The Shopping Cart of Good and Evil

 I tunnel down some strange internet wormholes. While I detest clickbait articles I love the sense of exploration that comes with access to the modern internet. Sure, I have my common haunts. I spend lots of time on comic book, Magic the Gathering, Board Game, and Dungeons and Dragons related pages. That is to be expected. Occasionally I fall down the well of some random topic of discussion on Reddit or Wikipedia. Those forays often get my head spinning in exactly the way I like to be caught up in my thoughts. 

That is how I stumbled upon Shopping Cart Theory as a litmus test for human character. Basically, the theory says that because there is no reward or punishment for returning your shopping cart to the cart corral in a parking lot that observing a person's behavior with their shopping cart can give you strong insight into them being a "good" or "evil" person. The post I read suggested that putting your cart away implies a selfless person who is doing good for goodness sake alone. There is no reward for putting the cart away. You cannot be fined or punished if you do not put the cart away. 

I liked that take. I think maybe "good" is too strong a concept for this one. I think the act of putting away the cart is an indication of a person's willingness to conform to societal expectation. My thought process for putting the cart away is simple. I value my vehicle as free of dings as possible. I would not want someone to leave a car out to roll and ding my cart and so I should always put my car away so as to not ding the vehicles of others. Sounds silly, but it is the way I think. 

The flip side of the coin, as I understand it, is that a person who chooses to not put their cart away can be judged as selfish. Since they get no reward and face no punishment they simply discard the cart in "evil" self interest. The time it would take to conform to societal expectation is ignored, perhaps with rebellious contempt, and a simple task is not performed which may or may not cause potential harm to others. 

I have to admit I stopped here to google," Injuries and death by shopping cart." The results surprise me. Moving on. 

People not returning their shopping carts does feel unnecessary to me. I got to thinking of it as an act of thoughtlessness rather than a red flag for pure evil. I somewhat doubt that a precog would inform a future cop of a future serial killer as a result of a person not putting away a shopping cart. Wow. I reached for Minority Report on that one. Do I buy into the idea that the guy who did not put away his shopping cart might later cut me off in traffic and then go home and spend three minutes grunting on top of his wife before drifting off to a loud snoring sleep without worrying about the concept that she has sexual needs as well? Sure. I can make that leap in logic.

The reason I have a kernel of doubt is I have seen similar wrong thinking in my life. My example is throwing away trash after eating a meal at McDonald's or a similar fast food establishment. I once knew someone who absolutely refused to take his trash from the table to the trash can. This struck me as selfish, lazy, and entitled. Since I didn't see this person that way, and I was young enough to ask questions innocently, I questioned him. This person, whom I loved and respected a great deal at that point in my life, believed that by leaving the trash on the table he was helping to generate work. McDonald's would have to pay a person to bus and clean that table. 

What I saw as "evil" came from a place of good intentions. If everyone followed his logic and did not bus their own trays it would add hours to the work required for each fast food location and it would generate more jobs. This could be applied to shopping carts too. If everyone did not put up their carts the stores would have to invest more hours into collecting and putting them back in the store. Someone could earn from this. 

Taken to a further extreme, littering could be seen as a beneficent act. Stick with me here for a second. I pull into Krystal and enjoy purchasing a brown bag full of fresh, hot, small, and square cheeseburgers. As I ride down the road on my motorcycle (this is my impossible fantasy, if I want to be silly I will) chewing my delicious burgers with the greasy bag perched precariously on my gas tank, I simply toss each emptied box onto the road. These cardboard remnants flutter, roll, and eventually come to rest along the curb. Someone has to pick them up. I have created jobs. I have also created an obligation for someone, likely my city, to pay someone to clean up after me.

Is this good or evil? My fictional intention is not selfish. I am seeing myself through a lens of a heroic man of the people discarding my refuse to the betterment of others. Is the person picking up after me glad they have a job or do they feel like whomever carelessly littered up the beautiful roads of Knox County is a real jerk ignoring the fact that if it weren't for me they would be doing something else entirely? Did my destructive act actually lead to creation? Ok, maybe that is a little deep. 

I do not know if I have unravelled Shopping Cart Theory, confused myself, or just managed to ramble on for a few hundred words to practice writing. I think the idea here is that each act a human commits depends entirely on their perspective and if they are being intentional or not. People do intentionally leave a cart behind with the purpose of being a selfish jerk. People also do it because they had that example set for them and have never put any thought into the great why of the Shopping Cart. 

It might be dangerous to judge anyone based on incomplete observation. The point of view of the observer is fantastically rooted in their own perception without the true thoughts of the person acting. Not every person who dutifully returns a cart can be judged as good. Of that, I am certain. All I can really conclude from all of this is as follows:

• You cannot assume the heart of a person based solely on external observation. To get the full picture you would need to be able to judge their heart and read their thoughts many of which they may not be aware of. We humans are blind to the truth of one another and we are all operating on best guesses. That is a good reason to give the benefit of the doubt until you are certain of where a given person stands. Think and act in faith and love. Trust but verify. 
• I put up my shopping carts, throw away my trash, and do not litter. The trash I put into the can still has to be removed by someone. I like to think that creates jobs too. Maybe I just tell myself that to feel good about something completely bereft of true value. 
• I like to judge other people by my own values even knowing that is wrong. 
• I think too much and too deeply about strange things, but I am not alone in that.
• I really need to connect to people for more meaningful conversation. Comic Books are not enough. I am not getting enough mental stimulation or conversation about the crazy garbage that flows through my head. 
• I love writing about things like this. Hope you have enjoyed reading it. 
• I really would love to connect to the person who originated Shopping Cart Theory!