“Time for a dark and bloody thought-experiment?”, my witch giggles over my shoulder in a November night of 2024, because she knows me so well.
It has been a while since I’ve used exact dates of the present in my blog posts, because it also has been a while since I used my blog to reflect on the recent state of the world, so it’s about time.
“The times we live in allow Nazis to succeed because butter has become expensive”, I hiss at my witch. No, this is not a comment on the US elections, since I am from another part of the world, which I know a lot more about. Maybe there are parallels in all those places. You tell me.
What I am after with this post is the butter.
Butter as in butter. But as in the stuff you put in your sandwich, although there are things that taste a lot better. I like to fry mushrooms in butter.
“So what’s up with the butter?”, my witch giggles.
“It got expensive. A lot more expensive.”
In the past year, the price for butter has been on the news almost on a daily basis. It made it into the headlines, the urgent announcements, because it was rising so dramatically. In Germany, where I live, butter was as hotly debated as the rising rent prices. People more and more feared for their butter in their own four walls, developing a hate on those that took it away from them.
Wait, what? Who is taking the butter away from us? And who is us?
Let’s start with us, because it is a construct that is so simplified, it’s easier to explain.
Us, in this weird image, would be people living here and Germany, living in the state they were born in while going to work everyday and being well-behaved.
Actually, I am not even sure if I belong to “us”, since I am not a full-time hired and neither well-behaved. I am freelancing, still studying and travelling a lot, and according to both my uncles am the opposite of being well-behaved. Do I contributed enough to the GDP to count to us? According to my uncle with a mustache, no!
So, there is us. Us wants to have things such as butter to the price it had 25 years ago. There are alternatives made from plant materials, there are all kinds of cremes and pastes to put on a sandwich to avoid the problem. Mustard, humus, and so many more. But no. Us wants cheap butter everyday, and anyone who even sometimes eats the alternatives is evil and a dead to the western world. You don’t eve have to be a vegan to be procecuted by Us. I am the oppositve of a vegan, but for stating that I replaced butter with something when the price sparked early in the Ukraine-war, I was literally screamed at for being a vegan.
Okay, so the first group of people apparently taking the butter away from Us are vegans. Now, I am not going to defend a vegan life style here, since my own is the opposite. I eat everything, and there are vegan recipes I really like, as well as meaty ones. There still seems to be a fear in the population of vegans taking over, and things, such as butter, becoming unaffordable. The German news have recently reported a price rise of 23,9%, stating that butter was more and more turning (back) into a symbol of status. There seem to be similar trends for the rest of Europe as well.
But who’s fault is it? Is it really conspiracy of vegans against the lifestyle Us’s grandma had?
Another group of people that is often used by those yearning for butter is that of migration. People migrating from one country to the other, people living and working here although they were born elsewhere, or even people taking refuge here from the rising number of conflicts all over the world – they all seem to be in the focus of those screaming for their share of butter. A friend of my mother’s is very loud in complaining about how Us is having such a hard time working and working and not affording anything anymore while strangers are led inside the country and get everything for free. I am not so sure that taking refuge here after my home is being destroyed is equivalent to getting anything for free. Also as an amusing side comment: That friend still goes on a huge vacation two times a year. Good for her, don’t get me wrong. I still think she lacks a bit of perspective. I went to Paris and London this summer. I am not going to call myself poor.
Then, there of course is the youth. Here in Germany, the youth does also not belong to Us. The youth is lazy, does not want to work anymore, is constantly ill, and has made mental health a fashion trend. Young people look so much dumber then all of the older folks in the 70s and 80s did with their huge hair and HAIR just everywhere. Young people are at fault. If only they worked themselves to death, cheaper butter would have been produced.
“Now, the thought experiment”, I tell my witch. “Now, it’s getting dark!” She has already loosened her corset to gasp for air.
Let’s imagine we expel vegan people. We build up a world that does not allow for any personal life style choices. No choice of diet, no personally themed clothes, no tattoos, or anything like that! Actually, no! Let’s go further. No concept of personal health. You have an allergy? Good luck dying alone in a corner, that doe not exist here.
Important question: Does that make the butter cheaper?
My witch knows to shake her head
Then let’s imagine the next group that got some unwanted attention in all the butter debate, and let’s look at anyone coming to Germany after they were born elsewhere. Will the butter get cheaper, once we let refugees drown in the Mediterranean sea, or even shoot them at the border? Or, if we decide to expel general workforce that did not grow up within this border?
And before we get to the answer to that, let’s also question whether it’s really worth it.
Is the life of other human beings worth a pack of butter?
My witch sighs. “I know you want me to say no, but in the wrong moment in history, mass hysteria has always had an ugly face.”
The answer of course is no.
So, to the last group. The young people. Is it really their laziness that has our economy dying? Would it help to forcefully expel the younger generation from school and universities to force them into jobs they don’t want? Would it help to forbid them to see a doctor and a therapist, and make tattoos and piercings illegal?
No, of course not, but it would still make my uncle happy.
So, why exactly is the price for butter rising so much? And can we do anything about it?
The main reasons for this I could identify are (surprise!) complex.
For years, milk production has been shrinking. This is due to farmers concentrating on other sources of income, as well as a lack of available animal food. In cases of cows, this means basically variations of grass, which has not been growing enough due to droughts and the in general bad climate. The milk available often does not have enough fat to produce butter, and is therefor used for other products, such as cheese. One important factor here that cannot be ignored is the unstable climate causing those drought, reminding us that we are a part of this ecosystem we are successfully murdering. But hey, immigrants!
“Oh, come one”, my witch reminds me. “It’s a metaphor.”
“A metaphor?”
“Yes, the butter is a metaphor”, she says. “No one can be that stupid.”
She is right. Of course the butter only is a metaphor for the general quality of living. The costs of living have been rising, our capitalistic system is stuck deep in crisis. I am not denying that.
“I just still don’t understand how people start chasing these phantoms and always lash out against anyone who is a little different than themselves”, I explain to my witch and Layla laughs about me.
“Fear for your third vacation a year can make people irrational”, she giggles. “It’s so unfair working 40 hours a week in a terrible job and not being able to afford the same things your parents did.”
Okay, I am joking about something serious again. Maybe for some people it is. I can’t tell. Still, is it worth sending anyone who was born in the wrong place or simply does not fit the commercial of a life insurance into sure death? Where is the motivation to find solutions for the actual problems, as well as the capacity to understand them as global challenges?
“These days, people sell your future to Nazis for a cheaper pack of butter.”
https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/verbraucher/butterpreise-104.html
Mistress witch writes 