Imagine, for a moment, you are on a first date. You are at a café with another student from your university, the one who has been sitting next to you quite frequently in classes. After you wait in line to buy both of your coffees, all while making awkward idle chatter, you are finally able to sit down and engage in insightful, yet flirtatious, conversation. Now your date asks you, in order to break the ice, to introduce yourself as a person. How do you proceed?
I can deduce of three of the categories of answers you may have selected to describe yourself.
The (1) first could be your occupation, your capacity in producing wealth. In relation to Marx’s dialectical materialism, this would mean that your concept of self-identity is primarily based on your position within the means of production – where you fit within the economic hierarchy.
The (2) second option of answers could have been related to what you own, therefore simultaneously communicated physically as well as verbally. This would include attributes such as what kind of clothes you wear, your choice in toothpaste, what type of vehicle(s) you drive, where you have travelled. These concepts would represent your self-identity’s strong reliance on material private property.
The (3) final category would have involved the opposite: immaterial private property, which would include such attributes as your taste in art, cooking, friends, politics. This option tends to be the most common.
“That which I am unable to do as a man, and of which therefore all my individual essential powers are incapable, I am able to do by means of money.” From Marx & Engels, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
Within a society that encourages individualism, people tend to express their identity through their consumption patterns. Little do they know that their choices have been fashioned in order to ensure profitability and predictability: the illusion of customization. Consumers may select the colour of the car they drive, which bands they support, or which brands of clothing they purchase in order to express their unique human tastes. I believe these choices have been predetermined by dominant market forces.
Through exposure to commercial and social media, we often develop romantic, fantastical notions of life that we then attempt to replicate in our own realities. In this sense, we may yearn to escape personal struggles through living the vicarious experiences of fictional characters and lifestyles. The result is the fabrication of unrealistic expectations of material life; pseudo-bourgeois consumption patterns which we adopt in order to develop our social identity. We don’t like the product itself, we like the idea it represents.
Instead of determining our own choices, we buy into a widely-shared behaviour of consumption. The socially constructed concept of self-identity becomes an intended result of the capitalist system in order to feed on the prescribed tastes of the proletariat.
So, how does one construct their identity, free from capitalist forces? Who really knows? Commercial influence is omnipresent; to be unaffected by it is an impossible task. That being said, start asking yourself this question before any purchases: “Do I need this, or do I want this?” To strive for true individuality means to strive for innovation, not uniformity.
Modernism in the philosophical tradition began with the advent of the scientific revolution: upon realizing the mechanical nature of the universe, artists, scientists and political theorists alike attempted to systematize the world using what they held to be pure rationality. Eurocentrist thinkers believed they derived through reason the inalienable rights of all human beings, and it was up to those enlightened Westerners to bestow their divine wisdom to the ‘uncivilized savages’ of the new world. The result of this ideology was the ethnocide of countless colonized nations, the exploitation of human beings justified by the condescending values of the most powerful people in the world - namely straight, cis-gendered, Western men of the upper social class. For instance, the French held their culture to be the highest of humanity, which thereby allowed them to justify this imperialism and the fascist marginalization of their colonies. The fact that Europeans had the ability to colonize other nations was not a result of their inherent superiority, but rather of geographical contingencies that allowed them to economically develop in a way that was conducive to growing empires. Postmodern theorists have eventually come to realize that any perceived ‘universal’ values are actually dependent on cultural and life experiences, and that rationality is biased by the norms, time, and place into which one is born. The modernist notion of universal human rights transcending specific cultural practices has given way for a new, ethically relativist view: respect for the autonomy of other cultures and not to impose your ideals upon them, as their practices are just as valid as one’s own. Some oppressive measures that were justified by the notion of ‘universal human rights’ were halted, which had the liberating effect of emancipating people of races, sexual orientations, and religion that were considered ‘deviant’ from the imperialistic norm. Within the Postmodernist framework, the ‘objective rationality’ of those in power has been decentralized, its immutable truth rejected, which leaves room for marginalized people to express themselves in a meaningful way. For all of its positive effects, Postmodernism has also left society with a great ambiguity: the possibility of all views being equally valid, and what could be liberating is in actuality leading to anxiety resulting from a lack of concrete truth. If we cannot apply totalizing principles to resolve ambiguity, all one can do is helplessly accept the heterogeneity. In this framework, the United Nations have no legitimacy in protecting human rights, because the varying countries/cultures ought to have the right to self-determine what they consider to be unacceptable actions. On a smaller scale, this ethical relativity implies that one ought not to impose their ideology upon another individual, because there is no objective ‘reason’ to appeal to beyond subjective experiences. The proposal of moral dictums seems patronizing given that the supposed injurer’s actions have been wholly dictated by their biological makeup, culture, and personal experiences. In this determinist view, one could not reasonably be held responsible for their actions, and there is no universal standard against which to weigh the moral implications. One could justify the penalization of wrongdoings based on what the established laws of a given society are, but those laws would have no justification beyond what were ultimately arbitrary cultural norms becoming legislation. Is the perpetual uncertainty and subjectivity of Postmodernism the inevitable final stage of human thought, or is this merely another challenge for modernist rationality? How can we achieve a balance between the passionate aspirations of perfection in modernism and the decentralizing analytic implications of Postmodernism? Is there any way of selectively choosing the admirable aspects of each view, synthesizing them into the next stage of human thought? How are we to deal with the immediate problems of human rights issues on one end, and the imposition of oppressive, patronizing ‘universal’ values from the other? Postmodernism can be used as a critical tool to destabilize what is held as ‘objective reason’ ( as usually espoused by a privileged group of people), but it cannot also justify any actions that refer to a transcendent rationality, even if they are noble gestures. The diametrically opposed options of ethnocide and inaction are pure ideologies, but a compromise between the two must be made for international human rights to be protected in a justified, meaningful way.
Finding purpose in food for the lost 20 something year old:
How food fueled young activists to cycle across Canada empowering others to find meaning and reconnect with their health, environment and community through food.
Danielle Prapavessis,
Student
Co-founder and speaker, Seed by Seed
October 9th 2012.
Email home titled: “I found my purpose-Food”
“…I am always confused as to what I care about but then I thought about food. It like connects us to everything. I had no idea. Poverty, health, economics, climate change, family, culture and resources. I think I need to work in/ with/ around FOOD”
July 17th 2013.
“Why don’t we bike across Canada…talk to people about the power of food?”
September 28th 2013.
“Hey mum… I am going to bike across Canada. I have a message to share.”
[long silence]… “no you are not”
May 7th 2014.
Woke up. Ate some oatmeal. Packed up my tent. Hopped on my bicycle. We headed east and peddled.
May 25th 2014.
Woke up. Ate some oatmeal. Packed up my tent. Rode to the local high school in Moose Jaw, AB. Parked my bike, got on stage. Held up two apples: a green one and a red one. I asked the 400 and something curious students one simple question
‘which apple would you chose?’
There is was. This is the question that has fueled my journey over the last three years.
So… what is it going to be? The red or green apple? What are you going to factor into your decision?
When we chose our food, we often base it on two factors: appearance and cost. We want food that looks familiar and unblemished; inexpensive and tasty. Most of us, however, do not question where our food is from, how it was grown, or how it was prepared. These three simple questions unveil a complex backstory that ties our food to some of the most pressing social justice and environmental issues of our time. What is the impact on our people and planet when we buy food that is grown on an industrialized farm lacking controls on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, farmers rights and regulations; food that is transported across the globe to be processed and packaged in facilities owned by megacorporation’s; governed by companies invested in pharmaceuticals, oil and branded by marketing agencies focusing solely on the bottom line to ensure that their product thrives in the capitalistic consumer market of North America?
At face value, we don’t see that these apples had tremendously different journey to get to my hands and that by choosing them; we are now a part of this story.
What happens when we are disconnected from food; one of the most intrinsic parts of human existence? The very thing that fuels our brains bodies and is an integral part of our days?
These questions fascinate me and sparked the creation of Seed by Seed, a non-profit organization that aims to reconnect people with their food. Through experiential workshops, educational speeches and action planning sessions, Seed by Seed has worked with thousands of students across both Canada and New-Zealand to facilitate participants to think about the back stories of their food.
This work is a part of the movement to empower people to re-prioritize food and more importantly allows individuals to addresses social and environmental challenges they care about. Food gives people purpose.
As a 20-year-something in the wandering phase of life, I am experiencing the chaos that comes with being a millennial. Information is abundant and at our finger tips. Our heads are infiltrated with catastrophic current events as they happen almost instantaneously. We are learning how to be critical of the world that was constructed by people of the past and we have been placed in a society that has a lot of work to do. It comes as no surprise that mental health is hard to nurture and anxiety is rampant. The life of a 20-year something is a challenge.
Now although these global issues are daunting; I truly believe that food enables us to live by our values and tackle the challenges we care about. Passionate about the environment? Reduce the miles your food has traveled and eat locally. Care about child labor? Eat food from countries with proper legislature on the rights of a child. Interested in water issues? Learn about the water consumed in the growth and preparation of your produce and meat. Health freak? Eat less processed food to avoid the crap used to make our food sweet, salty and long-lasting. How about the corporatization of our economy? Decentralize it by supporting certain brands and boycott mega corporations with your dollar. Care about relationships? Cook with people. Share a meal.
And suddenly… when we think about the backstories of our food, we become powerful. Excitingly, under this mentality, we get to be purposeful every time we eat. How incredible.
So I challenge you to think about your food and eat in a way that aligns with your values and enjoy one of the simplest pleasures of life- food.
Find out more about Seed by Seed by contacting Danielle: dprap045@uottawa.ca