeze?

posted 10/04/2007
Some years ago I read that when England enacted the Slavery Abolition Bill of 1833, it wasn't entirely an act of moral awakening. While some deeply committed women and men worked tirelessly to end this inhumane institution, at its core, it was economics that brought about abolition. All that free labor was producing lots of great stuff, but England lacked a working class capable of consuming it. After the English owning class and the merchant class had skimmed off whatever they wanted and could afford, there was all this stuff lying around and no buyers. The English government, in its great wisdom, realized that if it didn't create its own domestic class of paid slaves who made just enough to purchase the stuff they were producing, they were going to be in a world of economic hurt.

Ever since I filed that factoid away, I've never heard of any act of market altruism without wanting to peek beneath the curtain and look for the self-interest that is bound to be there somewhere. If you don't already know this, click onto to a stamp fact sheet. You may be surprised to learn that the U.S. Department of Defense implements the U.S. Postal Service stamp program that funds breast cancer research. Every time you think that you are doing a good thing for women (and you are) by spending a few extra pennies on your pink-ribbon stamp, some of it is funneled back to the Department of Defense. The American Cancer Association is pleased, because they have a consistent source of funding; the Department of Defense is pleased because you are, voluntarily, funding god-knows-what. I'll give you a moment to clutch your chest and put your head in your hands…sit…breathe…rest…read on. If you think this is shockingly disingenuous, welcome to the wonderful world of self-interest and all the possibilities it holds.

I don't know much about economics (and some might say that I don't know nothin' 'bout nothin' at all), but I got to the part in Macro 101 where all of us are in the market on some level, however marginally. Beggars in Bombay turn their earnings over to their agent, who in turn pays the shop owner so that the beggar can monopolize a particular corner. The policeman is bribed to leave the beggar alone, and the market stall owner is paid to provide a morsel of food to keep the beggar alive to beg another day. We all either offer goods and services or consume goods and services. Almost all of us do both and we must enter the market and realize some sort of a profit or positive outcome to justify our activity. Therefore, any claims to pure altruism in the marketplace are highly suspicious'

. A new age has dawned in which both consumers and providers are trying to spin their output as having a higher, more spiritual purpose than mere grubby trade. "Green", "organic", "holistic" and "sustainable" are all spin-words encouraging the consumer to pretend that whatever they're buying has just materialized within their proximity against all laws of logic and has made no impact on dwindling natural resources whatsoever. Somehow, in this green scenario, the organic cotton patch is in a protective bubble that isolates it from any insecticides sprayed on the neighbor's cotton. The organic variety is not processed by any mechanical means. Instead, it is handled from boll to bath sheet by cotton tenders who walk to the hand-powered gin carrying the cotton in recycled sacks. After ginning, the cotton is distributed by handcart among members of the village vegan weaving cooperative who spin and weave the fiber into fabric by solar-charged light. No fuel is used. There is no machinery. It’s 1011 A.D. all over again.

That brings me to today's mail and my invitation to attend classes at The Crossings. What is The Crossings? I'm glad you asked. The Crossings, a toney retreat center in central Texas that aspires to rival the likes of the Esalen Institute and The Omega Center, is "a learning environment" that "expands awareness", and "inspires conscious choices by individuals, organizations, and cultures in the work of transformation and renewal."

I am in possession of the winter schedule which runs from November through February and is focused on "sustainability", and what it might mean to me. By attending the buffet of classes at The Crossings, we (you can come too, if you like) can "broaden our understanding of sustainability beyond the earth's natural resources to sustainability of our relationships, our spirituality (which feeds our purpose in life), our economic security and viability, and our physical health. To some, sustainability may mean lasting forever, and we need a way to ensure that not only our natural resources, but also our mind, body, heart, and soul are sustained, supported, and refreshed."

The rest of The Crossings catalogue is entirely devoted to marketing The Crossings as a spa, and a Leadership Retreat Center. So much sustainability, so little time. Where to begin? At The Crossings I may partake of organic pumpkin facials, trapeze classes (entitled "Weekend Adventure in Trapeze"…my perfect idea of hell), a class in learning to restore my fertility naturally (while I've been doing everything within my power to dampen my fertility artificially), the hypnosis diet, a course in "natural" singing, and a rather obscure workshop called The Gift of Self-Compassion.

Wait, wait. There's more: I can attend weekend retreats devoted to Soulful Connection and Sexual Fulfillment for Couples (as if), the Five Portals of Wellness (only five? Not eight or eleven?), Vision Seeker Cosmology, a New Beginning through Watercolor, scalp treatment and something called a Mukhralepa Indian Bridal Facial (don't know how I've gotten along this far without that). More offerings include complete meeting packages within a green-built meeting space, morning and afternoon organic snacks, buffet-style lunch with lake view, live music, and hot tub. The catalogue makes this all clear to me by, helpfully, defining sustainability: "Characteristic of a process of state that can be maintained at a certain level indefinitely."

First off, raise your hand if you do not understand that anything that cannot regenerate itself like, say, iron, will not last forever. By its very definition, "finite" means that there comes a point in time - maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but some day - where finite things end. Our natural resources are most definitely finite and not sustainable unless God decides to send us some more raw materials. We can manage what we have more carefully, certainly. We can use new and alternative materials to lessen the burden on remaining resources.

But even though solar energy is renewable energy, the materials used to make solar collectors and cells are finite. Wind is sustainable; wind turbines are finite. Bio-diesel lessens our dependence on petroleum, but it also has the adverse effect of causing farmers to clear land and put their energies into growing plants for alternative fuel, which still requires chemicals to grow and fuel to process.

According to this sustainability logic, I can sustain the pumpkin facials I receive at The Crossings on to eternity as long as I am in harmony with the philosophy espoused by The Crossing. I will apply the principles of Conscious Capitalism; e.g., "when corporations and businesses are conscious about how they conduct their business and who they conduct it with based on the business practices and their impact on communities and the planet." Conscious Capitalism is the Siamese twin of Corporate Social Responsibility: "a comprehensive set of policies, practices, and programs that earn financial success in ways that honor ethical values, and respect people, communities, and the natural environment."

I think this means that if we all get really, really pure about our vision and our intentions, we can ignore the truth that it takes raw stuff to make manufactured stuff that we sell to make a living and, even better, a solid profit..

I assume that the marketing firm in charge of The Crossings account and used one of my favorite websites, Gobbledegook Generator. The Gobbledegook Generator is, essentially, a program that allows you to generate the same sort of mystifying non-speak and make it sound every bit as high-minded and obfuscated as anything The Crossroads can yak up. A second ago, I generated this: "The consultants recommend quality monitored contingencies." Lovers of precise language, everywhere, despair at definitions that define nothing.

Let's just presume, shall we, that The Crossings is all about Conscious Capitalism and Corporate Social Responsibility and how both of these vague non-definitions relate to sustainability (I know it doesn't make any rational sense; it's not supposed to so put your hand down). Now, let's apply the notion of sustainability to my organic pumpkin facial from Eminence Organic Skin Care of Hungary, since it's hard to argue with the sustainability of a pumpkin. As the end consumer of the organic pumpkin facial, I will be paying $115 to $145 to The Crossroads. Right off, this is pretty pricey for pumpkin which is less than $3 for a can of even the organic kind, although, I understand that my facial includes more than simple pumpkin. I'll be able to "relish a delicious combination of organic ingredients specially designed to hydrate and refine [my] skin while infusing it with fresh-squeezed nutrients and antioxidants."

Someone, somewhere is farming pumpkins. More than likely, this farmer, organic or not, is using land, irrigation and farm machinery which uses a petroleum based fuel. When the pumpkins are ripe, they are trucked to storage or to a cannery where they are processed by machines that consume power. The raw pumpkin is delivered by some means to a cosmetics lab (probably NOT in Hungary) that uses some percentage of pumpkin and mixes it with a lot of other ingredients that, if plant based, have also been grown, harvested, trucked, processed and delivered. Even the most "natural" of products, have some sort of chemical stabilizer so that when you open the lovely ornate jar (which has been made from recycled glass which was trucked to a recycling plant, turned back into slag, trucked to a glass plant and formed back into jars), a lot of rotten smelly pumpkin doesn't spill out. The jars are delivered to the cosmetics plant and the pumpkin facial puree is packed into the jars, which are boxed in some sort of container (probably cardboard, possibly recycled and trucked from the source to the recycling plant, trucked to the pulp plant, reformed into new boxes, printed and delivered to either the cosmetics plant or the packing plant). Eminence Organic Skin care labels are tacked on, promotional materials printed in full color glossy stock are included, and the pumpkin facials are sent out by truck, train and air freight across the world.

I drive thirty miles to my facial appointment at The Crossings. My facialist, probably, used her own transportation because The Crossings is located on a rural scenic lake that isn't near any sort of public transportation. And that's just the pumpkin facial. If I am keen to enjoy any of the other "sustainable" services offered by The Crossings, I have to keep in mind all of the energy and raw materials involved in getting me and my trapeze instructor together for our trapeze adventure.

My point is that the notion of "sustainable" is absurd. The only way my pumpkin facial would sustain itself would be if I grew my own pumpkin, and waited for it to mature, nourishing it only with rainwater and sunshine. Then, on the day I was ready for my facial, I picked up a handy rock and split the pumpkin asunder. If I lay down on the ground, scoop out a handful of pumpkin goo, slather it on my face, let it dry and then rinse it off using water gathered in a puddle, then, and only then, could I reasonably expect my future pumpkin facials to go on indefinitely as defined by The Crossings parameters of "sustainable."

I don't care if people make wads of money giving trapeze classes and teaching people to ratchet up their fertility. I don't even object that someone is teaching a class on cultivating compassion for $275, even though if you were REALLY cultivating compassion instead of spending a couple of days at a nice spa, you'd find someone who desperately needed $275 and give it to them.

I'm saying that the pretense of "sustainable" and "green" and "holistic" can be misleading. Some stuff is, certainly, better for the environment and better for our bodies. Some fiber plants need far less pesticides and water and leave a much lighter ecological footprint. Harnessing cleaner energy is critical for many environmental and political reasons. We've been recklessly pooping in our nest for a long time, and it's getting harder to find a clean place to perch. But unless goods and services start magically materializing out of thin air, natural resources and fuel are consumed in almost everything we do or use, even if you slap a sustainable sticker on it and proclaim the purity of your intentions.

Do you remember that old ad for THE BIG INVENTORY BLOWOUT SALE that proclaimed, "The MORE you BUY, the MORE you SAVE!!!"? When in truth, the more you buy, the more you spend. This spin is "The MORE you CONSUME of GREEN STUFF, the MORE you SUSTAIN!" Gobbledegook logic - you gotta love it.

Now, who moved my trapeze?

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Ingrid is currently living and respectably employed in Austin, Texas with a firm specializing in environmental law. She hopes to get back home to the San Juan Islands next spring to stay.
While Ingrid is spiritually promiscuous, she credits her guru, Jimmy Buffet, for her mantra..."If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." Besides a passion for Tiki Studies, Ingrid is borderline biblio-obsessive. She is an old-school Libran - i.e., she won't be leading the Revolution, but she'll work to make it an attractive affair and hire the musicians and caterers."

Her column appears every other Thursday in San Juan Islander. To contact Ingrid, send emails to ingrid@sanjuanislander.com

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