Article
Is it ethical to trademark an ethical word?
I am not a rich man, but I would give a good deal to know who dumped a sticky Cheerio box, plastic Haribo packet and unrinsed Bacardi Breezer bottle on our non-recyclable waste. When we took our initial suspicions to the police station, a singularly unhelpful officer claimed the "organic" fertiliser enthusiast we've had to strip of his allotment was away last week.I advised Mr Plod to cast the net wider. It's clear the culprit must have known that, in the world of green ethics, a single, planted Pampers nappy can destroy a career. Sure, I'm not the first to be compromised by smears and saboteurs. I've heard it - laughably - alleged that George Monbiot's home suffers from substandard lagging, and that even Al Gore - who's done more than anyone to wake the corporate world from its complacency - has taken multiple long-haul flights just to publicise his film! As if.
I know, I told the disbelieving officer, it's hard to believe the green community would have, in its midst, a number of sinister thugs who will stop at nothing to protect their share of the sustainable lifestyle market, but as with any profession, this burgeoning field was always going to attract its fair share of ethical sharks and cutthroats. Not to mention more conventional capitalists, who occasionally forget that the ethical living market is - for those of us who have committed ourselves to it - not so much a trade as a mutual vocation, a quest, in which ethical specialists are, essentially, bartering knowledge for the wherewithal to create the lifestyle dictated by our consciences. If it weren't for Rowan and the kids, believe me, I'd be in a wood somewhere, spreading the word for nothing.
Though I'm not sure which word that would be. Last week I'd have said "ecotist". I'd say it now, if I hadn't just opened a letter from the proprietors of www.ecotist.com who want me to find another word for "seriously wanting to live a planet-friendly lifestyle" that hasn't already been trademarked by www.ecotist.com.
Hmm. Is it ethical to trademark a word that describes ethical behaviour? I'd say it hardly squares with the collaborative approach to sustainable living that, I sincerely believe, is the only way to save our planet from climate-based annihilation.
But, hey, I'm cool about it. If www.ecotist.com is less interested in word-sharing than protecting its online magazine and line of T-shirts, well maybe they're right, and I'm not an ecotist™ at all. As I happen to think that if we really and truly want to tread lightly, it's going to depend on the altruism of small-scale, carbon-neutral businesses such as my own www.will.duguid.com, which offers an amazing range of eco-friendly products at prices you're going to love.
Why not delight an elderly friend with one of Rowan's all-organic, sleeping bag cum coffins (™), designed to take the occupant straight from bed to grave? But there's something for everyone, from whittling kits for the kids to bike-mountedmini-turbines - your mobile fully charged every 1,000 miles (pat pending) - hand-crafted toilet bricks (™) and signed copies of my latest book, Doomed to Fry, which shows how you, too could morph from hedge fund manager to full-time sustainable-lifestyle coach. For Guardian readers who can prove their ethical credentials with a copy of this column, generous discounts are available.
Related Content
User Comments
rogerhicks
25 November 2006 7:20AM
Morning Rashers101!
What you refer to Will, and a lot more besides, becomes far more intelligible if you take a Darwinian, "bio-anthropological" view of society, i.e. of the "socio-economic environment" that, with the advent of civilisation, effectively replaced the "natural environment" for Homo sapiens in the struggle for survival and advantage that his behaviour evolved (under very different circumstances) to achieve.
Acquiring (creating, stealing, buying etc.) niches and then exploiting, justifying and defending them is what it's all (certainly mostly) about; now, hugely facilitated by a money economy that developed to take full (and thus such effective) advantage of our animal nature and behavioural programming.
This is why there is currently no prospect of us solving the "Sustainability Problem" (including global warming), because virtually everyone is MORE concerned (naturally, i.e. animally, enough) with defending their niche in the existing, "inherently" unsustainable, socio-economic order (environment) than in creating a sustainable alternative.
My homepage: http://www.spaceship-earth.org
whatithink
25 November 2006 9:28AM
It's certainly not ethical to pervert and misuse the word ethical like this drivel does.
mecycler
25 November 2006 2:48PM
here's a fun story about the silly things people do for trademarks, in this case Freecycle, who have been closing down hundreds of recycling groups for alleged trademark infringement, including recently Buxton (succeeded) and Glasgow (narrowly escaped) in the UK ...
ItHasToBeBeautiful
25 November 2006 6:24PM
Is it possible to be part of the capitalist system and truly convince yourself that all of the money you earn has an entirely organic history? If an employee of, let's say, an international oil company wants to buy one of your products, will you do business with him or would that be like putting a soiled nappy in your wallet?
Rashers101
25 November 2006 2:08AM
There is signal and there is noise. This is noise.