I hesitated too long in posting this submission, because I'm not in full agreement with some of the statements it makes. I thought I'd propose some relatively minor changes for Mary to consider. But overwhelm in tasks had me procrastinating.
So I decided today to post it in just the same form it was submitted, hoping that others might point out some of the possible problems with the framing. But even these would be more a matter of opinion than of fact. Much remains uncertain about how the future will unfold. Let us hope -- and act on that hope -- that not all which Mary predicts will unfold as she says she imagines it will. Some of these are a pretty bleak set of predictions.
I’m glad you posted it unedited. I tend to think the worst too. We have to be realistic. I’d like to think that we could change our ways but we’ve had years of understanding the science and conferences and not much has changed. Even a test run with the coronavirus showed how completely useless at dealing with a global scale problem we are.
Are we changing our education systems? Are our kids being taught ecological knowledge? No they continue to be churned out with useless skills that enable them to work in an office, disconnected from nature, disconnected from each other.
This is my first stint at editing a publication, and I have plenty to learn! But my best bet is that folks ought to be basically free to express their views here, and it's not my job to micromanage them. So....
One of the most important lessons to learn from the pandemic: lockdowns are an absolutely terrible idea, and are all pain and no gain in the long run. And they are a major category error at best. So if anything thinks that "climate lockdowns" would somehow be even a remotely good idea for the climate crisis (and the polycrisis turned permacrisis in general), all one would have to do is point to the utter failure of the Covid lockdowns and extrapolate from that to show conclusively that they are dead wrong.
That is one silver lining of the pandemic, namely that we got a two to three year "free" trial (by "free", I mean it cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives) of what the diabolical Davos gang and various other fanatical elements undoubtedly wants to impose on the world's people.
Seems to me the lockdowns WERE effective, and could have been more so if they were universal. But it's true, in the long run if one place keep infections very low via lockdown, and others let it run wild, sooner or later the later strains will get to the place that no longer is in lockdown. I don't see anyone proposing lockdowns for climate. The most reasonable solution I've seen is rationing fossil fuels, so we can phase them out without doing it by price, which would mean the rich would continue to pollute profligately while the poor couldn't use any.
Perhaps humanity deserves to go extinct then. Suddenly VHEMT (Google it) doesn't look quite so crazy after all. It may actually be the lesser evil in practice.
Or maybe, just maybe, perhaps there is a middle path between doomerism and blind cornucopianism after all?
Though I don't really have much faith in a species that has proven itself time and again to be willing to lie, cheat, steal, and even kill for a few fleeting microliters of dopamine.
Unfortunately, all "degrowth" will accomplish in practice to get us permanently stuck in a bad place and still destroy the Earth, albeit a little bit more slowly and much more painfully. There has to be a better way. The only thing that can truly kill the hungry beast of capitalism (and its inane and insane addiction to growth for the sake of growth, the ideology of the cancer cell) is ABUNDANCE. THAT is how you slay the wetikonomy, which needs scarcity to function. And the only real ethical solution to overpopulation is female empowerment and poverty reduction.
In any case, "degrowth" done from the top down would look an awful lot like Covid lockdowns, but permanent (and hopefully minus the ocean-killing masks and soul-killing antisocial distancing).
Abundance? Where are you going to get that, given the reality of limits to both energy and resources? The only possible way is through redefining what's necessary and good, getting us off the Obsessive Consumption Disorder fostered by advertising and screen addiction. And we have to put an end to the "right" of a few to hog enormous quantities of resources.
With all due respect, Google the late, great Buckminster Fuller's "Inventory of the World's Resources", for starters. The Earth is finite, but it is also VAST as well. True, it is a very fine line, and very nuanced, to be sure. But we shouldn't throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. As for redefining what is necessary and good, I have noticed that most degrowth advocates don't really seem to want to get too specific about the details of that out loud.
As for deciding what is both necessary and good, I think it's rather obvious that it is simply not possible for everyone (all humans) on Earth to have all of these: hot and cold running water in their homes, washer and dryer, automobile, air conditioning. I could add a lot more to this list, but I'm saying it's not physically possible for everyone on Earth to live like a middle class, or lower middle class, American.
I'm all for abundance! But I'm not stupid enough to pretend that we can all have the form and kind of "abundance" which was the American Dream of the 1960s-'70s. We should pursue an abundance which amounts to sharing what we have, not taking more than is our share. Or more than Earth can provide.
Well, back in the 1970s, old Buckminster Fuller believed that there are enough resources on Earth for everyone to live like a millionaire. The real problem was one of design. That is, we don't HAVE to use the equivalent of many Earths to give everyone a good standard of living, only in a poorly designed system would that be necessary to do so.
It's like that meme where people stack many, many ladders horizontally on top of one another in the hopes of climbing higher, rather than using just one ladder vertically. It's literally the same mentality as of those who designed the current system.
Perhaps he had his thumb on the proverbial scale, or maybe he didn't. Perhaps we have all simply been trained to accept (and fight over) crumbs from the rich man's table, thus many people find that inconceivable. The scarcity mindset, in other words.
Of course, the world's population was significantly smaller back then as well. And I will say that the very lowest hanging fruit on the road to sustainability is simply to have fewer kids. Any plan for degrowth without population degrowth is a fool's errand.
My entry into eco-cultural philosophy came by the way of ecological design, so I happen to agree with ol' Bucky on a number of things. I think philosophically about ecological matters through a design lens. That's who and what I am in my chosen field.
But your consistent pushback against the application of common sense about resource pressures has me knowing you only have, at best, half a notion of what you're talking about. And I have other things to do than to bring you up to speed. Keep reading the literature and I won't have to.
You’re right, “luck” is a rather sloppy way of wishing you and your colleagues well. I am a pessimist, yet I think your approach is better than most of those I read in, for example, resilience.org. Many of our evaluations may differ, but I remain a reader.
You know what, I think I'm going to stick up for luck. At least--none of this is predictable. To me it seems that the elite have put themselves in a position of unassailable power, and care only about maintaining their power and privilege and constantly increasing their wealth--so nothing useful is being done about the crises we face. I waste time, with others, in discussing what useful policy solutions might be--and none of them is going to make the rich richer, quite the opposite, so they "are not realistic." It's also true that the masses in the rich world want solutions that don't affect their way of life, and in the poor world they want to live like the rich world does. You could argue that this is because they are effectively manipulated by the narrative control of the ruling class but it doesn't matter. The upshot is that we will never get good policy from governments. And therefore breakdown seems pretty much inevitable.
But HOW the breakdown happens, and WHEN it starts and where, and how it plays out after that--these are completely unpredictable, and it makes a big difference. That's where luck comes in. Best case scenario is that breakdown starts as soon as possible, but is gradual. Soon, because this civilization is doing enormous damage to ecosystems and climate, at a rate that keeps increasing, and because worse things lie ahead if "they" manage to keep it going another few decades, given the penchant for universal surveillance (except for what the government does, ever more cloaked in secrecy) and weaponized robots, monkeying with genetic engineering and life extension and geoengineering, etc.
Gradual, because it will be hard for people accustomed to and locked into the modern way of life to transition to growing their own food etc.--but if there is time, they can learn, acquire tools, move to a place that can sustain them, form healthy communities--and I think it likely that how BAD the future is, depends on where you are. Some places may be horrible, warlord-led gangs with enslaved women while others are better societies than any of us have ever lived in, despite the loss of luxuries.
The reason I initiated the creation of The R-Word was because I understood that probably the only way we can transform our culture from eco-stupid to eco-wise was through organizing a mass, well coordinated non-violent, non-insurrectionary rebellion OUTSIDE OF GOVERNMENT. This organizing task is the reason the R-Word exists, ultimately. We're also here for truth-telling about our situation -- meaning we tell the truth, as best we can, about what our ecological, cultural and social situation is. And that task has taken center stage mostly because (a) It's a necessary part of the equation, and (b) it's the easier part to do.
Most folks are not yet ready for IMAGINING a vast and powerful non-violent revolutionary movement of the kind I've been imagining for years. And it's not like imagining unicorns -- or unicorns that fly over and poop rainbow Skittles upon us while sneezing rainbow glitter. No. My imagination of such a revolution is far more realistic than that. But it's largely invisible -- even though it has begun, is real, and is growing. It's largely invisible because of that "narrative control" you mentioned. Most people are swimming in what is called "mainstream" media, which presents a world very different from the one in which there is a growing revolutionary (non-violent) emerging in a scattered way nearly everywhere, but still small in scope relative to the scale and pace which is necessary. Mainstream media is designed to keep us asleep and ignorant. That's its primary job; and much the same can be said for mainstream schooling and mainstream politics.
If only I had a couple of million dollars I could hire a team of researchers and documentary filmmakers and make visible the mostly invisible revolution occurring in the cracks in our collapsing mainstream civilization. I know for absolutely certain, for example, that there are brilliant and talented people throughout Turtle Island (North America), where I live, who are choosing to live in 'tiny houses' (which often they built themselves) and use a bicycle instead of a car so they could free up their time to do the creative work of this revolution I'm talking about. It's almost all volunteer time they are giving, so they need to live low on the economic totem pole to have time for worthwhile work. (I'm basically like them, though instead of living in a 'tiny home' I live in a small casita with cheap rent -- now a rare thing here in Santa Fe!
Are these people sufficient in number to transform a whole culture rapidly? No. But if we manage to expose this hidden phenomenon, what folks will see in such a film (and other forms of reporting) would almost certainly become contagious ... and "go viral". Why? Because these people are living with courage, intention, purpose, meaning ... while most people in the 'developed world's' mainstream are living like half-awake robots without any self-transcending purpose in their lives. So there is a 'spiritual' emptiness in the land, and everyone knows it.
It's up to us to transform the narrative. And that'll take a lot of volunteer hours, since no one is going to pay us to enact a revolution.
In two days, three people so far have offered volunteer time in helping The R-Word with proofreading and editing -- of which you are one. Also, some have offered volunteer time to help with a documentary film project I'm doing as a volunteer with yet another volunteer (which will make use of donated / given footage and various services, ... then given for free on the web. It's not the documentary idea I just mentioned, though. I wish I could do ten such films at once, but I'm moral after all.
What we need to do is begin to stitch together networks of support, so that they fella living in the tiny house who is volunteering all of his time to eco-cultural projects, including a community food forest project, will have neighbors bringing him pots of soup and stew, and fresh baked sourdough bread to go with it. When his bicycle needs repair, it is given to him. Because he is serving his community. THAT is the revolution! In essence, such support and giving to givers is revolutionary. But we have to "go light," as Gary Snyder put it in a poem, if we're going to go that revolutionary direction. It just costs too much in our time (as money) to have the big-ish house, car and frequent flyer miles. We have to live lean if we are going to be revolutionaries today. And we will need imaginations which are open and flexible, but not caught up in dreams of flying unicorns.
First, if you're imagining a world without money, where people take care of each other's needs out of love, I think that's no more realistic than unicorns--it's the revolution Jesus tried to start and look where his movement ended up. But it can work, for a time, in a small group.
Next, I think imagination is critical--maybe I've hit this soapbox before. People will be more willing to put time into working (as volunteers, I agree with that part--the revolution will not be funded) to build a better future if they can imagine that better world, but the futures depicted in fiction these days are either more-of-the-same with minor changes in fashions, or dystopias. Those who imagine and prescribe better ways tend to talk about it in dry abstract language and that doesn't cut it--most people have had their imaginative faculties atrophied by too much TV watching, so we need to DEPICT that better future, in living color, preferably via film but since I don't have film skills I've done it with novels, wrote three of them in the last ten years. But I've gotten nowhere trying to sell these--the critiques I've gotten from e-publishers have been discouraging. I've now sworn off fiction writing.
But I also think your notion that if you could produce the film you envision it would go viral, may be unrealistic--there HAVE BEEN films on these subjects. But--each one makes a difference. One problem is that, if a film or collection of them, actually galvanized the movement you dream of, it would only be effective if the people in it had the same dream, the same agenda. And it seems like whenever anyone proposes a grand plan, others tear it down and want to go in a different direction. This gives an advantage to those who believe in hierarchy--whoever is at the top imposes his plan (pretty much always a he) and everyone works together to implement it, following orders, whether they agree with all parts of it or not.
I forgot one thing I was going to say. You said that there is a spiritual malaise and everyone knows it. I think this is true--but different segments of the population attribute it to very different things and therefore have different prescriptions for curing it--including a dangerously high percentage who want to tear it all down and be raptured into the clouds. The perception that this world is rotten, can't be lightly reformed, and needs cleansing is accurate. But the notion that their tribal god is going to give them a fresh new one...
"First, if you're imagining a world without money, where people take care of each other's needs out of love, I think that's no more realistic than unicorns--it's the revolution Jesus tried to start and look where his movement ended up. But it can work, for a time, in a small group."
Nah, I'm not so naive as to imagine it realistic that we'd altogether eliminate money and exchange transactions. But I do believe it is realistic that we could remove a great deal of what we require from a money and exchange economy, but only at the very local level of our immediate nearby neighbors. I tend to agree with much of what the author of Stone Soup Saturdays has in mind for us to do as praxis. I helped her craft her message in words, but the idea for it was entirely hers, not mine. She wishes to be anonymous. I really do think she has the right idea, though! See: https://rword.substack.com/p/stone-soup-saturdays
Though I don't really have much faith in a species that has proven itself time and again to be willing to lie, cheat, steal, and even kill for a few fleeting microliters of dopamine.
I hesitated too long in posting this submission, because I'm not in full agreement with some of the statements it makes. I thought I'd propose some relatively minor changes for Mary to consider. But overwhelm in tasks had me procrastinating.
So I decided today to post it in just the same form it was submitted, hoping that others might point out some of the possible problems with the framing. But even these would be more a matter of opinion than of fact. Much remains uncertain about how the future will unfold. Let us hope -- and act on that hope -- that not all which Mary predicts will unfold as she says she imagines it will. Some of these are a pretty bleak set of predictions.
I’m glad you posted it unedited. I tend to think the worst too. We have to be realistic. I’d like to think that we could change our ways but we’ve had years of understanding the science and conferences and not much has changed. Even a test run with the coronavirus showed how completely useless at dealing with a global scale problem we are.
Are we changing our education systems? Are our kids being taught ecological knowledge? No they continue to be churned out with useless skills that enable them to work in an office, disconnected from nature, disconnected from each other.
I’m looking forward to your comments though
Thanks for those words, Leon.
This is my first stint at editing a publication, and I have plenty to learn! But my best bet is that folks ought to be basically free to express their views here, and it's not my job to micromanage them. So....
One of the most important lessons to learn from the pandemic: lockdowns are an absolutely terrible idea, and are all pain and no gain in the long run. And they are a major category error at best. So if anything thinks that "climate lockdowns" would somehow be even a remotely good idea for the climate crisis (and the polycrisis turned permacrisis in general), all one would have to do is point to the utter failure of the Covid lockdowns and extrapolate from that to show conclusively that they are dead wrong.
That is one silver lining of the pandemic, namely that we got a two to three year "free" trial (by "free", I mean it cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives) of what the diabolical Davos gang and various other fanatical elements undoubtedly wants to impose on the world's people.
Seems to me the lockdowns WERE effective, and could have been more so if they were universal. But it's true, in the long run if one place keep infections very low via lockdown, and others let it run wild, sooner or later the later strains will get to the place that no longer is in lockdown. I don't see anyone proposing lockdowns for climate. The most reasonable solution I've seen is rationing fossil fuels, so we can phase them out without doing it by price, which would mean the rich would continue to pollute profligately while the poor couldn't use any.
Perhaps humanity deserves to go extinct then. Suddenly VHEMT (Google it) doesn't look quite so crazy after all. It may actually be the lesser evil in practice.
Or maybe, just maybe, perhaps there is a middle path between doomerism and blind cornucopianism after all?
Though I don't really have much faith in a species that has proven itself time and again to be willing to lie, cheat, steal, and even kill for a few fleeting microliters of dopamine.
Unfortunately, all "degrowth" will accomplish in practice to get us permanently stuck in a bad place and still destroy the Earth, albeit a little bit more slowly and much more painfully. There has to be a better way. The only thing that can truly kill the hungry beast of capitalism (and its inane and insane addiction to growth for the sake of growth, the ideology of the cancer cell) is ABUNDANCE. THAT is how you slay the wetikonomy, which needs scarcity to function. And the only real ethical solution to overpopulation is female empowerment and poverty reduction.
In any case, "degrowth" done from the top down would look an awful lot like Covid lockdowns, but permanent (and hopefully minus the ocean-killing masks and soul-killing antisocial distancing).
Abundance? Where are you going to get that, given the reality of limits to both energy and resources? The only possible way is through redefining what's necessary and good, getting us off the Obsessive Consumption Disorder fostered by advertising and screen addiction. And we have to put an end to the "right" of a few to hog enormous quantities of resources.
With all due respect, Google the late, great Buckminster Fuller's "Inventory of the World's Resources", for starters. The Earth is finite, but it is also VAST as well. True, it is a very fine line, and very nuanced, to be sure. But we shouldn't throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. As for redefining what is necessary and good, I have noticed that most degrowth advocates don't really seem to want to get too specific about the details of that out loud.
(Mic drop)
As for deciding what is both necessary and good, I think it's rather obvious that it is simply not possible for everyone (all humans) on Earth to have all of these: hot and cold running water in their homes, washer and dryer, automobile, air conditioning. I could add a lot more to this list, but I'm saying it's not physically possible for everyone on Earth to live like a middle class, or lower middle class, American.
I'm all for abundance! But I'm not stupid enough to pretend that we can all have the form and kind of "abundance" which was the American Dream of the 1960s-'70s. We should pursue an abundance which amounts to sharing what we have, not taking more than is our share. Or more than Earth can provide.
Well, back in the 1970s, old Buckminster Fuller believed that there are enough resources on Earth for everyone to live like a millionaire. The real problem was one of design. That is, we don't HAVE to use the equivalent of many Earths to give everyone a good standard of living, only in a poorly designed system would that be necessary to do so.
It's like that meme where people stack many, many ladders horizontally on top of one another in the hopes of climbing higher, rather than using just one ladder vertically. It's literally the same mentality as of those who designed the current system.
Perhaps he had his thumb on the proverbial scale, or maybe he didn't. Perhaps we have all simply been trained to accept (and fight over) crumbs from the rich man's table, thus many people find that inconceivable. The scarcity mindset, in other words.
Of course, the world's population was significantly smaller back then as well. And I will say that the very lowest hanging fruit on the road to sustainability is simply to have fewer kids. Any plan for degrowth without population degrowth is a fool's errand.
(Mic drop)
Rhymes -
My entry into eco-cultural philosophy came by the way of ecological design, so I happen to agree with ol' Bucky on a number of things. I think philosophically about ecological matters through a design lens. That's who and what I am in my chosen field.
But your consistent pushback against the application of common sense about resource pressures has me knowing you only have, at best, half a notion of what you're talking about. And I have other things to do than to bring you up to speed. Keep reading the literature and I won't have to.
What are your thoughts about Jason Hickel and his brand of degrowth?
https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2017/11/19/why-branko-milanovic-is-wrong-about-de-growth
Fair enough, we shall agree to disagree then.
I was about to drop another name as well: Mark Z. Jacobson, but I would hazard a guess that you are probably not a particularly big fan of him.
Thanks, Mary. I, too, think we’re headed for Planet Hell. Unfortunately I don’t see a path to a better future, but I wish James and folks luck.
LOL. "Luck".
As if "luck" had anything to do with what we're facing and dealing with.
This isn't about luck, Paul. The world is not a casino.
It's about how we're going to respond to our collective situation.
Paul is no stranger to me, folks. I've been speaking with him for, now, many years. He believes in 'luck', and I do not.
You’re right, “luck” is a rather sloppy way of wishing you and your colleagues well. I am a pessimist, yet I think your approach is better than most of those I read in, for example, resilience.org. Many of our evaluations may differ, but I remain a reader.
You know what, I think I'm going to stick up for luck. At least--none of this is predictable. To me it seems that the elite have put themselves in a position of unassailable power, and care only about maintaining their power and privilege and constantly increasing their wealth--so nothing useful is being done about the crises we face. I waste time, with others, in discussing what useful policy solutions might be--and none of them is going to make the rich richer, quite the opposite, so they "are not realistic." It's also true that the masses in the rich world want solutions that don't affect their way of life, and in the poor world they want to live like the rich world does. You could argue that this is because they are effectively manipulated by the narrative control of the ruling class but it doesn't matter. The upshot is that we will never get good policy from governments. And therefore breakdown seems pretty much inevitable.
But HOW the breakdown happens, and WHEN it starts and where, and how it plays out after that--these are completely unpredictable, and it makes a big difference. That's where luck comes in. Best case scenario is that breakdown starts as soon as possible, but is gradual. Soon, because this civilization is doing enormous damage to ecosystems and climate, at a rate that keeps increasing, and because worse things lie ahead if "they" manage to keep it going another few decades, given the penchant for universal surveillance (except for what the government does, ever more cloaked in secrecy) and weaponized robots, monkeying with genetic engineering and life extension and geoengineering, etc.
Gradual, because it will be hard for people accustomed to and locked into the modern way of life to transition to growing their own food etc.--but if there is time, they can learn, acquire tools, move to a place that can sustain them, form healthy communities--and I think it likely that how BAD the future is, depends on where you are. Some places may be horrible, warlord-led gangs with enslaved women while others are better societies than any of us have ever lived in, despite the loss of luxuries.
Mary -
The reason I initiated the creation of The R-Word was because I understood that probably the only way we can transform our culture from eco-stupid to eco-wise was through organizing a mass, well coordinated non-violent, non-insurrectionary rebellion OUTSIDE OF GOVERNMENT. This organizing task is the reason the R-Word exists, ultimately. We're also here for truth-telling about our situation -- meaning we tell the truth, as best we can, about what our ecological, cultural and social situation is. And that task has taken center stage mostly because (a) It's a necessary part of the equation, and (b) it's the easier part to do.
Most folks are not yet ready for IMAGINING a vast and powerful non-violent revolutionary movement of the kind I've been imagining for years. And it's not like imagining unicorns -- or unicorns that fly over and poop rainbow Skittles upon us while sneezing rainbow glitter. No. My imagination of such a revolution is far more realistic than that. But it's largely invisible -- even though it has begun, is real, and is growing. It's largely invisible because of that "narrative control" you mentioned. Most people are swimming in what is called "mainstream" media, which presents a world very different from the one in which there is a growing revolutionary (non-violent) emerging in a scattered way nearly everywhere, but still small in scope relative to the scale and pace which is necessary. Mainstream media is designed to keep us asleep and ignorant. That's its primary job; and much the same can be said for mainstream schooling and mainstream politics.
If only I had a couple of million dollars I could hire a team of researchers and documentary filmmakers and make visible the mostly invisible revolution occurring in the cracks in our collapsing mainstream civilization. I know for absolutely certain, for example, that there are brilliant and talented people throughout Turtle Island (North America), where I live, who are choosing to live in 'tiny houses' (which often they built themselves) and use a bicycle instead of a car so they could free up their time to do the creative work of this revolution I'm talking about. It's almost all volunteer time they are giving, so they need to live low on the economic totem pole to have time for worthwhile work. (I'm basically like them, though instead of living in a 'tiny home' I live in a small casita with cheap rent -- now a rare thing here in Santa Fe!
Are these people sufficient in number to transform a whole culture rapidly? No. But if we manage to expose this hidden phenomenon, what folks will see in such a film (and other forms of reporting) would almost certainly become contagious ... and "go viral". Why? Because these people are living with courage, intention, purpose, meaning ... while most people in the 'developed world's' mainstream are living like half-awake robots without any self-transcending purpose in their lives. So there is a 'spiritual' emptiness in the land, and everyone knows it.
It's up to us to transform the narrative. And that'll take a lot of volunteer hours, since no one is going to pay us to enact a revolution.
In two days, three people so far have offered volunteer time in helping The R-Word with proofreading and editing -- of which you are one. Also, some have offered volunteer time to help with a documentary film project I'm doing as a volunteer with yet another volunteer (which will make use of donated / given footage and various services, ... then given for free on the web. It's not the documentary idea I just mentioned, though. I wish I could do ten such films at once, but I'm moral after all.
What we need to do is begin to stitch together networks of support, so that they fella living in the tiny house who is volunteering all of his time to eco-cultural projects, including a community food forest project, will have neighbors bringing him pots of soup and stew, and fresh baked sourdough bread to go with it. When his bicycle needs repair, it is given to him. Because he is serving his community. THAT is the revolution! In essence, such support and giving to givers is revolutionary. But we have to "go light," as Gary Snyder put it in a poem, if we're going to go that revolutionary direction. It just costs too much in our time (as money) to have the big-ish house, car and frequent flyer miles. We have to live lean if we are going to be revolutionaries today. And we will need imaginations which are open and flexible, but not caught up in dreams of flying unicorns.
First, if you're imagining a world without money, where people take care of each other's needs out of love, I think that's no more realistic than unicorns--it's the revolution Jesus tried to start and look where his movement ended up. But it can work, for a time, in a small group.
Next, I think imagination is critical--maybe I've hit this soapbox before. People will be more willing to put time into working (as volunteers, I agree with that part--the revolution will not be funded) to build a better future if they can imagine that better world, but the futures depicted in fiction these days are either more-of-the-same with minor changes in fashions, or dystopias. Those who imagine and prescribe better ways tend to talk about it in dry abstract language and that doesn't cut it--most people have had their imaginative faculties atrophied by too much TV watching, so we need to DEPICT that better future, in living color, preferably via film but since I don't have film skills I've done it with novels, wrote three of them in the last ten years. But I've gotten nowhere trying to sell these--the critiques I've gotten from e-publishers have been discouraging. I've now sworn off fiction writing.
But I also think your notion that if you could produce the film you envision it would go viral, may be unrealistic--there HAVE BEEN films on these subjects. But--each one makes a difference. One problem is that, if a film or collection of them, actually galvanized the movement you dream of, it would only be effective if the people in it had the same dream, the same agenda. And it seems like whenever anyone proposes a grand plan, others tear it down and want to go in a different direction. This gives an advantage to those who believe in hierarchy--whoever is at the top imposes his plan (pretty much always a he) and everyone works together to implement it, following orders, whether they agree with all parts of it or not.
I forgot one thing I was going to say. You said that there is a spiritual malaise and everyone knows it. I think this is true--but different segments of the population attribute it to very different things and therefore have different prescriptions for curing it--including a dangerously high percentage who want to tear it all down and be raptured into the clouds. The perception that this world is rotten, can't be lightly reformed, and needs cleansing is accurate. But the notion that their tribal god is going to give them a fresh new one...
"First, if you're imagining a world without money, where people take care of each other's needs out of love, I think that's no more realistic than unicorns--it's the revolution Jesus tried to start and look where his movement ended up. But it can work, for a time, in a small group."
Nah, I'm not so naive as to imagine it realistic that we'd altogether eliminate money and exchange transactions. But I do believe it is realistic that we could remove a great deal of what we require from a money and exchange economy, but only at the very local level of our immediate nearby neighbors. I tend to agree with much of what the author of Stone Soup Saturdays has in mind for us to do as praxis. I helped her craft her message in words, but the idea for it was entirely hers, not mine. She wishes to be anonymous. I really do think she has the right idea, though! See: https://rword.substack.com/p/stone-soup-saturdays
Though I don't really have much faith in a species that has proven itself time and again to be willing to lie, cheat, steal, and even kill for a few fleeting microliters of dopamine.
Beautifully put.