One of my greatest pet peeves is littering. It is not simply unaesthetic but it also represents a thoughtless, selfish, lazy way of life. And interestingly, the explanation that one offers for littering serves as a litmus test for key philosophical positions.
As an experiment ask a few people you know why certain individuals, groups and neighborhoods litter so much. The further left the respondent, the more they will engage in acts of mental gymnastics to extricate individuals and groups from responsibility for their behavior. Ironically in their efforts to avoid the cardinal sin of racism, they will imply that certain ethnic and social groups have no control over themselves or their environment, which is an implicitly racist position.
A conservative respondent's position will be based on the belief that individuals are active agents in shaping their personal and communal reality. And conservatives, such as the blogger who refers to himself as the 'Logical Meme' counter the leftist explanation by correctly stating that littering is not so much the consequence of poverty as it is "part of a cultural value system which causes and perpetuates poverty."
Either way, I hope to catch the bastard who threw his beer bottles on my lawn.
they can't catch them, all the cops are busy walking by parking meters and writing tickets, turning us citizens into atm machines for the city.
ReplyDeleteVery true - it seems as if law enforcement has shifted towards more lucrative pursuits like ticketing the public to death!
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