Posts Tagged privilege

Pig Appreciation Moment

Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Homesteading on June 5th, 2010

Today, Issa and I mucked out the pigs’ stall for real. She had cleaned out the bedding before, but it was in need of a thorough mucking. More in need than we had realized. There were some spots where the pigs had urinated in the stall, and we had thrown down some more hay or straw on top of it, not realizing how deep it really went. When I dug into the area with a garden rake, it became clear that the entire top inch of dirt was soaked, had been for a while, and was happily composting.

Well-balanced compost has basically no odor at all. Un-balanced compost, like a pee-spot that has had bedding thrown on it a few times, smells… well, it’s a special smell all its own. We thoroughly raked out all the wet dirt and threw it on the compost heap. It turned out that much of the left side of the pigs’ stall had been used as a bathroom. Pigs normally don’t do that where they live, but the stall is big enough that they still had plenty of room to stay away from the bathroom areas, so I guess they figured why bother going out in the hot sun?

After cleaning out the stall, we raked some hay from the field and threw it in big, deep piles in the stall, covering the areas where the pigs had been peeing. We’ve learned that we don’t have to spread bedding at all. Just dump it in a pile and the pigs will have a grand old time rooting through it and spreading it all over the place. The sweet smell of the hay happily contrasted with the previous smell. The pigs seemed to agree. Instead of getting excited, they were very calm and contemplative, laying in the soft hay and quietly munching on it.

Here’s a video. Nothing exciting, just two adorable pigs, happily laying in some fresh hay, munching and being pigs. As mundane as that sounds, it’s quite novel to me, and maybe it will be to you too.

Times like this, I feel really privileged to get to know these animals. They’re really delightful in every way, and nothing like the stereotype that I had in my head. It’s stupid that it never occurred to me before these pigs that food animals could have wonderful personalities, could express happiness, curiosity, playfulness, and so on. I woke the pigs up this morning with some bok choy from the garden. They sleepily wobbled out of the stall, yawning and groggy, and I could almost hear them mumbling, “Must… make… coffee.”

I realize that the “privilege” of getting to raise these animals is very concrete. I’m privileged to have the money to buy property where I can raise pigs. I’m privileged to be able to afford the animals in the first place. I’m privileged to have a work-out-of-the-house job that lets me spend so much time enjoying them. Not everybody can have that experience, even if they want to. That being said, I think it’s a real tragedy that so few of us get to know that the animals we eat are capable of being like this. Having known these pigs, I am more motivated than ever to find ways to opt out of the factory-farming system.

For comparison, here is how the pork that you and I buy at the grocery store and in restaurants is probably raised:

Before I knew Hampie and Yorkie, I was disgusted by images like that. Now, it just breaks my fucking heart.

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Privilege and Imposition

Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Uncategorized on April 16th, 2010

Recently, I Tweeted:

Everything I have experienced as a privilege could have been experienced as an imposition.

Everything I have experienced as an imposition could have been experienced as a privilege.

Some people asked for more on that, so here it is.

I was Ranger team lead last year at Alchemy, which meant that I got to spend Saturday night interacting with intoxicated, un-ticketed attendees and police officers responding to noise complaints. This was somewhat less fun than the things my friends were doing. Now, a lot of people might view that as an imposition, as in, “I can’t believe I have to spend my burn night dealing with these drunk assholes instead of having a good time with my friends!” But as annoying as the experience was while I was having it, I seldom, if ever, wavered from seeing my role as a privilege. I don’t have to deal with drunk assholes and cops all night; I get to be the one who deals with those people so that everyone else in my community doesn’t have to.

It is a privilege to be the one who cares for my garden. How much would I miss out on if someone else were doing all that weeding and digging and watering?

It is a privilege to be the the one who does boring-ass spreadsheets for my company. There are a lot of unemployed people who would jump at the chance!

I guess what this idea boils down to is don’t take things for granted. If something seems like an imposition, then either I don’t want it or I want it but I’m taking it for granted.

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Compensation for work at burns

Posted by Joshua Bardwell in Burning Man on May 20th, 2009

staff-onlyAt a burn, there are usually tasks that someone thinks ought to get done, but that they don’t want to or aren’t able to do themselves. Picking up MOOP (Matter Out Of Place, also known as trash) is a common one. It seems like there is always the temptation to encourage desired behavior with rewards, but I  worry. In my fantasy world, the people at a burn would pick up MOOP because they believed in the principle of LNT, not because they wanted a cold drink. The person giving out the drink would do so because they wanted to express the principle of gifting, not because they wanted to get people to do something that they wouldn’t otherwise have done. Wait a minute! Burns are my fantasy world!

On some level, I feel like exchanging presents for work at a burn taints both the present and the work. I have the same uncomfortable feeling when theme camps want to give organizers cutsies in the food line, or a while back when somebody was talking about giving coffee mugs to people who volunteer. God damn it, organizing Alchemy is my vacation! I love being a board member. I love being a ranger. Thanking me for those things would be like giving me a slice of pizza and then thanking me for eating it. I just want to say, “No! Thank you for the pizza! It was delicious! Do you have any more?!” Rewarding me for eating delicious pizza that you gave me just feels weird.

Have I gotten special treatment because I help organize a burn? Sure. Last year, team leads were all given a unique piece of schwag. I don’t have a problem with people gifting to whomever they want to gift to. Where I start to feel wierd is when I hear people say, “Not enough people are volunteering to do X, so let’s set up an incentive in the form of a privilege or reward.” My ideal would be for people’s first motivation to be the love of the act, and if they get privileges or rewards as a result of that, all the better. But if people need to be incentivized, then that pretty much means that their first motivation is the incentive, and not the love of the act, and I’m not sure I want to encourage that type of interaction at my burn.

At this point, you are probably thinking, “Yeah right. Like people are going to pick up trash because they ‘love it’.” I get that. Picking up trash isn’t my favorite thing to do, but I can see how acting on the principle of LNT results in things that I do love. For example, we have gotten nothing but positive comments from the people who own and live on the land that we rent for Alchemy, and LNT is part of that. We’re leaving an impression of burners as, “Those people who put on an awesome party and clean up the land when they’re done!” That’s the kind of thing that I really love.

My philosophy is that when there is a task that people don’t want to do, the way to motivate them is to inform them of the effect of doing the task and not doing the task. If, with that information in hand, they still don’t want to do the task, then the right thing to do is to allow the task not to get done, and allow them to experience the outcome of not doing it. This allows people to be fully responsible for their own experience. If you’re going around doing things for people that you think need to get done when you’d really rather they be doing it for themselves, then you’re denying them the opportunity to take responsibility for their own experience, which isn’t doing them or you any favors.

For more on the effect of rewards and external incentives, check out Punished By Rewards, by Alfie Kohn.

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