Disqus Doodlings – Treehugger writer believes things should cost more: Part 2 - Granite Grok

Disqus Doodlings – Treehugger writer believes things should cost more: Part 2

OK, Part 1 was done in April – too many Shiny Objects to contemplate so  back to playing catch up. The premise was that we should pay more for what we buy because CONSUMERISM and ENVIRONMENTALISM!  We all should be forced to make do with less, and I commented on this at the time (not wanting to make you click back):

“…the experience becomes less pleasurable and more painful.” You may not realize it but that statement seems to sum up how environmentalists come across to a lot of the rest of us (those of us that pay attention, anyways) – force life for the rest of us to be more miserable to satisfy their outlook on things.

Somehow, y’all gotta change your style (and I’m not talking about clothes or furnishings) because when I see this kind of statement, it cements even more my perception of what is “required”: Happiness is misery!

And for the record, I hate shopping all together; I have clothes older than you that I just can’t part with because I don’t care about fashion at all.

And went down hill from there – a bit.  In fact, if you go there now, the next two comments were deleted:

Annie Cass  granitegrok
No, happiness is thoughtful care for other people, and a recognition of our mutual interdependence. That is life-embracing, not miserable. An exchange of the shallow, infantile pleasures of consumerism for the richer joys of true value is a gain, not a loss.

Anything I buy new is worn until is falls apart. Everything else is bought from charity shops – and worn until it falls apart. Underclothing is bought new, and I pay premium for it. I also buy only enough to have about five respectable sets of everything. Outerwear is almost all charity shop.

What is “required” is that maybe you become a little less self-centred and defensive, because, I promise you, if you do you will be happier.

Now, I totally disagree with her definition as it is wrapped up in “The Collective” but if it works for her, fine; just don’t demand it of others thinking once size fits all.  I also disagreed with her calling me self-centered because I don’t hold to her communitarian outlook:

granitegrok  Annie Cass
You’re assuming things that aren’t in evidence. First off, my definition of happiness is not the same as yours, so you can’t hold me to it. If someone is deliberately making my life harder, more expensive, and subject to more and more rules, that dissipates my sense of happiness – I don’t care much for those telling me what to do.

You also assume, with no evidence, that I am self-centered – it is far from the truth. It just gets my dander up when others, like yourself, believe that you know better than I what is best for me – either how I live my life, or in your case, being the thought police (e.g., self-centered). Defensive? Remember that you just called me infantile and self-centered so what label would you place on yourself for accusing someone you don’t know of that?
Congrats – once again, someone else has proved my point that militant communitarianists of the groupthink persuasion are all too willing to throw brickbats at those that don’t agree with them. All I did was to make the case for the “Just Leave Me Alone” set and you started in with the ad hominem attack. OutSTANDING!

The result?  “This comment was deleted.”  But at least it wasn’t a banning (again).  A slightly different conversation was had later.

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