Selfishness litters our streets - literally

Litter is evidence of the go-to-hell attitude that confuses individual rights with utter selfishness

The Straight Goods Cyber Forum
with Larry Solway

Commentary:

  Maybe its just a hangover from seeing "Trudeau" on the CBC, and being reminded of his "Just Society" that made me take a strange detour into mutual caring and what makes a society "just".
  Maybe it's also because of a news item you may have missed.
  Niagara Police charged a man with pointing a gun. It was more than just another case of "rage." A St. Catharines man saw the driver of an SUV throw empty coffee cups out of his Ute onto the street. He chased him. He confronted him. The guy pulled a gun. The man was charged, but not with littering. No one seems to care.
  This is a long reach so stay with me.

I think littering public places we share with others is a reflection of how little we care about each other; of how unimportant the "community" has become, of how indifferent we are to others

  I think littering public places we share with others is a reflection of how little we care about each other; of how unimportant the "community" has become, of how indifferent we are to others. I know I know, this sounds preachy. Forgive me.
  Toronto was always a "clean" city. Partly because we spent money to sweep the streets and partly because the people took pride in their mutually shared environment and tried to keep it clean.
  No more. I am living in Village By The Grange in downtown Toronto. I prefer to call it Village By The Grunge. The clutter is prodigious. Nobody cares what happens to their pizza boxes, coffee cups, throwaway newspapers, and sundry other detritus. The trash bins are a few feet away, but for the people who simply don't care, they may as well be a mile away.
  I'm never sure what it is that persuades people to express their individuality by holding public order in such scorn. Is it that there are people who believe there is too much interference with their rights? Is it because they are "making a statement" about their own personal freedom? Is the obligation to be tidy an encroachment on personal freedom?
  Or am I simply trying to stretch reality and give it values I wish it had. Values like "the community comes ahead of the individual." Canadians have always believed in community - or at least they used to. When Trudeau turned us all on with his proclamation of a "Just Society" I thought he had nailed it perfectly. The fact that his behaviour did not reflect his pronouncement is another issue. He believed it. Or he sounded like he believed it.
  The paradox is that in pursuing his ambition to patriate the Constitution and even more to define and enshrine individual rights in his Charter, he enhanced and encouraged the cult of the individual, the notion that as a person your needs, tastes, demands, ambitions, obligations, were far, far above the needs of and your obligations to the community. Trudeau told us who we were when he invoked the War Measures Act and defied anyone who was critical.

Strewing garbage is an expression not only of individual "rights" in a bizarre and twisted way, but it is the exemplar for some people of the go-to-hell attitude that confuses individual rights with utter selfishness

  Strewing garbage is an expression not only of individual "rights" in a bizarre and twisted way, but it is the exemplar for some people of the go-to-hell attitude that confuses individual rights with utter selfishness.
  I actually want to organize a group of concerned people who will join me on our streets and clean up the litter. Obviously the city fathers, and this is not unique to Toronto, have abdicated their responsibility to keep the city attractive. Even more, keeping the city clean is not just an expression of fastidiousness; it is essential to the expression of community care. Bucky Fuller, whose ideas shook us up a generation ago, saw the city as a living organism filled with people. The city was not just public space, it was collective space, it was space over which were had proprietorship.
  Years ago I watched a man, standing with his little boy at the railing of the zoo, tossing food to the animals. I pointed out, perhaps not as politely as I should that the signs said, "do not feed." His response was: "What business is it of yours?" My answer was: "The zoo belongs to all of us. This is MY zoo you are violating."
  The violation of social caring is rampant. Garbage tossing is a symptom first cousin to people who don't want to share the cost of everything from health care to education, and who, echoing the likes of George Bush, don't want any government to tell them what to do with "their" money. It is OUR money, just as the public streets belong to all of us. Unless we start caring about each other, the whole world is garbage.

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