Trashed!

A young woman eats her breakfast on the subway platform waiting on the train. She is dressed appropriately for a day at the office; she carefully leans over the tracks to peer down the tunnel. She brings a muffin, some tea and a few white napkins out of her deli bag. The muffin is pulled apart bit by bit as she sips liberally from her tea. Finished, she stuffs the cup, muffin wrapper and dirty napkins back into her paper bag. She then tosses the crumpled lump onto the tracks and peers again for the train.

What is in the mind of person that would eat a meal in public and proceed to drop its wrapping on the street? Why does the subway have a litter problem and not the museum? Why is it that when the real estate is poor there is no compunction to find a trashcan? The answers to how and why a place is ‘trashed’ are answered if we look at the conflicts of social classes and the beliefs about the ownership of these spaces.

The Conflict Theory provides a useful perspective to begin the discussion and I believe points to the solution. Conflict theory originated with Karl Marx, (1818-1883) the German activist and philosopher. Conflict theory divides society into two basic halves, the property owning class (bourgeoisie) and the workers (proletariat). The owning classes make the rules and the working classes follow them. Put another way when a person has ownership they behave one way and when they do not have ownership they behave in another.

Those owning a place have interest in its appearance and how it is used. One needn’t actually possess the item to have this interest. One need only believe in one’s ownership, however small. When even this little bit of ownership is not seen as valuable the environment suffers. Nobody would flick a cigarette butt into a corner of their living room or throw gum on the floor of their bathroom. I think that a belief in ownership is the key to ending litter.

Can we make everyone an owner with interest in the environment? If the young woman felt in possession of the subway platform she may not have littered. Why didn’t she feel any ownership here? Because she doesn’t believe she has any influence on it. She does, but she’s likely never exercised it.

Again and again others like the Straphangers or the MTA themselves have sent out mail, made calls and passed out literature to acquire accurate public opinion. Public service announcements, posters and commercials are aimed at this person.

How can she litter? Because she believes that ownership takes something from her.

We can continue to go down this path of ownership, but what we’re ultimately left with is changing minds about what influence they possess. We live, work, and pays taxes for these services. This young woman is influential, but she doesn’t believe it.

Most of us are familiar with the Broken Window Theory from Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling book The Tipping Point in which he links increases in crime to the environment in which they occur. When enough graffiti and litter are present it can create a tipping point where a person who didn’t usually litter is willing to break the law. This theory only works when we’re speaking about areas where economically disadvantaged citizens congregate.

What must happen to create a tipping point in which littering is unthinkable? Wall Street has arguably more devastating crime, but there are no graffiti sprayed halls and litter strewn corners. There are no broken windows to fix, graffiti to remove or even much litter to pick up. The proletariat of the financial district of New York City is very proud of this fact.

Pride, I would argue, is a characteristic of ownership. Our subway woman is not proud of her place, literally and metaphorically. What can we fix for this gal to get the biggest impact? Litter is a social problem that can be understood when we look at the conflict of social status and the value placed on the immediate physical environment of the persons who inhabit that environment. When ownership can be felt as shared, and this sharing has influence and value, change occurs rapidly.

Can we value public places that have different inherent and incomparable functions equally? When everyone has esteem in their neighborhoods and public places there will be no trash to sully their enjoyment. But littering and its impact on one’s own neighborhood is where this idea must begin and can be most effectively taught.

If we are to address the problem on litter as a whole we must continue to expand our gaze. We start with our own broken windows. We begin in our backyards. This enlightened gaze of ownership of one’s surroundings soon takes over our public spaces and eventually our national regions and even our planet. The place we occupy in society according to Karl Marx’s analysis will like determine if we ever get out of our own backyards.

The Great Garbage Patch is a swirling sea of debris comprised mostly of plastic litter. The litter came from boats that dumped their trash directly into the ocean, but also rivers that brought the trash to the sea. There is no life in the Pacific Gyre and there is currently no effort underway by any government to deal with this swirling heap of a trillion tiny acts of misbehavior.

The tipping point here is the same as the woman on our subway platform tossing her breakfast bag into a corner. Can we make the evolutionary jump and turn Karl Marx’s philosophy on its proverbial head? Can we evolve from the proletariat to the owning class of the bourgeoisie? Our ocean must be seen as belonging to all of us and it must become our responsibility and fall under our collective care as much as our parks and front lawns. We will get out and pick up the trash and garbage that accumulates on our patch of grass, but want someone else to pick up our parks and our filter our oceans.

The tipping point will come when each of sees our own behavior as contributing to this vortex of trash. The oceans are our back yards and can be seen as our gardens at least as much as our farms are.

Where is that tipping point?

I believe that there are several areas ripe for changing this dilemma. I believe education about what exactly litter is and what costs it brings to a community are crucial. Most of us know that plastic takes a very long time to decompose yet do not think twice about not recycling a soda bottle. Here in New York, when you buy a soda bottle, you pay an extra five cents to clean it up. These bottles can be gathered up and sold to recycling centers. Many of the homeless in our community are the largest recyclers.

Styrofoam is still manufactured when we know that it takes over a million years to degrade. Most of the searchable studies show that the average person who litters is male, between 16 and 24 and smokes. This should be a population that can be reached. If we can tip this fellow we’ll have a way of doing real damage to landfills. Smoking rates are continuing to go down. Education was the key to turning youth tobacco use around. So there is hope that littering will reach a similar tipping point.

Every morning I grab a plastic bag from under the sink and walk to the subway. I don’t always pick anything up, but I have the means to. I can be seen on the platforms of the New York Subways picking up after my fellow straphangers because I believe that is the best response to what I now know. I throw away the trash and I recycle what I can. Sometimes people will actually offer to put their trash in my bag. Sometimes they will help; it’s usually a child making a game of picking up after adults. Sometimes I am thanked or complimented; it’s usually an old woman.

I’m not going to wait for anyone else to lend a hand at tipping this issue. I’m doing my part to approach the tipping point.

This issue is fraught with paradox. On one hand we must all be seen as owners of this planet and all our individual environments for sustainable change to happen. For this ownership to occur we must educate those that feel the least ownership, young people especially post puberty and pre-adult males. Teach the young that they own more of the earth than we do. When that is exactly the opposite of what it looks like.

We must act like the proletariat, working for the good of all, while believing we are the bourgeoisie, so we can behave as good stewards. We live on one planet and it contains enough food and shelter for millions more than currently occupy it if we can learn to live and teach these paradoxes.

A young woman ate her breakfast on the subway platform waiting for the train. When she finished her muffin she wiped away the crumbs with her handkerchief. She replaced the lid on her thermos cup and put it in her tote. She leaned out over the tracks to see if she could see the train coming. When there was no train she pulled a book from her tote and read in the pleasant space until the subway arrived.

The Value of Polite

Scene 1:

Two friends enter the C train in Brooklyn on its way to Manhattan on an early Saturday morning. Stepping onto the train they notice that all the passengers are evenly spaced along the hard benches. There is enough room between any of them for one person to sit down, but not two.

First Friend sits down next to a passenger. “Would you scooting down just a bit?” smiling indicating Second Friend.

Passenger: “No.”

First Friend: “What? You won’t move down to let us sit together?” eyes wide.

Passenger: “I paid my two dollars, just like everyone else!”

First Friend: “I don’t think I want to sit next to you, now.” and gets up to stand with Second Friend who has opened a book.

Second Friend: “I don’t know what two dollars has to do with it. “

The two friends ride a few stops and get off.

Overheard as they are exiting train: “Some people think they own everything!”

Scene II:

Six o’clock on a weekday evening as passengers exit the subway train.

The day is finally done. The last squealing whine of the train fades as the train pulls into the subway stop. There are about six people at the door ready to exit. The door slides open and the passengers on the train are forced to exit single file as the waiting passengers on the platform block the exit on both sides.

“Ahhhhghh!”The last passenger is is nearly forced back onto the train as the people on the platform surge into the car.

The last passenger shoves while shouting at those entering “Let me off the TRAIN!!” knocking a person on the platform back with a shoulder shove.

“ASSHOLE!” is heard.

Scene III:

Busy sidewalk on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, noon on a sunny weekday.

People have created two lanes, one going uptown, the other downtown. A woman is pushing is a double wide stroller downtown. There is no way to pass the stroller without running into the people walking uptown or stepping onto the busy avenue. She is pushing the stroller at a slower pace than the rest of the walkers.

She stops the stroller abruptly and moves around to its front to look and speak to the children it contains. The person directly behind her has to stop just as abruptly so as not to plow into the stopped double wide stroller. The UPS guy with a hand-truck behind him tries to stop, but doesn’t have quite enouph time. Boxes and envelopes scatter forward as the UPS guy tries to limit the damage to his goods and the other people on the sidewalk. The boxes spill onto the oncomming lane of uptown walkers. Now the entire sidewalk has stopped.

The woman with the stroller never stops talking to her tiny passengers, oblivious to everything around her. Some people step over the boxes and packages. Some people risk the avenue to get around the stroller and spilled boxes. The woman returns to the back of the stroller and continues along, unknowing.

I was raised in the South and the Midwest so perhaps I have a different idea of politeness, but I don’t think so. I try to smile and be considerate of other people’s space. With eight million people in the city, it helps to get through the day.

Politeness has more value the more of us that are congregated together. I’ve been to larger cities and more congested places around the world, including Tokyo . Traveling in the Far East was difficult at times, but not because someone wouldn’t give me a seat if there was one, or one person taking ownership of the sidewalk, or even the bullying of others for a preferred place.

Politeness is worth ten times more in New York than it is in any other American city, and I’ve lived in the largest three. New York recently got the award for the most polite city in the nation. I don’t want to dispute that, but I would like to add a caveat. Most New Yorkers are polite. The ones who are not stand out like monsters.

The monsters in New York come in all shapes, sizes, ages, genders, classes and races. I’ve had a smartly dressed business man give the look of death when I asked him to let me sit down where his Louis Vuitton briefcase was resting. I’ve seen young expensively dressed women wrapped around the subway pole, not allowing anyone else to hang on around them. I’ve seen people play music loudly on their cell phones in a crowded place (and shout along!) I’ve seen men, women, adults and children enter an empty train first; only to stand in the doorway forcing a bottleneck.

Who are these monsters? I’m not alone in my apprehension in speaking to them (its a frequent topic among my friends). We’re affraid they’ll get violent. What creates these monsters? I think these people are so self centered that they cannot even comprehend that their actions have any bearing on anyone but themselves. I think they need an incredible amount of attention to make up for the lack of attention they got as children, or at home etc.

If one doesn’t value oneself, how can we conceive of value in another? It’s usually the most impolite people that I’ve encountered that have a paranoid concern about others showing them respect. Do they think there is only so much politeness or respect to go around? Do they think that in order to get respect they must sacrifice being polite? Do they really think they get respect with rudeness? I think so. I think they feel the power of attention, and the notion that they are getting something from others. Very sad.

I’m not polite so others will treat me politely. Its a habit I learned from my parents and my up bringing. I can’t say that I think about it much except when I see others so cluelessly abusing those around them. And I’m frustrated because I don’t feel safe in asking them to move, be quiet, or share.

The Evangelist

Conversation at 6:45am on the 5 Train leaving Fulton/Broadway Nassau. Door Closes.

“And the Ri-Chus! Yes! The Ri-Chusssshall Inheirit the Kingdom of GOD!” He is a small handsome man, well groomed. He wears glasses. They match his watch. The long flap of his Bible-marker is also gold. Short twisted out braids, shake with his head as he searches for eyes. He is a dark coffee color. Clear fine skin. This is the best groomed preacher I’ve ever seen on the subway.

“Do you know you’re breaking the law?” I ask back at him. I must have looked a fright in my big gray wool coat and head covered in fur and leather, carrying my leather back pack. Six feet and 185lbs rushing on to the express train. Amazed to find a clear space right at the pole. I had to move around a cute guy standing in the door. He wasn’t cute for long.

“I Rebuke You, Satan! Get thee Away!” He abruptly closes his Bible and waves it safely away from me.

“Why do you think you’re above the law?” I ask, projecting my voice. I hear giggles somewhere. Shuffling of feet. The guy behind me in the opposite door moves down the subway isle, getting away.

“Get Out of this man, Satan! I command thee!” Preacher crouches in his matching orange-piped parka and Carhardt pants, not too baggy and Vasque hiking boots that look new. I think now he’s about my age.

“Why do you need this attention?” I ask him. Now I’m trying to get his eyes. He never looks at me. I never in this entire conversation get to look at his eyes. I think they’re brown. But Preacher never showed me his eyes. His head is dodging all around looking for eyes. Any eyes, but mine.

“Get thee Out! Get thee Out! In the name of Jesus Christ!” He’s actually shouting around me. He wears a gold chain around his neck that I noticed for the first time. Freed from his white t-shirt over a larger burnt orange long sleeve pullover, it swung out from him as he waived his thick black Bible. The tiny gold cross, it’s weight, the only force, was freed from his chest. I followed where it pointed and went down the isle away from this beautiful madman.

“Lawbreaker! Christian!” I say back to him. I have yet to raise my voice and I’m not going to now. I replied as a school child would to rebuff something trivial.

“That’s right! Go have a seat!” And he laughs. A stage laugh. He starts in again on his shouting. I realize that I had stepped upon his stage, literally. At the other end of the train I heard a girl tell her friend what happened. They were about 15. They thought it was sorta funny and sad. I read Alexander Pope till I could change train cars.

I understand the need to evangelize. I bore my friends with the rightness of my opinions. I think I could come up with an opinion on anything, though I think only a few of them would be any good.

I evanglize about different things, I guess. I think I’m like this preacher in some ways. I hope you’re not trapped on a subway car and are forced to listen.