I saw Annie Leonard! The superstar of the progressive movement! Yes, the one who made The Story of Stuff movie! What a powerful woman. She’s on a mission to make people think rather than obey the system, to value each other rather than possessions, and to get more fulfillment from life.
Annie Leonard is so passionate and so determined about something everybody else refuses to engage with – garbage. This overlooked, subversive aspect of our civilization is a symptom of what we’ve done wrong. Annie has spent 20 years researching “global waste trafficking.” She’s gotten down to dumps and landfills and wastelands in places like China and Haiti. Annie has the rare talent of putting profound insights into simple words. She brings to our awareness what we’re determined at not seeing. And, by shoving our faults in our face, she empowers us.
The 20-minute-long Story of Stuff film, which you can see for free online, summarizes the way the consumer economy works – measuring our societal value by the things we own and dubbing them obsolete fast so that we need to buy new things… All of it is just Annie talking in front of a white background, supplemented by stickman animation. Incredible.
We have that faint sense that something wasn’t working out right. That tinge of guilt when we throw away a garbage bag full of plastic or when we put away a new birthday present in the closet (because we have too much stuff and there’s no room for it). But we prefer to suppress that tinge. We don’t want to be disturbed. We chose to comply with the way things are. All those many, many things.
Surprisingly, being aware, angry, and involved gives much more fulfillment than, well… stuff. Realizing what is wrong is not a sad thing. It’s the way to positive change. We have to allow ourselves to live through the crisis. Only then can we become better.
So Annie did not spare us; she said, “We’re trashing the planet. We’re trashing each other. And we’re not even having fun.”
The first problem is the environment. Pollution, climate change run wild, extinguished biodiversity… Annie said, “At this point, if you don’t know we’re trashing the planet, you either live in a cave or you work at Fox News.”
Second, our communities suffer together with nature. The value shift to commodities, orchestrated by the American government after World War II, has given us a passive, sick, and increasingly discontent society. Current studies show that the American nation is not happy. We don’t know our neighbors. We spend more time alone. A quarter of the population say that they don’t have anyone to speak to about what personally concerns them. How sad is that? As Annie said, what is the value of a fancy new Ikea kitchen table if you don’t have a gang of neighbors and friends to crowd around it?
“We are increasingly forgetting how to be engaged citizens in a democracy.” When Annie speaks to groups of people, they often ask her what kind of things they should buy to make a change. But “solutions are not for sale at the store!” We have become so submissive and inert that we cannot see possibilities beyond this corporate system. Buying organic is a good thing, but it will not rebuild society. In fact, a better thing to do would be to turn to the person next to you on the line behind the counter and to talk to them and invite them to dinner and discuss what you could do together! Annie has a theory that there are two parts in our brain – a consumer and a citizen. The first is nurtured constantly, while the second has atrophied. With it, a part of our happiness is gone. Because nothing makes us happier than constructive relationships.
70% of American citizens say they sympathize with environmental problems. What we need to do now is engage in “informed, rational, respectful discourse.” This comes back to the issue of politics – Bioneers’ underlying theme. It’s about regrouping and strategizing and, most of all, just being together. Communism? You could call it that. I understand it as true, inclusive democracy. One in which we all put the effort into being “intentional [in our actions], intelligent, compassionate, and just.”
The word “politics” comes from the Greek polis, which means “city.” We have to be citizens in our communities, to participate in groups, to voice our opinions, to listen, and to demand structural change. No more abuse of the land. Support for progressive farmers… At Bioneers, we want nothing short of a better society. We need to stop looking at stuff as the way to fulfillment (which would only bring “debt, depression, anxiety, and isolation” – Kenny Ausubel). We need to look at each other.
If you have somehow not seen the Story of Stuff yet, please visit www.storyofstuff.com.
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