the comedy of the commons

in our effort(s) to "save things," how are we not just manipulating things as they are?

see, traditional conservation efforts wish to maintain things as they are by preventing humans from interfering (as if we're aliens or something!), or by providing limits to what we allow each other to do.  it's the stop!  don't touch! reactionism of a parent.  by "traditional" I mean "of my generation" - I've always assumed conservation to mean "stop or limit taking these resources from the environment." 

now on the other hand, you have market/capitalist "conservation" efforts which aim to ascribe ownership to certain resources - resources that humans value.  say the tasty fish we want to eat.  I think Unilever is an example where the firm realized that if they keep fishing at the rate they've been fishing they will no longer be in business after 25 years - so they favor a self-imposed limit to resource extraction.  it is almost as if they favor governmental intervention to protect what they see as a shared resource - in fact it is - because they're intimately vested in the ocean and its resources.  so they seek protection.  and by "protection," here, they mean that if they value it, they will take care of it.  they are vested in this resource - therefore they will protect it and develop it and advance it and find better and new ways to save, preserve, produce, and ultimately deliver it.  to me and my belly.  now when you say ownership and when you say property rights - what you mean is protection of these rights by an outside agency - usually a government with a big stick.  it is easy to confuse the "free market" rhetoric with actual freedom to do whatever it is that you want.  what is actually going on is the government is tasked with protecting the individual and his or her "established" rights - rights assumed from as far back as the Enlightenment or whatever.  and I would tend to agree - what is being argued is that the will of the people (the collective) should not trump the rights of a single individual.  what is at play here is the point at which an individual's rights trump the rights of the collective.  I'm always for the individual - because eff you fuckers - I've got one life to live, and as far as I can see, one person can only do so much damage.  however, when individuals direct and manipulate the collective will - and the masses comply - that's when you get into trouble.  distinguishing between tyranny and individualism can be simple or confusing - depending on where you're coming from and what your predisposition is.  and as far as I can tell in America: we've royally fucked up any and all such distinction.  look at the crap that comes out of our leaders' orifi. 

now where were we.  right, I was trying to defeat the concept of conservation.  listen - whether you hamfist it and block everyone from tapping a resource - or whether you select resources to protect and allow ownership of - either way you are ascribing your will to the planet.  fine.  carve up the ocean and its resources and sell rights and property and so on like we've always done forever and ever amen.  we're going to carve up the world, dissect it, share it, manipulate it, steal it, kill each other over it, and make a game over how to divide and share everything we come across.  how boring.  how human.

there is no difference to me.  the collective will versus the individual will versus communism versus capitalism.  it's all struggle and capture, conquest and allocation.  sure, communism killed more people - because its tenets are harder to enforce and far less intuitive to human beings than are the tenets of capitalism.  something tells me we're not really a capitalist society and something tells me we're not fully communistic either.  big whoop.  the ontology is powernap inducing. 

I'm really bored with all this.  you can overfish and I would not care if I ever ate tuna again in my lifetime.  I will tell my grandchildren what tuna tasted like - now here, shut up and eat this trout I caught.  it doesn't matter to me.  humans will do as humans will always do.  we'll spoil it, ruin it, make it better but not whole.  as if we could ever define that.  I'm quite frankly tired of trying to make sense of it.   

I could really care less about natural resources or pollution or humanity's continued existence for that matter.  to ascribe meaning or moral to this world - to me - is to truly render this world incomprehensible and meaningless.  so I give up.  you can have my will - I no longer want it or wish to exercise it upon anyone or anything.  it's in the mail with no return address.  hell, maybe I'll even email it to you.

fuck it, I'm going fishing.    

h/t:Balko!

Comments

[La Rana]

Pretty good rant; I think I agree on all points. Every once in a while I try to carve up the stodgy "markets-solve-everything!" folks over at Balko, but they're evasive and close ranks whenever their central tenet is challenged.

[La Rana]

Pretty good rant; I think I agree on all points. Every once in a while I try to carve up the stodgy "markets-solve-everything!" folks over at Balko, but they're evasive and close ranks whenever their central tenet is challenged.