Comments on: Washing liberal trash

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 20:42:14 +0000

Wow! Great post! I know I’m late to this party but I just wanted to say that I think you have successfully articulated something I’ve struggled to explain for quite some time. And “washing the trash”….what a perfect metaphor for the relationship between upper classes and lower classes! I don’t really see this as a problem of liberals so much as a problem of class anxiety: people trying to control the behavior of social classes with lesser status than their own. It’s really the same as “legislating morality.” Conservatives do it too with stupid laws that make it harder for working class people to vote or get driver’s licenses or travel or find housing or keep their children or for targeted groups to have full civil rights. The difference is that the conservatives, by being downright hateful, come off as less hypocritical and sanctimonious than liberals. Regardless of conservative or liberal, what happens is that the lower classes end up having to “wash the trash,” to ease the anxieties of the upper classes by performing costly, annoying, and/or onerous tasks that do little to acheive the stated objective. But it’s all gravy for the classes with power, who can now justify to themselves that they have done something about Problem X without having to make any difficult changes in their own lives or addressing infrastructure issues which might impact their dividends. All the trash is washed, nice and sparkly, but it is still trash.

By: Dutch

Dutch — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 17:41:50 +0000

washing trash …haha…

you have the following problems with this –

washing trash increases water use (and thats bad)

increases water waste going to the water treatment plant (and thats also bad).

no wonder california had adopted this so well. it consumes even more water that they dont have.

one step forward, two steps back… thats the liberal way.

By: ..

.. — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 23:09:39 +0000

[…] 6) Washing out liberal trash. I hate washing my recycling. Which provides me an occasion to expound on why liberals suck. […]

By: Bill Baar

Bill Baar — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 18:37:09 +0000

I like to think of myself as a liberal fundamentalist. I've been quoting Nick Cohen's column on the Iranian feminist Maryam Namazie in The Guardian on the conflict between Liberal Fundamentalists and Liberal Relativists, Namazie is on the right side of the great intellectual struggle of our time between incompatible versions of liberalism. One follows the fine and necessary principle of tolerance, but ends up having to tolerate the oppression of women, say, or gays in foreign cultures while opposing misogyny and homophobia in its own. (Or 'liberalism for the liberals and cannibalism for the cannibals!' as philosopher Martin Hollis elegantly described the hypocrisy of the manoeuvre.) The alternative is to support universal human rights and believe that if the oppression of women is wrong, it is wrong everywhere. There are fundamental and universal human rights. Oddly these days, it's the Fundamentalist Right more inclined to defend them.

By: chutney

chutney — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 01:39:47 +0000

If I want to do something that I feel is beneficial to myself or other people, why would I dig my heels in and stubbornly refuse to because someone says I should?

No, you should do whatever you want. The trouble is that there are tons of un-liberals who don’t see the need for recycling (and what not), and we need to be able to persuade them. Right now, they don’t think liberal programs (and what not) are important, and they find us to be a bit of a nag. So, yes, it might be childish of them, but we still need to get their votes.

By: hafidha sofia

hafidha sofia — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 21:37:25 +0000

I don’t know … the whole thing seems childish to me. If I want to do something that I feel is beneficial to myself or other people, why would I dig my heels in and stubbornly refuse to because someone says I should? It’s like not cleaning your room because your mom nags you to. Maybe mom shouldn’t nag, but maybe you should clean your room. You might actually stop losing your homework and being late for school and have clean clothes to wear if you cleaned your room. Ultimately, by not cleaning one’s room BECAUSE you’re annoyed at mom for nagging at you, you’re just cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It disturbs me that people would be so personal and petty about things that are really quite simple (but important).

By: chutney

chutney — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 22:05:19 +0000

Sounds like a pretty compliantly liberal response. I don’t think most Americans would wash trash just because they’re told someone thinks they need to though. They need more convincing, and “you’re hurting Mother Earth” won’t do it for them.

By: hafidha sofia

hafidha sofia — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 18:44:24 +0000

That’s weird. I wash the trash for a third reason: because that’s what I was told I needed to do. I want to recycle, therefore, I rinse out the plastic and glass.

Is that a liberal or conservative response?

By: Kim

Kim — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 07:39:04 +0000

Ok, so does anyone have any solutions?

By: Kim

Kim — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 07:37:08 +0000

Yeah, I would say HUMANS really want to be right, even if it means being impractical, ineffectual, disrespectful or intolerant.