Ditto on that one. I've camped rough and traveled in the third world-- I know perfectly well how unnecessary toilet paper is, and while it's a convenience I like as well as anyone, I've gone without before, and am perfectly comfortable with doing so again. Other methods are, frankly, cleaner anyway. Easier on sewer systems, too.
So what is that-- TP hoarding and shortages? Not survival. Not necessity. Fear. Of what, exactly? It seems to crystallize, in a simple white roll (why is it white? why do we bleach something that we're going to clean up excrement with? why isn't it kraft brown, wouldn't that be cheaper and less polluting?), every modern fear-- fear of biology, fear of contamination, fear of poverty, fear of nature... one object that represents the weird excess of modern industrial civilization. Take it away, and there's so much that people would be forced to re-think... this is why the TP panic. If there's anything modern western people don't want to examine, it's their lifestyles-- excess, convenience, waste. Give me TP or give me death, right?
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branchandroot
Re: The Epiphany (A reflection thread on pandemic choices)
Date: 2023-07-24 07:39 pm (UTC)So what is that-- TP hoarding and shortages? Not survival. Not necessity. Fear. Of what, exactly? It seems to crystallize, in a simple white roll (why is it white? why do we bleach something that we're going to clean up excrement with? why isn't it kraft brown, wouldn't that be cheaper and less polluting?), every modern fear-- fear of biology, fear of contamination, fear of poverty, fear of nature... one object that represents the weird excess of modern industrial civilization. Take it away, and there's so much that people would be forced to re-think... this is why the TP panic. If there's anything modern western people don't want to examine, it's their lifestyles-- excess, convenience, waste. Give me TP or give me death, right?