Social conventions govern most of our behavior.  So if we want to create a new convention that changes people's attitudes toward their own poop; influences their perceptions about what to do with "it," how to "handle" it or "manage" it; affect people's consciousness relative to the greater [global] environment and their personal participation in it, what affect their own personal poop has on it, we have to learn how conventional behavior comes into existence, and then determine if it’s possible to actually create a new social convention and implement it on a global scale.  In effect, we want billions of people to wake up to the dangers inherent in the very stuff that comes out of their own bodies.  Is this realistic or merely romantic dreamscape?

Just watching people form a line - say at a ticket counter to some event - or at an ATM machine - without anyone actually directing them, or threatening them, tells us that modifying human behavior IS possible.  Obviously, much of this kind of behavior is learned in childhood.

I began to dig into this phenomenon to try and find some sort of natural method to get people to change their attitudes toward their own poop, and didn’t find anything that was even remotely possible.  I thought about how perfect strangers can stand at exactly the right time to create a wave effect at a sporting event.  Very few people refuse to join in this - now common - behavior.  But when it comes to our own poop, well, we get that look on our face.  We are immediately embarrassed to even talk about it. 

I’m continually amazed at the extent people will go to - often putting their own lives at risk - at the scene of an accident.  A stranger crashes into another stranger and cars with more strangers in them pull over to try and help.  Quite often a great deal of coordinated behavior takes place between perfect strangers at accident sites.  You may remember (last year) the man in New York who threw himself on top of another man as the subway train ran over both of them.  Donald Trump was so taken by this he gave the guy $10,000.

I’ve read hundreds of accounts of people diving into ice-cold rivers to help save a kid who was floating by and in trouble.  I’ve read of accounts of people running into a fire to save someone - sometimes even a pet.  Still, almost all of this behavior can be attributed to established conventions.  Helping one’s fellow when he’s in trouble may even be part of our human DNA.  We know of stories of dolphins surrounding a human who fell overboard at sea.  These stories are so powerful to us that they somehow offset the daily grind of life.

My daughter’s employer was recently burned out in Durango, Colorado.  Adjacent businesses were also burned out.  At last report, not only has her employer put up money to help out her employees, but the town has contributed upwards of $40,000 to help out.  Even the utility company has stepped forward to help the employees of these burned out businesses by giving them a $100 monthly discount until they’re back to work.

The word “convention” means “coming together” or convening.  Most social scientists take the position that if people don’t help one another, the world simply wouldn’t work at all.  In every society there are certain conventions - or norms - around which people “convene” with expected patterns of behavior.  The irony is that most of these conventions are unwritten rules that are socially enforced.  For example, if you try and cut into a line, the people waiting in line will tell you in no uncertain terms where to go.  In many cases, it can get nasty - and quick.  Just break a convention and you get a taste of how they’re enforced by the others standing around you.

At a certain age we come to terms with the fact that changing any part of our behavior is difficult.  Perhaps the doctor tells us not to eat certain foods anymore.  Think French fries.  Life is so demanding that finding certain foods that comfort us - that give us pleasure - becomes our conventional diet.  And what happens when we do change some part of our behavior?  Family and friends look at us as if we’ve gone round the bend.  “What’s wrong with you?  You’re really getting weird.”  

Remember Joni Mitchell’s song Both Sides Now, which has the lines “But now old friends are acting strange.  They shake their heads, they say I’ve changed...”  People react emotionally whenever we tinker with our behavior patterns.  We suddenly become “strange” to them.  

The late admiral Rickover said, “More than ambition, more than ability, it’s rules that limit contribution; rules are the lowest denominator of human behavior.  They’re not a substitute for rational thought.”  So conventions or “rules of expected behavior” permeate and influence our lives far more than we’re consciously aware.  They’re what govern significant amounts of our daily behavior - especially in that broad area of social activity that is neither disciplined by the laws of the land, nor shaped by national economic interests, nor make the 6 o'clock news.

Yet while nearly everyone - without thinking about them - obeys these rules - the origin and actual mechanics of social conventions remain a mystery.  So we had to really do some digging and deep thinking about the mysteries of conventions and conventional behavior to come up with an idea about how to get people to take responsibility for their own poop when they’re visiting (or using) parks, wilderness, or back country areas.  

The Effects of Activism

Having observed “activists” for decades, I keep asking myself whether they really do much good.  The answer is I think they do “some” good.  Certainly Green Peace and The Sierra Club and many other groups who have risked limb and money for various causes have done some good.  But have any of these organizations actually introduced a new convention?  Again my answer is yes.  I do believe some new conventions have actually come into being - albeit over decades of activism.  If it weren't for the activism of Aldo Leopold and Wallace Stegner and before them Emerson and Muir and Thoreau - we wouldn't have a Wilderness Act.  We wouldn't have the environmental consciousness we now share with millions of people.

I’m not an activist, per se.  But I think our intention to get people to take responsibility for their own body waste when using the wild places is nonetheless a form of “activism.”  We’re deliberately making pooping in the wild places and just leaving it sit there on the ground a social problem that needs a new convention that puts in people’s minds the fact that the population of the world has now made it an imperative that each individual NOW take responsibility for their own body wastes.  

We, of course, are merely joining the most up-to-date science in saying that pooping in wilderness and simply leaving it lie there on the ground is bad for man and beast and plants alike.  It’s bad for the planet at large.  It’s most definitely an environmental problem.  It's becoming a serious health threat.  I continue to bring forth via this blog a lot of evidence to support such a position.  We’ve shown that we can’t pass the buck to nature to dispose of our poop and toilet paper and sanitary napkins and condoms.  It takes too long and too many other life forms are potentially harmed in the process.  

So how do we create a new behavioral convention?  How do we get millions of people to suddenly begin wanting to bury their own poop [or pack it out] of the remaining wild places and back country?  In my next post I’ll get into more specifics about the "how" of implementing this most ambitious new global convention.