Litter Bit Better

Our local community had a program to clean up the town called "A Litter Bit Better". The program was organized by a couple of guys that I spent a few years with on a local board, which made it more interesting. One of them was out walking his dog, noticed a bunch of trash, and realized that our town was becoming much trashier than it used to be. As he was muttering under his breath, the thought occurred to him that DOING SOMETHING was a better idea than just complaining.

I suppose if he was Lee Iaccoca he might have done something more helpful like write a book castigating our leadership, but he decided to work with the city and a number of local organizations, Kwik Trip, the trash haulers, neighborhood associations, churches, schools scouts, and many others to perform a city-wide cleanup in connection with earth day. Something over 20K lbs of garbage was picked up over the week-long effort.

My wife organized our own neighborhood effort, and on Saturday AM out of a neighborhood of a few thousand people, in perfect weather, there were FIVE that showed up to work. In talking with the guy that organized it, he said that was not uncommon at all ... while a TON (10 tons to be more exact) of work was done, the vast bulk was done by a very small percentage of people. The 5 of us picked up 20+ bags of garbage in the 3 hours we worked.

The Pareto Principle, was originally the "80/20 rule" and it means that in many human endeavors, 20% of the group is responsible for 80% of the significance ... good and bad. There is a LOT of evidence that Pareto is moving to 90/10, and beyond. Where 20% used to do 80% of the work, now 10% are doing 90% and it apparently keeps getting narrower. The sad thing is that the negative is true as well ... it is nearly a certainty that 90% of the litter was put there by less than 10% of the population. If you map the giving in your church, the volunteerism in the community, and the production of the nation, the same thing is true, and increasingly, the set of people that provide that "get it done" are conservative in political leaning. Why?

I picked up one clue along the road. A little "ticket" that had apparently been left under the wiper of an SUV by a person of the left "doing something good". The "ticket" said "SUV Owner: Citation for driving a wasteful vehicle". It had a lot of other stuff on it, but one of the organizations was "earth on empty". My guess is that some lefty was able to feel very smug for a good long time by putting the piece of litter under a wiper blade. They most likely felt that they had done a great deed for the day or even the week or month.

Most likely the ticketer felt much more smug than I was able to feel picking up the garbage, since to their mental calculation, pointing a finger at someone and feeling "outraged" is a HUGE good deed, and they bear no other responsibility. Things like "doing and responsibility" are something for OTHERS to do ... "leadership", "the wealthy", "corporate America" ... someone, but certainly not them. When one accepts even a tiny amount of personal responsibility, then "outrage" isn't nearly as fun, because it often means that you are required to do something other than complain.

The sheep have been marketed to, entertained, and manipulated with generally no connection to God or even history for at least the TV age, and even before. It is little wonder that they buy into the idea of "feeling good without cost". Picking up litter is harder than complaining about global warming, but global warming is mostly about "good feelings" rather than anything scientific. A great little George Will column points out that a Big Mac is more "greenhouse costly" than a BMW (manure and cow flatulence creating the greater problem of methane as opposed to the BMWs CO2) and that a Prius is actually environmentally WORSE than a Hummer because of the environmental effects of creation and usage of two sets of batteries over the life of the car.

Feeling smug while driving your Prius, ticketing a SUV, or while riding on a jet to a "green vacation" are easier than picking up sodden garbage from steep road embankments. Telling someone else that they ought to pay more taxes to provide whatever you want is much easier than getting more education, taking more responsibility in your job, or saving and investing. As a technologist, I lament that technology--TV, movies, internet, music, etc is certainly the "mainline" through which the drug of meaningless feeling is pumped into our culture. Technology is neither good or evil in itself, but creates leverage that is unfortunately able to be used in negative ways.

Technology allows the 90% to wallow in more "good feelings", and increasingly link up with only the information that fits what makes them feel best, while the 10% use the leverage to learn and do at an ever increasing rate. Unfortunately, Ayn Rand seems to have been right about the phenomenon of "looting". The 90% have an insatiable appetite for outrage, emotion, and less responsibility. No matter how much "better" in terms of mindless consumption and ease their lives are made, the fact that the 10% increasingly "have more" is a constant irritant.

The phenomenon is as old as "killing the goose that laid the golden egg", and it is very much a part of human nature. My sense is that '06 was a tipping point--the goose chase has begun.