The Monster

I keep ranting about various problems with industrial society, except industrial society sounds pedantic if I rant about it more than... oh, once. (Oops?) It's a very sterile and academic phrase, besides. Henceforth it shall be known as the Monster (capitalized to distinguish it from smaller cuter monsters that probably don't cause enough trouble to even deserve to be associated closely with the Monster. Oh well. Language is an imperfect tool.)

Many people seem to like to think of the Monster in segments. Perhaps it's less overwhelming that way. But the more I look into it the more it looks like one big problem rather than a thousand not-quite-as-large ones. The kyriarchy, the obscenely uneven distribution of wealth (resulting largely from the kyriarchy as far as I can tell but seen as a problem by itself), and the destruction of the environment we and many other species need in order to survive (not to mention other factors that are probably slipping my mind at the moment) are all related, so they are all part of the Monster. The Monster separates us from each other and our environment by distracting us with shiny products, dividing people over petty differences, and encouraging destructive behavior through tradition and short-term rewards. As a result, we fill our world with unnecessary cruelty and will, one way or another, ultimately destroy ourselves as a species (taking many other species with us.)

Usually if a monster is troublesome enough someone (probably multiple someones) slays it, but as far as I can tell, it would take a pretty extensive revolution to slay this Monster. I prefer to avoid violent conflict whenever possible, so for the time being I am decidely not in favor of slaying the Monster, because it is too big to go down without causing fuckloads of bloodshed and destruction regardless of how it eventually dies.

And formidable as the Monster is, I expect it to die soon (most likely within my lifetime) because the way it lives is simply unsustainable. This planet does not have the physical resources for the Monster to exist indefinitely. But even so, there are better and worse ways to kill this thing. Considering how much environmental damage the thing's doing and how long that damage will last, waiting for it to waste away might be as destructive as slaying it.

My favorite approach for now is attempting to starve the monster by washing my hands of it as much as is practical. I'd like to say possible, but to be completely honest, just because I could try and become a hermit and live completely off the land somewhere (or, probably more within the realm of possibility, a squatting freegan) doesn't mean I'm willing to. Yet. Like most of us, I'm also rather attached to fossil fuels, although I try to reduce my use by taking public transit when I can. However, there are some things within my control--I do my best to buy organic, fair trade, local, and secondhand (when applicable) as much as I can, and reduce my spending overall (because the industrial economy is a big part of the Monster, after all. Spending any money at all feeds it.) I've also taken the step of avoiding any products made by or with the bodies of animals and continue striving to unlearn the Monster's teachings.

In addition to the reasons mentioned in the first post, the term Monster also implies that the problem is alive (as you may have noticed.) This is also important, because if you're able to read this you're part of the Monster. Maybe we'll break free of it someday, but for now, the Monster acts through all of us just living our lives. But, hey, even if there's little we can do to control it, we can at least come up with cheerier names for it.