Wood, Metal, and the Story of the World
These were my worst subjects in Junior High, when we were forced to take them. I regarded these class periods with dread. For one thing, I was really bad at them. I regarded the big machines and power equipment with terror. To make matters worse, my classmates would exact revenge in shop class for being fed through a system that constantly told them they were lazy, stupid, and bad. Here was finally something they were good at, something they liked to do, and here was the kid who was actually good at things like math, who was, moreover, young for his grade and small for his age. It was payback time!
I responded by distancing myself as far as possible from the world of metal and wood. A deep cultural bias welcomed me into that distancing: the bias against the world of matter in favor of the world of the mind, the world of abstraction, the world of symbol. It is a reflection of this bias that lawyers have a higher social status than plumbers, and consultants a higher status than engineers who have a higher status than farmers. In a hundred subtle ways I was told that the truly worthy pursuits, those deserving of my talents, were the pursuits of the mind. This prejudice is as old as civilization itself, going back to the days when the first chieftains and kings were exempted from farm labor. Soon it was taboo for the king to sully his hands with ordinary dirt. Writ large, this is the theme of human separation from, and transcendence of, nature.
In the last decade this trend has reached an absurd extreme in the economy, where the abstract world of finance has trumped the real industrial economy of actual stuff. In this economy, the status (and paychecks) of the manipulators of abstractions have risen above that of people who actually make things. The bias toward money and away from real production goes back at least to the 1970s, when General Motors CEO Thomas Murphy said, "General Motors is not in the business of making cars. General Motors is in the business of making money." By the year 2000, it seemed like everyone believed the whole economy could chug along by producing nothing but money. No wonder the most ambitious of my students at Penn State yearned to be "consultants," "executives," or "financial managers," hoping to garner rich rewards of money and status for working as far as possible from the real world of material things.
In the sciences, the same bias gives highest prestige to mathematics and theoretical physics, while fields like materials science are denigrated with the appellation "applied sciences." It is as if the truly great minds work out the theory, leaving lesser minds to simply apply it to the material world.
In religion, the same bias against the material world I adopted after 8th grade shop class appears as the primacy of spirit in contradistinction to matter. It is deemed appropriate, and for that matter possible, for Church to be separate from State, and for monks and nuns to be cloistered away from the rest of the world to be closer to God. That it is somehow virtuous to refrain from involvement in the things of the world is, in my new view, a rejection of life itself. It brings the opposite of what people truly seek when they pursue "spirituality": joy, love, and connection.
During those years when the anti-matter bias lurked in my unconscious mind, I forever felt like a semi-participant in life, disconnected from the world, disconnected from my own emotions except in periodic, violent breakthroughs of uncontrollable emotional energy. When eventually I began to see the true dimensions of my predicament, and the vast cultural matrix that reinforced it, I hatched an irrepressible desire to participate more fully in material life, the life of flesh and attachment. A Tori Amos lyric spoke to me deeply: "Give me life, give me pain, give me my self again."
"God is not without a sense of irony." In a beautiful illustration of the perfection and the irony of the universe, my quest to complete the missing pieces of my incarnation in materiality eventually led me to take a part-time job where I find myself working in a wood and metal shop. All day I use the very same machines that terrified me at age 13: drill presses, table saws, routers, welding equipment, and so on. The outfit I work for, Earth Alchemists, builds low-tech houses following the principles of Christopher Alexander. I basically love every minute of my job. I am delighted and grateful to be doing it, to be working with actual pieces of the sacred body of the earth. Sometimes I marvel at the string of coincidences that gave me this job, as I had no experience, no skills, and near-insurmountable child care issues as a single dad with three children. It is something of a miracle that, twenty years after graduating in Mathematics and Philosophy from Yale University, I find myself making construction components in an unheated workshop for a laborer's wage. I feel profoundly amazed and grateful to have escaped the world of the mind.
Well, that's a rhetorical exaggeration. I have not escaped from anything, I have only rejoined parts of reality from which I'd been alienated before. I do not find that physical labor has dulled my mental faculties or spiritual discernment. I do not think I am any less a refined being for my interaction with, to use new age terminology, the densest vibrations we know. On the contrary, I find that working with materials induces a state of heightened mindfulness. When I am working in the realm of abstractions, the realm of mind, say writing an essay or building a website, the worst consequence of a momentary lapse of mindfulness is that I delete a file or type in a vagina I didn't intend. In the shop or construction site, a lapse of mindfulness could mean cutting off my hand -- zip! -- with the table saw, or falling off a ladder. I am living in reality. My actions have obvious consequences. There is little room for pretense. In the world of words, the world of symbols, I can tell all kinds of lies and deny the consequences for a very long time. People kill each other in the world of abstractions, the world of "collateral damage" and "American interests" and "board feet" and GDP and the sea of labels and data that we manipulate with the magico-religious belief that we are manipulating something real.
We are like the followers of a degenerated shamanic religion whose magical symbols have taken on a life of their own. That, in fact, is exactly what has happened. Magical technology involves the manipulation of symbols in order to change reality. For the duration of the ritual, the symbol IS the reality. We had such a ritual for New Year's. "Take a piece of paper and write on it something you are through with. This paper IS something you are done with. Now we will burn it." If you administer the ritual saying, "This paper represents something you are through with" then the ritual has no power; it is fake. Most new age shamanic rituals that I've seen are similarly fake, because everyone goes into them with the knowledge, "This is just a ritual." Shamanic cultures, in their undegenerate state, had no absolute category of ritual, no division of life into the real and not real. Their rituals were not just rituals. They were temporary realities. During that reality, a mask isn't just a mask, it is a god. If you want to conduct a ritual with power, you must say "A is B." "These lentils are your relationship." "These tea leaves are your future." And when you say it, you must be speaking the truth.
Today we have become lost in our own rituals, which have taken on a life of their own and trapped us within. A warning about this possibility exists in many magical traditions: magical rituals require humility and caution, else the spirits one has summoned possess the summoner and never leave, living through him toward their own ends. This is what has happened to us today. We live in a world of abstractions, symbols that don't even symbolize anything anymore. It has happened most significantly with money, which has through many stages (commodity money, gold-backed money, fiat currency) lost its representational connection to anything real. It has also happened with such abstractions as nations ("America," "France," and so on) which have taken on a life of their own to pursue interests that are often contrary to the real interests of the people we think they represent. Most insidiously, we have each created a fictitious projection of our selves, a self-representation, and gotten lost within it, pursuing its interests to the detriment of our true interests. This self-representation is called the ego.
I am not saying that it is a mistake to ever create a self-representation, to ever act a part, even to lose oneself within that part. On the collective level too, there is a proper role for temporary representational realities like nations. But what would you say to an actor who has been in a play so long that he thinks he is that character in the play? What would you say to a whole acting troupe in this predicament, enacting their characters, eating pretend food and making pretend love while their bodies withered from neglect? Such is the state of the human race. We destroy the real for the sake of abstractions, for the sake of an artificial reality that has long outlived its usefulness.
What indeed would you say to such a troupe, helplessly enacting an absurd and devastating drama for no audience but themselves? You might tell them to stop acting, to wake up, but to your consternation they would merely assign you a ready-made role within the play, that of the nut or the buffoon, or the inconsequential philosopher who provides something interesting to think about. And then consternation would give way to horror as, one day, you discovered that you are indeed playing the role they have assigned: that your words have become just words that you yourself don't take too seriously, for if you did you could not live in such complicity with the very drama you decry. Here begins the long journey I have described as the Invisible Path. Eventually you realize that no drama should or can end before its time, and that at most you can be a humble servant of each person's awakening from it, when the time has come. If someone is not ready, then support her in playing her role within it in the most beautiful way you know. If someone is ready to awaken out of the consensus drama, then offer her a bigger one, a more beautiful more real one. There are many stories of what is and what can be that do not perpetrate ugliness and violence upon the world.
In our age, we are awakening, at long last, from the ritual dramas that created the world we know. This is why so many of the little rituals that maintain our society are beginning to take on an air of unreality: filling out a form, writing a check, standing in line. As this process quickens, many institutions that once seemed so real will disintegrate as well. Is America real? Is "the government" real? Is money -- bits in computers -- real? Is Barack Obama the President or is he just a man? Is the deed to your house real? Is your house or car really "yours"? Is a contract real? All of these things are real only because we make them real: we agree upon a story, a dramatic script, and play out the roles it assigns. That is what makes it real, and that is how we have created realities from time immemorial. Today, many stories are coming to an end; what was once unquestionably real is no longer, and the ground shifts beneath our feet. We find that even our selves, our very identity, to be less real than we thought.
Maybe on some deep, metaphysical level, the properties of wood, metal, and concrete are the product of our stories as well, and have no more reality than any other artifact of our collective imagination. If so, then these are stories whose end is not yet near. If we have tried to transcend the world of flesh and stone, our transcendence has been premature. The relationship of the human species to the living world that environs us is plainly immature; it is in its early adolescence. We are in the midst of a momentous event, the correlate of a teenager falling in love. A little child is heedless of the effects his demands have upon his mother: he takes from her by right. That is what we have done to Mother Earth too. That stage of our species' growth is almost over.
As the old stories end and new ones begin, the material world provides an anchor, a foundation, a reference point. Whether through wood, metal, stone, soil, plants, or animals, our hands, bodies, and senses give us an experience of something undeniably real, something larger than our perception of it. My own journey has led from a place of disparagement and fear of material reality, to a humble, grateful embrace of it. The presence of the real strikes me with awe. It is the same feeling of reverence that we feel when we see a true human being, the real person underneath the projections and masks. I stand humbled as well toward the masters of the material trades, carpenters and masons and other artists, once objects of my silent contempt. I am but a tyro, yet proof as well that it is never too late.
We are seeing the unreality of what was only temporarily real to begin with. The collapse of money, of nations, of marriage, of so many social institutions is part and parcel of this shift in our perceptions and our identity. No more in the future will we live so completely in the world of abstractions. No more will we aspire to be like the kings of old, to be consultants and executives whose hands are never soiled by anything real. Everywhere I go, I meet people who express an irrational desire to grow some of their own food, to build their own houses, to get their hands back in the dirt. We desire to reunite with the world, to reunite with life. Our separation from it is killing us. Unwilling to return, afraid to end the drama of our dominion, we have sought to extend it yet further with technology, perpetuating a kind of half-life. But now it is time to fall in love with the world.
Image by medeyle, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
Tweet- 1-23-09
- Charles Eisenstein's blog
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Comments
Wow. I'm speechless with praise for this article.
Isn't symbolism the essence of this age?
We have built in our minds all manner of social, political, material, and personal distinctions and dualities that have separated the illusory parts from that which is ultimately one. In using symbolism to create the world we've separated ourselves from it. But there is divine purpose behind our madness - it is only by creating the separation can we rejoin with the whole and gain a greater awareness.
Apocalypse: from Greek, Apokálypsis, "lifting of the veil"
Shall we now reveal who we truly are and lift the veil of separation?
apokalupsis eschaton: literally, "revelation at the end of the age"
Is the Ouroboros now eating his tail and rejoining with the shadow self and all it's manifestations?
I can't help but add that modern society has had a way of capturing us as prisoners of the illusion that all the symbols are real. If we just see the people with badges and buildings with Greek columns as the illusions that they are, their magical spell would lose it's power. It's not about conquering the other and strengthening the division, but about seeing yourself in the world, and using love to heal the division and dissolve the separation - to reveal the true beauty of the universe.
Separation is to unity as fear is to love.
Lovely article! I too have
Lovely article! I too have felt the same processes occur in myself. I find rendering things real through symbols to be an inherently empty experience most of the time, an intangible feeling that compounds itself. Building or making or cooking or growing or living or loving, even if these experiences are fleeting, are discernibly different in their realness.
We bear witness to our own evolution, something unique to our species yet something that will and is linking us to all life. We are the nexus point of the reconciliation of the material and the spiritual :-)
good read
zen and the art of...
Yes, a wonderful book. I read it many years ago but only understood it intellectually. The reconciliation of the spirit/matter divide has its own pace; an intellectual understanding is at most a seed.
I think not only Zen, but all "spiritual" traditions have, at their heart, an understanding of underlying unity.
Charles
impatience
I'm not sure if I really understand your question. If Father Time has run out of patience, that is because we have reached limits and cannot continue to be what we have been. This is true both collectively, and for many people on a personal level.
What is the thing through which we must travel? I guess the death of our old collective identity and the birth of a new. The impatience does not come from the father, but the mother. It is the impatient womb, the urgent womb, propelling us out. I'm not sure what you are asking. Wait, I have a thought about impatience... I'll skip down to one of the other comments on this theme and share it.
Charles
www.ascentofhumanity.com
Unbelievable!
Great piece!
Not because of your prose or clever analogies. Because it WAS REAL and TRUE! I was in a tragic car accident 9 mo ago and when I regained consciousness in ICU, I literally regained consciousness to the world and what was real. I woke up to the game that I had been a wiling participant in for so long. But the real truth is it's not a game, this is REAL. Despite pain, rehab, and financial ruins from this near death accident, I'm soooooo grateful to God for the experience and awakening.
Knowing our lives are just a vapor, we must do as MUCH REAL work as we can...people....children are dying as we continue fine tuning our role and style sheets. If you are interested please go to http://www.theywilldie.org/ to help children get a chance to see REAL love in life.
Great article Charles, keep doing what you're doing!
Flawless article as usual Charles you've made my day
more impatience
I do not believe in resisting impatience. It is not an enemy, something to conquer in order to be good. But we misinterpret it when we think we are impatient with another person. Impatience is actually a message from within that you are not being truly yourself in a given situation. So if you are impatient with someone in your life for whatever, for not getting it, it is probably a message that you are complicit in that, you are perpetuating it by playing along with his/her world-story. When you feel impatient, you could say, "Good, a message from myself to myself to spur my growth. How am I being right now that is not truly me?" If it is a belligerent teenager or someone being disrespectful, the impatience could be a signal you are going along with it and not standing up to him, violating your own dignity and integrity.
Charles
www.ascentofhumanity.com
Resurgence
Hey Don,
If you're really gone you won't get this...ntl... A friend recently pointed me to a subs magazine at www.resurgence.org The free download, a whole mag discourse on music with contributors such as Annie Lennox, Brian Eno, Satish Kumar, Merlin Sheldrake and many other really good writers. You may enjoy checking it out.
Peace
Sparrow
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
~ Grouch Marx
did not understand
You are right, I did not fully understand your question about the impatience of Father Time. However, I don't think you are a coward.
As for panic, and other people's complacency, I am merely being practical. I have learned that shouting at the complacent doesn't change anything.
I would question, Don, whether you really need a "balanced analysis of the emergent issues facing humanity today." I think you already have a pretty good understanding of these. What good is more analysis going to do?
I hope you don't leave -- your thoughtful comments are a valuable contribution to this site.
Charles
Time
I think most here are very cognizant of the time factor. There's just one thing: there isn't anything we can do about it...which is why we don't discuss it much. Every day, practically, is another article or comment talking about how soon this is going to come about...but no one can change the speed of the clock, and no one can force another to transform their life in the way we are discussing.
People and societies take as long to change as they take. I think most everyone here is trying to do everything they can think of to move this along faster, and come to a better understanding of what signs we need to look for. Some can think of more than others, but that is just how it goes.
Some of us are discussing ways to help teach, some of us are teaching, some of us are using activism to attempt to buy us time, some are in the process of making changes so their own lifestyle becomes more sustainable...and various combinations of them all.
I think you want something that no one can give you: a solution to our problems (one of which is the temporal issue). That is what we are all here trying to figure out.
And one thing, I can virtually assure you, that isn't part of it is the 'screw you guys, I'm going home' mindset. This is the time to come together, regardless of our differences in opinions and understanding, and remember our inherent Unity.
We'll either make it, or we won't. We can do things to affect the chances one way or the other...but we have no actual control over what happens to us. Indeed, it was largely the attempt to gain said control that put us in this predicament in the first place.
Much love, I don't mean this as an attack or insult. I just feel like you expect too much from people who are just as confused and scared about what is going on -- and just as desperate to find something effective we can do about it.
Please don't leave! Who else would keep all us kids straight on this stuff? ^_~ Your voice is valued here...please don't deprive us of it just because we are sometimes too foolish to understand you....
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
Emperor as Rice Farmer
My particular love is Damanhur, where they say that three worlds must be balanced: The Divine, the Human, and the Natural. They cover their buildings with images from nature. This is not mere play; They also grow and raise 60% of the food they eat. The have a very strong focus on practical work. When I visited, most of the work I did was yard work, cutting tomatos, and pouring concrete for a room they were setting up. I had a blast.
This prejudice is as old as civilization itself, going back to the days when the first chieftains and kings were exempted from farm labor. Soon it was taboo for the king to sully his hands with ordinary dirt.I don't want to detract from anything you said, which I basically agree with.
I do want to mention one thing, though:In Japan, the Emperor is required to tend an imperial rice crop in the palace grounds. (See the picture in here, of Emperor Akihito, harvesting rice.) This has been tradition for as far back as people can remember; Likely since Amaterasu Oomikami (the Japanese sun goddess) first taught humans how to plant rice and established the imperial lineage. It's not "just a tradition"; When Emperor Hirohito rose from his sickbed, soon before he died, his first concern was for the rice harvest.
That is, in Japan, it is understood that the Emperor is a rice farmer.
rice farmer
I didn't know that about the emperor of Japan -- I think that is really cool. It resonates with the essence of Shinto.
Charles
thank you, loved this too
I've spent the past 10+ years or so running with the Information Age, feeling it was my duty to take advantage of the unprecedented amount of information available to us all.
To absorb it, process it, & effectively use it... somehow. To move to a higher level for myself & humanity. Or to create some fantastic artistic statement about the nature of reality & the universe.
In high school I remember looking out at the newly opened Barnes & Nobles in my Virginia suburb & thinking - 'Why would all these books exist... if they weren't meant to be read?' My best guess was that reading them all would lead one ever higher towards theory & pure abstraction.
Somehow the messy truth began leaking in in fits & starts... 'I am an emotional person'... 'people annoy me who know nothing about the real world'...'real knowledge, real perspective comes from life experience'...
Somehow the intuition that 'staring at a screen all day is not life experience' started settling in. The question then became - what is this sense of the 'real world' & 'life experience' I'm thirsting for?
Fast-forward 10 years with its requisite experimentation.
At age 29/30, I'm concluding that what I long for is simply to - not be on the computer all the time. Or maybe it's more like - to not work in a sterile, gray, cubicle farm constantly plugged into plastic machines. And to not live in a (sub)urban environment or culture that's so removed from nature one suffers the anxious daily sense of living in a vacuum.
I want to live with an awareness of nature & her cycles. I want to work with nature, not against her, & engage all my senses in what I do. Be part of the solution not the problem, the whole bit. Be fully human. Incrementally, starting now, however that works out.
Sometimes it feels like there's a full-on back-to-the-land movement welling inside me...
I can say that one of the 2 most enjoyable jobs I've had in my 20's so far, has been mixing paint. (low VOC)
Beauty
vehicle
You are right, it is there. Any material pursuit, from carpentry to tax preparation, can be a vehicle for the true curriculum of beauty, truth, and love.
Charles
Making music and art and dance
While different from construction and traditional crafts of the artisan, I think making music and art and dance integrate the abstract and the concrete (or immanent and transcendent), that the abstract is synchronous with its embodied manifestations in sound and design-color and movement. Beauty. I also think that woodworking and metal working and building require abstraction in the form of math and drawing -- rendering three-dimensional objects in two dimensions is abstraction, no? Perspective is abstraction. Figuring out how much concrete you'll need to pour or calculating roof-beam stress also demands fluency in math.
Of course, most people are also separated from artistic expression and mastery, just as they are separated from building trades and knowing all the how-to-fix-it things and how-to-grow things that come with being wedded to the land instead of relegated to the realm of calculations above the neck -- living from the neck up and dragging "Brother Donkey" around after one. The architect and structural engineer also enjoy "consultant" or executive (God, I hate that word!) status in the land of the Status Seekers. The builder whose manual labor AND abstract thinking bring designs to reality is accorded lower status, even though in some locales the builder may share in high-income status. Well, especially if the contractor-tradesman builds McMansions and such rather than earth-friendly habitats.
It's too late for some of us to start building houses or boats or big wooden structures on our own, but I think appreciation of the sensual -- sight, sound, beauty of all kinds -- in one's environment can help get the head and Brother Donkey back in harmony. Even crafts such as knitting, sewing, needlepoint, rug making, weaving bring a level of richness and integration to everyday life.
Love, Ursus Maritimus
yes- music & dancing & art
Integrating the abstract & the concrete, yes..
Sound, being made up of vibration, possesses a type of materiality.
Appreciation of the sensual, the material, yes, as a pathway to greater integration.
In all my headiest theoretical days back in college I experienced regular flashes from my subconscious of - "I just want to go make clay pots". Am impulse I took only marginally seriously at the time.
Some years later, I've made no pots, but the basic impulse towards integration of my nervous energies (the desire of my hands to do something repetitive & reflective of the processes of my mind, the desire of my mind to deeply engage with reality) have lead me to an interest in weaving, music-making, dancing - & just the general concept of being an 'artisan'.
The term seems effective at getting the pesky Artist ego out of the way & getting down to the rich interplay of materials & cognitive processes where the 'dance' & the love affair occur....
I like applying the idea of the artisan to playing music as well... becoming the 'hollow flute' that the 'christ's breath moves through' (to borrow from Hafiz), or the channel that the that the universal rhythm moves through...
Environmentally speaking, music & dance are great occupations for humankind, since scarcely any resources need be consumed for hours & hours of communion & engagement.
Maybe part of what we need in this country, as part of those back-to-the-land stirrings, is a new Arts & Crafts movement, very broadly defined...
Guns, germs and steel
Hello everyone
The back-to-nature impulse is a sentimental imitation of the yearning for the lost innocence of the "garden of eden" before we were given the "tree of knowledge" which has provided us with many advances as well as much retrogression. Let's not forget the fantastic technological advancements that have spared us the pain and indignity of many diseases (plain on septoceimia) and superstitions and given credence to a fundamental human impulse - to understand and seek to manipulate reality. Just because some have abused the capacility for abstraction does not mean the inverse is necessarily better. An interesting book that explores similar themes to Charles' article is an explanation of history in terms of "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond. I highly recommend it. Best, Strelitzia
guns germs steel
While Jared Diamond paints a generally negative picture of primitive life, his view is not unanimous among anthropologists at all. Moreover, Diamond himself believes that most diseases were a consequence of agricultural civilization, and that pre-agricultural peoples were much healthier. There is good reason to think that despite our technological medicine, we are some of the least healthy people ever to walk the earth (those of us who can still walk, that is). Read, for example, Weston Price's _Nutrition and Physical Degeneration_, in which he documents his years of travels in far-off corners of the world, studying the diets and dentition of cultures still unaffected by industrial foods (this was in the 1920s). Anyway, for anyone who is interested, The Ascent of Humanity is a book-length treatment of the question of whether humans have ascended, offering a third view that considers both Diamond's Hobbesian position and the more Rousseauvian position of those who think we have descended, such as Derrick Jensen, Daniel Quinn, John Zerzan. It is not an intermediate view. I think that we have descended, yet this descent is generating the impetus for a quantum shift in human civilization.
Charles
www.ascentofhumanity.com
On Impatience.. First,
On Impatience.. First, sorry that I'm putting words in people's mouths. I think in regards to impatience, I think that deadline is a very good word. If we do not change really, really, really fast(from a planetary PoV, only pretty fast from a human PoV), then Bad Things Will Happen To Humans(TM), or at least, there is a Really Good Chance(TM) of said bad things happening. So, the paradox is, if we wait like we should, Bad Stuff. If we don't wait, Bad Stuff. But then, some of the Bad Stuff can be avoided with some changes that are really mundane, like recycling, working from home, educating people why you should only have kids when you really really want them, etc, which is ot really identity challenging, "Dark Night of the Soul" type stuff. It sounds to me, maybe, like you, Don Shake, are talking about the more mundane type stuff and you, Charles Eisenstein, are talking about identity challenging, "Dark Night of the Soul" type stuff. Maybe? C-23 just trying to help, you see.
Would he were fatter! But I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;
He is a great observer
Wonderful article,
Wonderful article, Charles. I always love your work.
One idea I would like to present is the idea that differentiation/separation are built into the workings of the Universe-at-large. They are but one half of the equation -- complimentary to integration/unity.
So: the Infinite Plenum (Structured Vacuum of Nassim Haremein's theorum, zero-point energy field in Quantum Mechanics) divides itself into quarks (or something smaller), which combine in various ways to form protons, electrons, and neutrons. These form into basic hydrogen atoms. These then conglomerate into stars, and then are fused in their hearts to create various new elements, which then combine to form new materials...you see the pattern?
Always new structures being made (differentation/separation) by the combination of previous parts, into new materials which then combine themselves.
This same sort of pattern repeats in the noosphere (realm of the mind) as perception differentiates various phenomenon as they interact with it, and the brain attempts to recombine this information into a coherent whole and make judgements (the combination of various perceptions surrounding previous encounters with that particular perception) about each item, which tells a story about what is going on around us and what we need to do as a consequence.
The problem humanity has run into is a failure to reintegrate some of the things we memetically differentiated, leading to dissociation -- and, hence, pathology.
To use a metaphor, we have failed to realize that the music-box will not make the pretty sound again, until we have put it back together.
There is nothing wrong (or, at least, avoidable) with humanity realizing its uniqueness in the Universe. All things are unique manifestations of the Divine, no two exactly alike anywhere; in spite of apparent similarities that allow for convenient mnemonic groupings.
Where we have gone wrong is in the failure to reintegrate ourselves, with that knowledge, back into the whole in a healthy sense. Instead, we elevated ourselves above the whole...we believed our uniqueness was, itself, unique.
It is a simple mistake, really...virtually every teenager on earth makes it at some point. It comes from not quite understanding yet the interiority of others...the inability to adequately take the part of the other in cognitive function. Humanity, as a whole, now being at that point is a good metaphor. We are only now re-realizing the sacred nature of the world around us -- re-empathizing with the other lifeforms co-inhabiting this sparkling jewel with us -- on anything like a collective scale.
And, perhaps, our parents are getting tired of us slacking off all the time, beating up on our brothers and sisters...and are about to make things much harder on us -- to motivate us to grow up a bit faster.
Don: What I perceive you asking is, "What can we do about the fact that it takes so long for each person to transform, and we have so little time left?" I think this is a good question.
My personal answer has been to just do my best to teach by example, to live my truth, and to listen more than teach...for most people ask questions when they are ready for the answer, and one must be ready to seize upon those moments of opportunity.
Which is why I blab so much on RS (^_^)...there's a lot of stuff I'd like to say to a lot of people; but, if timed wrong or stated badly, I could just as easily scare them away from the truth, as help them realize it. Its nice to have a forum of intentional seekers to discuss these things with in detail...but I digress.
I am with Daniel Quinn's thoughts on population being the main actual problem, as far as the material world is concerned. The coming crises will likely do much to alleviate this. It is harsh, but I would rather Mother Earth and Father Time do the choosing and the culling than some eugenical interprise by the global power-elite.
What I hope is that, by spreading these ideas and aiding the transformation of others in any way they will let us, those who are left to pick up the pieces will have enough persons who remember how it all came to pass, have learned from those lessons, and will teach them to succeeding generations of humanity.
I would like to believe in a time, long from now (but hopefully not too long), when the people talk about our time in angry tones and a judgemental attitude; so unable are they to understand how we could have treated the world this way...and been arrogant enough to think we could get away with it.
Reminds me of Bernie Madoff.
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
Very insightful article
Thanks again Charles for your thoughts on our world and where it is headed.
I ordered your book and have been drinking it in this week. I'm looking forward to getting to the part that is hopeful, as Obama's rhetoric of hope has not resonated with me as deep enough or specific enough to address that which concerns me about our world. Neither does Ray Kurzweil's techno-optimism nor do the various Peak Oiler's make me look forward with hope. Your articles have touched me deeply however.
The degeneration of our magical symbols is an apt description of the state of psychotherapy (which itself is a kind of degenerate shamanism). I've just recently discovered for myself the difference between talking about a problem and transforming the problem through talking. In the former, the words are lifeless, no matter how interesting; in the latter, the words are actions, connected directly with feelings and the deep mystery of the unconscious. It's amazing how powerful the paradigm of understanding the psyche intellectually without changing it is in our culture. Many people I know have a complex intellectual understanding of their neurosis (as do I), but few know the simple ways to welcome and transform their psyche and reintegrate lost aspects of self again (and even fewer regularly do this). I'm hoping that your vision is in fact the future--a reunion with the world and soul.
http://twitter.com/duffmcduffee
the part that is hopeful
it comes in the last third of the book, with some foreshadowing in the early chapters. Basically I thought it necessary to visit the deepest extremes of despair in order to present an optimism that is valid. Otherwise people would say (and my own doubt would say) "He just doesn't understand the magnitude of the crisis."
About words as words vs. words as actions, I hear you brother!
Charles
www.ascentofhumanity.com
Being the change you want to see in the world.
I am with you Charles. Also love reading your contributions ChibiOne and those of the RS community.
Having ‘spent’ a career in the world of mammon getting sicker physically, mentally and (unknowingly) spiritually, a number of years ago a change became an absolute necessity. I found myself living with some yogis, practising hatha, bhakti, jnana and most importantly karma yoga. (Karma yoga may be considered a euphemism for work, usually of the physical variety, but not always and the general idea is not to get attached to the outcomes of you actions; be efficient yet resilient, and don't be too fussed whether you are cleaning a loo or fluffing the gurus pillow). The effect on my personality and overall wellbeing has been profound. We regenerate local bushland, grow more and more of own veggies and fruit, prepare delicious vegetarian food full of prana and love, shared among people feeling their own divine nature.
Most revealing recently to me has been the loss of my ‘identity’: feeling more a form moving within forms and formlessnesses (?). Paradoxically this has provided my being with a greater sense of self than I have ever previously encountered.
I sometimes look at the discourse going on and see some profound disturbance (in my own head as well as in others) that humanity will find it increasingly difficult to resolve many of the truly bewildering array of issues facing it in the coming decades. The ‘easy’ way out may be to look at the bit of rubbish floating by, ignore it, preferring to see the abundant beauty as its antidote. The ‘hard’ way is to pick up that piece of rubbish, deal with it, and make the beautiful even more so.
Also, recently, I’ve had a couple of lessons in patience resulting in much happiness also creating a feeling of wholeness.
Peace
Sparrow
“Time is that quality of nature which keeps events from happening all at once. Lately it doesn’t seem to be working.” (Anon)
The Coming Storm & Vulnerability
On the question of the disparity between time needed for sufficient collective/personal transformation and time available before planetary crisis, perhaps one crucial thing to remember is that, in a certain sense, all that exists is this moment. With that in mind, the coming storm is not the issue - rather what is called for is full presence to this here and now, come what may. That might be the greatest service we can provide.
Presumably, the move in to abstraction is driven fundamentally by both the personal and collective belief that the material world is not safe, or at least our existence within it is not safe, a phenomenon starting (cemented?) en masse with the Black Death? So another aspect of how we can serve is to hold the light of truth of personal responsibility and to help cultivate response-ability to whatever may arise.
not safe
But it is true that the material world is not safe! The question that I followed for years was: Why has safety become such a high priority? For example, people are way more paranoid today than when I was a kid about letting their children play outside unsupervised. As a society we are obsessed with "national security" (Obama said "My first priority as President will be to keep Americans safe"), financial security, liability, insurance. It seems sometimes that staying alive has become more important than living fully.
I don't think it was always like this. Reading classical literature, I get the impression that living right was more important than staying alive. I especially got this feeling reading Icelandic sagas and things like that. I think the origin of the craving for safety lies in our modern identity, our sense-of-self as discrete and separate. A connected self is less fearful. When you have a living, experiential, felt connectedness to nature and other people, then you know in your cells that part of you can never die.
Another word for this state of felt connectedness is love.
Charles
www.ascentofhumanity.com
I remember...
talismanic magick
Amazing clairity!
Supertramp?
supertramp
I especially love the Logical Song. On youtube there is a video, and you can tell that they really, really mean it.
Charles
umm such yummy food for
Yup...
...there is a reality that comes from working with real stuff. Bending electrons all day may result in changed patterns, but it isn't the same thing as applying energy to material goods to change their shape and form. Decades ago I worked on the railroad - the track, that is, not the trains. I learned the power of energy in mass. You only see 120 pound rails that it takes nearly 20 minutes to saw thru with a gasoline powered hack saw twisted into pretzel shapes at a derailment once, and a new understanding comes to you of what power means, both for good, and for chaos.
And chaotic power is what we are all about to feel, friends. The change of age is upon us, and Charles' experiences with real stuff - wood, metal, heat, friction, sharp edges and fast movement - will serve him and many others in good stead. For almost two generations we have placed our trust and hopes in consumption, and neglected production. Now, as they say, the chickens are coming home to roost. And as someone who owns chickens, I can tell you that only happens at twilight, as darkness approaches. And darkness approaches, digital friends.
Charles, in his eloquent way, has helped lay a description of the path of salvation before us all. Time to get to work. Work on real things. Work on production. Could be production of part or all of your own food. Could be production of housing. Could be production on means of gathering and storing energy (the days of the grid as we know it may be fast coming to an end). Could be production of art or household needs or simply production of healthy, wholesome meals for those you love from simple, basic elemental foods. But the era of consumption for consumption's sake is fast closing. The party's over, folks. Time to wash, dry and put away the dishes. Empty the ashtrays and carry out the trash. Get a good night's sleep, get up and get a decent breakfast and a cup of caff, and get to work - producing.
As Baba Ram Dass said so many years ago now http://www.amazon.com/Remember-Here-Now-Ram-Dass/dp/0517543052 (I am sure quoting some Zen master wiseacre from long before his time): "Before enlightment, chopping wood and carrying water; after enlightment, chopping wood and carrying water." Know where your axe is? When was the last time you sharpened it? Do you even remember where you put the file? And where DID that bucket get off to?
Y'all take care, by the way. Charles is right. Working in the world of real things can be dangerous. That axe will take a chunk out of your shin if you are not careful. And drop a three gallon bucket of water weighing 25 pounds on a bare foot, and you'll experience the real world pain of broken bones.
It can be a tough life out there when you step beyond digits into the real world. Be aware. Be careful. Be here now. And be kind to the birds and the old folks.
Remember, breathe in; breathe out. Remember. Repeat.
ascent/descent
''...a third view that considers both Diamond's Hobbesian position and the more Rousseauvian position of those who think we have descended, such as Derrick Jensen, Daniel Quinn, John Zerzan. It is not an intermediate view. I think that we have descended, yet this descent is generating the impetus for a quantum shift in human civilization.'
hey charles. i was curious about this last sentence here. I have been reading a lot of Derrick Jensen lately (and a bit of Zerzan as well), and it seems to me that he makes a pretty compelling case that civilization itself is at the root of our problems. therefore, it seems that a shift in civilization is not what is required so much as what Jensen prescribes - 'Bringing down civilization.'
The working definition of civilization that Jensen returns to often is 'a culture of conquest abroad and repression at home.' The reason this is so - and always so, in all of civilized history, is that civilization implies the existence of cities. Cities require the importation of resources - ergo 'conquest'. They also deny to 'citizens' (city-dwellers) access to land on which to sustain themselves. Therefore they work, or they beg, or they steal, or they are slaves - in other words, repression at home.
The idea seems to be, according Zerzan and Jensen, that the domestication of animals awakened a dominator impulse (or rather, suppressed the impulse to freedom) that led to the catastrophe of civilization. I wonder how civilization can make a 'quantum shift' in direction if this is its trajectory. It is clearly headed for a crash, and seems incapable, by its very nature, of heading in any other direction. The question, as Jensen makes us see vividly in 'Endgame' (which everybody had better read), is whether or not we allow civilization to crash and take us all down with it, or take it down ourselves and preserve as much of the natural world as is still left - before it is too late.
Any thoughts?
Peace D.
If I may toss my two pennies into this one....
First, I need to make clear two definitions for the purposes of this perspective: civilization and society.
Civilization I will define more or less as Jensen does in Endgame: "a culture—that is, a complex of stories, institutions, and artifacts— that both leads to and emerges from the growth of cities (civilization, see civil: from civis, meaning citizen, from Latin civitatis, meaning city-state), with cities being defined—so as to distinguish them from camps, villages, and so on—as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life."
Society I will define as any group of people who play, work, and live together long enough to build a culture, as defined by Jensen in the above excerpt; as well as anyone that follows the same cultural standard (in this sense, we now have a global society utilizing the economic organization knows as capitalism: we in America may not, technically, 'live with' the people in Japan, for example, but we could best be described as two sub-cultures of one capitalist society in this framework).
Merriam-Webster is also in agreement with what I believe a society is: a voluntary association of individuals for common ends (if it is involuntary, then it is enslavement...not society).
So: we are part of a society that evolved from/through civilization. While civilization as a mode of living may fail, our society (as in, our understanding of connectedness and interdependence) may or may not. I believe it is a quantum leap in our society that Mr. Einstein is talking about, though he uses the word civilization (but I don't want to put words in his mouth. That is just my interpretation, and it could be wrong).
We, as human beings, are a part of a society still. It is a largely unconcious one, but it exists nonetheless: we are all trying to live better lives (common goals), and we all voluntarily associate with other humans to make this happen.
Currently, however, the culture that our society has created contains a meme that is tossing a wrench in the spokes -- that of separation...'the selfish gene' of Dawkin's theology (whether he will admit to himself that is what it is or not). Indeed, cities by and of their nature promote and enforce (perhaps even create, to some degree) the idea of separation.
Without a real written language (read: the preliterate period), several generations grew up in cities. They began to create their own stories as to how and why they came to be in this place. Once these stories where created, however, they took on a life of their own as memes. Most importantly, the meme that each of us is purely individual.
The spin-off of this is everything we see now.
If I am separate, then I need to compete with the other individuals in the group to make sure I get what I need. I must be afraid of that which is outside 'myself', because it may hurt that which I accept as 'me' (I love your book, Charles ^_^).
All These Things (read: the coming crises) may force a remarkably rapid evolution of our conception of 'self'; and of our collective understanding concerning our mutual interdependence with the rest of existence.
This may shift our society away from civilization -- only our current mode of organization -- and back toward something more sustainable and happiness-oriented.
(Also, if you haven't read A People's History of the World by Chris Harman...I recommend it highly. It went a long way, for me, to explaining how we got here in the first place.)
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
beware the dictionary
'Merriam-Webster is also in agreement with what I believe a society is: a voluntary association of individuals for common ends (if it is involuntary, then it is enslavement...not society).'
Exactly! I didn't sign up for this mess. Nor did the Bangledeshi 12 year old who made my second hand petro-synthetic Gap sweater, or the Iraqi 12 year old who got his leg blown off to get the oil to make it. Its involuntary/enslavement, folks. Capitalist society is a contradiction in terms. Always be wary of Mirriam-Webster. Here is their definition of civilization (more a laudatory review than anything else, and no mention of the importation of resources or the conquest it requires. 'urban comfort' sounds like it would have a nice oaky taste though):
1 : a relatively high level of cultural and technological development
2: the process of becoming civilized
3 a: refinement of thought, manners, or taste b: a situation of urban comfort
4 : Dick Cheney dropping a daisy cutter on baby bunnies at a game farm.
(couldn't help myself).
civilization
The writings of Jensen, Quinn, and Zerzan were kind of the starting point of the journey that became The Ascent of Humanity. You can define civilization in many ways, of course, but I think it has to include technology that builds upon itself, culture with recorded knowledge (e.g. writing), and a mass coordination of human activity (whether hierarchical or not). These allow the human gifts of mind and hand, culture and technology, to develop. The question I begin the book with is, Can we separate the gift from the curse? For it seems that the power to create comes with the power to destroy. So, my starting point was despair, thinking along with Jensen that all this is just one colossal mistake, an enormous crime. Yet somehow that answer never satisfied me, because there is much beauty that has come with civilization. I think it was E.F. Schumacher who wrote, "A modern symphony orchestra has a beauty undiminished by that of the lonely shepherd's pipe." And I looked upon the fabulous complexity of a microchip, and beauty of the New York city skyline, and I thought, this can't be all a mistake. Yet at the same time I was fully cognizant of the horror we have wrought.
So began my investigation, which took five years. I studied the origins of civilization, of agriculture, of symbolic culture and technology, the process through which nature became an object of manipulation, domination, and control. I hesitate to summarize my argument here, because it takes several hundred pages to lay it out persuasively, so I'll just state my conclusion: Separation (or the emergence of a dominator culture) was not a discrete, identifiable event or error, but the result of a gradual, ongoing, and inevitable process that is reaching its extreme today, but which has origins as far back as paleolithic culture and technology, and indeed even further to prehuman (animal) technology, and even arguably to the first cell, which through homeostasis divided the universe into self and other. Separation built upon itself, passing through several momentous quickenings (fire, language, agriculture, money, the machine, etc.). It generates crises which are converging today, and these crises are propelling us into an Age of Reunion. That is essentially the thesis of my book, though there is much else that goes along with it. I urge you to take the time to read it (it is available free in its entirety on line, as well as in print.)
On a deep level, I think that Jensen's work actually plays into the mentality of domination. It is another version of stamping out evil. It is useful at a certain stage, but at some point one must abandon anger if one is to effect the deepest revolution in human beingness.
Charles
www.ascentofhumanity.com
what do we do?
that's very interesting. i had no idea you had been so influenced by the anarcho-primitivist set. i'm definitely going to have to finally read your book. the idea of separation and reunion makes sense to me, intuitively.
the complexity and sophistication of human culture that has resulted from civilized life is astounding. it is hard to imagine living without it. but the problem as it seems to me is that the further civilization advances, the less the consolation of culture soothes the soul. for example, not only am i dissatisfied with the contemporary level of art and music and literature in this culture (which i attribute in large part to a lack of successful resistance by artists to commercialization), i am no longer able to find a state of exaltedness in the old works i love so much - Dylan, or Dostoyevsky, to name my favorites.
the reason for this is not just my own jadedness. it seems to me now that all art that does not confront the central problem of our time is irrelevant . that problem is obviously industrial civilization, which is killing the planet and committing unconscionable atrocities in its quest for resources (it even begs the question of whether any kind of art - as opposed to direct action - is relevant at this point in time.)
so my question is this: even if i don't feel that civilization was a mistake, or feel that at the very least it was an inevitability and that it has produced many beautiful things (i am not so sure that it was all worth it, but, fuck it - here we are), are we not still obliged to halt the progress of industrial civilization before it devours every last living thing on the planet? isn't it our responsibility to take action against it, to bring down civilization so that we can at least live to explore the alternatives to it?
here's an interesting question about history. if you accept the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis, synthesis, and you accept that from the beginning civilization has been antithetical to wild nature, what is the synthesis of civilization and nature? it seems to me to be the same as say, a healthy body meeting its antithesis in cancer. the synthesis is a sick, dying body. the only options are to excise the cancer or to die (perhaps with the consolation that living with cancer has made you a better artist or a deeper thinker? i don't know. i think i would use whatever strong medicine i could get to defeat the cancer).
obviously bringing down industrial civilization at this point does not erase the beautiful things that have resulted during its course. it merely halts the destruction. and i think Jensen is correct in his analysis of our corporate and governmental institutions when he says that they are as unlikely to change their ways as is a domestic abuser (the stat was something like 1 in 1000 abusers in therapy successfully stop abusing their wives and children). in that case, the only solution is to walk out of the situation. and given that global capitalism is everywhere, the only way out of the situation is destroy global capitalism.
you recognize that anger is 'useful at a certain point'. now is that point. we can not 'effect the deepest revolution in human beingness' until we have vanquished industrial civilization. i can see no other way around it. either we fight back now, or civilization tightens the noose all the way, and no human beingness whatsoever (or else the earth is so degraded that it is a nightmare to live here at all).
I fail to see how Jensen falls into the dominator complex. His anger does not preclude love, indeed it is motivated by his love for the planet, and directed at those who destroy it. I think it only serves those destroyers to say that our anger is somehow less evolved than a dispassionate equanimity in light of what we are facing (unless of course that equanimity is utilized to more calmly and effectively dismantle capitalism). That he wants to 'stamp out evil' as you call it, is adding too much color to the canvas. He wants to stamp out the fire that is raging at our front door.
That said, i do believe it is categorically 'evil' to destroy the planet in pursuit of short term personal profit. the post-modern conceit that there is no such thing as right and wrong is a huge part of the problem. It defends us from having to take responsibility, and from there to take the necessary action. And if we don't act now to halt industrial civilization, what do we do? Capitalism will never change its destructive ways. We all know it, and we all know what the end result will be if the destruction continues unopposed. So what do we do?
Peace,
D
We do the only thing we can do
More or less what we are doing is my theory...working to teach others, discussing alternatives, and making the appropriate changes to our own lives. Slowly eat away at the people-infrastructure that that supports the beast; until we reach a 'critical mass' point where they are weak enough -- and we strong enough -- that a full-blown movement can succeed.
It is a painfully slow and frustrating process, but I see no other realistic option. Patience and perserverence are our strongest allies at this point. I think it sort of snow-balls, though...as more people start to understand, it becomes easier for others to 'get it'.
Most people still believe in capitalism because they still believe in the story that it has made our lives wholly better...as the fallacy of this becomes more obvious, and knowledge of it becomes increasingly widespread, more people will decide it is time for a change. But they must see and understand this for themselves...it cannot be 'forced' upon anyone, or it becomes exactly the sort of repressive ideology we are supposedly against (it seems to me, anyway).
I'm still hoping for some kind of tipping point (possibly catalyzed by an upcoming catastrophe) that makes it start to go faster.
I would say there is even some evidence that this is starting to happen already.
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
but what if we don't have time?
but what if we don't have time?
how long will it take for enough people to come around? will a majority of people ever come around to a radical rejection of the status quo? consider the 'good germans'. were the resistance fighters forcing a 'repressive ideology' on the german people by trying to overthrow hitler? i think the situation today demands the same kind of concentrated and determined action as it did then. moreso, even, because there are no allied armies fighting from outside the borders (global capitalism has no borders). unless, as you say, mother nature steps in with a catastrophic coup de grace. but, besides the fact that waiting for, say, climate change to get completely out of hand will damage us all universally and obviously not target the ruling classes specifically, and besides the fact that it will give them a good excuse to impose martial law, or other 'emergency measures', it also seems like ingratitude to me to depend on our beleaguered mother to do the dirty work for us. don't we owe her at least action? shouldn't we fight back, for her sake, for the sake of the planet that gives us everything? if it was your own flesh & blood mother that was at stake, you would fight back (and really, it is everyone and everything that you love that is at stake here.) - so why not fight for the earth?
'working to teach others, discussing alternatives, and making the appropriate changes to our own lives.'
of course we must do these things. but its not enough.
'Slowly eat away at the people-infrastructure that supports the beast; until we reach a 'critical mass' point where they are weak enough -- and we strong enough -- that a full-blown movement can succeed.'
not enough time. and if there were enough time, ie, if capitalism could continue indefinitely or for another 100 or 200 years without destroying the planet and killing or enslaving us all, it still wouldn't work. you can not starve the beast because it doesn't ask you to feed it. it takes what it wants, and if you don't want to give it, well, you really have only two options, and neither of them are a lot of fun. one of them is fighting back. the other is rolling over.
you should read endgame, both volumes. i'd like to know your take on it. he quotes einstein, i think, who said that to keep doing what you are doing and expecting different results is insanity. clearly what we are doing is not enough. and to keep doing what is demonstrably ineffectual while the planet that sustains us is destroyed before our eyes - that is insanity.
Absolutely true...but what else can we do?
Sure, I agree with every word you say. It very much seems too little, too late. I simply see no other viable alternative at this time. I agree completely that we need to keep at trying to unite, and attempt to find something more effective...however, until I hear about (or think of myself) a good alternative, I know of nothing else that can be done...and I don't want to do nothing.
Without enough people in agreement, they simply move in and crush us...probably painting us as something akin to David Koresh's little organization.
A blip on the radar, and no real change effected.
Choose your battles, as Sun Tzu teaches. Fight only when you have no other choice, you know you have a chance of winning...and when your victory will gain something concrete.
Do not let your opponent dictate the terms of the conflict.
As you mentioned in other comments, they have taken a monopoly on force (at least, legitimized force). And, what's more, they have poured untold trillions (even quadrillions) of the surplus into researching, designing, and building the most effective instruments of force ever conceived...much less fielded.
I mean, the U.S. Army had who knows how many people with AK-47's, rocket launchers, grenades, and other assorted heavy artillery firing at them non-stop as they entered the various cities of Iraq. It availed their foes nothing. With the arms and armament available to a modern army, we with regular ol' guns and explosives might as well have sticks and stones.
I do not see that force can get us out of this. Which is mete; as it is over-use of force which got us here. Only fair -- after having abused it so much -- that we be forced to solve our problems without our favorite fall-back and short-cut.
And if we don't have time, then we all die. But despair and ennui can make that a self-fulfilling prophecy...so I don't recommend focusing on it too much. The possibility must be acknowledged in order to motivate the requisite action...but we should keep our eyes more on the prize.
"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts his sails." William Arthur Ward
P.S.: I do need to read more Jensen. I have only read A Language Older Than Words and half of vol. 1 of Endgame (I lost my copy on a bus when I was reading it, and I was upset about it =\). Also: I really love your comments. I look forward, nearly every article, to reading your take on the issue (even if it is a bit 'jaded' at times. ^_~ j/k).
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
endgame
get volume two.
sticks stones can break their bones but names will never hurt them.
haha.
Will do.
Will do.
In response to your Einstein quote, btw: You, me, this community and website in general show that those who stood up for these ideas previous to now did not do so in vain. I do not think it is craziness to think we can effect a change with this methodology.
Whether or not this can happen fast enough to make a meaningful difference in the actual life-span of our species is up for debate, I'll agree entirely.
But there isn't going to be a silver-bullet for this monster, one way or the other.
"You must *be* the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi
nature civilization synthesis
That is exactly what will happen, a transition from a linear (or exponential) industrial economy to a cyclical industrial ecology that is in all relevant respects an extension of nature. The most important principle is waste=food. In earlier RS essays and in my book I explain how a different money system can induce such an economy. I agree with you that most existing institutions are irremediably unsound. They are the instruments of separation, and constitutionally incapable of effecting change on a sufficiently fundamental level.
As for what we can do if not "fight back", there are other ways of bringing change other than fighting. Fighting the machine can win temporary victories and save some of what is beautiful, but it is doomed in the long run. It is a fight that can never be won. Let me give you two metaphors that might help illustrate an alternative to fighting.
In Chinese classics on martial arts, it is understood that the very greatest masters win without fighting. The martial artist who fights and wins is considered inferior to those who win without fighting. The very greatest win while allowing their opponent to believe he has won.
In my own experience, I have never seen anyone change when someone encourages her to struggle harder against their badness. But if someone is able to see her in the most noble light, and believe that truth about her so unshakably as to hold it on her behalf when she cannot, then miracles happen. That one in a thousand.
What is normal in our world, and has been for thousands of years, is to think that if we could only vanquish the Forces of Evil, finally the world will be more beautiful. That is the mentality today in Israel, in Afghanistan, in a hundred other places where there is war. The superficial target of the self-righteous anger is different, but the thought-form, the energy of it, is the same. Even if the target is civilization itself, the energy emanating from the crusader has the effect on the universe that all anger has. It brings the results it brings, but never lasting, fundamental change. It is time to try something different.
Charles
www.ascentofhumanity.com
i watched the film 11th hour
i watched the film 11th hour last night. at the beginning of the third act, just as the film is transitioning into its 'what we can do to save the earth' phase, a guy comes on to dismiss anti-civilizationists out of hand. 'there are those who would have us put on animal skins and go live in the forest to live on roots and berries,' he says. but they are clearly idiots, (as, by implication, are the world's indigenous people), and the solution to the havoc wreaked by technology is more technology, green technology that mimics nature. it all sounds good. we would hardly have to give up a thing - in fact, we will all live in sustainable splendor, every last one of us. but i have never heard green tech people address the problem of mineral extraction, plastic production, the vast amounts of resources that are used up to produce, for example, one computer microchip (3000 pounds, i believe). we are told that it will be sustainable, but not how that is so. we are told that the world will be peaceful and egalitarian, but the nature of civilization remains the same - cities which require the importation of resources & therefore conquest.
however, i have not sold my mental farm to the anarcho-primitivists just yet. but if i allow for the possibility that a sustainable technology may be possible, i know for certain that the oil economy must be stopped, that industrial agriculture and fishing must be stopped, that the forestry industry must be stopped and that the prison-industrial-military complex must be stopped. besides the abolition of global capitalism being a moral imperative, it is also a necessity to our continued survival. once again, if we don't fight them, what do we do? tai chi? that's pretty much your answer here isn't it? make dick cheney feel better about himself, help him get in touch with his inner child? I feel bad being so flip here, and maybe I should step back a second, but those are, in a nutshell, the tactical solutions you have offered to these problems. Or am I am missing something?
"What is normal in our world, and has been for thousands of years, is to think that if we could only vanquish the Forces of Evil, finally the world will be more beautiful. That is the mentality today in Israel, in Afghanistan, in a hundred other places where there is war. "
This is an over-simplified absolutism. I have a better over-simplified absolutism that we can try in its stead... The wars in Palestine and Afghanistan are being waged not because of ideology, but because of resources. Ideology, religion, good vs evil - its always a smokescreen in these situations. The crusade against 'evil' is a tried and tested way of winning recruits to wars of conquest. In Afghanistan its about heroin production and oil pipelines (and strategic military deployment). In Israel its about water rights and land (and strategic military deployment). The power players in both conflicts are not concerned about good and evil, they are concerned about resource extraction and 'full spectrum dominance' (as US generals have taken to calling world domination).
"The superficial target of the self-righteous anger is different, but the thought-form, the energy of it, is the same. Even if the target is civilization itself, the energy emanating from the crusader has the effect on the universe that all anger has. It brings the results it brings, but never lasting, fundamental change."
The difference in targets here is not superficial but fundamental. We are talking about fighting back against forces that are quite literally killing the planet. This is not of apiece with the cynical 'enemy du jour' god-&-country propaganda that our overlords feed us to get us to go to war with poor people and line the pockets of Chevron and Halliburton. If we can't see how there is a fundamental difference here, then this is a lost cause.
As for 'anger's effect on the universe', I think it is ironic that the same people who espouse a sort of non-dualistic, all-is-one, all-is-beautiful philosophy are incapable of incorporating basic human emotions and behaviors like anger and violence into their pantheon of unified beauty.
****I am editing a bunch of these comments I left to take out anything that might seem like I am endorsing illegal activity. This is a debate and a conversation, and above all a process of learning and discovery. I don't want to be put in the position of defending & having to answer for views which I am still exploring, and have by no means come to a final decision about. I plan on writing my own book or series of articles soon, and this discussion forum is helpful for me to work out some of what I want to say. I change my mind a lot. As I have said over & over again, you should read Derrick Jensen's book, Endgame, if you want to fully explore these ideas. It is a hard book to walk away from with your preconceptions about resistance and activism intact. That said, I don't want to be in a position of defending and promoting his views, which were formed over a lifetime of activism and writing, while my own views on this subject are not fully formed and while my own career as a writer has hardly begun. I loathe violence. I do not endorse violence. I love the Earth and I love life. So what are we to do? I think we can all agree that this is a tough spot we are in, that requires intelligence and care. I am going to take some time to write about all this (and a bunch of other things) from my own perspective, from my own heart, and see what comes up. I can not stress enough that what I have written here is meant as exploratory discourse and is not an endorsement of violent tactics against people or property.****
To throw out a whole set of emotions because (and this is an unqualified article of faith, by the way) 'anger always has the same effect on the universe' is to seriously hinder our efforts. Don't forget that even Jesus 'came with a sword', and stuck it to the moneychangers, too.
Two more ironies before I finish my rant. First is that, in becoming 'an extension of nature', we rule out as unconscionable the use of force. Do I have to remind you that nature is not a pacifist? That not even the lowliest of creatures will use whatever means at its disposal to defend itself and its young? That life itself is dependent on violence and that violence is an integral part of the natural cycle that you wish we model a new industrial technology upon?
The second irony is that, by saying we must 'try something different', you seem to be suggesting that the protest movement (or whatever you want to call it) has been engaged in open resistance to power in recent memory. This is hardly the case. Pacifism is the norm, letter-writing, candlelight vigils, alternative lifestyles, etc etc, have taken the place of militancy. They have not succeeded in slowing the pace of industrial capitalism by a millisecond, and they have been co-opted to the point of being mere set dressing for the grotesque theater of contemporary politics. (Grubby looking losers with signs and cliched haircuts viewed from inside the limo as it pulls through the gates and into the estates of power - where the real movie begins. The demonstrators are nothing but a tired old film-conceit, disposed of before the title sequence even begins.)
What is happening is that you are conflating the 'fighting back' of resistors with the 'conquest and repression' of dominators. While it has happened many times in the past that the result of political revolution is some variation of 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss', those revolutions, the revolutions of the modern industrial age, had as their goal the seizure of the ship of state and the means of industrial economic production. A revolution that sought to sink the ship of state and dismantle the industrial infrastructure might more accurately be called an 'insurrection' or up-rising, in that it transcends that dialectic of history and rejects, or sloughs off, the chains of civilization that have kept us tethered to this nasty cogwheel for so long.
Peace (and War, since we're being non-dualistic)
D
don't know if you guys have heard of edward tick
He has a lot to say about the warrior archetype & its different treatment in different cultures. He offers that the healthiest cultures were those that treat being a warrior as a rite of passage, with elaborate rituals to heal & reintegrate the person back into community when the fighting is through. His deep psychotherapy work gets into shamanic concepts of soul retrieval, & he even brings Vietnam vets back to Vietnam in order to face demons & confront the ghosts of people they've killed.
He has a book called 'War & the Soul' which I've read small parts of. I came across his work again yesterday & thought I'd recommend it here.
Some points
- I feel similarly to Devon that a lot of the 'greats' in music art & literature no longer speak to me anymore because they don't seem to address the core problem of our time, they don't seem like the medicine we need...
- From all my explorations it seems like there are plenty of compelling ideas out there for a newly envisioned society - there is plenty of 'medicine'. People just need to start taking it seriously, getting excited about it, playing with the possibilities.
What does a healed global society *look like*?
It seems to me that we have a major opportunity to co-create with the divine (the larger intelligence, gaia, etc) & recreate our world here! Civil disobedience & the like may be one tool in the toolbox, but the emphasis should be on *creation* & *possibility*...imho.
How inspiring & exciting is that? And meaningful. The hero's journey...
I feel like: *This could be beautiful*, people... let's all work together, get the collective positive energy flowing, dig our hands in the dirt... Yes it will be hard at times, but - so what? THAT'S LIFE - THIS IS LIFE, let's make the best of it!
Some hope-giving ideas & people I'm excited about nowadays:
- Paul Stamets & mycoremediation
- Transition Town movement, ecocities, relocalization
- Permaculture, native plants
- Sustainable South Bronx, Van Jones, Majora Carter
- Indigenous lifeways & craft traditions
- Emphasis on 'artisan' over 'Artiste' - a renewed respect for the contribution of the material itself in the creative process
- The legacy of ecovillages & the back-to-the-land movement of the 60's/70's... what not to do, as well as some cool experiments in eco-architecture... See 'Shelter' & earthships in New Mexico nowadays
- Yoga & dance as pathways to integrate mind, body, being & action
- Dance musics of the world as medicine, polyrhythms as an abstraction of the quantum lattice that interconnects all things.....
- 'Spell of the Sensuous', a renewed sense of animism, a respect for the embodied vibratory power behind words, a renewed global fluency in nonverbal communication...
- Expanded education of women, family planning, birth control
- Etc, etc.
Many or most of these ideas have been mentioned on RS... the challenge is to transform culture day by day & start living them. Again, bringing the discussion back around to - what does it (the new sustainable steady-state) look like? Starting in one's own life perhaps...
first things first
To meldrc,
While I have always said on this site that, while I don't disagree with (almost) any of the positive intentions people have been putting out there - the ones you just enumerated all sound like fun - I do think that we are still largely ignoring the elephant in the room: global capitalism. We are buying into the idea that it is responsive to our needs, that just because we desire a better world we will get it. This is manifestly not the case. Capitalism has its own (insane) logic - constant, accelerating growth (growth in this sense means the conversion of more and more living things - plants, animals, the earth, human beings - into dead things - commodities, money, GDP, property). Having reached the limits of its expansion at the same time as reaching a fever pitch of production and resource extraction, we are faced with the immediate reality of social & ecological holocaust. It is THAT BAD. Good ideas are good ideas, but they are all secondary to the immediate task of halting the destruction. Negativity for its own sake, this is not. I would like to feel as positively about things as you evidently do, but it is simply not realistic. That said, this knowledge does not depress me. It is something we all know intuitively and spend far too much energy in repressing. Positivity that ignores reality is dangerous. An over-emphasis on staying positive can prevent us from looking deeply at the situation and taking effective and appropriate action. In this sense, by facing up to and confronting the negative, we are able to actually DO something positive (and effective and appropriate to the desperate nature of our situation), instead of just THINKING positive.
Peace,
D
you are right
Right, I really don't disagree with you there. The situation is absolutely dire... I myself have spent a lot of time sobering up, reading depressing articles, books & the like. Am particularly concerned about loss of biodiversity, peak-everything. Yes global capitalism is disgusting, etc.
Everyone owes it to themselves to get educated & sober up about the situation we're facing.... & yet...
then what?
That's the question at hand for me, & for you it seems.
Where is empowerment & where is safety in these troubled times? Not to mention what are the 'solutions'...?
The questions remain under discussion, with many ideas proposed...
But I think there's a lot of room for subjectivity in the answers.
I feel like the hero has 1000 faces, once you've processed the difficult realities. Everyone gets their own spin, everyone has a different role to play. So many people working on so many different angles in so many different locations...
Myself, when I start hearing a lot of fatalism & talk of impending disaster, I feel the inner prompting to advocate for healing, possibility, & vision. Even if that comes down to accepting the transitory nature of this life & preparing ourselves for the 'bardos' to come.
But I do recognize that the world works in all kinds of ways... sometimes speaking the language of the oppressor, ie: the overt role of the warrior, may truly be necessary. But even then, after that event, I feel that healing & regeneration is desirable.... necessary for balance to be restored & for the world to go back to its steady state.
I suppose I choose to focus on the 'ultimate healing' angle of things... perhaps that's my role to play, in large part. I dunno. (though there's some definite warrior-princess energy too...)
Bottom line, though, is that - I agree that it's absolutely right to feel outraged, disgusted, extreme about the situation we find ourselves in today. And make decisions about how to proceed from there.
Everyone has to feel their way through this stuff for themselves on some level...
The thing that excites me about the things/people I listed is that... they're all ideas I feel like I can embrace even *after* having contemplated the direness of our global situation. I feel like, on some level at least, there's a real power in positivity (look at Obama) & creativity & staying focused on solutions rather than paralyzed by the direness of the problems.
Peace to you,
meldrc