Questions on where we go from here
We in the world are facing our greatest challenge ever. Over the next 50 years we will face what Europe faced when Rome fell, and what China faced when the Empires fell – only we will face it all over the globe, and we will face climate change which will feel like the rug pulled out from under our feet. Many of us will die; I’ve seen estimates that world population over this century will shrink from the present 6.5 billion to 1 billion. But maybe ‘only’ three billion people will die…
At the same time, we face a leadership (on just about every level in the United States, and on many levels throughout the world) that is stubbornly refusing to admit that anything needs to change. These are the men who won and wield power under the current state of affairs; they have everything to lose, and it is in their interest to convince themselves, and all the rest of us if we are fools enough to listen to them, that all we need is more of the same actions, behavior, and attitudes that got us into this bind. Yeah, that’s the ticket, all right.
What we need, then, is a revolution.
But when things are this bad, and the people are facing a leadership this powerful, this obstinate, and this ruthless, any challenge to the status quo will be met with guns and brutal repression.
Here’s a question to ponder: Why do revolutionaries think they have to kill anybody?
What’s the purpose of violent revolution?
I suppose that the thinking is that no peaceful change is possible, and since the authorities mean to hold onto power by force, only by force may they be toppled.
But when a violent revolution succeeds, it only places in power a new régime that is based on violence, and therefore only really understands violence. This new régime will therefore maintain itself through violence, and that means it will only be put down, in the event it proves mistaken or corrupt, by more violence … and so it goes, round and round.
Why can’t a revolution refrain from being a revolution at all?
Why can’t a revolution be a movement?
If you intend to build, you can’t start by destroying, however tempting you might find it. Whenever you start out by destroying, you blaze a trail of further destruction, and construction (which is what we really need now) is only that much harder to achieve.
My advice to anybody seriously concerned about the coming catastrophe – as we all ought to be – is to turn your back on your obstinate leaders standing four-square in the way. Just start building your own society, the society as you understand it ought to work now, and through the collapse, and after the collapse.
We need to build a sustainable society in a sustainable world.
If we can manage it, it will be the first time we will have done so – ever.
Forget the ‘noble savage’ mythology.
Think of the future.
Do whatever you can – whatever the obstinate, gun-toting leaders don’t absolutely stop you from doing – do it now with your family, your friends, your neighbors. Study and learn all that you can. Publish what you know and have learned, disseminate it freely and as widely as you can, trade and share with all the others.
We will be small, lonely groups in the great darkness, at first.
This is not a failing, it is the basis of understanding.
Nobody knows what we should do, what is the truly sustainable society. Not yet.
If a million efforts bloom, most will be wrong, all the way. Many will get only a little part of the answer. Others will get a large part of the answer. If we are very lucky, maybe one effort out of the million will understand it all.
Share what you know, and listen to the others with an open heart.
We can all trade up toward that full understanding.
If your leaders block you, think always of being like water against stone. Give way, yield, don’t fight back. Be humble. Be the bending willow, and not the stiff, breaking oak. Leave it to your leaders to be stone and oak. Be you water or willow.
Do whatever you can, be it ever so little. Do whatever is allowed for you to do. Break no laws. Help others who seek the answer. Join in league with them. Raise up the banner.
The violent revolution is the typhoon sweeping over the coast. It smashes, it wrecks, it floods – it passes.
The peaceful, determined movement is the flood rising with the groundwater. It surrounds, envelopes, drowns, engulfs, swallows, devours, rots. It takes its time but there is nothing that can resist it.
(Composed on keyboard Saturday, September 13, 2008)
