Not hurting innocent people a “purity test”? I think your ignorance or internal conflict is showing.
Thomas Jefferson owning slaves, including his own children, wasn’t an abstract immoral act. He hurt people. He took away their freedom and hurt them. It isn’t a “purity test” to say that by owning slaves he hurt people.
When people act like living more sustainably is a “purity test” I see two possible causes. The generous one, which I find implausible in today’s world, is that people don’t know polluting hurts people. People often tell me “Josh, they really don’t know. ” When I respond that they know enough and if they pretend not to know, they’re deliberately keeping themselves ignorant, people generally agree, and intentional ignorance doesn’t make you innocent. It means they knew enough to know they’re hurting people, they just want to pretend.
The other cause is that they feel the emotions that internal conflict over violating your own values causes and they want to say or do anything to mollify those emotions or make them go away. Any smokescreen will do. So faced with the prospect of acknowledging they’re hurting innocent people, they act as if hurting people is abstract.
Would they call Jefferson not freeing his slaves a purity test? No, keeping his slaves hurts people and anyone reasonable agrees he should have freed them not as a purity test but to stop hurting innocent people. It also undermined his credibility, integrity, and experience living by his values. Try leading without credibility, integrity, and experience. If you want more than just you acting, leading others helps.
If you are hurting innocent people, I propose you stop not as an abstract purity test but to stop hurting innocent people. Polluting and depleting hurt innocent people. I propose you stop, or at least reduce as much as you can. Without doing so, you undermine your credibility, integrity, and personal experience. Without personal experience, you probably think reducing by 90 percent is hard or makes your life and culture worse. You’d be as wrong as people before the Wright brothers said controlled flight was possible too. You could point to lots of theory, but their actual flying counted for more.
Join the club of people living more sustainably, not the finger-pointers excuse-makers.
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