My pro-littering/anti-recycling philosophy was tested twice in one week, a sure sign that a manifesto is imminent.
But before the unveiling of such a necessarily long winded and abstruse document, behold the extremity of this thumbnail abstract:
Littering is awesome, and I am in full support of most litterers.
Like all manifestos, such an abstract must be accompanied by equally extreme caveats, as told in 2.5 true life fables, nearly all involving settings inside cars.
Story #1
(This happened to the brother of a friend, and though the finer details are fabricated, its moral importance remains.)
In the Spring of 2008 (or 2013 or 2018, I forget) Pat and Nick drove off campus at lunchtime. The two spent the excursion gossiping about mutual peers they loathed and adored, describing in detail fantastically lurid acts of love and hate as Nick consumed his lunch of snacks.
Amassing a small pile of garbage, Nick promptly threw the trash out of the driver side window, and in an act of joyful rebellion cursed out their Environmental Science teacher, Ms. Hamilton. As he did so, he allegedly screamed, "This is for you, Ms. Hamilton!"
Though I didn't have Ms. Hamilton and I never met Nick I laughed with Pat at his retelling because I understood the story's moral importance: that littering is uselessly stupid for preserving the environment.
Nick's act of comedic rebellion was of significant moral importance because, as Article III states in the impending manifesto:
The Environment is Over
Wherever humans have settled their neighborhoods and established their associated associations, they have also established sewers, electricity, parks, highways, bridges and other material infrastructure. So much more remains of our current environment than the environment that was conquered and subdued by my ancestors. Therefore, not littering will only keep our shared, man made environment from becoming ugly. (Still important.) A neighborhood's cleanliness is a reflection of the people that like to keep their beautifully conquered environment from appearing ugly; not littering is more a sign of respect for the toil of the previous generations than it is to "preserve the environment" for future ones.
Simply, littering is correct only when done in spite for "Environmental Science" ideology.
Story #2
In the same universe many years into the future I was on the same continent, not too far from the location of that first conversation, working for a small company that provided tables and chairs for tv and film productions.
My partner for the day was enjoying a lunch of bodega snacks and fast food as we sat together in traffic not doing anything but dying from "the spirit torture of traffic exhaustion."
With all conversation utterly depleted between strangers with little in common, and with nothing but the ceaseless babble of the inane radio personalities to keep us company, I had no choice but to notice details of my immediate environment to distract me.
The insanity experienced as a result of the boredom may have become the topic of a blog post, but another memory sticks in my mind like a knife hurled at a dartboard: my partner's obscene littering habits.
I am generally a fan of obscenity, especially when it is sophisticated. (Thus my admiration for Nick in Story #1.) However, there was something obscenely obscene about what I witnessed from my partner on that day.
With his mouth full of snacks he laughed at an obscenely obscene joke from the unfunny radio host, then rolled down the window and dumped his trash out of it, as nonchalantly as if the open window were a garbage can. There was nothing politically spiteful about it, and it wasn't done for my secret amusement either; there was no punchline because it was not meant to be funny. It was just a bad habit, done in the name of convenience.
I'm no prude, but this was a moment when I began to retreat back to the haven of decency that I was raised by, a decency I'd abandoned for the thrill of obscenity. Now I was no longer lured into a life of filthy obscenity whose logical conclusion was driving the vehicle of which I was a passenger.
My partner's behavior wasn't a disregard for decency as much as it was a lack of knowledge that decency even existed.
Yes, we were on an ugly highway headed towards a marvel of civil engineering we had taken for granted, and yes, no one lived on this tunnel highway, but this habit of littering was more than where....it was how. I never thought I'd be writing this, but I found his lack of complacency disturbing.
If this stranger could litter so brazenly with such committed rote, I could easily imagine this stranger performing other heinous and lurid acts with similar nonchalance, as a participant in a gang rape, or an armed liquor store robbery for instance.
I was in way over my head. But, somehow littering was still cool.
Story #.5
As we walked to his car last week, Josh admitted that he had just thrown the wrapper from his diner mint onto the ground.
I hadn't noticed, but Josh's conscience had: "It wasn't necessary to do that," he said, expressing an honest remorse. "I did it because it was easy."
My tongue curled out of the corner of my mouth as I began an attempt at justification for this innocent, if anti-social misbehavior.
Yes, it was easy. And unfortunately it wasn't spitefully political. But it wasn't obscene either. (Not as obsene as the stranger in story #2 anyway.) And really, how much could harm could a piece of tiny plastic inflict in the part of Brooklyn that's been an industrial wasteland for 100 years?
"There is a right way and a wrong way to litter," I postulated, reaching into my basket of memories to provide context. "I think you might be somewhere in the middle."
