BROADCASTS.com

b'

Are we a collective or atomized individuals? This is one of the central dividing lines for all human worldviews. In the past, the collectivist mindset held sway. Tribes, kingdoms, races were seen as a whole, with people merely being parts of the collective that could be sacrificed or punished to serve the whole. At the extreme end, if members of one tribe killed one member of another, it could very easily lead to vengeance being taken on the entire tribe. Outside of one\\u2019s tribe, personal responsibility did not exist, the responsibility was collective. The same mindset is carried into today in the form of communism in which all the citizens of a given country are treated as nearly indistinguishable parts of the whole.\\xa0\\xa0

In more recent history, with the rise of republican and democratic governments, following in the wake of the Reformation, a more individualist philosophy has arisen, which at its extreme advocates for complete selfishness and acting without any sense of obligation to anything or anyone else.\\xa0

What does any of this have to do with the environment? Both outlooks create bad outcomes for people and for the environment in which we live. Most people will readily agree that the individualist mindset hasn\\u2019t been great for the world. It\\u2019s hard to swing a keyboard without hitting pictures of animals swimming in oil or of massive landfills bursting at the seams with plastic. It\\u2019s easy to see how one can draw a line from that through consumerism and to the short term thinking that results from the idea that I\\u2019m an individual and I can do what I want. People in the future can figure out how to deal with future problems. But what about collectivism? How is that bad for the environment?

That has to be addressed since there is a fresh drive back to that mindset. Given the weaknesses and excesses of extreme individualism, it might make sense to go back to collectivism. After all, all the pollution didn\\u2019t start until individualism came along. Right? Wrong. Fact is, when you take on a collectivist mindset, the tendency is to push responsibility for things onto others. Whether you just assume someone else will pick up that trash, or you count on the government to do what needs to be done, the point is, you aren\\u2019t doing anything yourself. If things go poorly, it\\u2019s almost inevitable that people will just shrug because it\\u2019s all out of their control anyway. And in a socialist society, it is. If you want proof, look at pictures of the environmental devastation that was revealed in Eastern Europe when the Iron Curtain fell.\\xa0

So, what is the answer? What if I told you the answer lies where Aristotle always said virtue was, in the middle? In realizing that we are part of a collective in the sense we are all living on the same blue-green jewel hurtling through the void we realize that we are connected, that there is a greater whole. In recognizing each other and ourselves as individuals within that collective we take on responsibility for our own actions. We realize that for the collective to be healthy, we have to individually make good choices for ourselves because our choices can affect many others. Instead of shrugging at the litter, you deal with it. Instead of waiting for the government or some organization to do something about the plastic in the ocean, you buy in bulk and so use less plastic.\\xa0

It almost seems too simple, doesn\\u2019t it? The thing is, people tend to be drawn to one extreme or the other, to go all in until the damage is done. Then the pendulum swings back and the cycle continues. Over and over and over.

One thing you can do in addition to the simple little everyday things like just using less junk is contributing your individual data through TARTLE. That allows organizations to analyze it and determine consumption habits and what sort of products, policies, and services people are looking for as well as get suggestions on how those organizations can themselves do better to help protect the world we are all a part of.\\xa0

What\\u2019s your data worth? www.tartle.co