h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Long Distance Slavery - A30724229
Author: hmorgens - U10705468

Half a year ago I submitted this article electronically to The Guardian. I received no reply.

Preaching to the choir here, on both counts.

Question that should always be asked first is: is what you're doing aimed at helping someone, or making yourself feel better?

Boycotting cotton didn't stop slavery. Apologising for our ancestors, rather than taking a good sharp look at their motives and figuring out how to do better, won't either.

All of us are descended from cannibals, monsters, people of depraved indifference - and the occasional good, kind person. Let's learn from the good ones.

Like the man who looked at what wasn't and asked, 'Why not?'

I agree that it makes little sense to feel guilty about what one's ancestors did, and that it would be better to work against exploitation and slavery here and now.

But I think what makes the difference is not an intellectual realisation that exploitation is going on now and is wrong; but an emotional involvement in the fate of individual people. To get people really concerned you probably need some real life stories. I think you'll find that, when papers like the Guardian cover issues like this, they send a reporter to find out the stories of individual child labourers.

You are right: "what makes the difference is not an intellectual realisation that exploitation is going on now and is wrong; but an emotional involvement in the fate of individual people. To get people really concerned you probably need some real life stories."
However, the papers are full of "real life stories." Real life stories finally do not move people: we've heard too many. And we've even seen too many (Diamonds, Africa, in newspaper pictures, in movies)
To be honest (as I am in my essay), I am unmoved, I exploit.

I do not know what will make me (& others) stop -- but I do know we need to be told over & over: you are benefiting, right here, right now, from "slavery" far-far away.

Hello again hmorgans. Double , the Underguide miners seconded two of your pieces in last month's picks and have selected 'Long Distance Slavery' for inclusion in the Underguide along with "No Pain Prostate Biopsy".

Would you mind reading F74130?thread=4940203&latest=1 before the rest of this, if you've not read it yet? It'll save me explaining the Underguide twice, which is always a good thing!

Just for feedback, we thought this a well written, readable and thought provoking article on a subject worth that thought. The QA agreed on the writing quality being UnderGuide standard, while doubting the argument's foundation in evidence. But that doesn't take away from the article's ability to provoke thought.

Congratulations again, and thank you for posting here.
UGeds

I like it. Well expressed and communicated.

-G

A link to the UG version of this essay, hmorgens:

A35019434

I hope it meets with your approval - I found a mixture of US and UK spelling in it, so I've gone with US (since the UnderGuide is happy to swing both ways).