Our situation in a nutshell.
by Rabbit
Damn good comment high-jacked from Alternet:
One of the chief detriments of the so-called “information revolution” is the nature of information delivery: we get “factoids” — dismembered fragments of data delivered in such great numbers at so great a speed that developing the context and critical thinking necessary for real comprehension is, in most peoples’ cases, obviated. This easily places media like television and the internet almost by default at the service of prevailing establishment power. All that needs be done is to keep bombarding the populace with byte-sized disconnected chunks of emotionally resonant information which, given this dislocation from any corresponding or conflicting data and from any grounded theory of historic process, debases the very essential question of “how are we to live” to the point that such a question is little more than hollow entertainment. Fewer and fewer of us, struggling to keep body and soul together, have the time, energy, or inclination to develop the patience and epistemological grounding requisite to taking a well-reasoned, humane and ethical orientation to the constantly streaming flood of factoids which create in our minds “the world.”
The authors claim that historic perspective allows one to recognize that the ever-widening shockwaves of 500 years of Eurocentric imperialism are really ” heralding the beginning of a large-scale shift at the deepest levels of cultural organization.” Really? Sounds as exciting and easy to grasp as The Celestine Prophecy. Cloudy attempts to “envision alternate futures” while avoiding taking a particular historic and conceptual stance only reinforce the status quo, which I feel sure is not the authors’ intent. Our present ecohumanitarian crisis is a direct consequence of an already extant scenario developed by politico-economic forces which have prevailed in the US roughly since 1948.
Articles like this are just pipedreams if not grasped in the context, for example, of the planned underwriting of increased reliance on the automobile with how the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 was imlemented, and the corresponding deterioration of community following the post WWII FHA boom in “suburbanization.” All of this was part of “urban” design as envisaged from the perspective of power and wealth and designed to serve those interests. This has been discussed widely for many years, for example in Bertram Gross’ Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America (1980) and in The City in History (1961) and The Myth of the Machine (1967-1970), both by Lewis Mumford.
The crisis addressed here is neither unintended nor unforeseen, nor will there be any viable and meaningful recovery unless policy which has today the status of revealed truth becomes recognized for the totalitarian system it is and overthrown from the bottom up. Frankly, there doesn’t appear to be a lot of reason for optimism. Feel-good affirmations may be just fine between you and your bathroom mirror, but have no place in any serious discourse about social change when the terms of the debate are as confused and the situation as dire as where we find ourselves today.
It is essential that any well-intentioned vision of alternative futures not replace or sap a persistent effort to perceive, oppose and deconstruct the immoral, inhumane establishment structure of power and ideology. Until we are agreed on a clear and well-detailed picture of what we hope to change, to “envision alternate futures” is all too often just time and energy stolen from the liberation and transformation we pay lip service to and, through that distraction, perpetuation of the cruelties and injustices we all hope to remedy.
Here two opposing viewpoints:
Viewpoint 1:
Actually I can… we live on finite planet with finite resources. We
now have over 6.6 billion people here. The more people on the earth,
the smaller the resource pie becomes, especially when non- renewable
resources are starting to decline.
This is not rocket science folks. Next year, this will look like the
good old days. If higher prices do not curb consumption rationing and
shortages are next. The thin veil of civility will evaporate once that
happens. It is going to get very ugly, very soon.
Do what you can to mitigate these impacts on your live. Get out of
debt, become super efficient, and conserve as much as possible.
Investing in active renewables and growing a garden and planting an
orchard might be wise as well.
What an interesting time to be alive.
Viewpoint 2:
So you say we live on a finite planet with finite resources? Billions
of watts of power fall on our planet from an outside source every day.
And with enough power, one can do practically anything.
And, to a great extent, it IS rocket science, and science and
technology in general, that will allow us to make better use of the
resources we have, and find and create more.
If anything, it’s the zero-sum, finite-resource type of thinking tht’s
going to get us into trouble. Don’t fight over the pie, bake new
ones…
Given the dichotomy between viewpoint 1 and 2, I say the root problem is, as I’ve said before, fear.
Fear that if you don’t, someone else will; and the person that does will not be kind towards you.