Daniel Schmachtenberger - An introduction to the Metacrisis - Stockholm Impact/Week 2023
An introduction to the Metacrisis by Daniel Schmachtenberger, founding member of The Consilience Project. Moderated by Niklas Adalberth, founder of Norrsken Foundation. Recorded live during Stockholm Impact/Week 2023.
I was just thinking about what I initially simply felt about, concerning this presentation -- and it certainly was more a presentation than a dialogue.
Daniel was rather brilliant, in a humble way, in how he shoved off the tacky glamour of the setting, and the way the camera followed the two fellows into the room in dramatic style. He pointed out that it is very strange that he can't see anyone in what we call "the audience", and the fellow doing the interviewing didn't seem very interested in breaking the fourth wall in this way. Or maybe it's the fifth wall? Well, it's something like that. In this case the performers couldn't see the audience, and Daniel was refusing to play pretend about any of it, or to play into the convention which likes to turn people into stars with glamour. (Fourth wall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wall )
Glamour is just so much colorful plastic. It's cheap and ridiculous, and Daniel sloughed it off brilliantly.
This one really blew me away, even though I've watched several other interviews of Schmachtenberger. After his intro spiel, I thought--if I were the interviewer I'd have been temped to say, "Okay but enough of that lighthearted fluff. Let's get serious now." I note his prescription is just for people who are aware of all this to think about it, and talk about it. But he alludes a couple times to what I think is the central underlying problem that has brought humanity to this pass, which is that groups, tribes, nations, CULTURES that are aggressive, expansionary, cued to domination and conquest--all those go together--they tend to WIN, and groups that are egalitarian, wise, gentle, careful with ecosystems--get rubbed out by them. Even his example of Nuremberg--when the Nazis on trial were asked whether they believed in their work and 90% said no, maybe at first but no...then Did you try to stop it, and 90% said no, "I had no choice." This is because the Third Reich made no pretense of democracy or justice. It was the ultimate hypermasculine (I sorta hate to use that word because I think what we think of as "masculine" isn't necessarily hardwired, could just be cultural) cult that really would kill anyone who openly resisted. Of course in their case, another phenomenon came into play--aggressive entities that are sufficiently threatening sometimes invite a massive response to eliminate the threat they pose. Bees and wasps have a powerful weapon to protect their nests, but it leads to people using poisons and wiping out the entire nest.....I wonder if anyone is preparing to haul out the wasp spray for the hyperaggressive US empire...