[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Downward Spiral's Silver Lining

[Bill Totten]

End of Lonely Plastic Culture

by Jan Lundberg

Culture Change Letter #234 (February 06 2009)


We all see and feel the intensifying depression of the consumer economy,
with incalculable human costs such as hunger, loss of homes, sense of
failure, and fear of the unknown. This column has long warned of
collapse of the petroleum economy and of the ecosystem, and we don't
feel good about being right about bad news. However, we have always
maintained there is a better way to live life than to trash the planet
as isolated consumers under the yoke of exploitation. We've even pointed
the way with specifics. Even the worst of the upcoming "Nature's
correction" to our overshoot of ecological carrying capacity (apart from
a nuke scenario) will have to result in the survivors' automatic
extrication from the destructive, heartless system dominating us today.

Coming from a bad place

People yearn for more feeling and closeness, as evidenced by interest in
romance stories, fierce attachment to pets, and worshiping pretty
celebrities. The mass mania for the Beatles was a wake up call to
society that young people needed something their parents and
institutions were incapable of offering. Our modern society's hold on
the masses is such that they are divided down to the individual level -
so much so that even within the individual the heart and mind are
separated, causing torment, confusion, and damage to Mother Nature.

In addition to being divided, we are extremely busy. Our time in the US
is limited to working, sleeping, and eating - and not much else. On
weekends or vacations we have to just recover. We forget our youthful
dreams and don't keep up our creative interests or branch out into
others such as a musical instrument. People don't have time for simple
pleasures or leisure, or they grab it on the run. "Quality time" is a
recent notion; all time should be quality time, and we should never be
compromising over spending days and nights with loved ones. Above all,
our children need us far more than they need a teacher employed by the
state. No wonder the elders are put out to pasture in institutions to
die alone.

We seek love and excitement through machines for virtual companionship
or sex. For those who scoff at this and pride themselves on having real
human relationships, their marriages are often arrangements for
convenient sex and cohabitation. Not to be cynical about love, which is
always with us, we must realize we've been sold a bill of goods by the
ruling class: compete, work hard, buy things, and maybe then you'll get
approval and a lover or spouse. Property and money are held to be the
supreme accomplishment, as confirmed by divorces occurring as a result
of either financial stress or selfish urges.

What's going down today isn't all bad

With time on our hands from unemployment, good deeds can happen as a
result of reaching out to members of the community. Sharing is an
important human trait that has been suppressed by divide-and-conquer
domination. The tendency neighbors have to be useful to one another in
order to assure survival is second to none in our human impulses, for
this is our evolution (until very recently). This can manifest itself by
a care-giver providing needed help while the young or sick or infirm
person's family may pursue other activities such as rigging up a bike
cart or foraging for firewood.

The closeness that will increase from such interactions will bind us
together again as bands and then tribes. The nation state was an effort
to smash tribes, in part due to megalomania of the empire builders or
the self interest of the king makers. When the unfolding collapse of the
US economy and corporate globalism is further along, there will be tax
rebellions and a redefining of new societies' priorities. Economies will
be local, with distant nations or tribes linked through sail power - as
practiced for many centuries before the oil-powered cargo ships that
destroy the air and water.

One's personal living environment will be shed of plastic crapola (thank
you James Howard Kunstler) that has crapped out and no longer can be
powered. It is too late for our generation and our civilization to be
known other than the Plastic Culture, based on the non-biodegradability
of our petroleum products we "need". But if there are future generations
to study our trash, as today's archeologists and anthropologists do,
they may also note that we seemed to cease and walk away from our
Plastic Culture and its associated ways - perhaps about 2009?

Forgotten pleasures return

Although gardening is hard work, it is also healthful and social. Since
nature knows no waste, we will become very efficient and go with the
flows to minimize work and disruption to the land and waters that must
be restored to health. So when food forests start to bear fruit and
nuts, as well as coppicing for firewood and basket materials, for
example, we will work less and have time again for our songs, stories
and dances that all our ancestors' cultures indulged in religiously.

Let's not skip the part about coping with toxic soils, the task of
depaving, and the need to gather and hunt. These activities are
unavoidable and done under duress in our transition. But those
participating will be shown appreciation by those occupied by cooking,
sewing, child rearing, making musical instruments, or acting as
counselors or teachers. But keep picturing more time for these real
things, including loving and family cohesion, when we are no longer
working for abstract capitalist entities and doing the debilitating
commutes. Above all, a relationship with nature will keep us together to
overcome adversity.

The future culture of sustainability will be more sane and liberating
than modern living - for those who survive the collapsing house of toxic
cards. The sooner we get started in dismantling the present failed
system, and be our own leaders, the more of us and our fellow species
will survive to continue what might still be the endless dance of
evolution. The answers are here today, but must be sought out. In time,
however, they will become obvious and spread quickly as people try to
adapt to the loss of Big Brother the Boss Man of The Machine. Good
riddance, and hello tomorrow's new age.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but as one of the former Beatles sang, I'm
not the only one. Give peace a chance. It's getting better all the time.

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