Industrial society is fully committed to tossing the planet in the waste bin. The throw-away products of the Industrial Age became particular obvious after World War II, when the quaint idea of durable goods gave way to all the trappings of planned obsolescence. We invested heavily in items fabricated from non-renewable materials and specifically designed for one-time use, including now-ubiquitous diapers and grocery bags. And we made annual cosmetic alterations to every conceivable consumer product, from pens and kitchen knives to refrigerators and automobiles. Even consumer goods fabricated from renewable materials, such as wood, are routinely packaged in non-renewable materials designed for ease of discarding. The mass of transparent plastic wrap sold every day surely exceeds the combined biomass of all endangered species in the world.
I've returned to the U.S. after a trip to Italy. My goals for the trip were three-fold: (1) Visit the heart of western civilization before we complete our ongoing trip to the new Dark Age and then the neo-Neolithic, (2) collect anecdotes about the collapse of a large, powerful, seemingly invincible empire, and (3) try to determine if the hatred for a living Earth by Homo sapiens, which at this point is nearly all-consuming, was initiated -- or at least accelerated -- by the Renaissance. These goals echo the general themes I've considered throughout the history of this blog, so they seem appropriate to my one hundredth post.
I've been spending most of my time at the mud hut. Issues with the Internet connection, along with a steady diet of manual labor, have precluded regular postings here. But difficulties with the off-grid solar system inspired this particular post. If all goes according to plan, both issues will be resolved shortly.
Not so long ago, $60 oil represented a dire threat to the U.S. (hence, world) economy. Now that we've seen a price spike and a rapid decline down to half the current price and one-fifth last summer's peak, Wall Street cheers expensive oil because it profits the oil companies.
You gotta love the media, loving Wall Street for loving the oil companies.
I just finished reading T.C. Boyle's 2000 novel, A Friend of the Earth. A retirement gift from a long-time friend and colleague, the book describes one man's futile attempts to save the living earth and the consequences of his failure.
A Friend of the Earth is set in 2025-2026, with frequent flashbacks to 1989 and 1990. In this tale, the industrial age has not reached its end, and the consequences are truly horrific. The effects of habitat loss for many species, along with climate change, have produced a badly overpopulated planet that alternates between madly monsoonal and hellishly hot. The book echoes Jonathan Swift's classic writings from three centuries ago: People are living a long time, relative to today's standards, but their lives are truly miserable.
The evidence is gaining increasing clarity: We've reached a crossroads unlike any other in human history. One path leads to despair for Homo industrialis. The other leads to extinction, for Homo sapiens and the millions of species we are taking with us into the abyss. I'll take door number one.
I caught a lot of flak from readers on this blog when I pointed out, six months ago, that we have become a neocon nation. I even pointed out the apparent neoconservative tendencies of our newly elected president, much to the chagrin of readers across the political spectrum (meaning, I suppose, Democrats and Republicans, the spectrum for which is about as broad as that from indigo to violet on the electromagnetic spectrum).
As I break away from the shore, I have been given many opportunities to ponder the extraordinary nature of my life (so far). I'm reminded by this week's post at survival acres that "you cannot change the system from within, all you're doing is playing musical chairs as it is too entrenched and has too much inertia to effectively be changed," and "departing from the system is the first critical step, you must stop feeding the beast."
I'm done feeding the beast, but not quite done feeding my stomach or my ego. So the week has been filled with at-least-daily celebrations, and they continue through the weekend, when a dozen students will be visiting the mud hut and meeting with the locally famous primitivist.
"Echoing the influential American educator John Dewey, contemporary educational scholar Nel Noddings argues convincingly that all citizens should be able to surmount the minor obstacles imposed by failures in carpentry and plumbing by the time they graduate from secondary school. Better yet, she argues, we should encourage and facilitate the interests and talents of every student at every level of education, even if they do not fit the two-dimensional liberal-arts model. Yet for me, twenty years were needed before I could overcome the biases and prejudices built into our narrowly focused educational system."
As my final semester winds down, I am spending a lot of time with friends and colleagues. The extended gang of teachers and administrators from Poetry Inside/Out held our end-of-semester meeting yesterday. We read a few poems, shared a meal and much laughter, and generally celebrated our latest successes and my contribution to the program, which is coming to a close.
Departing is such sweet sorrow.
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