Happy (sic) Summer Solstice

Given all of events going on in the world today:

The good news is, it seems to me, that mankind is going through a major mental evolution. That is the noosphere may be going through a phase transition that could lead to much more sapience expressed in the general population. For me the best evidence for this is the rapid adoption of a new zeitgeist surrounding not just Black Lives Matter but the whole issue of racism becoming visible and, for me at least, life altering. I never considered myself as racist (probably most people don't) but over the last month I have learned so much about the subject and have been moved to empathy with the pain that Blacks have experienced in this country - a subject not taught in school and with which I never came in contact directly. I think I understand a lot more now. And judging by the diversity of people marching together around the world for social justice, it looks like this feeling is widespread.

The bad news is that all phase transitions are preceded by chaos and major dissolution of all the old connections. Just throw a dart at the front page of your favorite newspaper. You will have pinpointed one such dissolution in progress. Some dissolutions are good, but can still have disruptive effects. Look at what is happening to the economy based on capitalism and profit maximization. Do you know why the administrations (national and local) are so eager to get people back to work in the middle of a pandemic? They are desperate to save business as usual - capitalism and the rich getting richer. But I'm not worried about the poor rich folks. The real worry is all of those who are out of work as a result. And the breaking of basic services like the production of food and its supply chain breakdown. Things are likely to get very chaotic. In the end, I wouldn't be surprised if more people die due to the knock-on effects of the economy shut-down as of COVID-19 itself.

But the old social order and its economic (dysfunctional) system isn't ever coming back in its pre-pandemic form. Many other people are being vocal questioning what we were doing in the name of materialistic, consumerist lifestyles, which is a driving force that propels capitalism. This pandemic lock-down has given many people time to think about things like how horribly un-resilient our system was given the drive to maximize profits. I don't think we have yet seen the full extent of disruption to our globalized and "optimized" economic system.

To leave you with some "hopium", I have been reading Daniel Christian Wahl's "Designing Regenerative Cultures" in which he espouses a systems approach to designing our society in a way that it cooperates with the rest of the natural world and supports it (thereby receiving support in return). Permaculture plays heavily in his formula for regenerative cultures. Many of his concepts are similar to mine except that he thinks that we humans can consciously transition to this state of affairs (mostly by giving up our extravagant lifestyles) and finding truly green technologies (e.g. biomimitic solar collectors as opposed to silicon-based) to support a "reasonable" lifestyle for everyone. I, on the other hand, am pretty convinced that there will be a major crash of civilization and a reset of the evolution of some kind of human social system that could achieve his (and my) end goals, but by different pathways. Perhaps the phase transition of the noosphere could provide an ultimate solution to some kind of future for humankind on this planet in the long run. The short run, maybe not so much.

As always, I hope he's right and I'm wrong. But just in case...

Comments

[Molly Radke]

THANK YOU for "coming back!" I' reading "What Kind of Country Do We Want" by Marilynne Robinson in the June 11 issue of the New York Review of Books. Sorta says what you are saying here. Hope springs eternal for REAL CHANGE. Molly Radke

[Molly Radke]

And I've been thinking....when I used to teach high school social studies (I retired 20 years ago, and my memory is probably faulty), I used to compare communism and capitalism. As I recall, I taught that they were both 19th century ideologies, which presumed to be based on some sort of "natural laws" of human nature and historical development. I told my students that the notion that folks in the 19th century had the perfect, FINAL understanding of these things was a touch on the silly side. Each ideology presumed to have the final word on the nature of inevitable economic development, and each presumed that any "rational analysis" of all this would demonstrate the truth of THEIR ideology. Both seemed to obviate the notion that alternative intellectual analyses could/would come up with alternative conclusions about these matters. And frankly, the longer I live, the more convinced I become that Marx's analysis of the pattern of capitalist development - tho not necessarily of it's ultimate outcome - was fairly accurate.

[Scott Ahlf]

As I recall, I taught that they were both 19th century ideologies
Hint:
Capitalism is a 14th Century ideology.

[Molly Radke]

In any event, they're BOTH historical and outdated.

[Eric]

If "black lives matter" improves the lives of people because they're black and it's "social justice" because it makes living conditions of people bearable, then also Trump makes "America Great Again".

Because it's true if someone says so. Because its what the respective political clients hope for.

If you haven't noticed any "pain" int he people of the country you live in chance is you belong to the privileged caste that notices nothing at all.

These "social justice" movmements always complacently avoid to cross the interests of big corporations, the high resource use of their privileged members and the consequences of their life style.

For somebody who "questions everything", you sure take the promises of a political movement easily.

All I see is the western middle class rallying for the interests of some political institutions, open little windows to real "grievances" that exists and claim to speak for those in grief, and allowing only the grievance they show in the little window to be debated.

Anyone who informs themselves from more than one source about "social justice" and keeps a critical distance to EVERY source will easily find, that there are many many contradicitons to this narrative.

I have never seen these priviledged midle class people rallying for the slavery and exploitation in indsutry and agriculture in the West, with grievance that is AT THE LEAST as bad as what they critize and claim to be the remedy of.

[PaulArbair]

“As I recall, I taught that they were both 19th century ideologies”
“Hint:
Capitalism is a 14th Century ideology.”

Well, no.
Capitalism is NOT an ideology.