the dilemma of the kiwi

One last post before we leave, this afternoon my friend Daniel and me were discussing about this responsible consuming thing, and how often people who want to do it are confronted with conflicting facts about stuff they consume. And it reminded me of this children's story of the son and his father taking the donkey to town to sell fruit. The first time the son goes with his father, he rides the donkey together with the fruit, and when they arrive in town people start commenting how shameful it was that such a strong young boy would let his old father walk while he was comfortably riding the donkey. He felt so ashamed that the next week he told his father he'd prefer to walk instead. This time when they got to town people started commenting how ridiculous such a strong man would let a weak little boy walk, while he lazily rode the animal. The week after the boy asked the father if both should ride the donkey this time. When the people saw the beast arriving in town, loaded with fruit and the 2 people, they started commenting how disgraceful they treated the poor animal. So the next week when the boy was about to suggest, out of shame, that they should carry the donkey, the father said wisely, that he should not mind so much what other people say, they will always find something to comment about, that's what they do. 

So people who want to consume with a conscience often encounter the boy's dilemma, you buy the kiwi from New Zealand, and people tell you, but that comes all the way around the world in a ship that spends tremendous amount of fuel and pollutes, it is not environmentally friendly; then you buy the kiwi from Spain, and people tell you that in Spain kiwis should not grow there in the first place so they use enormous amounts of fertilizer which is not environmentally friendly, plus they subsidise farmers in Spain such that the New Zealanders and others are jobless; then you decide not to eat kiwi, and your unhappy because once in a while a kiwi would be nice. 

Daniel and I seem to agree that acting with conscience is to act to the best of your knowledge and to the most reliable information source you have. It is not easy to compute the impact of one kiwi, let alone all the things you consume every day. I try not to be fundamentalist about anything, but to be conscious of what I do and why. Moderation is, i think, an even more reliable guideline for behaviour than responsible consuming. And also willingness to accept the best and most sensible explanation you get as the most likely to be correct and adapt to new ideas instead of stubbornly attach to dogmatic ideas.