Orlov and the Wonderful, Terrible, Radical Simplification
I just finished reading Dmitri Orlov’s article, The Five Stages of Collapse, published on the Energy Bulletin. I highly recommend it. Orlov helped me, as I believe he intended, to visualize and come to more concrete terms with the likely course of The Collapse of Western Civilization. He presents a lucid picture of what the unwinding will look like in the United States or, as the case may be, the coming “North American Union.” Which political entity will be in place depends, of course, on whether the powers that be will have time to implement their more elaborate political plans for control and domination before the balloon bursts and their insane schemes fall apart.
I very much appreciate Orlov’s analysis and I want to offer a couple of additional perspectives that occurred to me as I thought about it. First, he is incredibly clear and thoughtful about the economic, political and social conditions, but does not factor in the impending torrent of wild fluctuations in weather and climate. To me those forces, as well as global fossil fuel shortages, are likely to hasten the movement through the stages he describes, to accelerate the process. It’s rather sobering to consider crop failures, serious interruptions or losses of basic fuel imports, and likely power grid disruptions from weather events, in additon to the economic and financial failures already in motion.
The other issue that occurs to me is that Orlov doesn’t point to any ultimate “good” to come of collapse, either for humans or for the non-human world. The tone of his article suggests only a sense of failure, that we have “fucked up,†collectively, and that there’s not much to feel but a kind of stupidity and despair, as well as, of course, alarm. It brings to my mind the image of a teenager who stumbles out of a police car, having totaled the family car, seriously injured his girlfriend now in an ambulance on the way to the hospital, with six too many beers already vomited into the ditch, and muddy clothes torn, on a rainy night. He’s scraped up but still able to shamefully stagger into the house, aware that there is no way to avoid the horror and wrath of critical parents. There’s no suggestion of greater meaning inherent in this image, nor is there a larger context from which to view the scene. The kid fucked up and it’s a big mess. It is easy to see this culture in those terms. Collectively, we, the people of civilization, have fucked up and it IS indeed a big mess. Despite the contributions of Mozart, Einstein, and countless other human luminaries, as a whole we’ve brought the planet into a global mass extinction event that has the potential to rival the end Permian extinction, when more than 90% of all species were lost. It’s that bad.
Still, I see it in a larger context. I see the collapse as a piece of the story of the human, a real live myth, a very big and very profound story. I see this time and these events in ways that I imagine Gaia or Mother Earth may see them. What all of this represents is a vitally necessary process of cleansing and balancing. At it’s best, what we are involved in, and witness to, is a spiritual initiation rite of the highest order for an adolescent species in sore need of such an initiation. The stakes are extremely high, as well they should be. It’s hard, sobering, and at times shameful to look at our drunken, disconnected, destructive behavior. But I sense that we are in the hands of Elders, the forces of Life, our ancestors, or even maybe just simply the laws of biology, evolution, and physics, but certainly powers older and greater than the inflated collective, civilized human ego in the midst of this wild and unrestrained adolescence brought about by the fossil fuel age. If we, some of us anyway, are willing to stay the course of this initiation, we may make it through to adulthood and beyond. Or not. But if we do not then the species was not up to the task. We won’t get to become a mature species. The process of incorporating big brains and opposable thumbs into a carbon based world will have to begin again. It will be a tragic loss. But at any rate it’s a good and meaningful story to be a character in. Better this than “Leave It To Beaver.”
While Orlov doesn’t touch on the profound mythos here, I still heartily recommend reading the whole article. His new book is likely even better. Here is a brief excerpt, where Orlov describes the stages:
Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in “business as usual” is lost. The future is no longer assumed to resemble the past in any way that allows risk to be assessed and financial assets to be guaranteed. Financial institutions become insolvent; savings are wiped out, and access to capital is lost.
Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that “the market shall provide” is lost. Money is devalued and/or becomes scarce, commodities are hoarded, import and retail chains break down, and widespread shortages of survival necessities become the norm.
Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that “the government will take care of you” is lost. As official attempts to mitigate widespread loss of access to commercial sources of survival necessities fail to make a difference, the political establishment loses legitimacy and relevance.
Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that “your people will take care of you” is lost. As local social institutions, be they charities, community leaders, or other groups that rush in to fill the power vacuum, run out of resources or fail through internal conflict.
Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in the goodness of humanity is lost. People lose their capacity for “kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity” (Turnbull, The Mountain People). Families disband and compete as individuals for scarce resources. The new motto becomes “May you die today so that I die tomorrow” (Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago). There may even be some cannibalism.
The word “collapse” implies for most people something highly negative. No doubt it is important to be sober about the level of shock and suffering that will be entailed in this process. But it is also important, in order to be able to imagine any light at the end of the tunnel, to play with other language that could also describe the process we find ourselves in.
For example, it feels very different to say: “We are on the brink of the radical simplification of human society on the planet.†Joseph Tainter, author of The Collapse of Complex Societies, describes collapse as a reduction in the scope and complexity of a society. We’re going to find ourselves with far less complex systems due to less availability of fossil energy to support those complex systems, but also due to greater stresses on basic systems of food production, shelter, heating, water availability, etc. These stresses will be result from climate change and ecological overshoot, by which we’ve seriously damaged the life support systems, the ecosystems, of our local landbases.
The word collapse calls up images of horror. And that’s not inappropriate. But images of collapse inspire no visions of ultimate benefit. On the other hand the term radical simplification could sound a different chime for people exhausted from the current wage slave system, where the many work ever harder to stuff the ever more soft and opulent feather beds of the few elite. Radical simplification of life, if people would slow down enough to contemplate it, could actually feel like a breath of non-polluted air. Too many people, most people I would venture to say, and even those with currently stable incomes, are incredibly lonely. They sit in quiet despair in front of their television sets or walk the malls with iPods stopping their ears, or drink beers and soullessly cheer at yet another sporting event, forever in frantic search of more distraction. For most, collapse will be, alternatively, either a shock or, if it proceeds slowly, just a heightened erosion of already degraded and meaningless lives. The coming transition will not be pretty for the bewildered herd. But for visionaries and cultural creatives collapse, or radical simplification, likely calls up what may seem to be paradoxical feelings of relief and even empowerment. I’ve heard more than one friend recently exclaim, “Bring it on. I’m sick of this shit.”
Joseph Tainter suggests that the fall of the Roman Empire was not, except for the elite, a step back. According to Wikipedia,
We often assume that the collapse of the Roman Empire was a catastrophe for everyone involved. Tainter points out that it can be seen as a very rational preference of individuals at the time, many of whom were actually better off (all but the elite, presumably). Archeological evidence from human bones indicates that average nutrition actually improved after the collapse in many parts of the former Roman Empire. Average individuals may have benefited because they no longer had to invest in the burdensome complexity of empire.
While mainstream culture, and it’s majority, have no realistic idea what’s brewing, there are many movements towards simplification already sprouting, perhaps from an intuitive sense, amongst the sensitive and creative, that the current system is in free-fall and about to go splat on hard pavement. Local food, local, cooperative business, the growing co-housing and communities movements, and small but aware groups now gather to educate their neighbors about the impending crises, as is evidenced in the “relocalization movement†typified by national groups like the Post Carbon Institute, The Community Solutions, and more local groups like Boulder Going Local.
The relocalization movement, already seeded in many minds, if not in huge numbers of actual locations yet, will grow best and fastest from the composted detritus and decay of the fossil fueled consumer culture. Orlov suggests that decay has already begun and will culminate in Stages 3 and 4, hopefully avoiding Stage 5. While I don’t relish the suffering that all of this will entail, I do welcome the open and more fertile ground that will open up as we move away from the current dominant culture and paradigm. The decay of large systems of control and domination will foster the possibility of reconnection to place, to non-human life, and to one another in families and small communities, like we have not seen for generations, perhaps centuries. We have the opportunity to become members of local communities grounded in the reality of the planet.
I don’t have a sense that Orlov holds any such sentiment. I use the word sentiment in it’s highest sense: the thought that it is necessary for us as a species to pass through terribly trying physical times and rigorous spiritual exercise is one based on pure sentiment. I possess a basic and enduring love for the capacities we have as human beings: our abilities to love deeply, to care immensely, and to be consciously, intimately and passionately connected to all of life.
I very much appreciate Orlov for giving us a likely map to the unwinding because it reinforces for my rational self what my heart has intuitively come to: it’s time to get out of highly populated areas, to find a small, remote town or village where there is the possibility of coming together to provide for the essentials locally, apart from the larger systems that are about to crumble.
As I read Orlov’s analysis I felt ever more convinced of the dangers of dependence on the larger structures for one’s basic needs. But I could also see that there clearly resides the possibility, and even likelihood, that for some of us who are aware and making rapid preparation, that collapse, necessary radical simplification, is likely to foster the growth of innumerable small bastions of sanity, deep humanity and growing spirituality. In those places we will work with great purpose toward the regeneration of natural systems and the evolution of loving connection across species, generations, races and sexes.
If we wake up now, see the handwriting on the wall of this prison and walk away from it, we can sit together in circle with one another, and with the whole community of our landbase, to weather the huge storms that will rage around us. And as the storms abate, those of us who have done our work, our mental, emotional, spiritual and physical work, with the help of greater forces, will have the opportunity to make amends, to work to offer deep reparation for the harm we have collectively caused. With grace, we, and our descendants, will also have the chance to water and care for the seed of re-member-ing our deeper ancestral selves, our ancient legacy of consciousness, that honored life in all it’s forms. What a Way to Go.
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March 1st, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Dear Sally,
This is very powerful. By far my favorite entry of all.
Bring it on–I’m sick of this shit!!
Thank you for sharing your deep wisdom, and for possessing “….a basic and enduring love for the capacities we have as human beings: our abilities to love deeply, to care immensely, and to be consciously, intimately and passionately connected to all of life….”
-Roxanne
March 1st, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Dear Sally
Many thanks for this excellent article; I think your take on our current predicament is becoming increasingly refined and accurate. That’s exactly how we see it. I really like the way you have extended Orlov’s analysis by defining collapse as necessary radical simplification. Nothing bad is occurring; it’s all good. Bring it on – definitely!
As for us, we now have our 25 acres in the foothills of the Southern Alps on the South Island of New Zealand. We see it as farming and guns – farming for food, and guns to keep the ravening hordes away! Strong and well-organised communities will survive to inherit the future.
Keep up the good work!
Love to all, Robin & Adrienne Scott
March 1st, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Thanks.
I think Orlov’s best work is the comparison between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
March 1st, 2008 at 10:21 pm
I was so taken with your article that I just had to read it aloud to my wife who very quickly was screaming at me to shut up, that she didn’t want to hear it and that I (and you) were going to be very sorry when things turn out the way you (and I) seem to think. I am very much in the “bring it on. I’m sick of this shit†camp but she is still hoping against hope that civilization will be able to kick the can down the road until our future grandkids are grown. One thing is certain though, ain’t none of us, neither we nor our children nor our children’s children are going to survive this thing, even if by luck we should all eventually die just of old age and natural causes. The shitstorm that is now beginning will still be unfolding for hundreds and thousands of years. Bring it on. Humanity roamed the earth for hundreds of thousands of years and longer without central heating and air conditioning and plastic salad shooters and can do it again. We came of age in the last great ice age. Whatever hand the earth and karma deals us, let’s strive to live our lives with courage and grace. Hopefully it won’t be empty posturing and we can pass an ethic of true maturity on to our posterity.
March 1st, 2008 at 11:58 pm
LLPete:
I think you are right. I’m sick also of the touchy-feelies who think they can ‘love’ and ‘hug’ their way out of the shitstorm. It is going to be Chaos: not unstructured chaos, but the kind that makes fractal patterns; Sensitive dependence on initial conditions. The better you know your neighbors, the more prepared you are, the better you will be able to influence the outcome, but you can’t even shoot your way out if the government comes with tanks take your guns (or take you to fight in the oil/water/floodplain wars). We all need to work from our point of defense and source of food/water/shelter to build networks, but we damn sure aren’t going to be in control except for as far as we can reach out and ‘touch’ someone with a pitchfork or a rifle. Everyone will be shooting whomever they please to get whatever they need or want. You will have to be a better neighbor or a better shot. Both will be useful skills.
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:21 am
LLPete
Thank you – ‘whatever hand the Earth and Karma deals us, let’s strive to live our lives with courage and grace’. Absolutely right on, man.
Respect, Robin
March 2nd, 2008 at 4:30 am
Right on, Sally! I’m with you all the way: “And as the storms abate, those of us who have done our work, our mental, emotional, spiritual and physical work, with the help of greater forces, will have the opportunity to make amends, to work to offer deep reparation for the harm we have collectively caused. With grace, we, and our descendants, will also have the chance to water and care for the seed of re-member-ing our deeper ancestral selves, our ancient legacy of consciousness, that honored life in all it’s forms.”
With love to you and Tim,
Suzanne
March 2nd, 2008 at 6:44 am
I have always liked analogies as they usually simplify rather complicated situations. I have one today that I would like to share with you. I am thinking that the process that we as Americans are going through today is like a long train that is stretched out into the far distance. On board the train in various types of cars are seated the majority of the American Public. Some are in luxuriously appointed coaches and for a very privileged few we find them in private cars. Some are in sleeper cars and a minority are either riding in boxcars or cattle cars and a few are riding the rails. In the locomotive are a few deranged engineers. Scattered among the passengers are the conductors who are our politicians who keep assuring us that they are taking care of everything, so just sit back and enjoy the ride. As the train speeds along, drinks are being served and entertainment composed of old movies from the past are being shown on wide TV screens. Outside the windows we can see numerous large electronic signboards telling us what to expect when we reach our destination, however these displays do not indicate the time of arrival or the final destination but they are providing information that is thought to be helpful to the wary passengers. There are numerous large signboards that tell us how well off we all are and we are to not worry because the train is in good working order and safe from any robbers and the tracks ahead are clear and in good repair. Occasionally we see small groups of people standing alongside with signs and banners with messages telling the passengers to get off the train because whatever your destination is it will not be what you expected. In the locomotive only the engineer knows where he is taking this train and he is absolutely convinced that he is on the right track and he will get the passengers where they need to be even if he kills all of them including himself in the process. Meanwhile back at the railroad headquarters the board of directors are sitting in their comfortable leather overstuffed chairs, smoking Cuban cigars and drinking toasts to the success of this final train ride and congratulating themselves on this experiment that has taken many years in various planning stages and now is close to fruition. Now the master plan goes like this. The people in the private cars along with their servants are heading for an extremely well protected gated community where they will have all the accoutrements befitting their exalted positions in the new society. Those in the box cars, and cattle cars along with those riding the rails and many of the coach passengers are headed for the long term containment facilities where they will be confined indefinably to become the industrial work force. Those who dissent will be placed on a one-way rail trip to a final solution camp where they will be erased from history. Those few remaining in the coaches will be relocated to well organized communities where they will be given positions and privileges contingent upon their acceptance of whatever they are told by the conductors who are answerable only to the Board of directors of the corporation. Way down the tracks are a small group of militants who have secreted a large supply of explosives sufficient to derail this train, but there are also those among them who are dedicated to putting out warning flares far enough in front of the onrushing train which will give the engineer ample warning to stop the train before it runs over the peaceful protesters who will be lying on the tracks.
I leave it to you to finish this story.
March 2nd, 2008 at 11:03 am
Jack Finley: Great analogy, Jack. I would just like to add to the story that the train is a variable entity. It could be Tim’s train to hell, or it could be just the general train to the future. The various classes on the train think they are somewhere they are not. The rich think they are driving the train, the poor are told they are riding the roof of the freight cars. I think the richer people are, the less necessary they are to the train, and the farther they are from the engine, but the more they are weighing it down when it crosses the old rickety bridge of change. The poor who are actually shoveling the coal into the engine don’t realize they could have just pulled the pins to the Rich cars and left them to sit and rot, while lightening their own burden of shoveling coal to keep things rolling. If it wasn’t for the hyperactivity of the Screaming Rich, then the train could travel at a leisurely pace and everyone could take turns enjoying the scenery and the conversation.
If you aren’t working for and paying those who are richer than you, what are you good for in this Economy Train?
Even if we pull the pins now, the rich payload at the back of the train will crash into us when we slow down, or drag us all down into the Pit of Despair when the whole thing tries to cross the Rickety Bridge of Change.
March 2nd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Jack Finley wrote: “I have always liked analogies as they usually simplify rather complicated situations. I have one today that I would like to share with you. I am thinking that the process that we as Americans are going through today is like a long train that is stretched out into the far distance. On board the train in various types of cars are seated the majority of the American Public. Some are in luxuriously appointed coaches and for a very privileged few we find them in private cars. Some are in sleeper cars and a minority are either riding in boxcars or cattle cars and a few are riding the rails….”
Interesting analogy–Did you see the movie, “What A Way To Go” to which this blog-site is dedicated, which Sally produced? ( I watched it last night for the fifth time…)
And, “…Way down the tracks are a small group of militants who have secreted a large supply of explosives sufficient to derail this train, but there are also those among them who are dedicated to putting out warning flares far enough in front of the onrushing train which will give the engineer ample warning to stop the train before it runs over the peaceful protesters who will be lying on the tracks…”
There are also those who are going to blow themselves up with the train; those who see sacrificing their lives in/on the war-train as part of the solution. In fact, if the analogy works, and I think it does, then this train’s been running a long long time, and the derailers with the explosives have been evident in other-than-white / middle-class american culture for just as long—traditional indigenous cultures, “insurgents” in countries this country has battered and bombed, and palestinians come to mind…
March 2nd, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Thanks Sally.
You put my thoughts into such eloquant language – It is wonderful to read. I love the phrase “radical simplification” it’s perfect.
Orlov did not mention the climate or the loss of cheap fossil fuels, I wonder why not?
I live on the West Coast of BC and the spectre of rising sea levels is a concern to me and with no diesel fuel, food costs go up.
I think that the financial situation in the USA is now on everyones’ radar and it has pushed the more relentless but less “sexy” climate and fuel concerns to the outside.
We still need the synthesis of the Orlov financial breakdown with the other two.
Keep up the good work,
Mary
March 2nd, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Why doesn’t anyone remember (or aren’t any old enough?) that some 40 years ago a youth culture came to the fore and quickly knew how to put together community values, actually seemed to have it in hand . . . for a few years, until suddenly the stars in their eyes faded? They forgot the moorings they had briefly established, got hooked by the greed they had dedicated themselves against, and ‘went for the dream’ that those running the society have pushed on us for the long life of this country.
We’re all short-sighted fools . . . always have been! A flash of gold, a glitter of jewels promised, and off we go, chasing after the pie in the sky. BUT THAT GENERATION BRIEFLY SAW THROUGH THE ILLUSION!
I have no idea why their vision suddenly vanished. I, myself, was from an earlier generation, but I was there and I joined briefly with theirs. I was like a Rip-van-Winkle who hadn’t the inspiration that motivated them . . . but similarly, I had no ’stars in my eyes’ to lose. I watched them go for their mess of pottage, thinking they could somehow change the entire system from within. They were wrong, of course, and I knew they were wrong, for I had come out of what they went into. I knew that it was nothing but a deadfall. I knew that I had found something far better than the gold they sought (as they made believe they had higher purposes). Yeah, that was the boomer generation . . . do any of you recall it?
I’m not just here to recite history. I’m talking about What It Was (?) that suddenly possessed them, and just as suddenly vanished, about seven years later. I really don’t think any of them remember it today. But I know, because I continued to live with the star-tears that dropped from their eyes. I left jobs and automobiles, money and the urge for it behind, along with all the ego trips that keep people from seeing how hooked they really are. And just that shadow of a dream continued to work for me . . . so I know it’s real.
I have virtually nothing now; I live on less than $10K a year, but I have everything I need. And it doesn’t include a gun, or any supposition to farming. Yes. What I got from them is real and it is not going to desert me. But I wonder why none of those whom I learned and got it from can remember what it was all about . . . I wonder why they aren’t trying to get back to it.
I sort of think it may be about to return. Not for them, but for a new younger generation. At least, I’m hoping so.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:08 am
“Sick of the shit”
It will be what it will be. Part of me experiences excitment when thinking of a beautiful community of people depending on one another to survive and prosper…..True community like we have not experienced. Tending the land…Valuing all that we are blessed by……A true humility for life and ALL that it offers………..and the other part of me experiences the anguish of what it might look like when people suffer so severly due to ignorance and denial. I work to stay as grounded as possible in each moment…but I feel the shift occuring and continue to stay as focused as possible for whatever the moments present……….I am very fortunate to have friends that are aware and committed to creating a wonderful life in whatever the present situations may be. Know your garden, find your water and when in the river push off and hopefully you have a few good friends with you to celebrate each passing moment………The Hopi also say to watch out for seriousness…………..
Keep your heads above water………..Love your neighbor, they will probably end up a family member………
March 4th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Great stuff, I just wrote an article for my group the AAFANTE Tribe (African Americans Forming A New Tribal Existence) about the above state of affairs. From what I can gather oil was to civilization what crack cocaine became to junkies. Modes of energy have been around on this planet a long, long time, but oil was super charged and it began to be extracted at a time when man had started his for better more productive mousetraps, machines.
Therefore, once man experimented with the many ways oil could be refined and used he invented applications to employ it.
That is much like cocoa. The plant and it’s active ingredient have been around for eons. When it was processed to cocaine people started using it in different ways, drinking it, snorting it and shooting it.
However it was not until the early 1980s when people started refluxing it with baking soda to get to its maximine potential that it began to be consumed in enormous amounts, just as oil and its derivatives did. In a sense civilization is a macrocosm of individual addicts just as singular additive people are microcosms of civilization.
I will post the article next. If it is not appliable please forgive me In advance. I think every human on the planet has a right to know what has happened, what is happening and what will or may happen.
March 4th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I got it. It came to me during sleep time early this morning. I now have a working theory on what we are facing as citizens of civilization, and for me the abstracts finally came together to paint a clearer picture.
So picture this, for 3 million years of so humanoids lived by the original law and that was the “Law of Lifeâ€. That law kept all organic matter in basic harmony. By harmony I don’t mean to suggest that there was no violence, no killing, no theft, not at all. What I am suggesting that the one thing there was not was war.
War as it came to be defined and known is a manifestation of civilization. Fights and battles have existed as long as there have been species on the planet competing for an energy source – food.
The original program or the Law of Life can be observed by simply going into your back yard and looking at natural plant and animal life. One of the first major laws of life was as Quinn put it, it is called, The Law of Limited Competition. It says you may hunt your enemy, but cannot hunt his food supply or limit his food supply. In other words you may hunt and fight but you must not wage war. As you will see the waging of war creates disharmony and unbalance in nature. It makes it extremely hard for nature to rebalance the ravages of war.
Another vital law of life to understand is the strategy of the erratic competitor. These were the rules that tribes operated under until the advent of civilization. It simply says, “I will attack you on occasion and I know you will attack me. I may steal some of your food and even your women. I will give as good as I will take and I shall do it erratically. However, I will not hunt down your food supply or fight you to extinction.
Now this is important. Tribes didn’t operate like this because of some inherent goodness or altruism. They did it because following these unwritten, unspoken and probably un-talked about laws was sustaining. In other words they worked and had worked for millions of years until………
I would think that humans have always had the capacity for greed avarice, sloth, envy, pride, lust, resentment, shame and tribal people were no different. However if anyone of these issues became overwhelming they could and would upset the balance in the tribe.
Therefore it served them well to deal with it as soon as it cropped up. They knew it would happen; they just had very effective ways of handling it and they did.
Ok so the stage was set and the die was cast and if any of you have done the required reading or seen the movie Apocalypto or the latest documentary, “What a Way to Goâ€, you have some idea of the impact of civilization. If you don’t know then I suggest you do your own research.
Here is my theory of what started to drive civilization shortly after it was formed. I think mankind as it came to exist in the culture of civilization over identified with what I am terming and coining, “Collective totalitarian compulsive obsessive greed disorderâ€.
_________________
Mr. Mann
“So called black people have talked themselves into something they cannot talk themselves out of.”
All evidence suggests that war and particularly wars of attrition starts with civilization and the etymology of war is to create confusion one can began to understand that it would be one of the principal weapon for a culture to impose its will upon another. Or as Quinn and the movie refers to it the culture with the one right way for everyone to live. By the way that is the United States Marine Corps definition of war also.
So let’s do a short etymological exercise on greed:
greedy
O.E. grædig “voracious,” also “covetous,” from P.Gmc. *grædagaz (cf. O.S. gradag, O.N. graðr “greed, hunger”), from base *græduz (cf. Goth. gredus “hunger,” O.E. grædum “eagerly”), cognate with Skt. grdh “to be greedy.” In Gk., the word was philargyros, lit. “money-loving.” Greed is 1609 back-formation. A Ger. word for it is habsüchtig, from haben “to have” + sucht “sickness, disease,” with sense tending toward
Notice the reference to hunger at least two times. Do you think it coincidence that scarcity of food emerges with totalitarian agriculture thus producing hunger on a mass scale? That is not to say that tribes didn’t suffer from hunger, but never in the sense to make them greedy because if one was hungry all were hungry. That is a vast difference where in civilization thousands and millions could be hungry and a few “elite†would eat well.
So right away after agriculture we began to see the culture of greed emerge sustained by war.
Next look at the meaning of war meaning, to confuse and perplex. Let’s put this improper context. Tribal people had no conception of war as we know it. There was no need. Why would they want to wipe out their adversaries? What would they have done with the land? Without a means to wage war of attrition the concept didn’t exist, yet. However, when man began to grow hi own food, store it, lock it up, hire former hunters to guard who evolved into a warrior class they could then do something never before done in the history of mankind, wage war.
war
late O.E. (c.1050), wyrre, werre, from O.N.Fr. werre “war” (Fr. guerre), from Frank. *werra, from P.Gmc. *werso (cf. O.S. werran, O.H.G. werran, Ger. verwirren “to confuse, perplex”). Cognates suggest the original sense was “to bring into confusion.” There was no common Gmc. word for “war” at the dawn of historical times. O.E. had many poetic words for “war” (guð, heaðo, hild, wig, all common in personal names), but the usual one to translate L. bellum was gewin “struggle, strife” (related to win). Sp., Port., It. guerra are from the same source; Romanic peoples turned to Gmc. for a word to avoid L. bellum because its form tended to merge with bello- “beautiful.” The verb meaning “to make war on” is recorded from 1154. First record of war time is 1387. Warpath (1775) is from N.Amer. Ind., as are war-whoop (1761), war-paint (1826), war-path (1775), and war-dance (1757). War crime first attested 1906. War chest is attested from 1901; now usually fig. War games translates Ger. Kriegspiel (see kriegspiel).
This my friends was I think the opening of the real Pandora’s box. Once these emotions emerged as the dominate drive of men, no longer checked by the nessicity of continuing the sustaining life style of the small clans, groups and tribes, man was now driven by inner demons that was and still is insatiable. Thus my theory of Collective totalitarian compulsive obsessive greed disorder or CTCOGD. From this comes all other forms of addictions and in a real sense I think it safe to say that the citizens of civilization are addicted to power, control, war and their own demise of course
Tell me what do you think?
_________________
Mr. Mann
“So called black people have talked themselves into something they cannot talk themselves out of.”
March 4th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Mr. Mann:
Two things: First, you have a good analogy. I heard a comedian do a skit just like it. He starts out with people using wood for heat, and that was like tobacco, then coal, which is like marijuana, then oil, which is like crack.
On to the evils of civilization: It’s all in the Marketing. Douglas Adams said “We should never have come down from the trees.” I think that we should never have stopped eating strangers (missionaries and salesmen) that we didn’t know or someone didn’t vouch for. Once you become marketed to, you become marketed yourself to people with bigger markets.
There needs to be some kind of feedback mechanism to limit the reach of Coercion by bullies. The US constitution was supposed to protect individual rights, but the money flowed faster than the wisdom when it came to writing amendments, so the corporations took over all three branches of government plus the ‘free’ press.
In a tribal situation, nature provides the feedback limiter with resource and environment availability. Civilization, then technology has potential to add to species survivability and Net Creativity, but it has to be kept in check. Too late for this go-’round, but perhaps these words or ideas we have will make it through The Hole to the future. (The Hole is about the size of a human being, and is the passageway through to our future.)
March 5th, 2008 at 11:32 am
autiegray, much thanks for the feedback. The tribe I belong to is looking to get more involved in the movement to at least help facilitate the crash. We have no illusion that it can or should be prevented.
Once I got over my pre-dispositional delusion that “they” would take care of it and went through the stages of acceptance I decided tha of I was going out I would go out swinging.
I am not so egotistical to think that man is the alpha and omega nor is he the top of the food chain. I remember reading Dawkins, “The Selfish Gene” several years ago where he suggested that perhaps man is not all he thinks he is. Perhaps he is just a carrier of genes and I add that perhaps man’s so called consciousness is only a trick to make him think he is in control.
What, just what if all of humanity just mere farms for microbes? Makes me kinda humble.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Mr Mann:
I’ll give you two book recommendations right up your line of thought: Derrick Jensen’s “A Language Older Than Words” (bringing down a system that is a threat to everything we love, just as though aliens had landed and were consuming our planet) and Stephen Harold Buhner’s “The Lost Language of Plants” (this one is just freakin’ amazing).
I think the error of humanity lies mostly with religion and marketing (I repeat myself) where humans are taught to separate themselves from the living universe so that they can be sold something. Logically, the most important part of Life is that it is always trying to add complexity. Having a brain is just another adaptation to the environment, no better or worse than any other adaptation. Our own cultures put much more value on speed than on brains. When it comes to consuming resources, we are no smarter than yeast (as a poster signs on The Oil Drum), and if we were to compete with lichens, we would lose. Brains present us with great potential and awareness,( as we demonstrate here), but we don’t always take the actions we know we should (as we are demonstrating by being on the computer when we should be digging a root cellar or building a windmill).
One of the major misconceptions about DNA is that it is a competitive event, when it is actually cooperation with the environment (which includes one’s own DNA and symbiotic organisms) that determines survival. A species survives on it’s ability to add usefulness to the universe’s future. If our oversized frontal lobes provide enough foresight to protect all the species on the planet from an asteroid, then maybe the frustration is worth the investment by the universe. If we instead destroy the life on our planet ourselves, then nature will probably come up with a different plan somewhere else, or once again after we are gone.
March 6th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Hey Irv Thomas – I remember – I was one of them.
And I remember that my WW2 generation mother – a closed-minded reality-fascist whose worldview solidified in the Joe McCarthy era – was viciously horrified when I proclaimed, in my late teens, that her serious emotional and marital problems were a relection of the failure of her whole worldview and way of life.
And she did all she could do to tear me down and try to force me to submit to that the Emotional Plague-ridden way of life euphemistically called “adjustment-normality” and belief in The System.
Yeah, many sold out, but for the most part The System forced us to submit just to survive since we didnt have the money and power to survive outside of it.
Yes, there was higher vision of a spiritual Planetary Renaissance – that big brain’s over-sized frontal lobes can transceive some incredibly beautiful spiritual realities – THAT is what the brain is really for – but it got crushed by the WW2 generation and their clones. If it hadnt, we would all be in a much better position today. To be continued. Joseph
March 9th, 2008 at 2:25 am
Sally, I enjoyed reading your post. I also read the Orlov “Five Stages” article a week or so ago. I thought it was a useful way to look at the “unwinding” of industrial civilization. Note that he urged everyone to dig in their heels and fight like hell when it comes to stage 3…political collapse. We seem to be entering stage 1 at this point in time.
As for fighting against political collapse, I’m not sure we really want to “fight” to keep the current federal government as it is the source of so much sorrow and destruction. A devolution to state governments organized in new regional (bio-regional) federations makes more sense to me. This re-federation should include some Canadian provinces and Mexican states. See Joe Garreau’s book “Nine Nations of North America.” I read this book in the early 1980s and liked what he had to say.
I still maintain that human overpopulation is the major driver in the collapse of industrial civilization. Population growth is a tsunami that is overwhelming and rapidly degrading our environment. Note that Russia under Putin is currently encouraging young men and women to procreate. This is reminiscent of the Nazi programs in the 1930s to encourage racially pure German women to bear children for the Fuhrer and a greater Germany. Now it is for Putin and a greater Russia.
Tainter is good but I found his book pretty dense. For a really good 10,000 year look at what we have “accomplished” I recommend Ronald Wright’s “A Short History of Progress”. He also delivered this book as the 2004 Massey Lecture in Canada. It is available in audio CD at Amazon.
Stay well.
March 10th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
http://deoxy.org/gaia/g_mind.htm
March 10th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Sally, you used the term *Elders* and I wondered exactly what you mean by that.
When one considers the multidimensional cosmic-animistic cosmogony and cosmology of peoples like the Mayans and the Hopi, such a term invokes (in me) the feminine-lunar-right-brain domain that we have lost, or as we have gotten lost, in the dark mazes of the left-brain.
Again, I mention such things in relationship to Tim’s mentioning a while back that he was reading the book 2012 by Pinchbeck, ans, in relationship to my post above.
Below is a link to one of the premier *Gaian Mutants* Warm regards.
http://deoxy.org/gaia/g_mind.htm
March 11th, 2008 at 12:40 am
Joseph,
Sometimes stuff just “gets written” when I’m writing and being in the hands of Elders was one of those things that just got written without me knowing exactly what I meant when i wrote it. I just knew as soon as it was written that something about it felt right, resonated, inside of me. I have experienced too many real, non-rational, things to live inside the small, cramped story of industrial civilization and scientific materialism. I sense the presence of forces beyond those of the individual human ego. Lacking initiated elders in the flesh we may have to open up to finding support and guidance elsewhere. Thanks for asking. And thanks for the link.
best,
sally
March 11th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Sally, great name that is my wife’s alter ego’s name.
I have read quite a few of Jensen’s book and was floored with The Culture of Make Believe and Endgame. I am ordering the book about th elost language of plants.
My group is currently studying the collective and individual ego and how they/it are a requirement of society. I have many questions to seek around this issue.
March 14th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
However, then try to integrate this with…say…one of Carolyn Baker’s latest posts, “Food, Fuel and Fascism.”
Here she remarks that the whole 2012 thing – a massive global transformation of human Consciousness – is not going to happen or isnt going to change anything.
I would say that balancing the ecological perspective, the esoteric spiritual perspective and The Collapse perspective – is definiely riding the tiger on the razor’s edge. regards, J
March 17th, 2008 at 8:36 am
Y’all may be sick of this shit, but a sudden collapse of our “systems” does not fill me with glee at all. In fact, it terrifies me. I work as a planner for local government. Local is great, but at the population densities we currently have, there has to be at least communitywide or regional transportation, wastewater, and other systems. “Local” can means many things, including septic tanks. The proliferation of standard septic tanks (a “local” solution) in environmentally sensitive areas–like aquifers that provide drinking water and water for natural springs–can mean the irreversible pollution of these areas. Advanced septic tanks require electricity to run the pump, and if they are not maintained regularly, they will fail. Shitting in the woods is not adequate for a population of more than perhaps four people. It’s lovely to dream of solar power, for instance, but few people can afford a sufficient bank of solar panels to run their computers and kitchen appliances, hence the need for affordable grid-based power. This isn’t to say that local is bad, regional or national good; it’s to say that dreams have to be subject to reality to become workable. Otherwise, you’re simply forestalling the inevitable crash, which no one in their right mind wants. Frankly, I’m not ready nor do I want to bury large numbers of people, or burn their bodies in funeral pyres, or defend my family at the point of a gun day after day, or rummage through already picked-over empty grocery stores. No way, sir.
March 19th, 2008 at 1:06 am
Brilliant, best yet I’ve read. But still so many questions remain, all related to the speed at which the great unfolding occurs. If its fast, we can make quick decisions on making the big personal transition (ie, liquidating assets, geographic decentralising etc). But if slow, well, we don’t want to seen to be jumping the gun and a bit ‘hasty’ do we? Therein lies the rub. Move now or just ‘ready’ yourself and ‘keep monitoring’? Same as for peak oil – sell the petrol car now or wait a bit longer? Do some training in a more practical trade to sell services in a changed world – or learn how to grow food in the belief that even manual trade type skills won’t get you thru, its pure survival time? None of us know the answer to these questions, but everything hangs off them. Like the stock market, there’s going to be winners and losers every step of the way…..
March 22nd, 2008 at 8:23 pm
And yet this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=541299&in_page_id=1811
goes on. Insane
March 26th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Many thanks. Excellent material. Another analogy: The book “Blessed Unrest” (Paul Hawken) likens the ever-increasing numbers (millions) of people around the world that are working hard to make things right, as the Earth’s immune system kicked into high gear.
I am amazed by the strength and dynamicism of “the movement”. Today is different from a year ago and dramatically different from the year 2000, when people still believed that they couldn’t make a difference.
Whether it’s the empowerment of individuals, and then the creation of critical mass by empowered people joining hands together – - or an awakening – - the transformation is magical. And it’s rapid.
The loss of fear (empowerment) is demonstrated by a simple thing: in Canada it is illegal not to fill in a Census form every 6 years. The intimidation weapon is court and time in jail.. In 2006 thousands of Canadians refused to cooperate, because the Government contracted out part of the census to war-monger and profiteer Lockheed-Martin Corp. There were a couple of websites on which dissenters exchanged support. The Government monitored the websites. People in the majority used fictitious names.
Today – only 2 years later – peole join protest groups and they put not only their name but also their picture “out there”. There is no fear.
When we hide, we rob others and ourselves of necessary support. We become strong when we speak up. We are not in danger from speaking up if we are known. We cannot be known if we’re hiding.
In many ways, as Pogo says, “We have seen the enemy and he is us.” I’ve posted “All Our Cowardice & Servility”, also “Our Greatest Fear” under “Empowerment” on my website http://www.sandrafinley.ca They are a rallying cry to “the good fight”. In spirit, Sandra
May 17th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Ahh…!!
It’s irrelevant and I haven’t read all the text above, but I don’t understand one thing and I’m going to say it here since my email apparently didn’t make a difference:
Why don’t you make your movie available online!!? For free?
It would make such a huge difference in the amount of people you can reach, it’s inconceivable for me how come you’re not doing it!!??
It makes me even question your integrity about this whole thing. This issue concerns the whole world and you’re busy organizing screenings in Canada!?
You can reach millions in a week if you would just upload it to GoogleVideo !! I’m not promising anything but if you would promote it the right way, you may be able to make even more money from the donations from all over the world!
WHY NOT!?
May 19th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Sadunkal,
Of course many people have suggested the same and there may come a time when that feels to be the right thing to do. We have sat and talked with a number of trusted others about this issue.
What it really boils down to is that you, and many others like you, want to see a mass consciousness change where everyone wakes up. Of course that is what we want as well, but perhaps not in the way you are suggesting. We don’t want people to wake up to the state of the planet and her creatures and then attempt to fix this system with apparently easy fixes like changing to more toxic lightbulbs.
We want a whole new way of being on the planet to emerge. And that way of being will involve people stepping into full, individual responsibility and empowerment, not taking the easy ways out of looking to others, to government, to corporations, even to us, to make a difference.
We’ve now spent the better part of 4 years working diligently for the planet. We live extremely frugally. We live as consciously as we can and are moving as rapidly as possible to living in a way that does no more harm and will support the healing process of the community of life. We have stepped into full personal responsibility and empowerment for doing our part, for following our callings to be of service. So you can question our integrity if you want to waste your energy that way, but I doubt that will serve what you really want to be serving.
I would invite you to slow down and inquire into the fear that seems to motivate your writing. Take time with that. Find the deeper voice in you that wants to be heard. Clearly you are deeply concerned. I’ve had to do the same and if you will read my blogs you will see the kind of soul-searching and process I engage in. And I still have many times when I get caught in fear.
Our experience having sat with the information in our movie for many, many hours, and having cried and grieved and connected with many hundreds of people is that coming from a place of fear and struggling to get the masses to change is not effective, nor is it OUR work.
Perhaps it is YOUR work however. If it is your work then I believe if you take the time to listen very deeply, to work with your fear rather than acting out of it, you will find the ways you will be most effective.
Trying to push or shame us into having our movie downloadable for free when our highest wisdom is not to do that is not going to be effective. We aren’t people who will be shamed or pushed because we are clear that we consistently listen to and trust our hearts to the limits of our ability.
We are doing the best we can to act with wisdom to be of service and to be supported in that service. And it does not feel honoring of either the extreme effort of what went into the making of the movie, or even of the message of the movie, to make it EASILY accessible. Because the truth is, the changes that are upon us are not going to be easy. Only those individuals who are working to step into their own full empowerment are going to be really effective. So our wisdom is that making it easy for people is not what is called for at this time.
That’s why not.
Best regards,
Sally
May 21st, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Sally, I’ve bought your DVD and think its great, but do want to comment briefly on what sadunkal said and your reply (no, i’m not into flaming). I just can’t quite see how what he said means he’s motivated by fear, by suggesting the movie be put online. I suspect he was a little nonplussed by your reply, and I would understand that myself. He may or may not be motivated by fear – I think you got to work real hard not to feel that these days – but his suggestion seems to me to be just about how making the movie more widely available would expose many more people to the wisdom it contains. I agree, it may make the message more dispersed, fragmented and decontextualised if not in a massed screening with discussion, etc. But still may alert loooooooots more people to where we’re going. And not sure about the ‘fear’ comment.
Best wishes,
Gerard
June 7th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
One reason I like Orlov is his wicked sense of humour. One reason that I ‘ve chosen your site (see http://willoutcastle.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-way-to-go-as-pornography.html) as my ‘home base’ is that I relate to your perspective more than others I’ve visited. Keep up the good work.
December 31st, 2008 at 10:26 pm
The problem I see with this thesis is that capitalism, by explicitly promoting the interests of the most sociopathic elements in a given society, causes social/cultural collapse first, and long before any specific collapse event even happens. My personal experiences in the United States over the past decades have shown me already what 4 and 5 mean and how it relates to the fundamentally anti-social idea that the need of the many must be sacrificed for the greed of the few, and as these anti-social “values” infected American culture, destroyed faith, family, and society as a whole long before any specific economic collapse happened.