Just a rant by a lunatic, probably high on something.
circle of stones at Avebury; my own photo
Many of the people I’ve come to respect and admire during my twenty years of chronicling collapse seem to be retreating into fantasies or ‘faiths’ of one kind or another. Religions old and new (but mostly old), mysticism, technotopianism, secular new ageism, scientism, paganism, Plan B transcendentalism — anything that promises something better than global capitalism, the faith that let us all down.
I think this ‘turning inwards’ is the worst possible development when we need our most articulate and authoritative voices to be speaking the truth more than ever. The current passion for signs, omens, and magic among some ‘collapsniks’, however, seems almost a flight from reality into ersatz occultism, with its rites and secret rituals and dress-up festivals and fucking parades.
The last thing we need is another religion. We especially don’t need new religions with their own god-damned twelve-step programs. Wake up, folks. Twelve-step programs don’t work, and never have worked. They’re abusive CBT/NLP cults, warmed-over catholic dogma telling us to confess our misdeeds and self-flagellate, and that we are the original sinners, and praying for forgiveness and endless self-improvement are the only roads to salvation. As if there could be any ‘salvation’ from the future we have, in our naive and earnest foolishness, now locked in for ourselves, our descendants, and our planet.
And the last thing we need is, in the best EST/Landmark/Forum cult tradition, to crack ourselves open “so the light gets in”, as that Canadian charlatan Leonard Cohen preached to his adoring choir of desperate depression-addled wanna-believers put it.
And the very last thing we need is new fucking myths, or myths resurrected from the dead like zombies. What we actually need is to face reality, and to stop both denying it and running away from it.
Things don’t get better when we “tell a better story”. All stories are fictions, lies. Only humans seem to believe there is a need for stories, or a value to them. They are propaganda, groupthink, things we tell each other to feel better when we can’t bear the truth. They are trying to make sense of what makes no sense, and doesn’t have to make sense. They are escapism, collective fantasies with retread plots as threadbare as those of Disney Pixar movies.
Some of the collapsnik vanguard even seem to have abandoned the search for truth and fled instead into the embrace of what might best be described as esoteric cults, support groups that will reassure them, offer them something ‘positive’ (like — kill me now, please — “the better world we all know in our hearts is possible”) to believe in. I suppose it’s understandable. Most people cannot bear to feel alone, to be alone, to go it alone. And they can’t bear for there to be no answer, no way out. We want to believe, brothers and sisters! Hallelujah!
The list of people whose work I read, on the right sidebar of this blog, is quite long. But they are not my ‘peeps’. I disagree with most of them as much as I agree with them on certain issues. I am not part of any group, any cohesive community of people with a shared set of beliefs or values. I do not “identify”. I do not accept any label. I’m more interested in finding the truth than I am in finding my tribe, or finding “the others”.
I’m trying to figure out why I am so annoyed by this retreat by people I largely admired — why I take it to be a kind of lazy or unprincipled intellectual betrayal. We are all doing our best to cope, Why should I hold bright, informed, (once-)curious people to a higher standard than anyone else?
But I can’t help myself. You can’t reveal, and tell the world, terrible truths, like a good journalist, and then just shrug and switch to writing fantasies and fairy tales. You have a duty to follow the facts until you can relate the whole truth, which, in the case of collapsniks, is how it’s gonna end.
So, please, no more pot-shots at the convenient and ill-defined straw dog “Modernity”. No more Courses in Miracles. No more entreaties to heed the wisdom of the ancients and the old ways. No more stories about what we always wanted to believe was true, but never actually was. No more fraudulent appeals to make meaning out of signs, dredged-up myths, stale metaphors, tea leaves, and dream visitations. The ghastly horror now unfolding on our little blue planet doesn’t have to ‘mean’ anything.
Can we all please stop playing games and fucking grow up — just pay attention, without judgement, without prescription, without ‘meaning-making’, to what is happening. Can we please just face it?
“’Cause something is happening here and you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr Jones.”
And we never will ‘know’. What is happening isn’t something to know, to understand. It just fucking is happening. It doesn’t need our reaction, our analysis, our interpretation, our judgement, or our intervention.
If we just fucking really look, we just might see. How it is, how it’s playing out, and how it’s going to end. Our job is to tell it, scream it, show the data, lay out the facts, read the writing on the wall, until we die or some significant part of the world listens. No retreat, no quitting. This is the most important story in the history of our species, and it must be told. Until it ends.
*sigh*
/end rant
Wow, five uses of “fucking” means a real rant. I sympathize with the feeling.
But I disagree with your basic message: I don’t think it’s the job of people who can see what’s coming to “show the data, lay out the facts, read the writing on the wall” until their last breath. Rather, it’s to prepare as well as possible for that horrific future to come and try to save as many lives as they (we) can.
My view is that solid information about the coming collapse has been in the public domain for decades and anyone who cares to pay attention knows what’s coming. No more information is needed about the basics of overshoot and collapse. No more information is needed about the dangers of nuclear war. What’s needed are actual physical actions to help people live through them when they come.
Sounds like you feel that you have been betrayed by someone you respect.
Have you read The Matter With Things? I am not capable of summarising it, but it’s worth reading, and could give a different perspective on myth.
When you know it’s terminal, what do you do with the rest of your life? Get more accurate data about the condition? Keep talking about it? Or do what gives you joy? How do you want to be?
I found this amusing. It reads like a call to sobriety directed toward good, earnest people who are addicted to 12 step programs. Also reminds me of that scene in the movie Network where the anchor motivates everyone to stick their necks out the window and scream. Also makes me think of that famous mommy blogger who died recently.
Rave on John Donne, rave on thy holy fool
Down through the weeks of ages in the moss borne dark dank pools
Rave on, down through the industrial revolution
Empiricism, atomic and nuclear age
Rave on down through the corridors
Rave on words on printed page
(Van Morrison)
I rant in frustration sometimes and am certainly not above the occasional swear word but avoid devolving into outright screed, which you did here (without naming names). You’ve hit on three themes I’ve been considering: (1) how some long-time doomers have moved on to other interests, (2) the basic human need for story, and (3) how meaning-making transforms bodies of belief into ersatz religions.
I came to the conclusion about a dozen years ago that there is no escape from the trajectory in which human (and most of the rest of the natural world) are trapped, though I never put an expiration date on it and don’t think it’s possible to anticipate exactly when collapse occurs. (Collapse is arguably more process than event, but it could occur suddenly.) Nothing I’ve learned in the intervening years has dissuaded me from that conclusion. No escape hatches. However, like others, I’ve found it unhelpful to dwell on that conclusion incessantly and have a life to live in the interim. So without abandoning my conclusion, I’ve turned some of my attentions elsewhere. The only fellow (IMO) who has been uncompromising for two decades is Guy Mcpherson, but the experience has made him brittle. Truth is an exceedingly rough road few are able to follow without side excursions onto smooth pavement.
Story is how consciousness (self-)narrates human experience. While quite a lot of story is straightforward fiction and self-deception, one can steer close to truth after accounting for bias and misperception, which are categorically human and can only be ameliorated via adoption of a difficult pose of objectivity. Most of us can tolerate that pose (and its soul-destroying disclosures) briefly before seeking solace and happiness elsewhere. Fiction also allows for contemplation of forbidden truth, much like dreams consolidate waking experience and rehearse possible futures. Quite a complicated and puzzling territory to dismiss as handily as you have.
Meaning derives from psychological processing that includes pattern seeking, consensus building, formation of in- and out-groups, and simple pleasure/enjoyment (or its inverse, avoidance of pain and suffering). Each reinforces worldviews that adapt to niche social conditions yet fail to reveal truth and/or reality with much fidelity. Misalignments often exist between knowledge and belief, but belief clearly has the upper hand at least in part because human cognition is about sufficiency, not accuracy. So it’s little surprise (to me at least) that across human history cultural developments have spawned myriad religions and subcultures accused of being religions. I tire of everything being relegated to religion because that framework lacks rigor, but such arguments convince plenty of others unequipped to fend off the predations of charlatans.
Thanks so much to those who have commented on this post, both here and via email. You have given me much to think about, and it will take a while to digest it.
Joe: Yes, and yes. It makes sense for all of us to do what we can, including relearning essential skills and relearning the meaning of community, to equip ourselves a bit better for collapse. But at the same time the job of the ‘media’ — those that speak and write for a living — is to single-mindedly search for and speak the truth, even when we’re discouraged and no one seems to be listening.
Benn: I have been reading some of Iain’s writings after your previous recommendation. His left/right brain analysis needs, I think, to be considered in the light of the evolution of the human brain from bicamerality, as Julian Jaynes and others have described. As for what we do if/when we realize a situation is terminal, my sense is that we have absolutely no choice about what we do — we do what we’ve been conditioned to do. That may or may not be what gives us joy. And it may, for better or worse, be to retreat, give up, and embrace the comfort of myths. I am glad that my conditioning has resulted in me getting comfort from discovering the truth, no matter how inconvenient, rather than from what are to me stale and useless myths.
Theresa: Hah! “Addicted to 12-step programs” — brilliant.
Juanito: I like Van better before he sailed Into the Mystic and started slandering public health officials. But he has a knack with words.
Brutus: “Story is how consciousness (self-)narrates human experience.” Great epigram, and an interesting way of wrapping together three mutually reinforcing senses/conceptions, all of which IMO are illusory, though completely understandable that the human brain would latch on to them in its attempt to make sense of things. My sense is that meaning-making, and the requirement for things to have meaning, is actually a cause of a lot of our suffering and brings us relatively little pleasure. I might even go so far as to say it’s an unhealthy and unhelpful (if understandable) habit, along the lines of gnashing one’s teeth.
Dave, the flight from the rational that you’ve noted in the collapse community appears to be part of a broader trend that has spread to Silicon Valley as discussed in this article on the post-rationalist movement: https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/rational-magic. Here is an excerpt:
“You might call it the postrationalist turn: a cultural shift in both relatively ‘normie’ and hyper-weird online spaces. Whether you call it spiritual hunger, reactionary atavism, or postliberal epistemology, more and more young, intellectually inclined, and politically heterodox thinkers (and would-be thinkers) are showing disillusionment with the contemporary faith in technocracy and personal autonomy. They see this combination as having contributed to the fundamentally alienating character of modern Western life. The chipper, distinctly liberal optimism of rationalist culture that defines so much of Silicon Valley ideology — that intelligent people, using the right epistemic tools, can think better, and save the world by doing so — is giving way, not to pessimism, exactly, but to a kind of techno-apocalypticism. We’ve run up against the limits — political, cultural, and social alike — of our civilizational progression; and something newer, weirder, maybe even a little more exciting, has to take its place. Some of what we’ve lost — a sense of wonder, say, or the transcendent — must be restored.”
Fascinating, Michael. Thanks.
this is a very male rant. stop playing games! fucking grow up! face the truth! lay out the facts!
it’s a very western rant, taking pride in independence, in being “not part of any group, any cohesive community of people.”
but: why grow up? child mind (beginner’s mind) is delightful.
and: in my experience, connection with others brings warmth, meaning, joy to life.
like you, i’m not a fan of woo. but having worked in classroom & clinic for years, i can tell you that some for some small %age of people, 12-step programs do work – if “work” means allows folks to re-engage constructively with life.
i think sometimes people who deeply get ecosystem collapse don’t really get humans which is why they show so much frustration & impatience when humans “human” (<-verb).
many of us who've followed you for years likely also follow some of the same people you do. however, with one exception (someone in your sidebar i've heard is mega-woo hence never had any interest in following) i have no idea what specifically you're referring to: "Many of the people I’ve come to respect and admire during my twenty years of chronicling collapse seem to be retreating into fantasies or ‘faiths’ of one kind or another." so: it's hard to know how to respond to that.
Yes, I confess, my rant was excessive, indecorous, vague on details, unfair, and annoyingly male and western. It was aimed specifically at about ten people who I deliberately tried to avoid specifically mentioning, because mentioning them specifically would not accomplish anything, and besides, I’m a Canadian and we’re confrontation-averse. Those ten people were and are just doing what they’ve been conditioned by their biology and culture to do, given the circumstances of the times and the moment. That doesn’t mean I’m not (unfairly) outraged and disappointed by their decision to retreat from positions of substantial influence and insight in the ‘collapsnik’ community and start blathering about the need for religion and myth and new stories.
I was just blowing off steam, as rants often do. I’m not expecting anyone to respond, or to analyze my rant as to its fairness; otherwise I would have put in multiple links to articles describing the kinds of (what I see as) retreats from reality that so disappointed me. My rant was unfair. But it’s how I can’t help but feel. Several of these people I have met in person, and if I met them again I would probably shrug off my anger at their recent direction and not even mention it. What purpose would it serve? We’re all doing our best.
And yes, I know that some types of 12-step programs ‘work’ (in the assessment of those using it, which is of course subjective, but it’s the best we have to go on) in perhaps 10-15% of cases. My beef against them in this particular case was that there is a group of normally-intelligent people calling on us to use 12-step as a model to address our addiction to capitalism, consumption, and other facets of the dark sides of civilization, when we can’t even rely on it to help most people trying to use it to deal with alcohol dependence. IMO the problem isn’t the “addict” at all (an offensive and judgemental term) but rather the ubiquitous mental illness that our crumbling and dysfunctional civilization has wrought, with its commensurate ills of stress, poverty, homelessness, inequality, greed, corruption etc.
To me the idea of blaming the individual victim for the personal consequences of a societal malaise, and placing the burden of responsibility for “self-improvement” and “recovery” on the victims, or on any individual, is abhorrent. But sadly, it seems to be the best, and only thing, we can do.
It is, I think, very human to, at least occasionally, be outraged and disappointed by the actions of people, including people we care about, that were, if we were to be honest, the only actions they could possibly have taken. That is, I think, what this rant was.
Thanks Dave for your incredibly thoughtful response. Rants have their place, for sure! they’re just easier to hear when we have more understanding of the context. It’s helpful for example to know you were thinking of about ten people in particular who’ve gone off the rails (& as someone who spent six of my growing-up years in Canada, & has relatives there, I share your confrontation-averseness & completely understand your not naming names). Regarding 12-step, my response came out of my experience working in a public health clinic & seeing many patients over years, even decades! (going on 30 years now); even there, I’d agree with you that only a small minority of folks benefit, but for those who do the benefits can be life-changing. I’m out of the loop, though, because I’d never come across this: “there is a group of normally-intelligent people calling on us to use 12-step as a model to address our addiction to capitalism, consumption, and other facets of the dark sides of civilization.” Ha! That makes me laugh. We might just as well try handing out sublingual tablets like suboxone (aka buprenorphine) to all humans on the planet. Pretty sure that’d be just as effective.
Couldn’t agree more with your analysis of the overall problem ie humans’ response to “our crumbling and dysfunctional civilization.” The funny thing about my job is that my mandate is to address health problems on an individual level. On the one hand, I know I’m mostly sticking bandaids on a festering wound. On the other, when I focus on care not cure, I know in some cases I am making a difference, however slight & temporary. It’s comparable maybe to someone tending their garden, à la Candide, all while realizing the bigger world garden is going to hell. Sometimes I think life is all about hanging simultaneously with opposing perspectives, just living with the contradictions.
Thanks Dave. Obviously we all needed that. Keep the faith, bro.
“more and more young, intellectually inclined, and politically heterodox thinkers…are showing disillusionment with the contemporary faith in technocracy and personal autonomy. … The chipper, distinctly liberal optimism of rationalist culture that defines so much of Silicon Valley ideology…is giving way… We’ve run up against the limits…of our civilizational progression”
In other words, the technoids had to run amok for decades so that only now, in the 2020s, could they land on what Erich Fromm and Lewis Mumford were already saying in the 1950s. THAT in and of itself is worth a few well-aimed curse words.
Speaking for myself, I do despair of really understanding the situation we are in, if not simply because of the (mis)information landscape. I share your distaste for hocus pocus, but I also wouldn’t summarily dispense with the “wisdom of the ancients.” Sure, we can do without rain dances and death cults. On the other hand, even as an atheist, Augustine sort of fascinates me, as do Otto Rank and Ernest Becker. There’s a lot of “rational” thinking there which is still fine advice on how to live.
Yes, I agree Stefan. There is much to learn from the study of history and anthropology and how previous societies have lived. The rant is more about those who take a blinkered, nostalgic view of the past. I am somewhat suspect of the word ‘wisdom’ because it is a loaded, judgemental term, suggesting things in previous times were uniformly better due to inherently superior ways of thinking and being. We have always done our best, I think.