I was intrigued by the ethics of “freeganism,” profiled by Jack Halpern in the New York Times Magazine: “The Freegan Establishment.” Here is a community of people who attempt to get everything for free–food, clothes, even mansions. It is an act of protest against a culture of waste. The most arresting line: “In his book “Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal,” Tristram Stuart writes that American households, retailers and vendors waste about 40 million tons of food each year.” 40 million tons! Is this act of protest against such waste stealing? Hedonistic lack of responsibility? Or socially-conscious objection?
I also recommend Caitlin Flanagan’s, “Love Actually” in this month’s Atlantic. Flanagan’s view on sex is more liberal than my own, but I am grateful for her candid approach to the ways the sexual revolution has caused pain and despair among teenagers, and among teenage girls in particular.
I disagree with ethicist Peter Singer on many points, but I recommend “Should This Be the Last Generation?” because it provides an argument for a perspective on life that is quite different from my own. This question alone suggests Singer’s assumptions (i.e. that a life of suffering is not worth living and that human beings with genetic and other abnormalities should be eradicated in the womb): “Is the standard of life experienced by most people in developed nations today good enough to make [the decision to bear children] unproblematic, in the absence of specific knowledge that the child will have a severe genetic disease or other problem?” How would you respond?
“The Risks of Parenting While Plugged In” got me worried. Do you place restrictions on your own use of “gadgets” while you’re with your kids?
Finally, I was heartened to read “A Culture of Resurrection” by Rob Moll in Christianity Today. A short quotation: “We live in a culture that has forgotten how to help people measure their days. Through medicine and science, we know more about death and how to forestall it than ever before. Yet we know little about how to prepare people for the inevitable. The church is a community that teaches people how to live well by teaching them how to measure their days. Put another way, when the church incarnates a culture of resurrection–one that recognizes the inevitability of death but not its triumph–it teaches people how to die well.”
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