I’m at the checkout in the grocery store. As the clerk totals my groceries he asks if I want to donate six cents to a charity. Since I use my own canvas bags for my groceries, the store offers me six cents as a refund, and so the clerk is asking if I want that six cents to be donated to a charity. I say to him, "Do whatever you want." He laughs. I detect a hint of irony in his laughter. I consider how he may have interpreted my reply as callous. As he hands me my receipt I thank him. He is slow to reply, which makes me suspect that he has silently passed judgment on me, that he thinks I’m callous.
On my way home I reflect on the matter, and when I arrive at home I consider the matter even further. I am a considerate person. I think and feel deeply. In fact I have given a great deal of consideration to this matter, among other matters. This is the way my mind works. I consider not only a given subject but also the context of the subject and its extended relationships. The sphere of my consideration extends beyond the immediate subject and includes a whole world of consequences, an extensive network of causes and effects. The scope of my consideration isn’t absolutely perfect, of course, but it is very large, as large as the scope of my consciousness.
I cannot encompass my entire consideration in the limited space of this essay. I’ll touch on a few of the most important points.
First, consider the irony of a multi-million-dollar corporation asking me if I want to donate six pennies to a charity.
Grocery stores particularly remind me of how dependent I am upon the establishment. My so-called "right to life" is not a right at all but a privilege, a privilege that I buy into, a privilege that has been sold to me or rather that I’ve been sold out to. I do not buy my groceries for an "equitable" price but a retail price that consists of profit for the corporation. The very money I use with which to buy my groceries was "earned" from an employer who in turn made a profit off of me. I am a tool at both ends of the equation. The notion of "fairness," like the popular notion of "justice," is merely an abstraction.
Material freedom implies independent access to the means of sustenance. Grocery stores are a stark reminder of the individual’s lack of genuine material liberty. What is popularly referred to as "liberty" is merely a measure of mobility. The industrial establishment has substituted individual liberty with a measure of comfort, convenience, wealth, entertainment and pleasure. People are sedated, distracted. To put it bluntly, the individual has become a slave, although he may be fat and happy. Certainly he possesses a number of material advantages and so he isn’t bothered by the loss of his liberty unless subliminally so, manifest in the underlying stress and fundamental dissatisfaction of his existence.
Where labor is performed in the absence of genuine liberty, and where that labor is not reimbursed equitably, that labor is another word for slavery. In other words, money is a symbol of slave labor. Those who possess money in abundance are essentially no better than slave owners and no more independent than their slaves. Slave owners depend on their slaves.
I am aware of my slavery. When I go shopping for groceries I am particularly reminded of my position. This is not merely an intellectual consideration. I feel it deeply.
The grocery store arbitrarily offers me six cents for using my own bags. And it just as arbitrarily offers to donate those six cents to a charity. Can the arbitrary action of a corporation possess moral value? What is moral action? What is the measure of moral value? First consider the context of the question. To put it bluntly, it’s comparable to considering whether a slave owner is able to act morally. And so it’s also a question of priorities.
Bear in mind that a corporation is not an individual but rather a machine.
The intention behind any given action is a factor in determining the moral value of the action. For example, if a man accidentally helps another man, that action hardly carries the same moral weight as does intentionally helping another. The intention determines the moral character of an action, perhaps even more so than the action itself. A good intention may not always manifest in a positive action. A man may intend to do well but circumstances may turn his action opposite to his intention. That doesn’t necessarily mean that his action is immoral. Neither does the positive result of a negative intention qualify it as "moral."
Machines are incapable of moral action because machines possess no moral intention. The foremost moral intention is love. Only an individual is capable of moral action because individuals are capable of moral intention. Moral action is the exclusive province of the individual. Moral action is intentional. Only individuals are capable of acting intentionally. Understanding moral intention means understanding the nature of individuality and the nature of intentional action itself. These questions ultimately involve the question of consciousness itself.
When I am asked if I want to donate six pennies to a charity, a machine asks the question. It is comparable to the act of putting on a nametag or scanning a bar code. The intention is utterly mechanical, part of the job. It has nothing to do with the individuals involved, either the clerk or myself. The individual, for all intents and purposes, is absent, and a well-oiled machine is working in his place. The notion of a "charity" is a pure abstraction, as is the notion of "justice."
All of this, and more, I presently consider and feel within the scope of my consciousness as I stand at the checkout in the grocery store. The checkout is hardly the context for a discussion. People are standing in line behind me, waiting for me. The clerk has a job to do. The clerk asks if I want to donate six cents to a charity.
But the real question isn’t whether or not I want to donate six pennies to a charity.
The real question is: Do you know what the real question is?
