A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse

[jakell]

What you said is not really what I mean by teaching. To me teaching is a positive conscious act and something that is a craft to be honed, in other words, it is not something we are doing simply by communicating.

Regarding 'despair', this is really an end-point, and there are plenty of steps before then. You may be thinking of depression, and this is not an end-point, but a stage. I've already brought this up in the mention of denial, bargaining, anger and depression, sometimes depression is actually a natural response to externalities that we have (or think we have) little control over.

I'm not really sure of your point on either of these is. I'm quite aware of what teaching is formally. That doesn't take away from the fact that our unconscious actions do act as lessons for ourselves and others.

And in regard to iamwhoiam's comment I was referring to despair as an end point...

We've been piloted by greed too close to the black hole of destruction, and still they push on, knowing we've past the point of no return.

Mass exterminations brought about by the most diabolical means will slow things down and further concentrate wealth.

I don't mean some neat poison gas or deadly virus, but by starvation, and the pitting of individuals against each other desperate for survival. It will be brutally ugly and lethal to tens if not hundreds of millions.

Sorry, but that's the only paradigm shift I can see.

The final words of that post seemed to be implying that we might as well give up, if a terrible horror was all that was about to befall us.

I was just honouring the action of 'teaching' as opposed to what others may glean from the perception of what we do or say. Without this distinction, the action of teaching is degraded to something as simple as breathing or digestion

'Terrible horror' has been pretty much present throughout human history, and people didn't give up, and therefore there is no imperative for us to do this either, although some will.

[TheBlackSheep]

Sure, you are free to honor teaching as you see fit. Though in my experience some teachers, and much of the educational establishment, can be quite good for nothing as they formally practice. I also think that broadening our horizons of the possibilities of both teaching and leaning can help us become more aware of ourselves and the world around us, and in essence contribute to our learning process. After all, life is always going to be the best teacher.

Again, I'm not sure about your second paragraph there, if you are just musing or in some way trying to respond to my post. When iamwhoiam wrote "Sorry, but that's the only paradigm shift I can see." it seemed as if he was implying that, because the "only" forseeable future was to be of a quality of horror, it appeared as though he might be implying that we might as well give up. (notice the use of the words seem and appeared)...

[jakell]

......People who see mans nature as being fixed can only see breakdown, whereas others who see our conceptual framework as being contrived and somewhat arbitrary, recognize that changes in basic assumptions can change expressions of mind in potentially growth filled and extraordinary ways.

This is for you jakell, our nature is not fixed.......

[/quote]

But I haven't said that our nature is fixed, just that within the timeframes and resources available to us at present I regard it as virtually so.
This is why I referred to the next cycle of civilisation.

[jakell]

Again, I'm not sure about your second paragraph there, if you are just musing or in some way trying to respond to my post. When iamwhoiam wrote "Sorry, but that's the only paradigm shift I can see." it seemed as if he was implying that, because the "only" forseeable future was to be of a quality of horror, it appeared as though he might be implying that we might as well give up. (notice the use of the words seem and appeared)...

I try to avoid speculating on other's implications, or at least encourage them to be more precise.

I think what is happening here is that I am probably making too much of your phrase 'give up'. Taking it as despair, then it is pretty final. But it could also be seen to mean to give up on our present way of life and direction, ie change. Which one did you mean?

[TheBlackSheep]

Seriously, I really have no clue what you are on about. I think it was pretty clear what I had meant by my original response to iamwhoiam

I hope this isn't a call to despair.

I did not say "You are telling everyone to despair! WTF STFU!"

If iamwhoiam saw fit to respond and correct the perception I had of his post he was free to do so, and if not he is free not to do so.

[jakell]

I'm really examining word 'despair' because this is actually one of the responses to our predicament. It is actually a genuine response once the situation has been accepted and we are past denial and bargaining.

Almost past it anyway, because there are still a few tricks the mind can play in order to get us back to that twosome.

[brekin]

Everybody has a plan, until they are hit...with a mass extinction event.

[TheBlackSheep]

I'm really examining word 'despair' because this is actually one of the responses to our predicament. It is actually a genuine response once the situation has been accepted and we are past denial and bargaining.

Almost past it anyway. Because there are still a few tricks the mind can play in order to get us back to that twosome.

Appologies for my frustration. It is frustrating to take part in a conversation when you don't know what it is you're talking about. I admit as much on my part.

When I referred to despair, I was thinking along the lines of accepting powerlessness to do anything about the situation as it stands and seems to be progressing.

I think at the bottom of this potential despair might lie in the state of modernity. Usually considered to have begun around the renaissance, with the school of thought renaissance humanism (the origins are sometimes taken to be much earlier, ancient greece, for example), but for convenience I am going to stick with the renaissance interpretation.

The strain of thought that was developing went along the lines that humans were fully capable of taking control of our destiny and making forming the world in our vision of perfection. A key 'pioneering' text which expressed this view was the Oration on the Dignity of Man by Pico della Mirandola:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oration_on ... ity_of_Man

From this strain of thought we can see arising a lot of the beliefs that we to become highly influential about the abilities of science and a scientific outlook to create a paradise for humanity. (Again, this thesis is also sometimes taken to have begun much earlier, and different strains of science and technology throughout various regions of the world contribute to this thesis, for the sake of brevity and example I am taking the renaissance as the starting point for my illustration.)

Another important renaissance text, which has also been seen as a cornerstone of modernity, though it could justifiably be considered a post-modern text, despite the early date of its conception, is Don Quixote. In a lot of ways Don Quixote was very much ahead of its time, it deals with the 'Romantic' outlook, while predating romanticism by about a century, taking its cue from Chivalric literature which happened to be one of the main inspirations for the later Romantic movement as well. Don Quixote can be read as a critique of the modern outlook of striving towards that idealized (or 'romantic') vision of the world, completely oblivious to the fact that what is being pursued is a mere phantom. I said that this book can be taken as post-modern, because that outlook is very much what has come to pass as a result of the disillusionment with the idea of progress and the attainability of perfection by humanity. The date for that shift of consciousness is generally taken to be around the time of the second world war and sometimes pin pointed around the creation and use of the atomic bomb, which symbolized for many the potential horrors of science rather than a hope for the attainment of a perfect state through the means of human and scientific potential.

This sort of gets at one of the roots of despair (or existential angst), a feeling like our actions cannot really amount to anything worthwhile, so there may not be any point in trying. In "pre-modern" eras there were formalized superstitious beliefs to fall back on, like religion, wherein we could tell ourselves "it's all in god's plan", and so circumvent the feeling of despair. It is characteristic of the post-modern age again that we do not have those beliefs to fall back on, so we are stuck in this feeling of despair, or stuck with an unfillable void, the result frequently being a drift towards irrationality.


I'm going to move off track a bit, but I think it ties in ultimately. Taking what you mentioned before, that we are using the elites as a scapegoat... there may be something to that, or there may not. I personally think it is important to know the reality behind it, and from what I've learned I don't think that the influence of elites should be ruled out just yet.

It may be important to distinguish when conscious machination was/is involved in the process of disturbing historical events. For example that defining moment for the 'post-modern' condition, namely the events surrounding the second world war, in light of the work of Anthony C. Sutton, for example.

Admittedly, even still a theory of elite influence does beg some potential questions about human nature, namely that even if certain events are the result of "elite" influence, there is still potential implications about human nature regarding how these people were able to attain their current status and why they would ever stoop to such actions in the first place.

[jakell]

I'm really examining word 'despair' because this is actually one of the responses to our predicament. It is actually a genuine response once the situation has been accepted and we are past denial and bargaining.

Almost past it anyway. Because there are still a few tricks the mind can play in order to get us back to that twosome.

Appologies for my frustration. It is frustrating to take part in a conversation when you don't know what it is you're talking about. I admit as much on my part.....

That's ok. It's a tough and emotive subject that most people don't even like to think about, or think about 'a little bit' before finding ways to avoid it. This was actually one of the things I was hinting at when I made my post on 'escapism' in the CT thread.
Also, no-one knows much about what they're talking about with this subect, including me, and not many like to admit it

Am just about to read the rest of your post now, it's refreshing to read live material in this cut & paste desert

[jakell]

Everybody has a plan, until they are hit...with a mass extinction event.

Mass extinction does seem to be one of the latest themes in the various doomsday scenarios doing the rounds, but I would say that extinction is unlikely. We've been very good at adapting to all sorts of stuff over the last few millennia, and I don't think we've really lost that ability.

What Westerners mean by apocalypse/extinction is the end of their own way of life, which they deem to be all that matters, and that the rest of the world may as well follow them into the void because it's game over.

[jakell]

I'm really examining word 'despair' because this is actually one of the responses to our predicament. It is actually a genuine response once the situation has been accepted and we are past denial and bargaining.

Almost past it anyway. Because there are still a few tricks the mind can play in order to get us back to that twosome.

.....When I referred to despair, I was thinking along the lines of accepting powerlessness to do anything about the situation as it stands and seems to be progressing.

I think at the bottom of this potential despair might lie in the state of modernity. Usually considered to have begun around the renaissance, with the school of thought renaissance humanism (the origins are sometimes taken to be much earlier, ancient greece, for example), but for convenience I am going to stick with the renaissance interpretation.

The strain of thought that was developing went along the lines that humans were fully capable of taking control of our destiny and making forming the world in our vision of perfection. A key 'pioneering' text which expressed this view was the Oration on the Dignity of Man by Pico della Mirandola:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oration_on ... ity_of_Man

From this strain of thought we can see arising a lot of the beliefs that we to become highly influential about the abilities of science and a scientific outlook to create a paradise for humanity. (Again, this thesis is also sometimes taken to have begun much earlier, and different strains of science and technology throughout various regions of the world contribute to this thesis, for the sake of brevity and example I am taking the renaissance as the starting point for my illustration.)

Another important renaissance text, which has also been seen as a cornerstone of modernity, though it could justifiably be considered a post-modern text, despite the early date of its conception, is Don Quixote. In a lot of ways Don Quixote was very much ahead of its time, it deals with the 'Romantic' outlook, while predating romanticism by about a century, taking its cue from Chivalric literature which happened to be one of the main inspirations for the later Romantic movement as well. Don Quixote can be read as a critique of the modern outlook of striving towards that idealized (or 'romantic') vision of the world, completely oblivious to the fact that what is being pursued is a mere phantom. I said that this book can be taken as post-modern, because that outlook is very much what has come to pass as a result of the disillusionment with the idea of progress and the attainability of perfection by humanity. The date for that shift of consciousness is generally taken to be around the time of the second world war and sometimes pin pointed around the creation and use of the atomic bomb, which symbolized for many the potential horrors of science rather than a hope for the attainment of a perfect state through the means of human and scientific potential.

This sort of gets at one of the roots of despair (or existential angst), a feeling like our actions cannot really amount to anything worthwhile, so there may not be any point in trying. In "pre-modern" eras there were formalized superstitious beliefs to fall back on, like religion, wherein we could tell ourselves "it's all in god's plan", and so circumvent the feeling of despair. It is characteristic of the post-modern age again that we do not have those beliefs to fall back on, so we are stuck in this feeling of despair, or stuck with an unfillable void, the result frequently being a drift towards irrationality.


I'm going to move off track a bit, but I think it ties in ultimately. Taking what you mentioned before, that we are using the elites as a scapegoat... there may be something to that, or there may not. I personally think it is important to know the reality behind it, and from what I've learned I don't think that the influence of elites should be ruled out just yet.

It may be important to distinguish when conscious machination was/is involved in the process of disturbing historical events. For example that defining moment for the 'post-modern' condition, namely the events surrounding the second world war, in light of the work of Anthony C. Sutton, for example.

Admittedly, even still a theory of elite influence does beg some potential questions about human nature, namely that even if certain events are the result of "elite" influence, there is still potential implications about human nature regarding how these people were able to attain their current status and why they would ever stoop to such actions in the first place.

Wow, this is really deep stuff. it's the sort of stuff that I think about a lot, but don't really post, because most people on forums just like soundbites and familiar/popular memes, so I usually stick to (often clumsy) bullet points that may stand a chance of getting read.

It's also very similar to the sort of stuff John Michael Greer writes on, especially in his series on religion last year**, and I'm going to take his approach here..... Your talk of despair about the failure of modernity is really about the failure of a religion, and that is the 'religion of progess'; the belief that mankind is destined to follow an upward trajectory for ever, and especially one defined by extrapolating the last couple of centuries marriage of technology and fossil fuels, which is a very steep ascent
Like most religions, it's all or nothing, if progress stops then we fall into the pit, and here it is the pit of despair ie it is either progress or apocalypse.

He counters this by looking at the cycle of civilisations (sort of hinted at in the OP, but then ignored), and showing that even though neither of the above applied, we're still here. The usual answer to this is that "it's different this time", but as far as I can see, not much has changed under the hood.


**Starts here with a look at Nietzche:
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-sound-of-gravediggers.html

[TheBlackSheep]

I had a very distinct feeling that Nietzsche was going to come up after that post. I must admit I'm a little tired at the moment to really go into this discussion at length. Where I've come to so far in these thoughts is that what is needed is for individuals to get a strong idea of what it means to determine their own destiny in life, and tied with this is a strong theory of education... which is why I am so adamant on that idea. I don't really believe in institutional forms. If anything of the nature would exist in my view, they should be built within individuals (by themselves) and in such a way that they are open to revision and development. So again this ties to my previous post about education.

Connected directly to the OP:

Until 1968, most world revolutions really just introduced practical refinements: an expanded franchise, universal primary education, the welfare state. The world revolution of 1968, in contrast—whether it took the form it did in China, of a revolt by students and young cadres supporting Mao’s call for a Cultural Revolution; or in Berkeley and New York, where it marked an alliance of students, dropouts, and cultural rebels; or even in Paris, where it was an alliance of students and workers—was a rebellion against bureaucracy, conformity, or anything that fettered the human imagination, a project for the revolutionizing of not just political or economic life, but every aspect of human existence. As a result, in most cases, the rebels didn’t even try to take over the apparatus of state; they saw that apparatus as itself the problem.

It’s fashionable nowadays to view the social movements of the late sixties as an embarrassing failure.

Those particular protests in question were at least partly inspired by the existentialist thought, and their prerogatives ("rebellion against bureaucracy, conformity, or anything that fettered the human imagination" and "the rebels didn’t even try to take over the apparatus of state; they saw that apparatus as itself the problem.") may have been a failure at least partly because they were meant as a dialogue with the system, to gain concessions from the system... as if any system or instituted interests would concede its own destruction...

The goal of self-determination will have to take place (if at all) within the individual and in the process of interaction (among individuals). It is a process of knowing oneself and knowing the world, as well as coming to know others, so far as all these things are possible. That is why I highlight education as such an important issue (and even deinstitutionalized education). It is not something to be had all at once, like the sudden and violent revolutions generally known... That is not to say it would not be at least partly a painful process.

More on this to say, but again I'm feeling a bit tired. Goodnight.

[Iamwhomiam]

For some unexplainable reason this wound up being sent to TheBlackSheep in error via pm. My apologies, TBS.

TheBlackSheep wrote,[/url]

Sorry, but that's the only paradigm shift I can see.

I hope this isn't a call to despair. In this forum as well as other places we can see evidence that such a paradigm shift has already taken place or is in the process of taking place. Perhaps in times like these it is for us to rally our strength and become conscious of our actions and their effects in the world.

Please don't confuse my premonition, my prediction, as a call to despair. It is more a warning of what's to come if you do not more actively take control of your mutual destiny. My time on the front lines is nigh over. I've been going toe to toe with heavyweights for decades and it's now someone else's fight. It's yours.

Sounder wrote,

Iamwhomiam wrote:

Sorry, but that's the only paradigm shift I can see.

Then you need to look harder.

Yeah, I might see some lizards shapeshift.

jakell wrote,Even though this is one possible outcome, it is possible that the 'elites' will also be part of the same landslide, and that that the foundations of what is considered to be wealth will crumble along with everything else. Newer things** that are more related to human survival will be considered to have value, and only those who sieze these (if this can be done) will have wealth.

Your next paragraph does hint at the crumbling of centralisation (ie people against each other), and this centralisation is also a feature in the concentration of wealth.

What I'm saying above is a return to what I was saying earlier about the 'elites' not being the central problem after all, and that they are just a convenient scapegoat for everything bad.

Yes, jakell, a cross-section of elite will succumb, others will move quickly as possible to garner the sources of their wealth, further consolidating it.

Not a pretty picture at all, and not much longer will it be my fight, but yours.

TheBlackSheep wrote,

How can we even know that bringing the world to this state (of crisis) is not part of some overarching plan?

How are you involved in preventing it from reaching such a point? Please tell me more than "I vote." Are you waiting for the crisis to be announced before jumping into action?


Luther,
Transcendental meditation is great, but just try to get the people to dedicate only a half-hour of their time daily to bring about world peace. Not a chance. Greed and 'it's all about me' rule the day.

What's on tv?

Tell me all about it and I'll say you're doomed. Tell me you haven't got a clue and I'd say you do have a chance, slight as it might be.

And lastly, TheBlackSheep wrote,
The final words of that post seemed to be implying that we might as well give up, if a terrible horror was all that was about to befall us.

Not at all, "to give up," but rather, "You're on your own. I'm out."
Do what you will, It's your world. I've relinquished all claims.

[TheBlackSheep]

TheBlackSheep wrote,

How can we even know that bringing the world to this state (of crisis) is not part of some overarching plan?

How are you involved in preventing it from reaching such a point? Please tell me more than "I vote." Are you waiting for the crisis to be announced before jumping into action?

I do not vote in fact, and I am not just waiting until a crisis arrives to jump into action. I'm not sure why you felt it was necessary to make those assumptions.

Anyway, these are a few things I am doing:

In the realm of non action— For a long time now (and I am not by any means old) I have cut my consumption habits considerably. I don't think you need a list, but for example I don't drive a car and never have, I possess much of the same wardrobe that I have had for over five years. I don't own a presonal computer but share it among a household, etc. I don't eat meat.—I do not work for or in any way lend my support to corporations or corporate culture.

In the realm of action— Besides learning and sharing information with others I try to extend encouragement, so as to help otherssee the possibility of a different way of life— I volunteer help to alternative lifestyles.—I advocate decentralized community and take part in maintaining one, incl. maintaining a garden for food.

And I'm open to suggestions.

And lastly, TheBlackSheep wrote,
The final words of that post seemed to be implying that we might as well give up, if a terrible horror was all that was about to befall us.

Not at all, "to give up," but rather, "You're on your own. I'm out."
Do what you will, It's your world. I've relinquished all claims.

You seem to have a bit of a self righteous tone in your post. I wonder just what it is you have done, and if you might not have contributed a little as well to the situation the world finds itself in. Some of us are young, and arguably it takes some time to become aware of what is going on, especially as in your younger life you are constantly pressured to take part in potentially destructive processes of life, by family, friends, institutions like schools and more.

You seem to have taken on a pretty vindictive tone, is it just because I said that I hoped you weren't calling for despair?

[jakell]

............My time on the front lines is nigh over. I've been going toe to toe with heavyweights for decades and it's now someone else's fight. It's yours........


.......... Not a pretty picture at all, and not much longer will it be my fight, but yours.........

Actually, I'm pretty much in the same boat as you, I'm getting rather long in the tooth and have made all the preparations (mental and physical) I realistically can. I restrict my activities now, not to educating the masses, but in trying to keep the subject alive. What continues to amaze me is how it is the cleverer folks who tend to find most creative ways of avoiding the subject, but I've come to conclusion that they resent the fact that is not rocket science and therefore largely resistant to their complexifying.