Sic Semper Tyrannis

On Doing the Right Thing-Slight Return

I just read the article “My Search for the Perfect Apple,” by John Cloud in this week’s Time magazine and it brought the kind of despair of which I am easily capable. It’s the old existential question- “what am I to do?”

You see, the article is about food in America. Two choices are becoming increasingly en vogue amongst thinking-people--eating organic and eating local, not always synonymous. Which is better? Seems like a simple question. But, like most questions, it’s not.

Better for whom or what? Better-tasting for the consumer? Better for their health? Better for the environment? Better for farmers? Restaurants? Whatever you would call that type of person who cares deeply about this kind of issue-they would probably go so far as to make this a moral or at least an ethical choice.

These are knowledgeable, well-meaning folks, I’m sure. But to me, this ethical kind of stalemate seems to be exactly why I believe the maxim that knowledge breeds sorrow. To me this food issue is a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t scenario.

I hate those.

The author talks about buying food from a local farmer: “That transparency doesn’t exist with, say, spinach bagged by a distant agribusiness. I help keep Ted in business, and he helps keep me fed- and the elegance and sustainability of that exchange make more sense to me than gambling on faceless producers who stamp ORGANIC on a package thousands of miles from my home.”

Well, there you go-transparency and elegant sustainability of the system trumps big business. That was easy enough!

Here’s my problem. My brother is a trucker. He makes his livelihood by freighting those foods than can only be grown in the fantastic climes of California to people all over the country. Unfortunately, agribusiness HAS a face for me. If everybody decided to “eat local,” (as if it were possible for everyone to that anyway), my brother and truckers everywhere, not to mention the poverty-level people picking tomatoes for a huge farm, would be out of work. Where’s the lefty compassion in that?

I’m all about choice, but I’m also reminded that, very rarely are choices so simple and obvious. Does my need for scrumptious, fresh tomatoes trump the needs of people like my brother, who are just doing a job? Sure, corporations are evil, but it’s not like they exist without a collection of real people providing for themselves and families.

Ever since I first heard the phrase "systemic evil," I latched on. To me, it describes these kinds of things.

I’m starting to think that no matter what I choose to do or not do, there are always hidden negative consequences.

Here’s to living in oblivion instead.

posted by Mike @ 4:12 PM