Frank Rich, writing in his New York Times column:
For eight years, we’ve been told by those in power that we are small, bigoted and stupid — easily divided and easily frightened. This was the toxic catechism of Bush-Rove politics. It was the soiled banner picked up by the sad McCain campaign, and it was often abetted by an amen corner in the dominant news media. We heard this slander of America so often that we all started to believe it, liberals most certainly included. If I had a dollar for every Democrat who told me there was no way that Americans would ever turn against the war in Iraq or definitively reject Bush governance or elect a black man named Barack Hussein Obama president, I could almost start to recoup my 401(k). Few wanted to take yes for an answer.
So let’s be blunt. Almost every assumption about America that was taken as a given by our political culture on Tuesday morning was proved wrong by Tuesday night.
If we can be so wrong about those things, perhaps it’s possible we are wrong about how we Americans will respond to population pressure, CO2 emissions, land degradation, and water shortages in our own country and poverty worldwide.
Read Rich’s refreshing column and if you’re in need of a good laugh follow this link which he provides.
One such short-sighted meme is that dealing effectively with the environment/climate-crisis will damage the economy. A forward-looking flip of that meme is that retooling the economy for green will boost it. I suppose in the current financial crisis we could flip the Shock Doctrine story around, and rather than letting it just be an opportunity for forcing through bad memes (such as those of unlimited-growth free-market capitalism) we could pick up on the good memes. People such as Soros have been making the same connection: re-capitalize the system into the green.
So the stories of such approaches need to be publicized and told in a convincing way. This was a high-participation election, so we all became part of the story and were ourselves (whether blue or red for the most part) transformed. Midnight EST November 4th was as amazing as 9/11, not just for USA but for the whole world.
If it’s not details of argument or of logic that shift people’s centers/assumptions/paradigms, but cathartic stories or experiences, then learning how to tell, and actually telling and sharing such stories, may be the most important thing we can do.
I sat transfixed in front of my TV here in Ottawa that Tuesday night. For eight long years I had assumed that all was lost in the USA, and by extension, in the world. Emerging from that long dark night of the soul was an indescribable, ecstatic experience.
I have been watching the world spiral towards doom for several years now. A sense of ineluctability has suffused my growing comprehension of the probable outcome of the converging crises in ecology, energy and economics. That combination of severity and inevitability left me in deep, mortal despair for a long time. I finally accepted that there is no technical “solution” waiting in the wings to be discovered or applied, but even that equanimity simply left me in a limbo of hopeless acceptance.
Then earlier this year I finally understood that the road out of our predicament can only be orthogonal to the problem space itself. If we cannot hope to change the trajectory of our world. all that’s left is to change ourselves. Personal transformation, in which individuals change to become metaphorical “imaginal cells” in the caterpillar body of humanity offers at least a glimmer of hope, esoteric though it may be.
But is such a transformation possible on a scale large enough to affect humanity as a whole? I was still unsure of that until midnight on that delirious Tuesday. It was then that I understood that such a metamorphosis was not only possible, but was happening in front of my eyes. In that moment the signs I had seen in Paul Hawken’s description of “Gaia’s antibodies” in his book “Blessed Unrest” were validated.
Our civilization may not have a future in its present form, but the idea that we have a chance to chrysalize and emerge as something completely new fills me with an irrational flood of optimism.
Gobama, the Butterfly President!
I’ve felt that “irrational flood of optimism” too, Paul. Now that it’s passed and I’m left with what might be called a warm glow of renewed possibilities, I’m thinking a lot about Mark’s idea of how to shift “people’s centers/assumptions/paradigms” by learning to tell “cathartic stories or experiences” as you have at http://www.paulchefurka.ca/.
In my new locale in the Washington, DC, suburbs I’m rather stunned by how far we have to go. Back on the rural California north coast with its low population and vast natural resources the level of consumption was not in my face as it is here. There are several good stories to tell in this if I can learn how to do it.
As part of my transformation I’m now resolutely opposed to any proposals that will increase or maintain economic activity. Growth has been THE human problem for millennia. Encouraging more of it at this point, no matter what its colour, seems malignantly, malevolently counter-productive.
Enough, already. Let’s go gracefully back to being a part of nature. Yes, there will be some costs, but they will be much lower than the cost of clinging to this story, staying attached to the illusions we have spun around us, staying stuck in the present because of a fear of the future.
I’d like to be able to characterize what “being a part of nature” means to me in a way that tells the whole story. That’s a big project.
Part of it involves understanding in some detail at what level of comfort — in terms of energy systems and material things — and what sort of social systems can sustain a viable population on this planet for the long haul. Being able to articulate that with some fidelity is, I think, necessary to telling the story and changing minds.
I hope this doesn’t sound hopelessly negative, but what is the point of understanding in detail how many human angels could dance on the head of this pin in perpetuity?
If such an understanding is to have any purpose beyond personal satisfaction, it should be able to feed some sort of planned process to get us to a point of sustainability. If such a planned process is not possible, then the value of the understanding is moot. We’d will still arrive at a sustainable combination of numbers and consumption of course, but we’d do it the old-fashioned way.
I believe there is a very low probability that humanity will implement a coordinated, planned descent. That conviction leads me to the conclusion that we should spend the time and effort it would take figuring out how to square that circle on more productive pursuits — like teaching people how to accept reality, revel in change and redefine their definitions of success and growth.
On the need for scientific education regarding the human overpopulation of Earth in these early years of Century XXI………..
Dear Friends,
I want to at least try to gain your quick help. I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but yesterday the “AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population” submitted an idea for how we think the Obama Administration could change America. It’s called “Ideas for Change in America.”
I’ve submitted an idea and wanted to see if you could vote for it. The title is: Accepting human limits and Earth’s limitations. You can read and vote for the idea by clicking on the following link:
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/accepting_human_limits_and_earths_limitations
The top 10 ideas are going to be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day and will be supported by a national lobbying campaign run by Change.org, MySpace, and more than a dozen leading nonprofits after the Inauguration. So each idea has a real chance at becoming policy.
Thanks.
Sincerely yours,
Steve
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176