Thursday, June 25, 2009

Using Reusable Bags:The Great American Virtuous Activity?

As some of you know, I work in a grocery store. Those of you who visit grocery stores know that bringing your own reusable bags is all the rage. The other day, I had a customer come through my line tell me that she had forgotten her reusable bags. Nothing unusual there. However, she then went on to tell me that she didn't really care about using reusable bags, she merely wanted other people to think that she cared about using reusable bags.
People, in general, care about what people think about them. Everyone has their facade that they erect to impress people. People erect facades based on what they think other people will care about. A man's worth can be seen in that which he loves. This principle also applies to a society.
It used to be that people would go to church regardless of whether or not they personally cared about it. Not going to church had a negative societal stigma attached to it. All remnants of this stigma to be seen in general American society have disappeared.
Regardless of the merits of the reusable bag (perhaps another blog topic) I can safely say that going to church does a lot more for people than does using reusable bags. The fact that using reusable bags has (along with other negligibly important activities) now supplanted church as the Great American Virtuous Activity is something that should be troubling to those of us who still believe that a man's eternal soul is more important than the size of his carbon footprint.

4 comments:

  1. And the fact that there is evidence that the sun is becoming hotter, which is actually the cause of global warming (not pollution) also makes reusable bags (and all these other forms of "green living" that are all the rage lately) an entirely useless facade.

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  2. Interesting thoughts. I would concur completely about man's desire to have others think highly of him and to care more about others opinion of his social standing than what his social standing would be if we saw him behind closed doors.

    Your thoughts about church attendance are also fascinating to me. Having lived the past 5 years in the "Bible Belt" I have come to realize that church attendance as a social norm has not completely passed America by. Many people in this region of the Country ( Especially those over 50) still attend church as a matter of social acceptance. It is something that is primarily lost on our generation and the one coming behind it, however. I have a feeling that this will die out sometime in the next 30-50 years though. Also, I think that actual spiritual vitality is found much more often in the North, where going to church actually has a meaning and a purpose.

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  3. You've got a blog? How cool is that? I've got a blog, too.

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  4. My Blog

    Aunt Lois told me the name but I had to use my nearly SuperPower level detection skills to spell moorenado :)

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