What's the cause?

I'm starting to think we've run out of really good causes for people to champion.
Voting rights for women? Done. World peace probably isn't going away anytime soon, but jumping on that bandwagon's hardly original. Equal rights aren't exactly sorted out, but the effort's there. Even the whole Save the Whales things seems a little played out.
These days, it seems like anyone who wants to champion a new cause left with previously unattractive options like laziness or eating other people's garbage, both of which are actual movements with actual names and actual media coverage.
CNN reported this week on something called the Slow Movement, an organized — if presumably lethargic — effort to get people to relax a little bit. Edgar Cahn, a 73-year-old lawyer identified by CNN as one of the movement's leaders (which I assume in this case means "guy with a web page") says people cause themselves stress by trying to cram more and more activity into their lives.
In response, Cahn has started something called TimeBanks, a nonprofit group through which members trade blocks of time with each other. So, for example, you could offer to go to the grocery store for some person you've never met (get them lots of Nutter Butters) in exchange for having some other perfect stranger come mow your lawn or walk your dog or clean your toilet. I don't understand this concept. Easing busy schedules by trading chores with some random person a little bit like easing the economic crisis by trading some dude on the street a $20 for two $10s.
Then again, Edgar Cahn is getting interviewed by CNN while I'm typing a column at home by myself at 10:30 p.m., so maybe he's onto something.
Getting together to discuss having too much on our schedules seems counterintuitive to me, but Cahn is apparently not the only one to have the idea. According to CNN, a group called Take Back Your Time has launched a campaign to address what it calls "time famine" with conferences and "teach-ins" to help people learn they don't need to be busy all the time. Here's my advice: try avoiding anything called a "teach-in." That should free up a few hours right there.
In San Francisco, a group called The Long Now formed to "provide an alternative to a 'faster/cheaper' mind set and promote 'slower/better' thinking. I have no idea what that means, but I imagine their meetings last forever.
Still, as silly as it sounds to organize entire groups around a messages as simple as, "Chill out, dude!" at least the time management people don't dig through your trash looking for a snack. That's a whole other movement. Something called Freeganism which, as far as I can tell, is based entirely on the idea that paying for anything — from furniture to clothing to salad fixin's — is for chumps.
Several years ago I had a roommate who announced proudly one night that he'd just had his first dumpster diving experience. I wasn't sure if congratulating him was the right response, but I made sure to have him point out exactly which bag of chips was his.
Look, I really don't care if you get all giddy about finding a slightly bruised eggplant in a grocery store dumpster. I don't want you to ever invite me over for dinner, but you do what works for you. I just don't think it deserves a whole movement. Freegans seem to believe what they're doing is some kind of statement against consumer culture or something. Mostly, though, I think it's a statement that they're less afraid than most sensible people of getting a stomach parasite.
Maybe it's not their fault. Maybe if these people had been born a few decades earlier they would have been marching to end segregation or trying to ban the bomb or staging sit-ins against New Coke.
Then again, maybe they've just got too much time on their hands.


----------------
Now playing: Massive Attack - Five Man Army
via FoxyTunes