Directly producing one’s own subsistence reveals dependencies that commerce hides
Evidence
To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse the issue. … To avoid the second, he should lay a split of good oak on the andirons, preferably where there is no furnace, and let it warm his shins while a February blizzard tosses the trees outside. If one has cut, split, hauled, and piled his own good oak, and let his mind work the while, he will remember much about where the heat comes from, and with a wealth of detail denied to those who spend the week end in town astride a radiator. — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 27
Categorization
- SEED: Leopold’s ‘cut/split/haul/pile it yourself’ method is a template for the observation essay — the essay’s structure follows the work of the hand. An essay on any hands-on practice could take this shape.
- XREF: Connects to the polyad’s observation-as-method thread — producing one’s own wood yields knowledge no distilled information can. — connects to: A tree grows equally well for good and bad stewards alike — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 36; Market ideology fragments classes into individual consumers and hides production; Economic value emerges through the distance exchange creates between self and object — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 250 (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Market ideology conceals exploitation by making exchange stand in for production
#corroborates(0.92) - Market ideology fragments classes into individual consumers and hides production
#corroborates(0.90) - Distant production removes moral incentives to examine consumption’s true costs
#corroborates(0.82) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2528 - Economic value emerges through the distance exchange creates between self and object
#corroborates(0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 250 - Economic rationality reduces individuals to obstacles in the production process
#corroborates(0.72)