Now I know I definitely haven't been holding up my end of the discussion here, but I've been busier than an accountant in April. Applying for work visas, landing and losing several jobs in a day, and of course drinking loads of Czech beer. But in all of the discussions I get into, either electronic or in the pub, conversation generally tends toward "things are fucked now, I don't know how we're ever to improve." The sort of hopeless defeatism that allows things to continue in the status quo. Of course, then I launch in upon my hope for the future spiel, which is almost always shot down as being too utopian and not real world. That's the only criticism afforded me, that it's too utopian. No rationale is ever provided as to why this is bad, or why this means that it isn't feasible.

So I ask, what's wrong with utopianism? Isn't it at least more optimistic than the defeatism that tends to grip the heart of activists and those aware of the downward spiral our culture is latched to? In my experience, realism is little more than a nihilistic acceptance of the state of things. A mental wringing of the hands, which accomplishes no form of positive change. I think this comes down to a lack of hope. Hope comes from a dream, a deep wish that things can change if we desperately want them to. Hope comes from a view of an alternate reality different than the current. This dream of a better world, this place where we can live better, can serve as a goal, a motivator, something to lift one up out of the morass of despair that threatens to engulf the very people we need to help improve affairs.

Of course, I realize that it will undoubtedly be impossible to create our ideal world within the world that exists now. Even Huxley's Island was overwhelmed by militarism in the end. Still, as a goal, as something to work toward, utopianism can help provide the impetus for change. As long as people have a future to work for, we can start improving things in our current state. However, to say that continuing in the status quo is going to destroy us all if we don't change, without giving some alternative future, tends to disable proactive change before it even begins. I do not mean to advocate some definitive, rigid, future but rather an idea for a better world that shifts with the changing situation, that is able to take into account new developments and change accordingly. We have seen what an inflexible utopia has led to before, with the gulags of siberia, and I am enaxious to avoid such extremism in the name of a better world. Yet the need for some unifying vision still persists. Living with the knowledge of the downfall of our world is too depressing otherwise.

(i am aware that this is a stilted, drunken ramble and makes little to know sense. In effect, it is nothing more than me shouting my blind optimism to the void, but it's 3am and I needed something to distract me from the drunk Brits trying to get behind the front desk. mmmm.... hostel life.)

I realized that I'd screwed up the paragraph spacing in my last post, and as I fixed it I remembered something interesting about Jensen:

Jensen gives Madeleine Allbright (sic?) hell for her statement about the death of 500,000 Iraqi children being an acceptable price (I forget the exact quote and can't be bothered finding it). However, Jensen has no qualms advocating murder, destruction and violence, no matter that the unavoidable, "acceptable price" would be the death of most humans, non-humans and probably most plants on this planet.

So let me get this straight: 500,000 is unacceptable... but a few billion is, what, pocket change?

If the only plan afterculture advocates have is "kill 'em all let gaia sort 'em out", then they need to go back to the drawing board.

Since mid-April I've been backpacking through China, Tibet and Nepal. All through the trip, in the back of mind I've thought about how it relates to the discussions we're having. Here are some quick thoughts - quick because we're about to leave the cybercafe and go to dinner. More to follow eventually.

BTW - pete, great stuff. Thanks for all the comments, and keep 'em coming.

The hell with an afterculture
The more I travel in Asia, the more I see people who have lived the sort of "afterculture life" discussed on here. And you know what? Rice farmers have cell phones. Children receive educations. People don't starve in Nepal and China - and it's because they said "funk this", and got a working infrastructure that sustains them, their families, and their nations.

You know what's interesting about Asia? Like pete has pointed out, many people work their butts off in the fields so they don't starve in winter. Hunting and gathering might sound lovely in principal, but there's a point at which it becomes unsustainable. Unless you decide to murder the people in your tribe, village, whatever, you grow food, you conduct trade (either in barter or cash) - or you die. China has a population of 1.3 billion people, and it sustains them with a massive land base (about the size of the US), of which only about 15-20% is fit for growing food. Not too shabby.

Tibet provides a good example of where aftercultural ideals also fail. Tibetans require livestock (yaks) and farming to live. Farming requires infrastructure of some form or another. The staple of the Tibetan diet is tsampa, a flour made from barley. You don't gather barley. You grow it. If the Tibetans did not grow barley, they would not be able to live, end of story, because barley is just about the only edible crop that will grow on the "roof of the world".

Quit blaming the US for everything
When reading Jensen's hate rant "Culture of Make-Believe", I kept asking, "What about Asia?" Nearly 900 pages, and the closest Jensen gets to Asia is saying that Thais die of cancer because they build computers. Hell, to read what he said you'd think the entire country of Thailand was a just one big computer manufacturing center.

Or maybe Jensen just doesn't care about Asia; goodness knows he doesn't like people at all, so it wouldn't be surprising. America gets a massive bad rap - and the majority of the world's population gets ignored.

Dig, you mentioned in a comment something about Americans trying to make everyone American. Go to Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore - just about anywhere in Asia, really - and you will likely hear similar complaints about the Chinese. Not that they want to make everyone Chinese; they just like to follow opportunity, and have a tendency to gain massive political and economic power relative to their population numbers in the countries where they go.

No one gets to decide what's best for the world
These past weeks have also helped me see what really pisses me off about afterculture, downfall of civilization, the murder of most species on the planet to accomplish it, etc. -

No matter what Jensen's books may say, no matter the romanticized bullshit of aboriginal life, what "destroying civilization" boils down to is a bunch of trigger-happy, guilt-ridden white boys deciding that they know what's right for the world's 6 billion people. Not once does Jensen quote an Asian, a Native American, a Maori, or an Australian Aboriginal. He did a bunch of reading, and now he's pissed off, but he knows what's best for the world. Dig, I love you mate, but get a passport and go to Asia for a while.

An afterculture is actually the worst form of cultural homogenization that could be imagined. It's not an attempt to encourage or preserve diversity. It's murder and rampant destruction, and anyone who survives, in order to fulfill the ideal, must be restrained in a set of cultural mores that cannot be deviated from. In short, it's shite.

To put it another way, the main arguments against current cultures are this: They use violence to impose their way of life on other people, and aren't concerned about the body count or whether or not there is one. Their methods and practices may well wipe out most of the life on the planet.

When I think about what has been discussed about "destroying civilization", I see the above. It's not salvation, it's just murder. It's some wanker deciding that he knows what's best for the world, and if you don't like it? Fine, you can die too. The afterculture's mission statement does not leave a need to be concerned with blowback, after all.

This is overlong, poorly written and badly edited. Sorry. It's been a long few weeks, I'm hungry, and have stuff to do. Like be very, very glad for the world I live in - instead of being consumed by a destructive, pointless guilt.

I keep hearing people talk about different, generally non-US, non-Western cultures becoming more "Americanized". It's spoken with a disdainful, wistful tone, as if yearning for days of greater cultural diversity.

Yet where's the proof that cultures aren't diverse? Is it that they are not, to many Western eyes, the romanticized, blissfully non-Western ways of living that too often get portrayed in exotic novels? Is it that those seeing American influence in other cultures, have failed to notice all the changes those cultures have had on the West?

Kick Out the Chili, Asia, It's a South American Import!
The people of other cultures did not develop their ways of living so they could be a spectator event for Western tourists or college students interested in bucking the norm of their "just plain folks" parents. All cultures develop and change in response to their physical environment, the attitudes of leaders, the natural progression of thought and ideas.

Cultures also change in response to their contact with other cultures. Asian cooking, with its wonderful chilies, would not exist as it does if not for the Western traders who introduced the chili to Asia. Columbus brought chilies back to Europe from South America. Within 50 years, chilies were being cultivated in Africa, India, Asia, China, Middle East, Balkans, Central Europe and Italy. Not even Starbucks is that hot.

Should Americana Renounce Its Asiana?
All cultures have changed -- including Western cultures, and especially American. Much of that influence is due to contact with non-Western cultures. In the US, for example, Thai and Chinese food are two of the most-loved and most-popular cuisines in the country. More and more people study yoga, tai chi, and kung fu, be it for physical improvement or spiritual balance. A child growing up today is just as likely to study karate or tae kwon do as they are to play soccer. We look to feng sui to guide us in more harmonious home arrangements. Does that make us less "American", or make American culture more homogenized? If anything, many would say that this is a positive change -- American thinking and outlook on life are changing, becoming more well-rounded.

Cultural Condescension
I don't think it's intentional, but this attitude of other cultures being less "traditional" or more "homogenized" carries a certain condescension with it. Americans thrive on adapting their cultures by taking in aspects of other cultures, yet then complain if those other cultures do the same thing. It implies that Americans may benefit from other cultures, but that those cultures are supposed to stay as they are, and do not have the right to grow and change, to import new ideas and ways of living.

Yet as long as the West has brought elements of other cultures into its own, why wouldn't other cultures do the same? When an English band such as the Beatles brings India's sitar into their music, and when college students in Eugene, Oregon, read the Tao Te Ching and decorate their rooms with Buddhas or Hindu art and sculptures, why wouldn't an Indian be interested in blue jeans? Or a Thai in the Outback Steakhouse? Is a Chinese derogatorily "less Chinese" because they take an interest in Van Gogh or Frank Lloyd Wright, or Sheryl Crow and David Mamet?

Or perhaps the real scoundrel and focus of dislike in this, is corporate imperialism. There's an Outback Steakhouse in Bangkok, and a McDonald's in Bombay. They are a scant percentage of a percentage of the locally owned restaurants and stalls that feed the bellies and souls of people in these countries. Might that change? Perhaps. Though if it does, it will be because people keep wanting to go to them. And they have that right, just as surely as any American has the right to eat at a local Indian restaurant. Just as the Outback or McDonald's open up overseas, that Indian restaurant also has the right to respond to growing customer demand too, and open a second branch in a different part of town -- right next to an Applebee's, even.

Are people more "Western" nowadays? Sure. But the west is also a lot more Eastern, or just less traditionally Western, than it was 50 or 25 or even 10 years ago. Even if other cultures are different, or less traditional, so what? It's their culture, and it exists for their livelihood and benefit, not someone else's amusement and nostalgia.

Post-Date Your Checks

One of the hardest things that I live with is the knowledge that the fall of civilization is not something that might happen. Unless every single human being individually and collectively undergoes a voluntary transformation to a more sane and sustainable way of living, we're fucked.

A bit drastic, that. And it leads into one of my biggest sticking points with the idea of destroying civilization (and this is less on your expressions Dig, and more on my feelings towards Jensen's writings) — the lowest common denominator is all that matters in determining worth, value and redemption. If not everyone, then no one. There are no virtues to offset vices, no redeeming qualities to balance flaws. It sets the influence of abuses and evils higher than that of love and good acts. The way Jensen tells it, there are only extremes: If you support civilization, then you hate life. You may have either perfect sustainability or total annihilation. You're either with us, or you're against us. (Hmmm – this is sounding disturbingly familiar. But that's another post.)

Civilization may well be screwed. There is plenty of evidence to support this, and Dig has always been way better at presenting it than I am (which I appreciate; I'm way too busy to make time for much research).

However, civilization, life and the world in general have always either been screwed, or shortly on their way to it. Evidence is growing that life on Earth is drawing towards a sixth major extinction – the first that can be blamed primarily on the influence of human activity. Note that the other five cannot. (Even though there are also many questions up as to why sabre-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths disappeared from North America, coincidentally I'm sure, after the arrival of humans from Siberia. Not Europe, mind you, Siberia. As in early aboriginal populations.)

It's All the Same Myth
But that's not the point. The point is apocalypse, a difficult word to spell and an even more difficult event to peg a date to. To the chagrin of fervent devotees around the world and in various faiths, no matter how many invitations they print, the featured event keeps standing us up. The world keeps ticking, yet people always hear from one source or another that it's all about to croak.

The signs come from anywhere. Call it storytelling, mythology, religion, science; do the myths and their conclusions vary much, despite the different observations that go into their construction? Religion used to hold the major sway in thought and the interpretation of natural events; the end of the world would be the will of the divine, be it Yahweh, Allah, Shiva or Gaia. Early apocalyptic Christians were not talking about the events of Revelations as some far-off Dawn of the Dead coming to a 21st century near you. They were talking about next Tuesday.

The sway has changed; now we seek our signs of apocalypse in science and technology. My second-oldest sister, like many others, had the end of the world (or at least the civilized one) pegged for midnight, Jan. 1, 2000 (incidentally, a Sunday). I think she's still polishing off all the spam and dehydrated mashed potatoes she'd stocked up.

Apocalyptic talk has been around probably at least as long as we've been vocal and curious. The world is always about to end, depending on who you talk to. Life is fragile, yet because it is fragile we too often perceive it as always about to break.

It's Not the End of the World As We Know It

One of the hardest things that I live with is the knowledge that the fall of civilization is not something that might happen.

Who knows what will happen. Maybe we'll kill ourselves off. Maybe there will be a return to aboriginal lifestyles. Maybe a meteor will wipe us out the same way it did the dinosaurs, or maybe Jesus will return and we'll all sing hosannas in heaven or ask for more barbecue sauce while roasting on a spit in hell. Maybe we've set off a major extinction event that will wipe out virtually every trace of life on this planet... to leave it barren, empty, and on a scale of eons inconceivable to all our little minds, ready to be populated by entirely new and different funky wee species.

Who knows? I don't, Lolo and Dig don't, Jensen doesn't, and the pastor at my formerly fundamentalist sister's church doesn't. No one does.

People around the world live lives both sustainable and unsustainable, though whatever the hell those 2 words mean, I don't know. I'm even less sure of how to draw up a definition that so much as a herd of cats would agree on, much less the masses of humanity.

But I do know this: Every time the world is supposed to end next Tuesday, there keeps being a next Wednesday. And I, we and all of us will know what will happen, only when it does. Until that time, the rest is up for grabs.

From the shadows I lunge, tossing off my lurker facade to enter the fray in a proper manner.  School has had me bogged down for the past month, but now I've got some time to think and I've got some things to say (or type as the case may be).

I think one of Dig's main points that was over-looked in Ant's post was that, for all the changes the industrial revolution has wrought within the world, good or bad, there has never been any sort of species that has removed itself so far from the natural order of things.  Like Ant pointed out in his previous post, hunting and gathering only takes a few hours a day, and the rest is left to leisure.  The concept of working for a living, the five-day work week, and the advent of the wage slave have all come about since the growth of heavy industry.  We find ourselves working harder and faster, harder and faster, harder and faster, all so that we can have a few moments of rest on the weekend.  I find myself wondering then, if this great leap forward was supposed to create more leisure time, allow us more quality time with the family while increasing our quality of living, then why are we all toiling away like dogs without ever making any substantial gains, be they material, spiritual, or other.  This has been one of the most convincing arguments I have ever heard for the reboot of civilization, or at the least a restructuring.

So we used to gather food and hunt animals, and have a decent amount of time for swimming, procreating, making war on other tribes, and inventing wonderful new culinary delights.  You know what they say about idle hands, and before you know it we had civilization.  We had to create this bright and illusory world made up of aristocrats, cathedrals, grand cuisine, and dictators to fill the time.  And then a few hundred years later we're all moving so quickly all we really crave is a chance to sit and relax.  We've come so far but all we want is to go back.  It leads to subcultures like the diggers, the hippies, and the amish- people who crave a simpler way of life than what exists now. 

I find myself agreeing a lot with Ant's earlier point that civilization has no reset button.  Pandora's box has been opened and there is no chance of going back to simpler, easier times.  Instead we are now forced to deal with these calamities we've unleashed.  We have to come to grips with the hydrogen bomb, death camps, and nerve gas.  Likewise, we have to come to grips with the less evident threat of laziness and apathy, traits which have found very fertile ground in these luxurious times.  I take the fact that civilization is crumbling as a given.  It seems evident to most I meet, even here in the old world, that decadence and malice are going to tear down that which we've spent the past several hundred years building.  The evidence is all around us here, remnants of half-forgotten empires, stone facades crumbling into rivers under the unending pressure of time.  So what comes next?

You know what's really funny?
I actually agree with a lot more of Dig's post, than this reply might lead you to believe.

We're selfish. That doesn't change. At the base, what we all want is food, sex, shelter, and a safe place to take a shit. In short, we want survival.

You are absolutely right. It's like the old saying, "If you don't have your health, you don't have anything." If you don't have the basics, it's hard to live a fulfilled and fulfilling life. While at basic this is what we want, and need, is it really all we need and want?

Survive to survive, or survive to thrive?
If you have the basics though, what do you do next? If you have all this leisure time, what else do you do with it? Let's face it, love sustenance and shagging though I'm sure we all do, we know better than to think that's all we're going to be doing 24/7/365.

Is there a point to surviving for the sheer sake of not ceasing to survive, or of fulfilling the basics but no more? Or, if you are surviving, shouldn't you have some fun in the process? Shouldn't you find something to make your life, well, seem more worthwhile What's the damn point to all this time anyway, or to a thought process or to coming up with ideas, anyway?

Basing a relationship on sex is a great idea... as long as you can think of something else to do with the other 23 hours of the day.
 — Wise words from some old saw whose name I don't know

For starters, more quality time with a copy of the Kama Sutra would be in order; an hour's not nearly enough. But I digress. Sex in the afterculture is a whole nother series of posts.

Sex and food are wonderful. Dig has made a great argument that centers around people doing more of the things they like and want. But there's still more to life than food and sex. So what else are you going to do with your time?

But that's also where all the trouble begins. Maybe after those couple hours a day of hunting and gathering, you're enjoying all your leisure time, but you keep wondering if there's something else you might do to that food to make it tastier. Or to change how you prepare it. You remember this plant with a powerful and appetizing smell; you gather some (if this is Oregon, you've probably just picked a bunch of basil). You take your stone knife out and start cutting a hunk of leg meat into tinier pieces; you notice they cook faster, and the leaves add an exquisite aroma and flavor to the flesh. Then you start to wonder about your knife. How could it work better? Is stone the best material? What if I used metal? Would that hold a better, more durable edge? Would it help me make better cuts? What if I changed the shape of the blade, maybe curved it? Would that make my work easier and better?

Our dear aboriginal friend, in all that leisure time, may just start coming up with a lot of ideas. And ideas are dangerous to any status quo, even one where people can feed and fuck as much as they want.

You think yer shit don't stink?
Back in my Southern days, I observed that one of the most annoying questions in the world was "What, you think yer shit don't stink?" It's a question you've probably heard yourself. At heart, it can be taken to mean "who the hell do you think you are for trying to do more or do different?"

My reply has always been, "Actually it's really rank... I just think there's more to life than shit."

Once you have the basics taken care of, what do you do next? Do you just go on, same ol' same ol', or do you start to wonder — as years and years back, more and more aboriginal people must have done — Is there anything more to all of this?

By Daniel Quinn's estimate, Civilization is around 10,000 years old. That means only about 2.9% of human history has been in the civilized world. What's more, the industrial revolution and its subsequent surge of urban growth didn't kick off until the 18th century. That's less than 1% of our history spent as industrial people.

True. But this leads to the danger of determining the worth of a person, a society or a lifestyle based on age or how long it's been around or in use. Assuming that the age of the planet is approx. 4 billion years, and that dinosaurs were on it for hundreds of millions years, and that humans have only been on it, what — a few hundred thousand, or maybe a million or two? — does that mean that dinosaurs were somehow are more worthwhile organisms, leading a more worthwhile lifestyle? Probably not, even though velociraptors are really really cool.

To look at it another way, my worth as a poster on downfall does not increase because I'm the oldest of the 3, and the age of civilization, industry and technology is simply where we are in the great bikini centerfold of the latest geological calendar on the wall in Gaia's office.