I am still a consumer; the consumer world was the world I emerged into, whose air I breathed for a very long time, and its assumptions still dominate my psyche—but maybe a little less each year....There are times when I can feel the spell breaking in my mind….There are times when I can almost feel myself simply being.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the struggle of breaking free from consumerism and discovering one's true self.
Bill McKibben expresses a deep awareness of how consumer culture has influenced his identity and mindset throughout his life. He acknowledges that while he still identifies as a consumer, he is gradually becoming more aware of this influence and feels moments of clarity where he can experience life beyond these societal expectations. The quote highlights the tension between societal pressures and individual existence, suggesting a journey of self-discovery and liberation.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about consumer culture in a sociology class.
The religious environmental movement is potentially key to dealing with the greatest problem humans have ever faced, and it has never been captured with more breadth and force than in RENEWAL. I hope this movie is screened in church basements and synagogue social halls across the country, and that it moves many more people of faith off the fence and into action.
Remember...this year has already seen more billion-dollar weather-related disasters than any year in US history. Last year was the warmest ever recorded on planet Earth. Arctic sea ice is near all-time record lows. Record floods from Pakistan to Queensland to the Mississippi basin; record drought from the steppes of Russia to the plains of Texas...This is what climate change looks like in its early stages.
Alone among businesses, the fossil-fuel industry is allowed to dump its main waste, carbon dioxide, for free.
The laws of Congress and the laws of physics have grown increasingly divergent, and the laws of physics are not likely to yield.
We've built a new Earth. It's not as nice as the old one; it's the greatest mistake humans have ever made, one that we will pay for literally forever.
You think OWS is radical? You think 350.org was radical for helping organize mass civil disobedience in D.C. in August against the Keystone Pipeline? We're not radical. Radicals work for oil companies. The CEO of Exxon gets up every morning and goes to work changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere. No one has ever done anything as radical as that, not in all of human history.
We don't need to 'control' free speech, we need to control ourselves.
This demand follows from an insight that I was the first to articulate: that there are no moral facts.
When He gives, He shows you His Kindness; when He deprives, He shows you His power. And in all that, He is making Himself known to you and coming to you with His gentleness.
We're always attracted to the edges of what we are, out by the edges where it's a little raw and nervy.
At bottom, the battle has been waged on moral grounds. The country has debated whether a society for which the dignity of the individual is the supreme value can, without a fundamental inconsistency, follow the practice of deliberately putting one of its members to death.
When the state intervenes to insure the indoctrination of some doctrine, it does so because there is no conclusive evidence in favor of that doctrine.
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