Simon Paret-Poupart in Harper’s Magazine:
I’m a garbageman. Day after day, I heave and haul the detritus of the most polluting civilization in history. In two decades, I’ve handled tens of thousands of tons of trash, and the looks I get along my route suggest that people sometimes mistake me for the garbage I handle. The way I see it, though, my job is of great consequence. My fellow garbagemen and I scrub clean the stains of our consumer society. Our work behind the scenes keeps the whole edifice from crumbling—at least for now.
The garbageman is Sisyphus, a hapless laborer condemned to go from house to house picking up bags, swept along in the never-ending flow of the refuse we produce. Every day he resumes this labor anew. If he weren’t there to shoulder this burden, everything would fall apart. The rats would take over, the air would turn fetid, plague and cholera would run rampant. Georges Bataille was right: excess is the accursed share of abundance, and no one can afford to bear it.
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