humanconditioned

Britain doesn’t strike me as a very happy place at the moment. For example, you might not have read that burger chain Byron regularly employs staff who do not have the correct documentation with regards their migrant status and then recently ran a fake training event at which the same staff were met by immigration officers and deported. It seems Byron is more than happy to have its burger and eat it when it comes to exploiting a cheap and vulnerable workforce and then getting rid of them should the government decide to ‘crack down’. However, what you may have read is that following the deportations a group of activists protested outside Bryon in London and threw cockroaches, locusts and crickets into the restaurant. They apologised for any “irritation” caused but said “we had to act as forced deportations such as this and others are unacceptable, we must defend these people and their families from such dehumanised treatment.”

It’s a funny world when deportations only get news coverage once swarms of locusts are involved but then it’s also a world where we prioritise cheap burgers over human rights. Of course, it’s not actually funny, it’s tragic. The political-economic system we live under, namely consumer capitalism, encourages us to be self-interested and self-absorbed and to spend more time consuming stuff rather than building meaningful relationships. Now, I’m not judging anyone for doing this, I do it all the time and, until recently, was a fan of Byron’s burgers. But what also annoys me is when people try to justify this lifestyle. For example, I’m often told that the system is like this because human nature is inherently selfish. Oh! So suddenly everyone is an expert in psychology and knows the fundamental motivations of the human being? Actually no, human nature is not merely one thing but a diversity of drives, motivations, conditions, genes, hormones etc, many of which we know nothing or little about. I’d say if anything were inherently selfish it’s capitalism – I mean, Diet Coke or Coke Zero is presented as a dilemma whilst trampling on someone’s human rights isn’t.

So, yeah, of course it’s annoying to have a whole bunch of crickets hopping over your chips but what’s worse is how we treat each other so the food can get on the table in the first place (and even if Bryon are being honest, which I doubt, when they say the relevant members of staff used forged documentation, they are still very much part of the exploitative system). Our everyday world of consumerism is completely untenable  – it is built on historic and present legacies of exploitation and abuse, and it’s undermining the future. It is unjustifiable however we try to rationalise it. But I’m not writing this to try to make you feel guilty. I regularly consume but one thing I don’t do is pretend I can justify it. Of course, in an ideal world, I’d be a vegan human rights activist and I hope one day I get there but in the meantime I would urge us to reprioritise. I dare you to forego that burger and go join that protest instead. I dare you to step outside of your usual social groups and make some new friends. I dare you to get beyond the repressive and limited conditioning of our society and explore more of your human nature. And you can do that tonight at 6.30pm outside the Byron at Holborn. Facebook event details here!