Certainly we require a restoration of ecological balance, or at least an approximation of ecological balance, but given our historical oscillations, it isn't clear how this is to be done. For a massive, complex global society to come into balance with its ecology necessarily implies a corresponding balance in the society's human ecology, so as to coordinate population growth (or in this case degrowth) and resource-use to harmonize with the surrounding regeneration needs of surrounding ecological systems.
It requires the restoration in trust around a unifying idea, which could very well be impossible in the immediate run, due to ongoing fragmentation and the repulsive social forces associated with it. If anything, collective trust has yet to bottom out, as the legitimacy of established institutions continues on the wane. Of course it is worth pointing out the myriad trusting communities coming together around similar ideas all across the globe, but which are isolated communities embedded in a deteriorating global system whose potential powers of destruction increase as systems break down. My secret interest is in making long-term preparations whose effects would outlast these violent forces of destruction, to be taken up again in the subsequent dark age with its allowance for coalescing social alternatives. One can't know for sure what will happen of course, but history is filled with cold, hard lessons.
Since we operate in accordance with ever-changing ideological systems, we require the emergence of a new ideology which both accounts for the internal organizational state of human society, as well as the external state of the surrounding environment, as well as the changes that both undergo through their relations in time. Here we can propose a greater emphasis in 4 dimensional thought. The modern human being swings from one pendulum to the next: one ideology grows in time and space to unbearable proportions, in which there is a reaction and an opposing ideology grows in power until there is a confrontation, and a synthesis emerges, which was a historical process famously suggested by Hegel among others.
Perhaps there is another way to go about things? Perhaps we can acknowledge that ideologies are historical formations that simply happen in accordance with the state and configuration of the populations that generate them. To put it another way: in the natural world, we have matter in the form of solids, liquids, gases, and all of the attendant behaviors associated with those states and the bonds that form and break, and the way each of these forms interact within and without. Well, our species largely functions now with the distinctive faculty of higher brain activity, and it seems as though higher brain phenomena themselves display similar dynamics, at least in a relational sense. We have differing ideologies that have different effects on people, given their personal constitution.
Some ideologies hold very strongly: their adherents bond tightly around the ideology and the bonds are difficult to break. It seems over history, the most resilient ideologies are formed through social equivalents to heat and pressure. This can be seen in all the great religions: Judaism formed through centuries of slavery and hardship, Christianity followed a particularly tumultuous civilizational collapse and went through its transformations during the course of seemingly endless feudal wars. Then you have secular ideologies like capitalism and classical economics emerging after the suffocating domination of absolute monarchies of divine right, and then Marxism, birthed under the cruel oscillations of unfettered capitalism.
The question arises as to whether we want to craft ideologies which last so long. Our objective has been to craft things that last far outside of ourselves, but is this what we want? Well, it seems this sensibility to create lasting ideology is an emotional-historical affair, which isn’t entirely within our control, and so we have world events and the calamities of clashing or collapsing formations producing the attitudes which drive ideological genesis. If we can’t control these things, we should at least see what to do about mitigation, and evening out these vast oscillations in power.
The problem we currently face is the vast separation between major ideological formations. By the time we’ve learned a valuable lesson of an age, we produce a resilient ideology that though proves useful through the age that proceeds from it, refuses to change fundamentally as conditions require, save a few minor reforms needed to keep the ideology intact. And so these ideological formations are separated from each other, both in time and space, due to the tendency of living formations to sustain themselves for the sake of perpetuation. We fail to see the connectedness in their progression. If we could establish these links, perhaps there would be a way to even out these great oscillations in power.
On a similar note, one personality type becomes dominant in a given age to the extent that the rest of us become disgusted with anything to do with the material formations encouraged by that personality. So the church ossifies after the spiritual person, the state ossifies after the regulatory, the corporation ossifies after the businessman, etc. So ideology develops to amputate the bad institutions. Well, these personalities aren’t going away; they’ll always be with us. How to keep an ideological system open?
These institutions will always reformulate, as each personality will seek to manifest itself in the material world. We need a process of constant regeneration and disintegration, back to back, smoothing out these great peaks and troughs.
Perhaps in the end it means endorsing an ideology with a built-in propensity for disintegration, with the reluctant admission that no one can truly know the answers to everything, and that as soon as time passes after one's provisional answers, one's provisional answers may themselves be on their way to disintegration. Life itself will always know how to sustain itself - after it is done being battered about by the chaotic forces of the universe of course, so perhaps one should learn to step away. We like to treat fascism as a dirty word, but at the time, fascist governments sounded tenable to many people who desired stability and protection from the chaotic forces of destruction befalling their societies, not knowing that attempts to artificially generate stability lead to these sort of hyper-compressed governments which instigated ever-greater instabilities in the world around them, and which internally were ready to unravel at the slightest manifestation of structural weakness.
On a similar note, one personality type becomes dominant in a given age to the extent that the rest of us become disgusted with anything to do with the material formations encouraged by that personality. So the church ossifies after the spiritual person, the state ossifies after the regulatory, the corporation ossifies after the businessman, etc. So ideology develops to amputate the bad institutions. Well, these personalities aren’t going away; they’ll always be with us. How to keep an ideological system open?
These institutions will always reformulate, as each personality will seek to manifest itself in the material world. We need a process of constant regeneration and disintegration, back to back, smoothing out these great peaks and troughs.
Perhaps in the end it means endorsing an ideology with a built-in propensity for disintegration, with the reluctant admission that no one can truly know the answers to everything, and that as soon as time passes after one's provisional answers, one's provisional answers may themselves be on their way to disintegration. Life itself will always know how to sustain itself - after it is done being battered about by the chaotic forces of the universe of course, so perhaps one should learn to step away. We like to treat fascism as a dirty word, but at the time, fascist governments sounded tenable to many people who desired stability and protection from the chaotic forces of destruction befalling their societies, not knowing that attempts to artificially generate stability lead to these sort of hyper-compressed governments which instigated ever-greater instabilities in the world around them, and which internally were ready to unravel at the slightest manifestation of structural weakness.
Well, I should slow down now that the discussion is growing more convoluted and abstract. Plenty of time to explain these things yet. For now, I think a good practical suggestion is to conserve energy, to be put towards more practical ends. Give up portions and commitments to dying empire - easier said than done of course. One can't help natural fears and pains, but one can free up valuable processing space and physical energy by simply letting go of unnecessary wants and concerns, and by engaging in exercises and activities that diminish the frontal lobe's capacity for micromanaging - only when necessary of course! One shouldn't unnecessarily demonize such a wonderful tool. Localize, cultivate community, jettison unnecessary energy use. Work with the earth and one's hands. All of these projects are interrelated in their healing effects.
These aren't new suggestions by any means.
One shouldn't drive oneself to despair upon finding it difficult to escape empire. One is a part of empire. One's comforts and life arrangements are owed in part to the relentless reproduction of empire. Re-orientation is a long and painstaking process that will most likely require catastrophe to initiate the most difficult changes. Learn to surf the chop; it will be a bumpy ride.
These aren't new suggestions by any means.
One shouldn't drive oneself to despair upon finding it difficult to escape empire. One is a part of empire. One's comforts and life arrangements are owed in part to the relentless reproduction of empire. Re-orientation is a long and painstaking process that will most likely require catastrophe to initiate the most difficult changes. Learn to surf the chop; it will be a bumpy ride.
Being completely free takes extreme measures. And as one frees oneself from a dying order, one finds in oneself the desire to be bound once again, but bound this time to something which is living.
