What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire

Some things in this world are just inevitable: my hair continuing to fall out; the change of seasons; the collapse of complex civilizations. (Actually, that second example may have to be revised…)

So I guess it was inevitable that Todd would one day soon watch The Secret. Of course he would. He snoops my computer and the Internet like a search engine with a grudge, nosing around in every nook and cranny, looking for information to help him understand what’s going on in the world, and for ideas about how he’s supposed to help me. So by creating a Reviews page on my website, and adding a link to Carolyn Baker’s review of The Secret (she mentions What a Way to Go at the end…), I was pretty much assured that Todd would find it.

He did. He followed the links and watched it last night. I’m not sure how that works, a ghost “watching” a movie inside of a computer. I asked him once and he said it’s like his eyeballs become a television screen, but since Todd doesn’t actually have eyeballs anymore, the metaphor is limited.

In any event, there was the equally inevitable yellow sticky on my desktop this morning when I got up. A yellow sticky means excited, happy, joyful, full of anticipation. It said only this: dude when you watch the secret youll have some hope again

‘Scuse me, while I hiss this sigh… Todd seems to get it, and then he backslides. No surprise, I guess. That’s how it was for me before my inevitability switch got flipped.

Wearily, I sat down and started typing, not knowing whether Todd was around or not. “Yeah, I’ve seen it,” I wrote. “But I somehow missed the hope thing.”

There was no response. Todd was probably off surfing the net, “riding the wires” as he calls it. Knowing he’d be back, I opened my inbox and read articles on how the spring cold snap has devastated crops, on a deadly new fungus spreading around the globe on the heals of a warming climate, on the failure of Arctic sea ice to fully reform for the third year in a row, on yet another tribal people being ripped off.

As I often do after reading through a bad patch of news and analysis, I got up and did something physical, grounding myself in the present of my life. I washed dishes. I cleaned out a cupboard. I took some stuff to the local recycling center.

When I got back, Todd had returned: so you missed the hope dude how could you we can create our own reality its in the science its a law of the universe we can solve this world situation all we have to do is create it youve got to stop talking about collapse and extinction dude because youre actually creating those things you say you watched it but you didnt get it go watch it again go watch it again and then come back and tell me its bullshit

Todd was right. I got up, went downstairs, watched The Secret again, and then came back to my computer.

“Todd,” I typed. “It’s bullshit.”

why why do you always do this why is it bullshit its a law its in the science how can it be bullshit

Where to start? Luckily, I had some help. I put fingers to keyboard and let ‘er rip.

“There’s a million things to say,” I said, “but many good points have already been made, and better than I could make them. Carolyn Baker’s wide-ranging review puts The Secret in its historical setting, aligning it with the long held American assumptions of exceptionalism and superiority. She compares Americans to self-absorbed young children, oblivious to limits and convinced they can have anything they want. They have no sense of “enough” and are largely ignorant of the effect their attitude is having on the rest of the community of life, and on those peoples who live outside of this bubble of wealth and comfort. As the culture of consumption and entitlement is currently fouling its own nest, the last thing we needs is a movie like The Secret to feed these attitudes.”

Todd had no quick response so I continued.

“Matt Savinar nailed another aspect in his analysis, pointing out that The Secret is a distortion of a truth, made to produce a psychological effect. In this case, the effect is to encourage people to consume and splurge and go into debt, a result that certainly aligns with “the powers that be”. It turns positive thinking into a religion and makes negative thinking a heretical act. And it distracts people from seeing the connections between their consumptive lifestyles on the one hand and the destruction and death necessary to maintain that lifestyle on the other.”

“Tim Watkin, writing about the book version of The Secret for The Washington Post, goes after the central idea in the book and movie – the law of attraction – a get-rich-quick scheme that ignores such realities as “hard work, talent, education, even luck” in favor of quick and painless visualization and wishing on a star. Watkin notes the psychological and financial damage this is doing to people, and points out the “insidious flip side” of “create your own reality” magical thinking: blame the victim. If your thoughts are what bring you wealth and happiness, they are also what bring you illness, poverty and misery. A tough idea to hold onto when conversing with a starving child in Darfur.

“Johann Hari, reviewing The Secret for The Independent, points out that “The Law of Attraction” gives a false scientific sheen to what he calls “the most extreme strain of positive thinking yet preached.” He notes how “the rise of self-help exactly coincides with the decline of faith in collective political solutions.” The Secret, like the self-help genre in general, serves to convince people that the problem is within them, and that they should not look outside themselves, toward the actions of political systems or corporate entities, to understand and gain control of their miserable lives. As such, The Secret is “a pure expression of Bushism: a slop of rancid aspiration-speak masking selfishness, social collapse and religious myth-making.”

“Bo Lozoff at the Human Kindness Foundation calls The Secret “a childish exaggeration of a minor energetic principle”, a self-indulgent pseudo-spirituality which he compares, point by point, with “the religion it most closely exemplifies” – Satanism. As Lozoff says, “It’s all just so sad…..”

I stopped. Todd has pasted a sticky right in the middle of my document. It said this: oh

Todd is smart. He is a creature of Empire, to be sure, born in captivity to the dominator culture, a culture that is largely insane. But he is also smart. I’d seen this before. When new information and analysis reaches him, he can get it. The only trouble is making it stick. That takes a while.

Another sticky: that makes sense

And another: still something seems true there

“Yep. There is a bit of truth in The Secret, a baby in that bathwater. Our thoughts and beliefs and attitudes can shape our experience of our own lives, and lead us down pathways carved out by those beliefs. Like, duh. We all know this. It’s why we fall for the trick. We see the bit of truth, take the hook, and end up swallowing the whole fishy thing. The story of civilization and Empire is the story of just that bit of truth, as the beliefs and attitudes and thoughts of Empire have led us marauding across the planet, raping and pillaging and consuming as we went. Some secret. But the fact that our beliefs and attitudes shape our actions and experience does not translate into the infantile magical thinking of The Secret. That bathwater is as cold and putrid as it gets, and that baby is nearly dead.”

“That our thoughts can shape our reality is only one process. It’s equally true that our reality shapes our thoughts. And it’s equally true a million other things. This new sport of Extreme Positive Thinking supports the acquisition of wealth and power, and totally ignores the reality of cause and effect. It’s NIMBY to the nth degree. And it’s exactly the sort of thing that the framing conditions of this culture allow and encourage, as David Edwards explained so eloquently in his book Burning All Illusions. Anything that supports the notion that we’re to blame for our own pain, and in control of our own lives, anything that keeps the focus on the individual, ends up keeping the focus off of those who are profiting by the destruction of this planet. It’s dangerous beyond belief. And it’s bullshit.”

nimby

“Not in my back yard. The externalization of costs. The entitled American reaction when the destruction our lifestyle engenders actually has the nerve to impinge upon our comfort-addled lives. Not in my back yard. I get to enjoy the wealth, but I don’t have to think about the costs to the rest of the world. Like the folks in the Appalachian mountains now complaining about mountaintop removal. I’m all for stopping that practice. I grieve the destruction of the land, the soil, the trees and plants, the rivers, the animals. I’m deeply sorry for the pain and loss it has caused. But I find it very difficult to feel much sympathy for those people who only start complaining and protesting when the assault of Empire reaches their own back doors. They don’t have much to say when that same destruction rains down on the heads of others - other peoples, other lands, other species.”

dude thats pretty harsh how can you say that most of those people have no idea how their lifestyle is hurting the rest of the planet I didnt I mean I did but I never let it sink in Id heard about it and all but it just didnt matter I couldnt think of it

“I know. The people of Empire have been dumbed down and damaged beyond belief. Just to survive they’ve had to shut down to the destruction around them. I know that. I grieve it. And yet, sometimes, my anger takes hold. It’s a struggle I’ve been going through for years. I don’t yet have the answer.”

so your fear is that the secret will further encourage people to consume and amass wealth and not see how those actions are destroying the planet because those costs are hidden to them and not in their back yards is that right

“Yep. You got it. The ruling elite could not have devised a better tool to further the aims of Empire.”

Todd waited a minute and then posted one last sticky: I think I know how to help you

Then he was gone. I asked what he meant but got no reply.

I can’t wait to see what’s next.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 at 10:59 am and is filed under Tim's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.