Recognizing Or Condoning Reality
Corresponding with someone I expressed my outrage and frustration about some instances of injustice and exploitation. He replied with the suggestion, that I should be realistic and see things as they are.
Corresponding with someone I expressed my outrage and frustration about some instances of injustice and exploitation. He replied with the suggestion, that I should be realistic and see things as they are.
But I did disagree with his contrasting attitude and realism. Perceiving clearly, what is reality, does not determine, how to evaluate reality in comparison with a personal value system. Being in the situation of participating by receiving advantages without having a choice makes me neither responsible nor guilty. It is reality, I am aware of, and there is nothing that I can do about it. Denial does not change the reality, only the awareness thereof. This includes also the denial of the consequences of reality on others.
I personally would consider it as a form of moral bankruptcy, if I would condone or consider as justifiable any fate of the victims, only because it cannot be changed or because I cannot change it. Even when I am completely powerless to change things, at least I have to keep up my own standards of evaluating, what is right and what is wrong.
The best example is consumption of food and other consumer goods in the time of globalization. A lot of what is sold in supermarkets comes from poor countries, where the prices and wages for those doing the labor are so low, that their basic necessities of life like clean water, healthy food etc. are not met and they live in a misery, that is outrageous.
Those persons with economical and political power, who decide this, are out of my reach or influence. Donations are no solution, the outrage is that people are deprived of what they have rightfully earned, and alms instead are adding an insult to the injustice, if they even reach those, who are exploited.
There is nothing that I can do. Boycotting most everything sold as food or consumer goods would get me into malnutrition and would not change the situation. But the denial of the injustice would make me feel ashamed of myself, because then I would be in league with those, who are guilty of the exploitation.
