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by Jan Lundberg When
the rule of the day is destruction, lack of caring, and ignorance, a society
cannot last long. The USA that
stands tall in the mind of the flag-decaled SUV owner is ushering itself out of
existence just as fast as the last of the abundant oil is all burned and spilled. Today's rapid
decay and the process of succession will culminate in either our extinction or a
new culture that respects the Earth. This has been explored in numerous articles in Culture
Change magazine and this e-letter series. This essay attempts to
reveal the
searing, unsustainable negativity of mainstream culture while
contrasting it with the new alternative cultures values of sustainability and
Earth-centered traditional practices. The swing of the
pendulum against the overpopulated societys frenzied manufacture,
construction and other waste may sweep away even history books.
As nine-year-old Bronwyn said, having absorbed the concept of entropy as this
societys main force, Everything made gets destroyed. Some concerned
folk are
delighted at the prospect of total collapse, as they resent being worked and
oppressed while seeing others faring much worse. But the often naïve enthusiasts of
socioeconomic collapse are even more emotionally imbued with sadness and
alarm over ecological damage. The outlook for nature as we have known it
is depressing, to put it mildly. We put nuclear holocaust out of our
minds, thereby assuring that we let the official power boys perpetrate it. Mediocrity: Finery amidst deadly pollution Mediocrity is the acceptance of our trend toward extinction. Mediocrity is also the worship of material things that are not art but are destined for the land fill. Window dressing for a society drowning unconsciously in mediocrity serves to fool us into accepting conditions such as massive roads that choke us and threaten our lives if we venture onto them. A pretty paint job and beautiful rose bushes next to that road, and fine art inside the house, cannot compensate for the mediocrity and sham of ruined nature and inhumane, corrupt transportation policies. To place value on maintaining the status quo as a means of fitting in and assuring comfort through conformity may work smoothly a little while. It is also easy to avoid doing the right thing in a situation if the honest and ethical course is difficult. Supposedly, U.S. culture encourages active goodness and bravery, but the real institutional message and training at school and work is to not question how things are done by authority. Mediocrity means keeping your head down and not looking for a liberating solution. Hypocrisy as a fixture of a society that's going down the tubes requires a mindset of mediocrity for an intelligent person to acquiesce. Avoidance of reality can be pursued by practicing "excellence:" getting good grades and making lots of money. It is easy to succumb to the fearful route of being a virtual slave in order to obtain material wealth that can satisfy meeting basic needs and indulging in consumerism. Whistle blowers are often persecuted. Fighting for rights housing, land, food, and a clean environment is usually sloughed off as the unpaid work of kooks who refuse to see today's rampant oppression and mediocrity as freedom. Mediocrity is enforced in part through corporate advertising and its manipulation of the news media and mass entertainment. A soothing anecdote or image is almost always thrown in to give the illusion of niceness and sweetness. Or the psychological button catered to is aggression, as in obtaining "raw (sexual) power" through driving one's very own fancy new pickup truck. Bush mediocrity Acceptance of a dangerous, outrageous state of affairs can be attributed not only to mediocrity but many other attributes plaguing society: apathy, repressed will, and ill health resulting in poor brain performance and lack of personal energy. Yet, it has been proven that "ignorance conquered by truth and education" is not a sufficient formula for change, when the brainwashed, oil-addicted majority doesn't want to seek the facts or act on them. For example, George H. W. Bush was shown to be involved in Iran-Contra and the build-up of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, as well as other scandals. Bush and his family have or have had ties to criminal elements of the intelligence community and arms and drug traffickers. Harken Energy, infamous for the involvement of current President George W. Bush, has had questionable doings dating back to his father's presidency. According to Immaculate Deception, a 1992 book by former brigadier general Russell Bowen about George H. W. Bush and his family, the Harken board had a link to former Nugan-Hand Bank participants. (That bank was involved in drug running and fraud before being closed down by Australia.) As for Jeb Bush, governor of Florida, his past connections include anti-Castro, Iran-Contra players who broke numerous laws, according to Immaculate Deception. G. H. W. Bush was not reelected, but his legacy was allowed to take power in 2000 thanks to mediocrity expressed in terms of almost 50% of the voting population opting for Tweedle Dubya instead of Tweedle Gore. Now that the Nazi connections of the present President Bush's paternal grandfather have surfaced in the mainstream press, will Americans start to shake off their mediocrity and demand some change in the rulers that people allow? Or is self-dealing so expected of our "leaders" that no alternative can be imagined? An example of mediocrity is the apparent intelligence of the current President of the United States. (He once intoned, "We ought to make the pie higher.") But more important, it is his culture which is arguably mediocre: His father proudly owned and used a "cigarette" speedboat as the first Gulf War got into gear, and it may have gotten one mile to the gallon of petroleum. The White House admitted in 1990 that "our" life-style, e.g., drive-thru fast food and all manner of wasting nonrenewable energy, was not negotiable. Acceptance of this attitude gave us another decade of deliberately warming the globe and eventually brought on the current Iraq War. Now the U.S. troops in Iraq are wising up fast to the questionable basis and effectiveness for attacking and occupying Iraq. But they are trained to follow orders and in effect be mediocre. What does it take to seize the moment and save oneself? Whether it is elections that seldom offer a real choice, or questionable development schemes openly rammed through local government while the sheeple barely bleat, we experience tyranny of the (mediocre) majority: This is democracy. Not democracy at its best, but if democracy is whatever most people allow, we have to question not just democracy but whatever line of thinking and set of assumptions that gave rise to something that is faulty and perhaps hopeless. The U.S. is actually a "republic," not a "democracy" in its original, official structure. Perhaps the "founding fathers" were trying to counter the masses' mediocrity, but many of these rulers' true motives were base and backward as they maintained their own privileges at everyone else's expense. Imagine a sustainable culture Today it is not so popular to dream aloud of a just world in peace that honors undisturbed nature, although John Lennon's "Imagine" did spark the imagination of millions with his radically progressive musings with the aid of a powerful melody. Regardless of the public's readiness to advance to a culture of sustainability via Earth-centered traditional practices, we must present anew an alternative vision to the mediocrity and propaganda of the established lie masquerading as Dominant $ociety. Being forced to overwork and be a distant member of one's own family while having little choice in decisions made that affect one's life and survival is lately accepted as normal and even desirable. Who benefits from this? It is only the super rich and well-connected, who keep all existing advantages securely intact. Wannabes in the middle class and even working class are dumb enough to defend vigorously the rich elite's right to soak up 99% of the wealth that everyone generates from the Earth. An alternative society, then, means: (2) For a cleaner environment, there is great job potential in the urgent task of restoring land to its biologically diverse health. If direct cash compensation for such restoration workers would be in short supply, then a community can reward these workers with kind support such as meals, babysitting, and other favors. This gets us into bartering, the nemesis of the taxman. Yet, paying taxes can be a waste when we consider many government programs, such as the bloated military, are better unfunded or much less funded. (3) We don't need to obtain our food from great distances when it can and should be grown locally. In the final analysis it is less expensive and more secure to rely on local foods produced without massive petroleum inputs as is the norm today. When local and state government plant trees in public areas, no fruit or nut trees are used or allowed. This heartless and inefficient policy could be easily changed, but we must understand the origins of the resistance to "free food" and what is implied by radically altering such an inhumane system of denying the basic right to eat. A tribe takes care of its members. Modern society does not have that feature today. We are instead expected to purchase what we need, yet always place a high value on our families and friends in theory. But if there is no mutual survival-strategy in place that is well honed by practical experience, society has merely a façade of care, love and community. Some fight for an amorphous equitable society or tribal structure by attacking, at least verbally, the dominant paradigm. Others establish communes, urban or rural. If a tribe has a clear purpose such as supporting its members during the anticipated oil crash then details can be worked out now to produce benefits even before the crash. This would serve to provide models for the transition to sustainability. Tribal fineness historically offers love and solidarity while rejecting the negative and false precepts of competition and privately held land that deprives others of the right to live freely. Whats
considered pretty in materialism The epitome of
success today is for an individual to have powerful machines (such as a truck)
and a large private place to enjoy security (such as owning land).
Introducing Mr. Bigman. Mr. Bigman, as we
may call our fancy horse and trailer owner, could very well be a kind chap who
practices some family responsibility. He may or may not believe that other
species should go extinct for his profit or convenience. Either way, he is
destroying the planet and most likely does not share his toys with the community
(if we can call his area a community rather than a precinct). What has to go
with such ostentatious flexing of fossil-fueled muscle is a ranch
where other costs no doubt reflect similar levels of material expenditure.
If theres a security system, hell have that there. Guns?
Sure. And a big American flag. If some stranger wandering by wants to
drink from Mr. Bigmans stream, the result could be getting shot acceptable by dominant standards. If some stranger actually asked to go
to the stream and drink or bathe, the expression on Mr. Bigmans face could be
perplexity and fear. So-called
communities where people like Mr. Bigman do their thing, enforcing their
(property) rights, are actually associations of thieves: thieves of the
land who dont think of the original people who were
displaced. Nor do the Bigmen and Bigwomen of material culture think one
second about their ecological footprint, assuming they knew what that meant.
The idea of Mr. Bigmans using well over 25 acres of resources (per person
U.S. average is 25) just so he can sit in peace in front of his big-screen satellite
TV system is likely to elicit his confusion and anger should he be
apprised. He has to believe he has earned what hes got.
Other people dont have the same privileges, he might say, probably because they
are lazy or their culture is inferior. Mr. Bigman may
enjoy Mozart. To Bigman, fine arts and his whole civilization would
justify a host of what should be called injustices and offenses against
Nature. Euro-centricity and our finer accomplishments including
Greco-Roman art, buildings and empire dont define our civilization if
its exploding in our face. Albert Einstein, who is commonly posited as proof of our cultures superiority, could see the explosion as a
consequence of the cultures mode of thinking, but he was not respected for
his wisdom. The priorities of profit-taking through world domination
brushed Einstein and his world views aside. He was a city man anyway, who, like almost all of us,
could not live by collecting his own food with his family. His tribe was
conquered and dispersed several hundred years ago. When the simple
is beautiful When the press of
humanity in need of food, water and land overthrows Mr. Bigman and eventually
reverts to tribal cooperation as a way of life, the handmade basket for
collecting edible roots will again be something appreciated as truly beautiful.
Time will slow down as the cycles of nature are observed and revered as they
were time immemorial. As strange as such
a scenario would sound to todays Mr. Bigmen and his masses of aspirants, the
likelihood of these changes is entirely supported by history.
Civilizations collapse when the soil has been stripped of its richness.
For much longer people have been living in
their present physical form, for almost a million years, and during this time
they lived as a part of nature not as a separate kind of superior
creature. Cooperation, not annihilation, ruled the day. All life
was respected as necessary to the tribes survival. Some mega fauna
were driven extinct several thousand years ago possibly due to human
hunting combined with climate change. But even the alleged hunting-to-extinction of huge beasts did not upset the ecosystem or threaten the
climate as we have been doing so rapidly since the industrial age. ***** - Feedback is wanted for our letters
page. Back to Home Page Jan Lundberg's columns are protected by copyright; however, non-commercial use of the material is permitted as long as full attribution is given with a link to this website, and he is informed of the re-publishing: info@culturechange.org |
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