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...I take issue with the equivalence between personal behavior and that person's ideals of collective behavior.
A few things:
1) If it's hypocritical to be in favor of collective behavior that isn't a simple extrapolation of the individual's behavior, then we're all hypocrites, every single one of us. What car do you drive? Is it the most fuel-efficient car there is? Do you drive it only when you _have_ to? Do you know that a huge percentage of oil consumption goes to electricity production? Do you only use energy-efficient devices? Do you only use them when you _have_ to? Do you use spray bottles? Etc, etc... The Hummer is a veritable symbol of resource-gluttonous lifestyle, but it's only a symbol. I'm pulling this out of my ass, as I don't have any statistics, but I'll bet you that if we all chose to bike to non-essential destinations (like going to bars or the movies at night), or if we all decided to use energy-efficent electical devices, or even if we all remembered to turn the lights off when we aren't using them, it would mean a whole lot more for the environment than if all Hummer drivers decided to retire their Hummers.
2) You'll often hear conservative politicians accusing liberals of hypocrisy because they're in favor of campaign-finance reform, and yet in their own campaigns they accept corporate money. I say, what's the alternative? The alternative is for the liberal to be "principled" and "idealistic" and raise 1/10th of the money the conservative has, and therefore lose the race, and therefore give in to the yet more gluttonous legislation the conservative is likely to enact. I think this is a metaphor for this whole dychotomy between collective and personal responsibility. It's like a soccer match in which liberals maintain that the ball should not be handled with players' hands, and conservatives think that it should; if liberals simply apply their collective belief to their individual behavior, they are bound to lose the match. We should work for enacting rules in which nobody will be allowed to handle the ball, but until such rules exist, we can't be the fools that will lose the match because of their ideals. You'll say "how will we enact them if we're not willing to follow them personally"? Well, Rosa Parks didn't refuse to move to the back of the bus in the 1890s; she waited until the 1960s. In the 1890s, she would have been arrested or lynched and would not have been able to continue her struggle for the point in which a critical mass is reached, a critical mass that gives context in which individual behavior has a measurable social effect.
So, in short, there are much better and more effective ways to fight for a change in our collective behavior and collective rules than simply to decide to individually follow them. If all we do is give up some of the benefits of modern society because we don't believe in them, we are enacting reverse social selection in which the worst of us have the most benefits. I don't at all find it hypocritical that Kerry would refuse public financing or that Arianna Huffington flies private jets. If Kerry loses the elections and Arianna isn't able to maintain a lifestyle of a modern journalist, then we can only expect more corporate involment in the electoral process and less voices for environmental change.
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