I think Dave Pollard sees it very well.
“In Defence of Inaction” by Dave Pollard
I have, of late, had a falling out with many of my fellow
'progressives', similar I suppose to that of Paul
Kingsnorth, who is
being savaged
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/magazine/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-he-feels-fine.html>
by Naomi Klein and others for giving up on the environmental movement and
non-local activism, and by humanists for losing faith in our species' capacity
for innovation and change.
I should say at the outset that I agree that our political
and economic
and legal and educational and social systems are dreadful,
unfair,
teetering, and totally inadequate to our needs. I agree that
this is a
world of horrific inequality, inequitable and unjust
privilege, massive
suffering, and outrageous patriarchy. I agree that
corporatism and
corruption and propagandist media are rampant and
destructive and
destabilizing. I agree that militarized police and torture
prisons and
drone killing and massive global surveillance are repugnant
and a
fundamental threat to our personal safety and security and
the very
principles upon which our nations are founded.
And I fully acknowledge that the fact I'm white, male,
boomer generation
and relatively wealthy provides me with enormous privilege
compared to
others, including relative freedom of movement, freedom from
fear of
harrassment and assault, and greater social, political and
economic
opportunity.
But when I hear arguments that "we need" to stand
up for our 'inherent'
rights and freedoms, and wrest 'control' of the levers of
power from the
obscenely wealthy elite, and denounce and protest injustice
and
inequality, and acknowledge and renounce our role as
privileged
oppressors, as the first steps to a true social revolution
in and
political and economic reform, leading, somehow, to a
radical
redistribution of wealth and power, and a more just society,
I am
reduced to despair.
I used to believe people, and perhaps some other creatures,
had 'rights'
and 'freedoms'. I believed that someone was in control. I
believed there
were answers to the predicaments we face.
But now I realize that there are no rights or freedoms. The
concept of
rights and freedoms is a sop that the rich and powerful of
this world
use to appease the fury and frustration of the poor and
disenfranchised.
The 'granting' of rights and freedoms means nothing, because
they can be and are taken away whenever those in power choose to do so,
and are
simply ignored when they interfere with the exercise of
power or
accumulation of wealth by those who allowed them to be
granted.
We don't have freedom of expression, or speech, or assembly:
Under the
current surveillance state I can be stopped, arrested, held
indefinitely
and incommunicado, tortured, 'disappeared' or simply killed,
by a drone
or in a secret gulag, whenever someone in power decides I'm
a threat to
that power.
Likewise, there is no 'upward mobility' for just about any
demographic
segment of our human population worldwide; most people are
trapped,
socially and economically, right where they are, no matter
what may
happen to the place where they live.
There is no true democracy, anywhere: the real decisions are
made in
secret meetings between bought politicians (many of them in
power
fraudulently or due to gerrymandering and other corruptions
of the
'democratic' process), who represent only their rich and
powerful
donors, and the bankers, lawyers and corporate executives.
The 'laws'
and 'regulations' are just smokescreens to make it look as
if the
people's interests are being considered.
There are no rights of recourse against corporate abuses:
most
industries are oligopolies, and corporate law is designed to
protect
them and their wealthy shareholders and executives from the
wrath of
outraged citizens, while enabling these corporations to sue
citizens who
pose any threat to their profits or 'leadership'.
All that's happened over the past three decades is that the
illusion of
rights and freedoms has largely disappeared, as those with
wealth and
power ratchet up the rhetoric that militarized police,
torture prisons,
ubiquitous surveillance and the oppression of dissent are
'necessary'
for public safety and security (especially the safety and
security of
the rich and powerful).
There are no rights or freedoms. There is only power, and
its exercise
in the interest of further enriching the rich and further
concentrating
power.
I used to be outraged and angry about all this, but now I'm
just letting
it go. It's just too easy to see this as a moral struggle,
as a fight
against pathology, greed, and tyranny. I don't think it's
that simple. I
think everyone's really trying to do what they believe is
best, not only
for their loved ones but for everyone. I know some of these
people, and
their stubborn, destructive wrong-headedness is completely
understandable to me (from their strange but deeply-held
worldview).
Increasing concentration of power doesn't mean is that there
is an
'elite' in control of everything in our society. Vast wealth
and power
does not translate to control, especially in a world where
all our
systems are collapsing simultaneously: our economic systems,
running on the fumes of belief in perpetual industrial growth; our
nearly-exhausted energy and resource systems, utterly dependent on ample and
cheap oil (one barrel of oil replaces /12 person-years/ of labour, and
we
currently use /100 million barrels/ per day); and our
climate systems,
which have long passed the tipping point to catastrophic
change
comparable to that of the 'ice ages' (though in the opposite
temperature
direction).
The rich and powerful are as much prisoners of these
massive, complex,
crumbling systems, as much cogs in the machine, as the rest
of us: they
just get better wages and benefits than the rest of the
inmates, and
will until the systems fall apart, at which time they'll be
no better
off than anyone else.
No one is in control. The enemy, if there is one, is not a
cabal of
elites, but a set of co-dependent collapsing systems that
every one of
us has a vested interest in trying (insanely) to perpetuate.
Systems we
have all helped co-create and are almost all dependent on.
David Korowicz, in his study On the Cusp of Collapse
explains how our massively complex global human systems are
far beyond the control of any coordinated group of people:
Our daily lives are dependent upon the coherence of
thousands of direct
interactions, which are themselves dependent upon trillions
more
interactions between things, businesses, institutions and
individuals
across the world. Following just one track; each morning I
have coffee
near where I work. The woman who serves me need not know who
picked the berries, who moulded the polymer for the coffee maker, how
the municipal system delivered the water to the café, how the beans made
their journey or who designed the mug. The captain of the ship that
transported the beans would have had no knowledge of who provided the export
credit insurance for the shipment, who made the steel for the hull,
or the steps in the complex processes that allow him the use of
satellite navigation. And the steel-maker need not have known who
built the pumps for the iron-ore mine, or how the oxygen for the furnace was
refined.
We cannot hope to 'fix' these systems through political or
economic or
legal or educational reform, or putting some more
democratically-minded group 'in control' of them. Fighting for possession of the
steering
wheel of a car careering over a cliff cannot produce useful
change. Even
trying to bring down our economic systems before they do
even more
damage is probably futile: It's unlikely to significantly
accelerate,
mitigate or delay the inevitable collapse, and I'm not sure
its effect
on catastrophic climate change would be substantial either.
There is
simply no point trying to change any of these systems; it's
a waste of
time, and, as Buddha said "Our problem is we think we
have time." But
some would insist we try anyway, so at least "we can
say we tried". I
think that's a pathetic argument.
So here we sit, all of us, rich and poor, powerful and
powerless, with
no real 'rights' or 'freedoms', no hope of 'reforming'
massive,
self-reinforcing and entrenched systems utterly out of our
control,
coming apart because they are totally unsustainable, and no
credible
knowledge of what might work to even mitigate the imminent
and
catastrophic end of the industrial 'growth' economy, the end
of the
all-too-brief age of abundant cheap energy, and the end of a
short few
millennia of astonishingly stable climate.
The question we must each ask ourselves, I think, is this:
/If we
acknowledge that our systems and hence our civilization
cannot be
reformed or 'saved', what can we do now that will make a
real
difference, for the future, in our communities and for those
we love?/
The insanely rational answer to this question, I think, is
(a) probably
nothing, and (b) it's too early to know.
So if I seem impatient or annoyed when you ask me to be
outraged or
supportive in your movement to reform civilization, I'm
sorry. I think
it's too late.
I'm in the process of writing a book of stories of how all
of this might
play out, just one scenario, the story of, in the short
term, a Great
Migration of billions of people towards the poles in search
of livable
habitat (what an amazing, terrifying and liberating journey
that could
be!), and, in the longer term, the blossoming of thousands
of local
communities, new and unimaginably diverse, self-sufficient,
joyful and
utterly alive human cultures, whose total impact on the
planet will be,
due to our much smaller numbers and minimal energy and
technology
resources, pretty insignificant. I need to write such a new
story to be
able to begin to let go of the old, civilized one.
Maybe that's not enough. Maybe there's more I could (I've
stopped saying "should") be doing: learning new essential skills
and capacities,
helping in the process of rediscovering how to build and
live in
community together, healing myself and helping others heal from
the
ravages of civilization's innumerable, constant and
monstrous stresses,
and just trying to live a joyful, exemplary, modest and
graceful life. I
may get around to these things. But for now I'm just
writing, watching,
reflecting, trying to figure it all out.
