200 Watts

• Feb 28, 2009

200 Watts

$62 worth of new music + 200 Watts of self-powered sub-woofer behind the seat = early hearing loss.
This knowledge in no way modifies my behavior.
I am no better than a smoker.

FemDom vs. Feminism: Power doesn't come from penetration (and other complaints about porn)

• Feb 26, 2009 

FemDom vs. Feminism: Power doesn't come from penetration (and other complaints about porn)

What I was searching for doesn't seem all that extreme or strange.

Something where the female was in control, and the focus was on her getting whatever she wanted.
There is plenty of the inverse.  Too much.  There is also of course a healthy amount where no one is dominant, the majority in fact.
Female dominated (or FemDom for short) is shunted off to the side as a fetish, a subset of BDSM (bondage domination/submission sado-masochism).

Of course male dominated BDSM exists too, and occasionally is even pretty good.  But there is also lots of male dominated porn which doesn't fall under the BDSM category.  Its regular sex, with no pain or bondage involved, but the guy is clearly in control of the situation, and his partner is there to please him.  In and of itself, I'd have no problem with that - so long as it were balanced.


In femdom, almost invariably, at some point the mistress dons a strap-on and penetrates her slave.  I realize plenty of real life people are into this, and that it can be pleasurable for the guy, an interesting fantasy for the girl.  But every time?  If the guy is only there to please her, whether he enjoys any part of the experience should be mostly irrelevant.  And she doesn't actually get any direct stimulation of her own from this act.  From the stand point of her sexual pleasure, it's kind of pointless.  It may be fun, but it's not exactly sex.  Were it really just an alternate form of sex, it would be common (or at least exist occasionally) in genres other than femdom.  That it is confined to that subset means there is an assumption that the act of penetration itself is not just masculine, but dominating.
And that assumption in turn implies that simply via their biology, women are inherently subjects in every sex act.

I have always subscribed to the idea that feminism is nothing more than the "radical" notion that women are people.  Not that women are men.  Not that women are capable of being men.  That women are people, and men are people, and, as Pete says in 'The Muppets take Manhattan, "Peoples is peoples".  Claiming that women are capable of doing anything men are doing is also the suggestion that men should be the standard by which people are measured.  Similarly, a woman should not have to artificially take on an approximation of male biology in order to be (or appear) strong, confident, or dominate.  One could just as easily re-think male penetration as female envelopment.
She just needs to be the one in control.


Its rare for their to be any ordinary penetration in femdom porn - you know, the one physical act which is, in the most literal sense, actually sex.
I admit that I am not, and never have been, a woman, but I tend to trust my partners, and in my experience, women don't only have intercourse for the sake of their partners.  They actually enjoy it.  Which leads me to suspect that, if she were given free reign to do whatever she felt like, it's not altogether unlikely that intercourse would be an item on the agenda.
This doesn't mean she has to cede control.  In fact, he needn't even have his limbs free.

Some would point out that it would be physically impossible if he were not aroused, but arousal does not equal consent.  Barring artificial lubricant, it is pretty important that the female be aroused too - the male is a much greater risk of severe physical injury if intercourse takes place with neither natural nor artificial lubrication.  Terrible, gruesome possibilities which I learned about in my emergency medical technician class.  Things which I won't subject you to and I strongly advice against looking up (let this be a warning to would be rapists everywhere).
For that matter, another act generally taken as an example of male domination, the blow job, consists of a guy trusting some of his most delicate parts and symbol of his very manhood to her jaw - which has the highest strength-to-size ratio of any muscle in the human body, and is capable of concentrating 280lbs of force onto incisors designed specifically to bite through things.  Who really has the power in that situation?
No, seriously.  Think about that for a second...
A woman has complete and total control not only over a man's pleasure and satisfaction, but is in a position to cripple him for life, and this is almost universally seen as a submissive act, even if it is voluntary.

I believe it is this same basic, and severely flawed, premise which makes some people claim that porn is inherently disrespectful to women. 
Consider this scenario:  a heterosexual couple, who love, respect, and are attracted to each other, decide to have consensual sex.  Pretty ordinary, and very few people will claim there is anything wrong with that.  Now say they decide to videotape themselves.  Same exact people, same exact act.  Now say they later decide to sell that video on the internet.  Suddenly (according to many), it becomes disrespectful, demeaning, objectifying, dehumanizing - primarily, if not entirely, to the female.

The unspoken - unconscious - assumption is that sex itself, by its very mechanism, is inherently disrespectful to women.  The issue at this point is not with media or society, it is with biology.  If you are calling biology sexist, well, that is pretty blatant misogyny.
The only type of true feminism there is is sex-positive feminism, because woman are people, and people have sex parts and enjoy having sex.  Everything living thing (well, the vast majority of multi-cellular organisms), from mammals to fish to insects to plants to fungus, is sexual.  To be anti sex, you are both anti-life, (and, since women are alive) anti-feminist.




[UPDATE: I have greatly expanded on that idea in the following two posts:
http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-oldest-profession.html
and
http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2013/01/RapeAndFeminismPage1.html ]

My second complaint has no socio-political undertones to it.

It just has me baffled and annoyed, and its on the same general topic.
Why the hell does every porn producer, past and present, large and small, professional and amateur, believe that it is absolutely vital that the viewer get physical proof of the guys orgasm, every single time?
I mean, I enjoy a good bukkake movie as much as the next guy, but come on!  Everytime?  Why do I care if he's faking it?  It could not be more obvious that it's set up - no matter how good the actors are, how realistic the setting and script, even if it is entirely unscripted: there's a guy standing there with a camera, or else we wouldn't be able to be watching.  So it's a situation of suspended disbelief as it is.  Dear god why, why(!), would a guy who is having spectacularly good sex with a beautiful woman stop, at the last possible moment, take the time to take off the condom, and then cum, not in her mouth, but toward it?!?!  Or, if she is giving him oral, and she is letting him cum in her mouth anyway, who would finish by hand and not have her mouth around him at the end?  It makes the whole experience a let down, its unsatisfying.  At that last moment you want more than ever to be IN; and if I am trying to enjoy what the actors are doing vicariously than they need to at least pretend to be focused on their own pleasure instead of obviously acting for the camera.
It gets worse.  Sometimes there are scenes where he really cums while in her mouth.  But then, without exception, she opens her mouth to show us, or snowballs, or drips it into her hand.  Anything so that the viewer can see cum.  And there is a subset of porn, "creampie", where the guy cums inside of her the traditional way (imagine that, actually having real sex, to its most natural completion, is a subset, as though it were a fetish!?).  And in those, the camera always takes time after wards to watch it drip out again.
I want to see and hear her when she cums!  I want to watch them enjoying each other in every possible way.  I don't want to see extreme close-ups of cum.  Its just not that sexy.  Please excuse the expression, but, as a guy, wanting to look at extreme close-ups of cum seems kind of gay.  Not that there's anything wrong with, but I don't happen to be (and I have to assume most guys watching straight porn aren't either)

These ridiculous trends have gotten to be so prevalent you see the same patterns almost universally in even amateur porn (i.e. non-professional actors and small independent production companies), and is all to common in home-produced porn as well.

This has been aggravating me to no end for years, and now that I am single it is all the more vexing.
I am afraid the only option is that I become a producer myself, and institute the changes that we all want to see.  When it becomes wildly successful, it will be a sign to the rest of the industry to follow suit, and then I can go back to being an environmentally friendly hauler/mover/handyman.  It wouldn't be my first foray into the adult industry, and I think I am getting old enough to handle the responsibility of producer.
Then again, legally as producer you can't actually be involved in the scene (if you were, since you are paying the actors, that would make the transaction prostitution).  That could make the whole single thing even more vexing.  Ah well. I guess we will just have to stick with the rare well done home made porn, at least for now.

Flamboyant introvert

• Feb 23, 2009

Flamboyant introvert

I feel like I want to write, but I don't have a topic.

Actually, that's not true. I have several: adoption, consciousness, short-term dating/serial monogamy, and I doubt I'll ever be satiated of ranting about the injustice of a system that allows unrestricted accumulation of wealth across generations.

But as much as I feel like writing, I even more don't feel like writing about any of that stuff.

So I guess this will be more diary entry than essay.



I talked to a customer a couple days ago, a slightly crazy guy who I've worked with many times, get into heated debates with on the way to his storage space. He was shocked to learn that I make personal stuff public this way - (that reminds me, that's another topic I've been meaning to write about for about 1/4 of forever). He also questioned why I might think anyone would care.
I learned yesterday that someone I had never met or heard of found my website after I drove by in the truck, somehow came across the blog, had even commented once. A friend of a friend. There are 5 times as many views of the blog as my actual business website (even though the business site counter counts every refresh as a new view, but the blog counter doesn't).
I really don't know why. Why are you reading this right now?

Anyway...

I have been mentioning periodically for a while now how overwhelming it all is.
I feel tired, but I am still just as much in awe. I don't feel like I am ever going to be able to take all of this for granted.
I mean ALL of it.
That water falls from the sky periodically. That sex works the way it does. That music can affect me so much. How many people there are. That we are apparently on this giant liquid filled rock hurtling through the vast expansive of nothingness around a giant burning fireball of hydrogen and heavy elements it creates by being, basically, a constantly exploding nuclear bomb held together by the sheer weight of itself. The very fact that matter exists seems unbelievable to me.
I am running a business? What the hell is that? I never had a girlfriend throughout grade school, high school, college. I was not exactly an outcast, but I was far from popular. All my life I was the little skinny guy, the weird guy. Invited to parties for sheer entertainment value. And now I look back on a couple recent experiences and wonder if maybe she was in it as much out of lust as anything, and given how I felt, its like I was used for my body. Me? WTF? Mind you, I'm not complaining. It just seems so unrealistic.

This has been fun. No question. Some of my favorite people I met through the dating process. I have no regrets. I have learned a whole lot about life, people, relationships, even myself. I feel almost no connection to my life from as little as a year ago.
But there was something I really liked about having only ever had sex with two people. Something I liked about only having had one partner and planning to keep it that way. I liked being settled. It wasn't an ideal relationship, but my feeling of loyalty made up the difference, and there was also a lot of genuine good. I'm happy to have been released from that responsibility, but I would like for my next serious relationship to be my last.
Obviously I don't think there is anything immoral or unhealthy about promiscuity, but it just doesn't feel natural to me. Before I had experienced it I never understood the appeal. And honestly, now that I have, I still don't.

I wonder if I will end up abandoning my principal. (I will forgive myself if I do, because I don't really believe in principal. Any principal that doesn't make specific individuals happier in the real life is an invalid principal).
I am not much interested in chemistry. I am not much interested in looks or sexual compatibility. True, I didn't know what I was missing, and finding it was incredibly intense, overwhelming as I have not felt since... well, actually, ever.
And I still say I want - no, I need - a best friend first. I need someone I respect and admire. Someone who can point out the errors in my arguments, who makes me think of things in a brand new way. I need someone I have fun with, and who I feel safe with.
If, having found those in someone who also wants something stable and lasting, if she happens to be hot or we happen to like the same things in the bedroom (or living room and kitchen and occasionally outside), that's gravy. Mind-Bogglingly Delicious Gravy, but gravy all-the-same, and totally unnecessary.

The thing is, I don't know that my intellect, no matter how consistent or insistent, is capable of over-ruling my heart.
I can guide in-love, but I can't control it. I'm a surfer, or maybe a tobogganer, mostly at the mercy of gravity, but I can go a little to the left, a little to the right. And, if I so choose, I can resist - the only possible outcome of which is a dramatic crash.
I know how to make it more intense if I want to. I can focus on one person to keep someone else from getting too entrenched in my heart. But in the end, whatever I do, with certain people, certain circumstances, it's gonna happen.
And mind you, I'm fine with that. Its a big part of what makes life worth living.
The thing is that once I get in, it blinds me. I know that its going to. I even know its happening in real time. And yet I fully believe.
So if it happens and its reciprocal - that's when the problem could come in. Because I won't be able to be objective about it. I won't have any conscious choice at that point. I am bent to the will of in-love.

On my side, however, is that those same things which are important to me in principal, intellectual compatibility, friendship, shared values, enjoying each other, are actually what makes me fall hardest.
On my side too is that the passion can develop with the right person even if it isn't there from the beginning. I think this is something too few people realize in our tissue-paper-significant-other society of ours. This isn't to say I think it could develop for anyone, arranged marriage style, but if the core elements of compatibility are there it can be just as intense, just as real, even if there wasn't that initial attraction. Everyone I say this too looks at me as though I were crazy. Why would you get involved with someone in the first place if you weren't initially attracted? I suppose it figures, since in the end it all stems from the reproduction drive. Somehow actually liking a person for who they are seems a lot more romantic and meaningful to me.

I started writing before work. I just came home. Stopped at my ex-wife's place on the way home. It was our first time alone together for anything besides legal paperwork since the divorce. I caught her up on my experiences dating. She seemed genuinely interested, and it didn't feel in the slightest awkward. It was almost as if she were my friend, instead of my "ex". I feel really happy about that, really encouraged. It has felt like she was very uncomfortable with me until today, and I got the impression she was sure I was uncomfortable despite my assurances that I wasn't. Of course I know - I knew all along - that what had to change for us to ever have a friendship was that I had to let go of the "possibility", let go of any romantic thought or desires. This happened for me a long time ago, but given how strongly I felt before, and for how long, given how dramatic and sudden the shift was, it seems pretty reasonable for her to have been suspicious of it.
I am happy that we might someday be comfortable with being in regular contact because, even though I would never want to be in the sort of relationship with her that we once had, there were a lot of legitimate reasons I got involved with her in the first place, it is hard for me to find people who I feel as compatible with, and it is a lot of my life to give up entirely. I want to keep the baby, though it was really good to drain the dirty bathwater. This may not be meant to be, who knows, but at least the experience opened up a part of me that allowed me to miss her, and even though its an unpleasant feeling, it feels right that I would.

I went for 28 years never feeling more than the most superficial type of connection to anyone aside from whoever I was in-love with at the time. I don't even know what "connection" is supposed to mean exactly. It doesn't seem to have to be mutual. It isn't correlated with lust. Sometimes I can feel it quite strongly even while knowing it will be fleeting. I don't understand it, can't articulate it. But something has been opened up inside me, something stemming from the divorce, learning about attachment disorders, dating for the first time and all of the specific experiences I've had, something has opened and I feel these connections, people feel so special and important to me and I feel I want to get to know a few certain people better, I want to share with them, and I want to feel close - even if there's little or no chance of a romantic relationship building from it. My favorite part of dating, I think, is the friendships that began that way.

Still, a part of me is very tired. I want to be settled. I want to be thinking about planning for the future, for children. I don't want to actually be planning yet, but to be able to be thinking about it with somebody.
I realize that I am a-typical, but I just can't understand how people prioritize anything else over love. What point is there in success with no one to share it with? This is a rhetorical question. I know I will never understand the answer, no matter how thoroughly or eloquently it is described.
The trick is in finding someone who feels the same way as I do. Not an impossible task, but that person also has to challenge me - I don't mean to sound arrogant (and I know I do anyway, and I apologize) - but I don't find that often. There is SO MUCH for me to learn. I just need the right sort of stimulus.
I always thought I had been extremely lucky in finding someone with whom things worked - not always perfectly, but well enough that it lasted longer than anyone else I know of my generation - so young. It was suggested that maybe it wasn't so rare, but just that I hadn't been looking once I found it.
Now that I have been looking, I can say the same thing with more confidence.
A great many people are wary of using the internet as a tool to meet people.
I can't imagine wanting to date someone you meet at a bar, a party, the market, where you mainly just know what they look like. I suspect it goes back to the chemistry/compatibility thing again. You can only gauge the spark in person, with expressions and tone and touch. I can read the words written by hundreds of women and narrow it down, people I might very well have been attracted to in real life (and would therefor have been more willing to overlook certain differences). Narrow down from hundreds and hundreds of people down to a dozen dates. People I knew I had some fundamentals in common with, who sparked interest enough to actually meet. And then only a few that really felt significant in one sense or another. And then none that really worked out as potential LTRs for one reason or another. There are just so many factors working against it, so many ways for it to not work.

I have decided to embrace dependence. I think the idea of independence being something desirable goes hand in hand with the value of freedom. Our economic structure is dependent on a populous which believes that freedom is inherently valuable.
As a customer who has lived in a very different culture pointed out, you don't have freedom if you are connected to other people. If you live with an extended family, know your neighbors, and everyone is directly dependent on everyone else, you have to consider the consequences of your every decision for everyone around you.
Freedom is contrary to community. Independence is contrary to human connection.
What he was talking about was the same as what I was talking about, only applied to family and community instead of romantic relationships.
Besides, no one is independent. We are a social specie. We are only able to survive because we are able to work together. We have made comfortable lives for ourselves using technology which requires specialization which makes us ever more dependent on one another. I said this wouldn't be another social discourse essay - but this is all very personal. Relationships with other people are more than ways to get food and shelter, more than a security net or means of reproduction. I feel, always have felt, like I am supposed to be one-half of a couple. A lot of people seem to believe there is something wrong with that. Of course I am dependent. I think its normal and healthy. In the absence of a life partner I have developed friendships that feel more meaningful than I have had in a long time. I am still not happy being single. I strongly doubt I ever would be.

I remain, as always, optimistic. I have no evidence on my side, but it has been my experience that life works out ok in the end. (I suppose in the end we die, so...)
When you are most desperately out of money, with no idea what you are going to do, that's when you win a new car. It couldn't happen any other way. Malomar is obnoxious sometimes, but he takes care of us. Or of me at least. So I will find what I'm looking for. There may be many more trials ahead, more experiences to have first, and it won't be easy. Fortunately I live in the Bay Area, and there are a lot of amazing people here. This has gotten much longer than I intended. I'm gonna stop writing, and go check on my online dating account.

You don't have to feel that way

• Feb 16, 2009

You don't have to feel that way

The second arrow has been a recurring theme in conversations with many people for over a year at least.

You feel a certain way because of conditions or events in the external world, perhaps out of your control.
For whatever reason, you feel you shouldn't feel that way.
So then, in addition to feeling bad because of the real life problem, you also feel bad for feeling bad.

It is ok to show weakness. It is ok to be sad. Sometimes anger is appropriate.
It can never be wrong to feel a certain way. You feel how you feel.

It can never be immoral to feel a certain way. Your feeling alone can not hurt anyone else. It is only your behavior, actual actions and words, which can do harm, and feeling a certain way never forces you to act out in a particular way.

Besides, from a purely practical stand-point, it is ineffective, in fact usually counter-productive.
Say, for example, you make a resolution to work-out more. And then you don't end up sticking with it. The real problem is the consequences to your physical body. But in addition you feel bad about yourself for your lack of discipline. Feeling bad about it doesn't make you more likely to actually do it. It just makes you feel bad.

Nobody is perfect, yourself included, and it is best to recognize and accept that fact. Never add insult to injury by measuring your self against imaginary ideals, telling yourself you aren't good "enough".


On the other hand...




Some people skew this concept, using self-acceptance as license to accept everything they feel, as if we had no control at all.

You should never feel bad for feeling a certain way - but that is not the same as suggesting that every feeling needs to be validated.


It may be ok to be sad, angry, annoyed, disappointed, whatever, but they are still things to be avoided. They aren't bad in the sense of being "wrong", they are bad in the sense of being unpleasant. They feel bad. And that's reason enough to avoid them whenever possible.

And the thing is, it is possible!

Not all the time. If a loved one dies, there is no getting around the grief that will cause.
But when someone cuts you off on the freeway, it isn't them that causes you to feel upset.  Its you.
No one can cut you off if you choose to slow down and let them in.

Its not always as simple as deciding what to feel, but we do have a lot more control than many of us choose to acknowledge.

Feelings don't just happen.
They are directly related to our perceptions and interpretations of the world around us. Being intelligent animals with an understanding of cause and effect, we have a lot of choice over our circumstances.

There are times when the things affecting us are outside of our control, but aside from the obvious steps of dealing with the specific problem, there are ways we can affect the feeling itself, independent of the circumstances causing it.

There is often a very fine line between repressing something and letting it go, but there is in fact a difference. Repressing is unhealthy, and it will only build up and come back later with a vengeance.
But dwelling and wallowing as a way to avoid repression makes the bad feeling build up even faster.

Going for a walk in the sun or out with friends at night instead of spending all day alone at home.  Listening to upbeat music instead of something depressing to match the mood we're already in. Withstanding the temptation to look up all the details of our illness online when there's nothing we can do about it anyway.  Talking to a friend, asking for a hug, letting your guard down enough to allow someone to help.  None of these things make the actual problem go away, but they influence how much the problem effects you.

Accept the conditions life hands you, accept how it makes you feel, and then do something about it if you can, and focus on all the other parts of life if you can't.

There is piles of evidence that positivity has a real measurable effect, not only on mood but even on physical health.  The effectiveness of placebos, people kicking physical addiction with the support of friends, the usefulness of prayer, these are all examples of mindset and expectation affecting outcome.

From the folk wisdom of laughter being the best medicine to numerous scientific studies:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3642356.stm
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9806EFDF1538F931A3575AC0A9659C8B63
http://seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Health/5-09-07OvercomePain.htm
http://www.scribd.com/doc/448599/Study-Verifies-Power-of-Positive-Thinking
http://www.lclark.edu/dept/chron/positives03.html
it is clear that there are concrete, measurable effects derived solely from how you choose to look at life.
Its even been found that forcing a smile can actually cause people to feel happier:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE0DE1238F935A15753C1A965958260

We may not have absolute control, but we have a lot.  You feel the way you do right now because of the thoughts you are thinking at this moment. 

Next time something upsets you, take a moment to relax.  It won't feel natural at first.  That's ok.  Give it a try anyway.  You have nothing to lose.  In the end, feeling bad itself is the only thing that hurts you.

Fair Trade

• Feb 5, 2009

Fair Trade

I was reading some recently about drug trade.

Tons of cocaine produced in South America, shipped to West Africa, sold
in Europe, supporting war lords, organized crime, and government
corruption in all of its stops.  Investigation or opposition leads to
murder.

In Guinea-Bissau the police are virtually powerless because the military itself smuggles drugs.

It got me thinking - there should be someone to certify fair-trade cocaine.

It would be organic.  The farmers who grew the coca would make a decent living.  And no one would be allowed to murder journalists and retain the fair-trade label.

But as I formulated this idea, I ran into some potential problems.

Then I realized, there is a much simpler solution, and one which is even more sustainable.
Meth!

Meth can easily be produced locally.  Since coca doesn't grow in this climate, it has to be shipped across continents, which, just like with non-local produce, has enormous externalized costs.  They make meth right here in Pinole and El Sobrante, even closer to home than the fruit at the Farmer's Market.

So there you are.  Smoke meth.  Do it for social justice.  Do it for the planet.

Travel and work. And hubris

• Feb 4, 2009

Travel and work. And hubris

I tend to spend time around certain type of people. I feel fortunate to live in a place where there are so many like-minded people to be drawn to, and to have attracted to me.
They work in education, or in jobs with a direct environmental benefit.
They are socially aware, concerned with the world outside of just their own personal lives.
As such they tend to buy local food, used clothes and furniture, they are vegetarian, vote regularly. They bicycle and take transit, or if they drive its a sub-compact shared with other people, a hybrid, or powered by veggie oil.
They value things like education, cultural understanding, and tolerance.
They see that the way we do things here is not always necessarily the "best" way to do them. And a part of valuing what other cultures has to offer entails traveling to other places and experiencing them first hand.

Driving that most-visible-of-all-symbols-of-American-consumption, the H2 (the Hummer luxury model) across the country with a couple of passengers, along the 3000 miles of Highway 80 from SF to NY, uses less fuel and causes less pollution (per person) than doing the same journey in a full loaded commercial passenger plane.

In other words - if you travel by plane, you don't get to look down on Hummer drivers.

A single round-trip intercontinental flight more than negates an entire year's worth of commuting by bicycle.



We are able to get away with travel because it is so grossly subsidized; from our military (with a budget as large as the entire rest of the world's militaries combined) being assigned to guard oil pipelines to the fact that airports are paid for by taxes instead of the airlines; combined with the fact that we simply have way too much money (the world average income is $7000, the less developed world averages $700 per year - in the US its $47,000) and so we don't think twice about spending it frivolously, from household doo-dahs to vacations.

When a person travels for education, or humanitarian reasons, with the peace corp perhaps, the plane ticket alone is likely to cost several times more than what the local residents make - and do more environmental destruction than the residents would have done - in an entire year.

And this segues me nicely into my next topic.

The idea that in order to be a well rounded individual, to understand different perspectives, and be truly educated, worldly and insightful you have to travel is a form of elitism.
It is essentially saying "if you have not had the opportunities I've had, you can not possibly be quite at my level. There is a form of insight I have which you never will".
It is a form of hubris.
Most people in the world won't have the chance to, say, bicycle from home to a foreign country, but I am uncomfortable with claiming it makes me better than someone who hasn't, or even that I posses some great insight or understanding because of it.

When we send aid to small villages we are saying in a way: "You need help. You can't take care of yourself. We know the right way for you to do things". We Americans, wealthy and young and educated (and mostly white) come to offer you poor things some charity and advice. At the same time as we feel superior, we also feel good about ourselves for having been so generous. We live in the local conditions (for a few weeks), so that years later we can say we experienced it, but when the project/class/vacation is over we get to go back to our lives with washing machines, cars, and air conditioning.

We generally tend to come away with a new perspective on our own culture - namely, that not everything we do in our own society is the only, nor necessarily "best" way to do things. Other places are more community oriented, less money driven, less stressed. Love and marriage are seen differently, the role of family is different, the role of government is different.

And as often as not, having experienced a few months, maybe a year, of this alternative culture, we romanticize it, deciding it is ideal and failing to acknowledge any of the problems that it had. Focus on some culture other than ones own is still just as much a form of ethnocentrism.
The most common examples I see are everything which is lumped under the broad category "Eastern" and "Native".
Eastern really means "traditional eastern"; today countries in Asia have things like surgery and drugs to treat people, just like we have here.
We have plenty of traditional cures in the West as well, but its rare to see anyone claim that leeches to draw out bad blood, exorcisms, or cocaine should be included as legitimate alternative medicine.
Pointing to some aspect of another culture, out of context, and saying "this way is better" is a type of elitism.
If there really were one "right" answer, it would have spread everywhere by now.

[All that said, people are going to do it anyway, just like we drive cars even though we know we shouldn't.  So, at the very least, here are a few suggestions to help keep your hubris, and potential negative impact, at a minimum: http://www.ethicaltraveler.org/explore/reports/thirteen-tips-for-the-accidental-ambassador/ ]

While I am attacking those people who I personally identify most with, there is another wide-spread idea which reflects our hubris, an example of the sort of luxury can be bought with our rather decadent lifestyles.
In this, as in the last example, I admit that I too am guilty of it.

Along with the obvious physical necessities (food clean water, air), listed among basic life necessities are relative intangibles should as security, companionship, health care, and meaningful employment.

I had a customer I worked with months ago who was a real estate agent. She lived fairly modestly, but had a fancy car, a nice apartment, an expensive TV. She booked me a 2nd time recently, this time for moving, as she found a place to house sit long term for very little rent. While still working as a real estate agent, she had taken a second job at a bagel shop.

I occasionally work with day-laborers when I get a job that's too big for one person and the customer is unable to help.
There are always plenty to be found in certain areas of Oakland and Berkeley (in designated "day-laborer hiring zones" and near any home depot). They work for whatever you offer to pay.
(Well, I assume so; I pay them the same rate as I get paid, as a matter of principal)

Me: "it'll be 150"
Mario: "50? OK, good" He smiles and nods.
Me: "ONE 50"
Mario: "Oh... What?"
Me: "one hundred and fifty"
Mario: "150? how much for me?"
Me: "no, I mean, 150 each, 150 for you, and 150 for him." [I had 2 employees that day]
I don't think he fully believed it until the end of the day when I actually handed out the pay.

They are plenty strong; although they look small, they have the functional strength that only comes from doing real work - they are far more capable than some of my customers who obviously spend plenty of time in the gym, (while a customer who looks strong will stop to rest on the 3rd flight of stairs when he and I are carrying a big solid Oak desk, a day laborer will put the same desk on his back, and, despite my objections, carry it all the way up himself, nonstop).
They have at least passable English, and have a wide variety of experience, doing carpentry one day, painting the next.

Except recently chances are they aren't doing anything today, and didn't yesterday either.
There are many times more people still waiting for work at noon than I am used to, as the economic situation means less new construction or large remodeling jobs.
Someone I picked up a few weeks ago said it was the first job he had gotten in almost 2 months.

Over the past 60 years unemployment has hovered around 3-6% (the most notable exception being under Regan when it hit nearly 11%).
For the past 5 years its has stayed below 6%, for the last 2 under 5%.
It is currently up to 7.2% with 2 million jobs lost in the last 4 months alone.

For the 11 million unemployed, (not to mention the undocumented workers who don't get counted), the necessity is work. Any work. Work to make money to pay rent, buy food, take care of dependents.

It is the luxury of someone who has never had to worry about those things, who has plenty of prospects, and who, if all else failed, could always move back into mom and dad's house, to decide work is not good enough. We have the luxury of thinking about whether we would prefer a boring job that makes more of a difference, or one with a smaller impact but has more room for creativity. We can decide if we would rather work on social justice or the environment. And we can claim that doing something "meaningful" is not just a nice option to have, but actually a basic human need, without which a person can not truly be happy.

By that standard, not only are the countless unemployed not ok, but the hundreds of millions of people around the world who are just doing ordinary mundane productive work are all living meaningless, pointless lives, and may as well not bother with making it through another day unless they begin the search today for something more fulfilling. All the farmers and welders and janitors and bus drivers and mechanics and construction crews and clerks and mid-level managers and plumbers and actors and waiters and small business owners, who have spouses and friends and homes and activities they like to do with their time off, and who thought they were happy; no, they are not. They are missing one of the fundamental necessities of life. They aren't actively making the world a better place.

Who the hell are we to claim that someone else's happiness isn't real?

What about the countless generations who existed before there was wide-spread environmental degradation, before it occurred to anyone that the world might need saving? What about people who live in a (relatively) just society already? What about the entire world back when most people worked in agriculture and lived fairly self-sufficiently? Were they all unfulfilled in life too, with no possible way to achieve real meaning? Or did they perhaps content themselves with the positive impact they could have on their own life and their own family, friends and neighbors; just by being a decent, generous person?


I hope not to offend, and alienate myself from my friends and readers.

Of course I personally have spent a month in a land far from home and consider that trip to have been a milestone in my life. I cycled out, but I flew home, and have taken quite a few plane trips since.
I run a certified green business and work for a non-profit, and these are things I am proud of.

But I believe its not the Emperor, but ourselves who are walking around naked, each hoping that as long as no one says anything, no one will notice.

As people who are aware of and concerned about the worlds problems and how each individual is a part of the whole, it is us who can least afford hypocrisy.