Alternatives to being natural

A recent poll showed that a majority of Americans disapproved of homosexuals. When asked 'Why?' the chief reason given was that they thought that being Gay was somehow 'unnatural'. There's a simple answer to that: the next question should be 'Have you ever been on holiday?' Yes, it's a catch question, because the next query is to ask, 'How did you get there?' Unless you actually walked there - yes, out of your house, and starting to walk down the street - then all other answers are completely 'unnatural'. My guess is that the majority will answer 'by plane'; since when did flying through the air become a 'natural' part of being human? If the answer is that you drove, took a bus or train, the answer is the same: since when did wheels become a 'natural' part of humankind?

There's a further problem. Since when did 'holidays' become a 'natural' part of being one of our species too? No, 'holidays' are actually a recent cultural invention. No peasant in Medieval Europe ever went on holiday. Pilgrimage, yes, but that was a duty. There isn't a gene inside us which says we need a fortnight away from home each year. That's completely unique to Western life, in this century, and doesn't even apply to the majority of human beings alive today. People in Chad or Darfur don't get holidays, even though they might need them. Nor do other creatures. When did you ever - apart from in a cartoon film - see a mouse go on holiday? When do penguins vacation? (Only in the movies!)

But the argument about being 'natural' rumbles on, most recently to do with food. Some people are worried that the maize they eat is being tampered with. It is, it's called 'GM Food', and genetic manipulation is now the big thing in the West. But the crops are also being interfered with out there in the field, sprayed with chemicals, the earth filled up with artificial fertilisers. There's a movement going on that says we need to be 'chemical free' and 'organic', which would cut out the pesky chemicals but lay the cereal open to attack from microbes and insects. Hey, that's all right: it's 'natural'. As a nurse friend of mine is wont to say: 'Let's talk about smallpox. That's completely natural!' One small problem: the whole idea of planting up a large piece of ground with a single plant is called agriculture and was only invented by human beings around the end of the last Ice Age, say seven to eight thousand years ago, at the least. If you really want to be 'natural' then you'd have to ditch the maize completely - and all the other cereal crops that have been artificially improved over the generations - and go back to what human beings originally did best: hunting and gathering. In fact, buying anything from a supermarket is 'unnatural'. Eating anything you haven't picked or killed yourself is 'unnatural'. The argument doesn't stand up. You can't keep the wheat fields and lose the pesticide. They are both constructs of the human mind.

But it also applies to most things we do every day. In England, there is a habit of throwing wrappers and packaging on the floor, then waiting for someone else to pick it up. It's called 'littering', and most people would accept that it's not really right, but somehow they just can't seem to stop themselves doing it, as a recent film by Bill Bryson demonstrated. What the little Englanders don't seem to appreciate is that while dumping seems 'natural' to them, it actually doesn't happen in other parts of Europe, like Germany and Switzerland. Over there, for some reason, it seems perfectly 'natural' to expect people to take their litter home and take responsibility for disposing of it. English people are more childish: they make a mess and expect to have it cleaned up. It also applies to nuclear waste as well as household appliances.

Also to toilets. When I worked in Co-op Development in the 1980s, I found that a lot of people had problems with the idea that every worker in the organisation could be equal. 'Who's going to wash the coffee cups?' they wailed. They never seemed to cotton on to the fact that if every person who enjoyed a cup of coffee then took their cup or mug back to the kitchen, gave it a rinse and put it back on the draining board, then there would be no need to employ a person merely to do the mundane task of washing up. Or cleaning the toilet. 'Who's going to clean the toilet?' they asked me, as if it was the killer question. I thought about littering. If everyone who has a piece of litter takes responsibility for it, you don't need to employ clean-up gangs. That was my philosophy: if you make a mess, clean it up. I suggested that applied to toilets too. You make a mess, you clean it up. What makes you special? What gives you the right to expect other people to clean up after you? Did you have a Butler when you were little? Did your family employ a maid? In Britain, there aren't a large amount of households that employ servants anymore. They lost those helpers; they just haven't lost the attitude. Maybe the new generation's clean-up crew is called Mother. Youngsters get used to the idea that cups are washed and toilets are cleaned: they just don't have to do it. There's a simple answer to that. Most people can overcome the handicaps of a bad upbringing. Admit that your youthful experience isn't 'natural'. Out there in the real world, when you're a grown-up, you have to take responsibility. Make a mess? Clean it up.

Then all you have to do is develop a new awareness. Take a day and look at everything you do, from the moment you are woken up by an alarm clock, (unnatural), to the time you clean your teeth, (ditto), to your journey to work, time spent earning a living - how long do you have to go through the day before anything at all happens to you that's completely 'natural'? Eating? Going to the toilet? Unless you eat berries you pick off the trees and relieve yourself in the woods, then even those 'natural' functions will have been corralled and constrained by modern life. No, it's time to get off the 'natural' merry-go-round. There's no harm in choosing the life you want, and deciding what food you think will be good for you, but deploying the argument that your way will then become more 'natural' is unlikely to be the teeniest bit convincing.

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