Clarifications on Collapse

[kmo]

This stems from a comment thread on Doug Lain's Facebook page:

The bold items are Doug's first attempt to summarize my position on collapse.

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One: Social Collapse is very likely because of our reliance on fossil fuels.

I think society can and probably will survive the decline of industrial

Comments

[kingofeagles]

I think that these discussions between the two of you have been very interesting. I've re-listened to them recently and have a few comments. First, there was a discussion about whether the economy is a part of nature. It seemed to me that you guys were hung up on a false dichotomy. Economy is both natural and artificial. Every living thing has a personal economy, that is, it's give and take with its environment. Our economy is built upon the natural world and everything that we have comes from the Earth. However, the term "economy" and our conception of it is an artifice. An apple that you pick off of the tree and eat is a natural act of economy. An apple that is grown on a farm, purchased as a commodity, handled by a dozen middle men, and sold halfway around the world at a profit is an act of artificial economy. The more abstract the transaction gets, the more artificial it becomes. The more artificial it becomes, the more energy it requires to maintain.

Regarding the points 3 and 4, I have to say that although I think Doug is great and I love Diet Soap, I find his infatuation with radical politics to be irksome. The reason that Marxism has failed is the same reason that democracy fails in the middle east. That is, grassroots forms of organization like Marxism and democracy must arise from the people. Not political leaders with backs to scratch. Not privileged intellectuals with more theories than life experience. And definitely not from people with clean fingernails. The revolution will not be overnight and it will not be violent and it will not be political. It will be from people in their communities pitching in and making their world the way they want it to be, slowly and with intent. Politics is the art of interacting with people you don't know. The revolution will be apolitical. That is, a revolution of the community, from the individual out and from the bottom up.

[kingofeagles]

Thanks for the response, Doug!
My "definition" of politics is an intuitive one rather than a literal one. But I think it holds true in a general way. One time I was listening to a conservative friend of mine go off on some Limbaugh-esque rant about poor people leaching off of the system. And while he was talking it occurred to me that he had no idea what these people are going through. That he was really clueless about the lives the other half lives. As quickly as that thought dawned on me, the idea scaled back and back to show a macro view of the same idea. Essentially, everyone's political view is based very shallow information at best, and is really an extrapolation of our own psychology upon the world. If my friend, who is a funny, kindhearted, generous person despite being a conservative knucklehead was face-to-face with someone receiving government aid, he wouldn't have been so blustery. That's why I, in a nutshell, say that "politics is the art of dealing with people you don't know."

"If you know somebody then issues about power will naturally work themselves out." Issues about power will work themselves out if the parties involved want to work them out. The more resistance there is to the conversation, the more likely the issues won't be worked out. But if the parties involved know each other, the process is lubricated somewhat.