Michael writes
>I think the choices I am writing about above are related to quality
>of life. My wife and I, for one, do not think that 'fast food' (or
>mal-bouffe as the French say) contributes to quality of life--we
>treat ourselves (identity in CHAT!) like engines, like people treat
>their cars: fill 'er up, and as fast as possible, please, not waiting.
exactly! the other side of this is that access to fresh food and healthy
food is more and more a privilege - fast food, junk food, all is much
cheaper than fresh, requires - as you say - less time, for single working
mothers, and so on. i am ceaselessly distressed by how much more expensive
it is too eat well, and how cheap it is too eat badly and more often.
community gardens make a difference, i think, and i know there are "green"
groups promoting these, but less and less urban space is available for
these kinds of efforts and ventures - so, those who need nutrition the
most (urban kids and single moms) are likely to have less access to it ...
>
>I am think that growing food and cooking overcomes part of the
>fundamental alienation in a modern world--most of the time I don't
>even see cash anymore, I work, have plastic and all I see is numbers
>on sheets of paper.
ah, yes. myself, being poor, live on a cash-basis - if i have the cash, i
have the money. when i worked in eastvancouver, this was the case for all
the folks i was working with - again, it is the poor who survive in a
cash-economy while the privileged shift into the debt-economics of credit.
more and more, especially in the states, credit is being offered to the
poor, - i am sure there is greater Big Brother control on a debt-economy
than the cash-economy that defines, say, so-called 'black market' trade.
>
>I am interested in the whole question of 'identity' in activity
>systems and the relation of lived experience, anchored in idem
>identity, and the social self, coming out of ipse identity. These, I
>somehow think, are related to the issues raised above
me too - altho i'd say the whole question of identifying in activity, and
relations of lived experiences - (for me, i understand this as the
embodied self, the memories of self and relations, and so on) - and i
agree - it is harder for those with less to have more contexts for
identification - the economic limits of impoverished lives structure kinds
of social limits, as well -
nutritional limits, as well, structure kinds of physical and emotional
limits;
and the need for a greater sense of self in relation to the environment,
thinking more about "where" things come from, especially food, is a huge
part of who are are, yet...
i know one response to the problem of cooking and eating well has been the
"community kitchen" where women gather once a week to pool their
resources, recipes, and storage ideas, so that access to better food is
made possible - i don't know how wide spread this is, in North America,
anyway.
but we are spoiled, i am sure, in terms of our choices about food and
cooking and so on.
i don't know what the situation is like in European countries, i mean.
but thanks for moving this towards "activity" Michael.
diane (who has just come in from a desperate afternoon of weeding and
digging and being attacked by rose-bush thorns, thoroughly nettled but
damn!! what fun!!! )
"my doctor says i wouldn't have so many nosebleeds if i would just keep my
finger out of there. "
Ralph Wiggums.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 01 2001 - 01:01:02 PDT