Can't Buy Me Love pt. 1

D'y'know what's funny? There are books being sold on the topic of decommodification. I don't know if that makes me happy for its sheer ridiculousness or sad like when I see stagnant, established "Anarchist symbols". Oxymorons and contradictions have a beautiful unity, perfect irony, and somehow a structural integrity. There is a tension that cannot be resolved, and it always on the brink of collapse, yet is too lusciously balanced to fall. That's not what I want to talk about, though. Decommodifying. The tragedy of the commons. I find it terrifying that in modern society, if things aren't assigned some sort of economic value and purchased by someone, we either are or think we are incapable of taking care of them or valuing them. Non-monetary value can be expressed in economic terms, which is a step forward of sorts (looking beyond GDP), but it still feels horribly wrong. It's mercenary and cynical. Yes, that's why I don't like it. It's like characterizing a throbbing, emotional, human relationship in terms of gains and losses--costs and benefits. It makes it easier to imagine it ethical to exchange goods and services for intangibles like love, trust, and respect. We already make some of these trades, but unwittingly, and in a sense: innocently.

Decommodify: to take the trade and barter out of basic human essentials and return common resources and intangible human assets to their natural--noncommercial--state. In other words: stop selling things like environmental quality, health, happiness, education etc. In a technical and cold, calculating sense, one most certainly may put a price on these things, but it is deeply unethical and should be stopped.


More on this later.

Letter to the Editor

Yesterday I was reading the newspaper and getting angry as usual, but for some reason, a letter to the editor motivated me into action: I'm writing a response.

Here is the ridiculous letter:

Minority Rule

Here we go again. The UNC-CH library is not putting up a Christmas tree for fear of someone being "offended." Are we offended when someone wears a yarmulke? Are we offended when someone wears a turban? Are we offended when someone wears an abaya? Are we offended when we hear someone say, "Happy Hanukkah"? Do we insist that Muslims not fast during Ramadan? Of course, we don't. These are all public displays of religious beliefs. Christians wear no special clothing or badges to identify themselves, and the only public display of their religion is twice a year: Easter and Christmas.
Over 80 percent of Americans "profess" to be Christians. ARe we going to allow the minority to rule the majority? Emblazoned on office buildings in Washington and in courthouses throughout the nation are the words "In God We Trust." How can we continue to be a strong nation if we don't stand up for our beliefs? When we allow this to happen, we become weak and trampled upon.
What's next? Thank God, Congress still opens its session with a prayer.
God bless America and Merry Christmas.
-Richard Pinkard
Apex

My first response, unfortunately, was a blind "Whathakljhiosjhti;hioh o e", but I've recovered. Here's my draft in response:

Richard Pinkard's Dec. 13^th Letter, “Minority rule”, complaining of the lack of representation of Christianity at UNC-CH, namely a Christmas tree, is absolutely ludicrous. Mr. Pinkard sets up several remarkably misleading parallels regarding the expression of faith in public—making the specious claim that personal/individual expressions like yarmulkes, turbans, and hijabs are essentially the same as that of a public university displaying a Christmas tree. It is astounding that Mr. Pinkard cannot see the difference between a state school specifically endorsing a particular religion and an individual expressing his/her faith. Further, he portrays Christians as a persecuted class by failing to mention that there are no regulations preventing Christians from wearing crucifixes, affixing the Ichthys to their cars, and putting up their own Christmas trees. There is a strange argument implicit in his insistence that Christians are being prevented from showing their beliefs publicly: one's faith is somehow being disrespected if it is not at center stage in the public square.

On top of his strange logic regarding the expression of faith, Mr. Pinkard entirely disregards the separation of church and state by using the percentage of the population who are Christian to justify his outrage. Not only is it irrelevant, but his apocryphal statistics are incorrect: according to the CIA World Factbook, only 68.5%, not the 80% he claims, of Americans are Christian (Protestant, Roman Catholic, Mormon, and “Other Christian”).

-Jessie

Apex

There are so many things wrong with his thinking that I couldn't possibly fit them into one letter, but I certainly tried to hit the worst offenses. I didn't even try to touch the congressional prayer issue...

Thoughts?