When this piece started forming in my mind, I gave it the title “Nothing to show for it”. I was at the tail end of nine difficult weeks in Ontario leading up to and following the death of my father and was struggling to process experiences and emotions with a growing sense of disassociation. “Nothing to show for it” felt like my life.
I found it tiring to live within the sphere of my father’s life. To notice how often I’m asked to explain or even to justify my life choices. To get to the end of the day and realize I was holding my breath and my shoulders were up by my ears. Part of it was curiosity, no doubt, but part of it definitely stems from ubiquitous anti-communism. Yup, my values are shaped by my belief that wealthy people are inherently selfish, and that millionaires and billionaires are destroying our planet. I have spent years of my life working for very little income and giving freely to liberation movements. Liberation theologists call it “preferential option for the poor”. Simple living and hard struggle is an ethical choice that is countercurrent to popular culture. Yet immersed in a life outside my own, I started to feel like people thought my life was broken as evidenced by a lack of material wealth and a counter-current value system. Not only is it not broken, it’s cohesive, rich with social values and personal meaning. I was exhausted from simultaneously dealing with my father’s illness and death and mental fatigue being in a disorientating space with different values and priorities.
“You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future”.
Thomas Sankara
It’s not only not crazy to promote socialist values and practices, it’s an ecological necessity. I believe that the individualism and greed of the capitalist economic and political system is killing us.
Where social and economic concerns such as climate change capture the attention of popular culture, interventions promulgated by the political elite and the bourgeoisie focus on the personal and the individual. There are many reasons for this, one could crudely summarize them up as: leave the economic system largely unaltered. One example that I’ve been reflecting a lot on is the push toward the electric car rather than a radical restructuring of our transportation practices to shift from individual to social/collaborative systems. If we want to truly address climate change we need to take on radical action at the local, regional, national, and international scale.
With my growing interest in hiking I started thinking about Leave No Trace principles not only as a trail code of conduct, but as a life philosophy; a way of thinking about the world complementary to socialist political economy. It feels right to connect trail etiquette to the way I walk in the broader world. For “it’s not just about leaving society, but transforming it” (Lance Newman) or as Karl Marx said, “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it” (Marx, 1845).
If we had a truly democratic society, the concepts of Leave No Trace could be translated into radical climate action – we could write a radical climate manifesto! But that just reached beyond the reflection scope of this blog. My intent and purpose was to reflect upon how I’ve chosen to live my life and the way I see society.
LEAVE NO TRACE: life beyond (or before) the trail
Plan Ahead and Prepare. When you’re backpacking you have to meet your own basic needs and those of any dependants you have on the trail: food, water, clothes, shelter, warmth, navigation. You have to carry enough, but not so much that your pack is so heavy you injure yourself or compromise others. You can share weight with fellow travelers through reciprocal collaboration. On the trail it’s a necessity, but off trail for middle-class America it is a moral choice to live simply and to practice reciprocal collaboration with your community. Simple living and reciprocation takes pressure off of others to provide for you (exploitation) and pressure off of the ecosystem which we share with others (plunder). I firmly believe that no one should have more than they need, and if they do, they should share it with those who need it. The capricious drive of capitalists to generate more and more profits puts a heavy burden on people and the planet; middle class America benefits from their investments in imperialism while the global poor pay the price. At the macro-economic level Eat the Rich – or as I’m known to say, “Fuck the Waltons” – why should some full-of-shit white republican family from the US get to plan our fucking economy? Socially planned economies can facilitate the just distribution of wealth and collaborative social planning can bolster social inclusion – we need to include people in planning the society they share with others – that’s the threat of Venezuelan constitutional reforms BTW.
Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces. Tread lightly. Don’t crush fragile micro-ecosystems with your bulky weight or widen the trail as you walk. Sometimes you have to walk through water on the trail and get your feet wet to avoid hurting plants and the animals who rely on them. Everything is connected. Once a micro-ecosystem has been damaged it can take decades to recover. Making the decision to walk through water and get your feet wet in order to protect the trail rather than trod on new ground to stay dry is a willingness to be uncomfortable in order to do the right thing. In order to obtain social and economic justice for poor communities, some people are going to be made uncomfortable. Justice would be a lot easier to achieve if more people were willing to be uncomfortable.
Dispose of Waste Properly. Alternatively make as little mess as possible. Clean up any mess you make, don’t leave it to others to do your dirty work. We have a global waste problem. I support campaigns like Reduce Reuse and Recycle. However, production and consumption are driven by a complex of financial investment which requires capital growth, land-grabbing by corporations which push rural communities into urban centres, and a disposable popular culture pushed by Western media. The personal is the political, but there are no personal solutions to political problems.
Leave What You Find. Seems simple enough, but it’s hard. I personally adore picking up rocks. Agh. It would seem we’re taught to horde from the moment of our birth and overconsumption is the norm – it really is connected, our trail behaviour and our behaviour toward our communities, our fellow humans, and the creatures on the world we share. People and our communities need to use resources to survive, but as communities of people we can collaboratively decide how much we really need and how to wisely attain what we need while minimizing the impacts on our ecosystem. Much of the resources of our societies go to generate super-profits for the rich and to facilitate overconsumption for the middle classes. It’s literally killing our planet.
Minimize Campfire Impacts. Burn fires in pre-established rings or cover the site where you burned a fire so it is concealed. The impacts of burns on fragile ecosystems can last indefinitely. Oh if only we could achieve this Leave No Trace principle at a national and international scale! There is a lot of debate about who and what are the biggest offenders in the climate change crisis. No one disputes that petroleum and coal extraction and use top the list. Where we get lost is on the demand side of the equation. It’s easy to point fingers at Exxon-Mobil. It’s a lot harder to draw the connections between the military and the monetary and to say, the fight for peace is the fight for the planet. To walk in peace is a gentle footprint.
Respect Wildlife. Leave creatures alone! Take pictures from a respectful distance. With intention and care for wild creatures, store your food properly on the trail. There are so many ways I could go with this one. But considering that we’ve already covered co-operation, intentional development, gentle resource extraction, mindful consumption, and low waste practices I think the direction to go here is inter-connection. Humans benefit from intact ecosystems inclusive of all creatures big and small. It is through seeking to understand our interconnections that we find our way to fit into existing systems with harmony and for the benefit of all.
Be Considerate of Other Visitors. I love that this is last, because it feels like the most important and poignant principle. Don’t be an asshole on the trail. At a deeper level, this includes trying to understand the experiences of and embrace the perspectives of the world’s most exploited and oppressed communities, for it is from within these communities that the solutions human suffering, injustice, and environmental destruction will emerge. Like backpacking, seeking these world views means being uncomfortable. It also means joining the struggles of the oppressed and exploited with mind, heart, and hand. And to do this we have to be strong and healthy.
Well, that’s where I’m at with these thoughts. I’m not sure this blog entry will ever be complete. I’m sure I’m going to edit this indefinitely as I mull over the concepts and the implications. But for now it’s a start. I’d be interested to know what you think so drop me a line.
Under the Frosty Sky 