I’ve been living like a hermit for 19 months now, reading
dozens of powerful books, and writing weekly blogs. I’m not the same person I was when I
started. My perception of reality has
gone through some changes. I’ve been
sharing what I learned with the world. I
hope that seekers will find it, and I hope that my work will be helpful to them. I’ll be publishing this material in book form
shortly.
Genuine sustainability, of course, is the holy destination —
a way of life that is healthy, satisfying, and has a long-term future. Getting there, of course, will be an enormous
challenge, requiring enormous changes, enormous wisdom, enormous luck, and
probably a century or three, at least.
What we are today is the result of many choices and changes —
stone tools, projectile weapons, fire, complex language, consciousness,
directed thinking, cultural evolution, civilization, industrialization, the domestication
of plants, animals, and minerals, and so on.
At the time of the Great Leap Forward, 40,000 years ago, the
megafauna were still abundant, and perhaps we were still sustainable. But these cave painters were quite different
from the far simpler hominids who roamed in Africa 500,000 years ago. The high-tech cave painters were much more
vulnerable to falling out of balance, which is exactly what happened. Infants born today are still pure wild
animals, ready to grow up in an advanced tribe of cave painters, or a primitive
tribe of early Africans. As Prince
Charles says, we are what we are surrounded by.
Obviously, the safest and most conservative ideal would be to
return to tropical regions. Back in
Africa, we didn’t need clothing, fire, shelters, or tools. We lived much like chimps. Food was readily available year round. People enjoyed abundant leisure, and good
health. Perhaps climate change will come
to our rescue here, by expanding tropical regions, and dealing a deathblow to
agriculture.
But some
predict that climate change will be the final chapter in the human story. Those who foresee near term extinction (NTE)
perceive me to be a delusional moron for contemplating the possibility that any
humans will exist 100 years from now. Rapid
heating will destroy agriculture and blindside every ecosystem on the
planet. Oceans will become so acidic
that only jellyfish remain. Coal burning
will cease with the demise of industry, so less incoming solar energy will be
deflected by pollution, and the warming process will accelerate. When the power goes out, the cooling ponds
for spent fuel rods at 430+ nuclear power plants will evaporate, the rods will
burn, and ionized radiation will poison the planet.
Extinction would neatly solve every single one of our
problems. We were certain to go extinct
at some point in the future anyway.
Uff! But what if there are still
some humans alive 100 years from now?
I’m very happy that I’m not going to live to see the end of the
collapse. What the survivors choose to
do is entirely beyond my control. I am
not responsible for the decisions they make, but I am responsible for taking
action to protect their wellbeing, to the best of my ability. We all are.
Collapse will blow away many obstructions that currently
block our return to sustainability, but not all of them. In theory, we are smart enough to choose a
new path, and deliberately strive to return to a sustainable way of life. What we do today to encourage this return,
before the lights go out, may make a big difference in the coming years. It feels right to try.
Five hundred years ago, large portions of the planet were
still inhabited by humans living in a relatively sustainable manner. Four thousand years ago, even more. But these nature-based societies had no
long-term future because there were pockets of dark energy emerging on the
planet, something like cancer tumors, and their plan was perpetual growth, by
any means necessary.
In his parable of the tribes, Schmookler
warned us that once a bully entered the playground, the fun and games were
over. Only power can stop power. He believed that this problem could be cured
by creating a global civilization that was guided by wisdom. Jack Forbes
called it the cannibal disease, and he thought that this disease could be
eliminated by spiritual rebirth on a global scale. There is no fast-acting, silver bullet cure
for the growing predator energy. It’s a
formidable challenge to the healing process.
In theory, we can outgrow it.
Another serious problem is a lack of foresight. I could be gazing at a group of wooly
mammoths right now, if only the inventor of the stone-tipped lance had the
foresight to imagine the consequences of giving weapons of mass destruction to
a gang of scruffy-looking illiterate longhaired rednecks. Lions and tigers and bears don’t have this
problem, because they hunt with tooth and claw, and this works just fine.
Dilworth,
Crosby,
and Wright
changed the way I think. I used to
believe that our problems began with domestication. They taught me that our problems began with tool
making. Imagine what a paradise this
world would be if prehistoric toolmakers had had foresight, immediately
abolished their dangerous profession, and pursued careers in singing, dancing,
and storytelling.
At the dawn of the last century, there was loud and abundant
opposition to automobiles,
but the wise voice of conservatism was foolishly ignored — a huge mistake! Two centuries ago, we failed to listen
carefully to the ultraconservative Luddites, and what a mess we have now, Lord
Almighty! The problem really isn’t a
lack of foresight, it’s a lack of stability.
Stable species have no need for foresight. They live entirely in the here and now, and
do so beautifully. Domesticated humans
are the exception. We’re the loose
cannons of the animal world.
Likewise, Shepard,
Wells,
Ehrlich,
and Livingston
warned us about the dangers of cultural evolution. This is the same problem: a lack of
stability. Culture does not become toxic
until it falls out of harmony with wildness, freedom, and the laws of nature —
until it crosses the line and becomes unsustainable, a dead end.
It all boils down to remembering who we are, and how to live
like human beings. It’s about living as
lightly as possible, and contributing the healing process to the best of our
ability.
Thank you! This has
been fun! Have an honorable life! Best wishes!
3 comments:
I'm not sure I buy the tool theory of human devolution, since tool use has been observed in other primates, dolphins, elephants, otters, birds and octopuses.
It may be some combination of our opposable thumbs and oppositional brains that led us to use tools irresponsibly, but the really dramatic environmental (and cultural) modifications did not appear until the dawn of domestication.
That shift not only irreparably altered the earth around us, but began an accelerating distancing of human culture from nature. As we fenced out the wild, we fenced ourselves in and created a lifestyle that could not be sustained without inputs from (and costs to) nature (and to our own souls).
If human extinction is coming, we would be wise to welcome, rather than fight, it. Our demise may be the only positive legacy we can leave to the planet.
Riversong, tool use in non-humans has remained rudimentary, and all of them could probably do just fine without their tools. You and I would have a very hard time being tool free.
Two years ago, I agreed with you about domestication being the fall. Probably one year ago, too. Books can be mind altering experiences. Darned things!
I agree that the horror show went into fast forward maybe 10,000 years ago. But it seems like the preceding 30,000 years set the stage - slowly.
PS: Yes, our extinction is seeming more inevitable. That's sad, because the only thing that's destroying us is dumb ideas.
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