I am constantly amazed at the value we assign to things, events, people, and possessions. We mostly view “value” in financial terms, amortization tables, and dollars and cents. This view keeps everything neat and sterile and allows us to dodge the real value of whatever it is we are evaluating. Perhaps the price that we pay for something, whether it be for a dozen eggs, a paved road, newly let stocks in GM, a work of art, or a vacation ski trip to Chamonix, establishes the value of that acquisition, but I don’t believe so.
Value accrues or diminishes via many nuances and circumstances, therefore, becoming relative or even virtual. That one dozen eggs, for example, could be rotten; they could be used to vandalize something or someone, or they might become the best omelet ever created. In each case the value no longer rests with the purchase price; it rests with something altogether other.
History, sentiment, and emotion establishes value on things, events, and even people. I seek intrinsic value. For example I very simplistically assume that water has immutable, intrinsic value to life. Without water life, as we know it, ceases to be. The quality of life and the quality of water tend toward reciprocity. The better our water quality, the better chance we have for quality in our life. The same can be said of air. These two things: water and air can be measured in terms of quality and subsequently quantified in fiscal terms, ie., health costs, etc.
I believe, also simplistically, that the quality of our food relates intrinsically to the quality of our life, and it is here, for me, that wildlife, nature, wilderness, and native grasslands enter the picture. [Note: I do not suggest that we return to a hunter/gatherer life style. That would be impossible. With our world population we would devastate the world almost immediately.] And if we could and would direct our financial resources toward the intrinsic value of our life rather than toward those things which have cost but which lack intrinsic value, we might be able to survive the landfill wastelands of our current life style.
Comments 9
If this email had sound capability you would hear my applause! 🙂
Gervase, I am amazed at the intrinsic value of the insights you and Dan and Jill have shared through you work and your writings. Thanks for sharing them.
Gervase you obviously wrote what most of Wild Idea Buffalo fans feel : value of things has to deal with unmaterial notions in life, related to our own hierarchy of values… air, water, friendship, freedom, family, love ….
The journey toward intrinsic values starts with one step. There will be a time when we each fall in-step with one another and those values. Thank you for prodding our consciousness and to take a unified step. David
G:
Glad you mentioned overpopulation, my favorite rant. Time our society started talking more about it, as it decimates the quality we all really live for: Beauty, an underlying theme of your writing, whether you realized it or not. Thank you once again!
Linda, Minneapolis
I am constantly amazed as well…..
So this article started off in a manner that has captured my attention.
As far as overpopulation is concerned, I think it matters, but I also think, there is plenty to go around…
Especially (and this is NOT preaching) if there is Mutual Aid.
Mutual Aid is simply stated the most important concept of all….at least when it comes to Darwinian type philosophy. And, this fellow named Kropotkin (I think I spelled that correctly) who came after Darwin wrote a beautiful premise on this in 1902.
He was Russian. I so respect that country.
Big Time.
I respect you as well Gervase.
Thank-you for being a friend when I most needed one.
That I will remember.
Peace,
Ken
The only thing more important than Mutual Aid is what?
I know the answer.
Here is a link:
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/kropotkin/mutaidcontents.html
Oh yeah, and the answer is……
Come on, you don’t need me to say now do you?
I won’t say it because just to be frank, for a moment, I already have. In so many ways and in so many places.
Solstice. Winter Solstice. Southern. Northern. They don’t happen at the same time now do they? That is the begining of a difference when it comes to a spherical body floating around in the heavens….
Know what I mean about Love?
Happy Solstice to one and all.
All said… just so true. What else can be said?