The Vasectomy Project is encouraging men to join forces and take responsibly for family planning. This is an opportunity to bring people together to talk about our collective responsibility while offering men a concrete way to contribute towards a solution by having a vasectomy.
“Everywhere I go, people, be they rich or poor, black or white, men or women, all express the same unease and frustration about modern life with its crowded cities, crowded roads, crowded schools and crowded hospitals.”
Everywhere Doug travels he gets obsessed with billboards. You drive through Port au Prince or Nairobi or Cebu and he goes from, “there are so many people” to “there are so many empty billboards waiting to be filled with ‘vinyl.'” Where we see advertisements, Doug sees potential clients. I suggest to him that this kind of in-your-face advertising might not play the same abroad as it does in Florida, but he’s convinced that it’s still the best bang for your buck when it comes to getting a person’s attention.
In Kenya, we travel with Dr. Charles Ochieng, a budding vasectomist who Doug believes has what it takes to carry the mission forward in Africa. Doug schools Charles, not only about how to provide the best vasectomy, but how to market oneself for success. He tells him that a smile like his was made for a billboard. Charles smiles back … politely.
After a few days traveling with the team, I too get a bit carried away and start conceptualizing a television campaign. Charles tells me there’s a Kiswahili expression that says, “it’s easy as brushing your teeth.” I come up with some “commercials” with a guy in an operating room getting a vasectomy who says, “it’s as easy as brushing your teeth.” However, we eventually settle on a different tagline, “Your future is safe in my hands,” and shoot an ad while he and Doug are doing vasectomies.
Be it in Africa, Asia, the Americas or my home city of New York, I read the signs of ecological disaster and I want to scream out to everyone to wake up, to change course, to stop doing what we’re doing, but it feels as though we’re just like the buffalo being herded by Native Americans towards a massive cliff, driven always forward towards collective doom by our natural desire for instant gratification and self pleasuring all fueled by a multi billion dollar advertising industry. It’s no coincidence that as the stock market goes up the quality of water, air and soil goes down. I’m no scientist, but the combination of a planet with finite resources and an economy that thrives on exponential growth seems like a formula for disaster.
What am I willing to do to spark a global conversation? We come up with a concept, called STAND UP VASECTOMY. Song and dance. Comedy routine. Live “up close and personal” vasectomies. I wonder if we shouldn’t try to get Honey Boo Boo’s father to get a vasectomy. People do need to laugh or as my friend La Ma Ji says, the universe is a cosmic joke and the key to a good life is having fun. Cool, except, our effort to go “light” fails to convince the broadcaster.
I observe that not all people opposed lower our collective carbon footprint are rich people who consume obscene amounts of energy (they like limited population, they just don’t like limiting themselves) or religious fanatics who think we need more bodies on our side when the final battle between good and evil is waged. No, there are plenty of progressive people who think focusing on population is a bête noir and that the emphasis should be on educating young girls and providing job opportunities for women, both proven ways to lower population and improve quality of life.
They say that talking about people as “populations” is not only ineffective, but dangerous; the slippery slope of politically incorrect talk that leads to eugenics or ethnic cleansing or genocide. Even my mother comments that last week’s “blog” with the cover picture of Doug surrounded by black men could be construed as racist.
I get her point, but everywhere I go, people, be they rich or poor, black or white, men or women, all express the same unease and frustration about modern life with its crowded cities, crowded roads, crowded schools and crowded hospitals. Nevertheless, having a serious conversation about it is not easy. Although not quite taboo, it’s not a comfortable one either.
As the project progresses, I meet with Professor Paul Ehrlich, the author of the Population Bomb, who has spent his life exploring the issue. We do a long interview and he shares some basic “evolutionary biology” that brings me some clarity.
About three million years ago our first ancestors appeared in East Africa. Upright and organized into groups of 75 to 150, we began walking our way around the planet. The strength of small group species operating on principles of empathy and collaboration defined our million year evolutionary journey, as we transformed our nomadic existence into complex civilizations. And the key was learning to work together. Yes, there is survival of the fittest, but it turns out that a big part of being fit is learning how to be cooperative.
Today the disparity between the “haves” and “have-nots” has never been wider and with it comes an unease, lack of cohesion and growing rage that works against our collective well-being. We are now a small group species of seven billion and counting and if we don’t figure out how to reconnect to core principles of empathy and fairness, we’ll all be in trouble.
How do we shift consciousness to step back from the edge of the cliff and gain control of our destiny? I don’t know, but for the record, getting men to participate in limiting unintended pregnancies by having a vasectomy is not meant to replace educating young girls or providing jobs for women, it’s meant as an additional tool, a tangible action towards creating a solution. For me, it’s a both/and, not an either/or equation.
We want you to join in a new conversation about over-population and over-consumption, by asking men to take a very personal action to change the world. For weekly updates and announcements, please subscribe to our Campaign News.
I totally agree with your point.
But it’s pretty hard, because you have to go against both Nature (driving us to mate and reproduce), and Culture (telling us having children is the best thing in life).
SInce going against Nature is usually futile and/or counter-productive, we could start taking down the “children myth”: sure, if you want children that’s fine, but not having them is equally fine and – sometimes – even better (on average, childless people are happier).
Dear Valter, It is true that there is a part of Nature that compels us to make more life, but there’s also a part of Nature that gave us the power to choose. Human agency is an extraordinary gift that makes it possible to find happiness with or without children. I get great joy in creating order out of chaos. Having children has created a lot of chaos but with it a lot of joy and satisfaction. In my case, I believe I might have had less pain without children, but less personal growth as well. It’s a beautifully complex… Read more »