Nihilism

[farla]

My parents are pretty smart. Discussions with them involve all sorts of free association, random tidbits of information, and generally interesting looks on things. Recently talking to them has been along unusually dark lines.

Well, it's not exactly new - mostly it's that we're talking less casually. But it's one of the main reasons I don't write off some of my depressive thoughts as being a matter of not having enough experience in things to have a valid benchmark.

There's benzene in Coke. And everything else. They knew fifteen years ago, but didn't care.

Do you know what benzene is? No? God, how I wish I was you. I tell my mom this, and she doesn't ask me what benzene is. She doesn't question its health effects. My family is not going to be drinking soda now. I talk to my dad about the crumbling of unions, and he responds with information from a book he's just finished reading, about America's cultural transitions. We're currently in the third stage, multiculturalism. Affirmative action created racial divides, and it's what broke the unions. There's a war at the turn of the century, Mom says. These things follow patterns. So the cafeteria here has fish fillets, and there's a poster explaining they're responsible about the species, I tell them. It says seventy percent of commercially fished species are on the brink of extinction, but they follow certain guidelines to only fish certain species. I looked up the guidelines online. They just say they're guidelines, nothing more. Dad says, I've heard fish farms are even worse.

These are our conversations.

It's probably in part just normal mood swings, but I'm in a mindset where I can't really care. There are anti-drug posters up, and I just think, if people die they die. We're overpopulated anyway. What good is wasting paper on something that doesn't convince anyone? I hear a story about how someone, a member of those troops we all have to support, raped a fourteen year old. Killed her family so they wouldn't stop him. Burned the bodies afterward. He doesn't get the death penalty. And you know? He was twenty-three. What are you supposed to believe? The water where I live is poisoned. The grass you walk over is an invasive species. The laws are on the books, but they're not being enforced. You can't crosscheck everything.

What can I say beyond that?

Comments

[kddreams.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I don't have such conversations. o.O

[farla.livejournal.com]

Eh, there's a sort of comfort in at least knowing you're not the only one. I'd go nuts if I got blank looks every time I mentioned these things.

And don't eat fish.

[kddreams.livejournal.com]

But I eat fish every Thanksgiving! Oh, yes, Happy Thanksgiving! ^.^

[farla.livejournal.com]

If you're eating any form of predatory or ocean fish, you're helping destroy not only those species, but the entire ecosystem. Consider that this Thanksgiving.

[(Anonymous)]

Those aren't highly unusual conversations, are they? Benzene's the textook example of an aromatic ring - who's been asking you what it is when you mention it? I haven't memorized every harmful chemical in Coke, but I'm sure I've heard that mentioned as one of them; haven't drunk fizzy drinks for years, and I wish my parents would stop drinking them 'just occasionally' saying it can't do any harm if it's infrequent enough...

There are untested cocktails of pesticides in tons of food products; we did five-minute presentations on stuff like that in Biology a few years ago. They had a big article on the news a few weeks ago about how there are 'four years left to reduce global greenhouse gas emmissons by approx 70% to avoid a global catastrophe' according to the newest report; there were former ministers 'urging the government to take radical steps' and stuff. They interviewed the environmental correspondant, who'd installed solar power and given up the car and done everything his consultant requested, and it had only reduced his household's emissions by 30%; the rest was tied up in food and power companies and stuff. Is there much like that on the news where you are?
(Kiiii)

[farla.livejournal.com]

It's not so much that I expect Coke to be healthy, but there are maximum limits for benzene, and the FDA apparently decided that those limits didn't apply to any part of the soft drink industry, manipulated data, and basically ignored it for the past fifteen years. I can accept that the food we eat is full of stuff that's messing with us we aren't aware of yet. I can accept that the standards we have in place are far too lax. But finding out that they knew this was there, they knew it was a danger, they knew it was well in excess of the legal limits and that the amount varied widely, and they still didn't care...

And no, there's nothing like this on the news. God, the news is still sympathetic toward Intelligent Design. The fact that a magazine finally did an article admitting global warming was real a little while back was considered shocking. We're America. Who cares when we can hear about celebrity breakups?

D:

[(Anonymous)]

http://rhjunior.livejournal.com/330251.html
That comic (and pretty much the entire journal) would break anyone out of their apathy. Whatever I'm tasting right now is either bile or liquid anger.

Re: D:

[farla.livejournal.com]

Wow...that's an eloquent argument for apathy.

I mean, why should I care about horrible people like that? Why should I care if they live or die? And as reasoned discussion is obviously impossible, all they're doing is showing that there's no point in wanting change, because apparently, plenty of people are happy the way things are. They're not being duped or lied to, they want to believe it. And they're everywhere.

People like that are the reason I can't really care about "the country" as a whole.