The collapse of our current industrial way of life is characterized by inversions and reversals. What was once up is now down, what was in is now out; the new green is old brown after all. Consider the following three vocations (although we now prefer job for one colored collar, career for the other) and remember that vocation comes from vocare, to call. These are ancient tasks one was called to serve, and many still are called to perform these basic human roles. Any of these folks in your contact list?
Midwives devote their lives to learning about birthing babies the healthiest way, and have been the way humans enter the world for uncounted generations. Characterized as unqualified quacks and dangerous to expectant mothers, midwives have been made into criminals by medical authorities. Midwives do not pursue their craft for purely personal gain, but because they love bringing babies into the world.
Herbalists spend countless years studying, learning, growing, identifying and dispersing the collected knowledge and wisdom of centuries around medicinal plants. Characterized as charlatans by the pharmaceutical authorities, herbalists are regularly criminalized and jailed. Herbalism is rarely a lucrative career path, and is pursued largely by those with a sincere desire to help others heal without harmful drugs.
Farmers pay themselves pennies per hour to work in the riskiest field with the least compensation, and display a level of personal devotion to their flocks required only of clergy. Small, independent farmers are being made into criminals by agribusiness authorities for providing real, raw, basic food to their neighbors in transactions made with mutual enthusiasm. Lives and farms are being destroyed and good people imprisoned.
Are any of these types of people really criminals? Are they disregarding the rights of others for personal gain or enriching themselves by harming others? Are they committing violent acts of malfeasance and destruction? Are they a danger to society?
No, they are birthing people, healing people, and feeding people, all because that’s exactly what they want to do with their lives. And in most cases, it’s what they want to do so much, that they do it despite the likelihood that they will never get rich by doing so. They will never commit any acts of violence to get what they want, nor do whatever criminals do for whatever criminal motivations may drive them.
And that’s because they’re not criminals. Really!
So what is a criminal? Someone who commits a crime, duh. And aren’t crimes merely the names we give to specific harms done to others? Harm specified describes our codes of law as the remedy for the harm. Also codified into law is the base assumption that breaking the law must automatically mean that harm has been done. Somewhere, somehow.
Yet each of these vast arenas of human activity, birthing, eating and healing, have been happening for eons of human experience. How can it be today that these people are regularly arrested and imprisoned, when not only have they not harmed anyone, they have in fact committed extraordinary acts of service on behalf of others? What gives?
Could it be that the laws of the land have become so twisted that many of them now protect those doing the harm, rather than those upon whom the harm is being done? Is it possible that the harm done by currently legal institutions could be considered criminal? I thought harm was the root of all crime. But of course, I’m not a lawyer.
This reversal of harm also presents itself in the phrase revolving door policy, the term that describes today’s standard practice where the captains of industry are appointed to the governmental agencies charged with protecting the rest of us from the captains of industry. (Strange, they wear different hats, but always the same suit and tie…)
Over time, the body of law has morphed so grotesquely that regulatory enforcement by one has become a strategy for market manipulation by the other. And that’s because they are no longer one or the other, but in fact, one in the same. Today we have so many of these systemic inversions of justice that people who are clearly not criminals have been forced over the line by those who have rewritten the lines.
It’s not much of a stretch to see that genuine criminals, those who seek personal gain at the disregard or expense of others, have been the ones who have infected the code of law and are making criminals out of good people. Dog-eat-dog has been legalized by the dogs! And now they’re turning the dogs on us.
So what’s a truly law-abiding citizen to do anymore? To abide is to endure, but how can we abide the absurdity of making a criminal out of a food grower? Who have we become that we accept the presence of midwives as an aberration to quality natal care? How can we tolerate the ongoing incarceration of people who work with plants?
Law-abiding citizens are being compelled to look at exactly what we are, in fact, abiding by. When criminals install the laws, then abiding by those laws becomes collusion. Whether complicit or illicit, the resulting harm continues to be done. The only question is, what are we going to do about it?
If there’s a calling in you, listen to it. It’s making sounds for a reason.
Heed it. Feed it.
Let it grow into who you really are.
Tags: agribusiness, authority, collapse, herbalism, midwifery
Scott….I’ve been meaning to tell you that I enjoy reading your posts very much. You’re a good writer and you’re saying things that need so very much to be said. I subscribe to the RSS feed and although I may no make comments often please know that your words are appreciated and well received. Especially this last one. Well said, well done and thanks!
Wow, thanks, Iris! Glad to hear it: I do wonder sometimes, starting out here, if I’m just hollering out loud in my little patch of earth…
Scott,
No you are not just hollering out loud, beleive it or not, people actually appreciate a ray of hope. Hope for the truth, hope for the errors of mankind and hope for the community. You bring a ray of hope to me each time I go to your site. Don’t stop. We may not always comment but you are appreciated.
Thank you, Sheryle! Hope is a gritty thing, and I hope more eaters have these kinds of discussions about their food supply…
Hey Scott,
I stumbled on your blog a few months ago, and I’ve enjoyed reading your many posts. Why the long delay in new postings? You’re a talented blogger, and your readers want to hear your new thoughts! I hope you’re well and that your blogging delay will end as soon as your life allows.
Take care, and best regards,
Steve
Thanks, Steve. I truly appreciate the time you took to say so. Just got swamped with reality, but I’ve been writing a lot lately, so I’ll be posting again soon!