There was a time when such people were called "Franciscans." Then Christians got lazy. Now non-Christians do it for the sake of.....? Cool? Philanthropy? A sense of moral responsibility? Probably some combination of all of these. Is anyone doing it for the sake of Christ? (I certainly am not.) Ought we to be?Read it all here. (NY Times.)
Freegans are scavengers of the developed world, living off consumer waste in an effort to minimize their support of corporations and their impact on the planet, and to distance themselves from what they see as out-of-control consumerism. They forage through supermarket trash and eat the slightly bruised produce or just-expired canned goods that are routinely thrown out, and negotiate gifts of surplus food from sympathetic stores and restaurants.
3 comments:
I would admire a sensible and productive protest of nonsensical and wasteful consumerism, especially if it helped to diminish it.
But I'm not sure about panhandling consumers who protest consumerism by becoming dependent on it's waste for their own maintenence. I guess I just don't get it. Seems to me the more consumer wastefulness they encounter the better they'll eat and the happier they'll be!
Probably just an au currant, faux-ecology cloak for young bums. They'll eventually grow up and laugh at themselves.
So how do they propose to feed 8 billion people, or however many of us there are now, without those evil corporations? Which, by the way, are mostly publicly-owned entities composed of people trying to make a living and create wealth for the world?
They don't. They don't think that far out, that seriously, or that well. Otherwise they'd be busy with their own plans and jobs instead of hanging around dumpsters or seeking handouts from those who do.
But it seems to be the business of the young in each generation to find something to protest about the preceeding one. But each one grows up to become the target of the next. No significance.
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