But there is humor in it
I seem to be acquiring a Point of View. Recent stimulating discussion with Rob Mielcarski on his excellent un-denial blog, and a fascinating article by J. M. Greer on Ecosophia got me to see where my interests of the past few years are taking me.
I'm as deep into Collapse as you can get, for sure! I love the topics...system dynamics, the problems of energy, the dynamics of a society caught in a trap. Much as a deep look into death teaches you about life, a deep look into the end of a (world)-civilizational system tells you so much about what it actually is day-to-day. There is a high degree of reflexivity, to use George Hansens treatment of the term, in this topic. By which I mean a deep look out there into collapse, generates a deep look inside...to validate what you see against your own processes. Your own tendencies.
In Collapse, the way forward is the way inward. I think any topic worth studying should be marked by this mode of progress.
However, I'm different from most people who look at this with depth. To me, the subject is awash in liminality, in subjectivity...fraught with the risk of falling into illusions you create yourself, or into illusions ready-made by our culture. Into points-of-view, prefigured by long use, and which are more or less attractive to you according to the secret beliefs about existence you maintain at some deep level.
The tropes are paranoia. Self-sufficiency ("preppers"). A reflexive insistence that humans are "cancer." Viewing the whole concept of limits with contempt ("the Cornicopians").
There are a dozen ways to "fail" in this topic, by acquiring a certain amount of knowledge, then hardening it into a paraffin shell that encases your personality. I'd rather not do any of that, even though at different times I inhabit one or several worldviews that the sober reader will regard as unfortunate.
It's consequential terrain in which to walk. You may not be the same person when you emerge.
Philosophically, I think we often do the same thing in different mediums as we work through the problems of our lives. Since I enjoy climbing...even solo trips on difficult and technical mountains, it makes sense to me that I'm invigorated by areas of inquiry that most avoid. I rarely see people on those mountain ledges. It's the same in this domain.
So! Now that I've sufficiently dramatized my viewpoint, let me tear that image down a few notches.
I'm just a random guy born in 1971...often lazy, siezed by obsessions which usually bear little fruit. There are any number of things wrong with me, chief among them likely the self-dramatization above (If I'm a villian one day, I'll be the monologuing kind, easily defeated once you get me going!).
And here is where I see the need to bring something new to the Collapse fireside...where we sit and mutter, mostly friendly with each other but easily falling into despair.
I am so imperfect. So incapable. So lacking in "quick thinking," and often even hostile to deep thought. And yet...I am deeply happy in my own skin.
I'm happy despite things to be sad about. Even despite the end of this world that's pretty comfortable for me. (By world I mean hot showers and pension plans, etc).
Sometimes I'm moved to tears when I see my girlfriend doing some trivial thing. Or (sabotaging any romance generated by the previous sweet thought) when I manage to voice something that matches what I think is right.
With our relentless logic, we might forget the basic truth that it's good to live, even if only for a day.
The gratitude from that truth steals my anger away. Not always, but usually, like a tide that finally comes in.
So here is where I diverge from traditional Collapse thinking. I can actually laugh, and not be mad that we are failing in a spectacular way to solve our pressing problems. It is just the way we are, and some solutions are too far for us to reach. In "Falling Upward," Richard Rohr reports:
Ken Wilber says that most of us are only willing to call 5 percent of our present information into question at any one point -- and again that is on a very good day.
If this is true, and since we are a "scanning consciousness" which has to reduce the vast dimensionality of the world to 1 dimension and read it's way into intellectual knowledge, then what chance do we have to educate ourselves into some kind of deep understanding of the problems we face? An understanding that is so strong that it prepares us to go against massive social programming.
No chance, really.
You can almost glimpse the idea that "smart people" are already a pathology, or a leading indicator of trouble to come. By which I mean a society that specializes in greater intellectual development in one class or area is already in the grip of beliefs that will not be sustained. The willingness to create inequality in one space, however narrow, means that there has been a surrender to the temptation to exercise control.
Later, these intellectually developed people (who can't help but regard themselves as a pinnacle of humanity, now gripped with a need to redress the situation by "lifting others up" to their level), will issues warnings, write pamphlets and address learned societies.
It's as if the car that is about to crash into you has a speaker wailing "oh goodness, people, WATCH OUT!"
By some mental quirk, we can't see our true place in the system.
I'm reminded, uncomfortably, of the look on someones face while I lecture them about something. I think they better see the situation. I, harranging them, no longer see my role in fostering the overall problem about which I'm so indignant.
But this is FUNNY.
It will kill us, but it's funny all the same.
to be continued...