The 21st Century Crisis Of Civilization

This is a reading list, not an article. I cannot repeat myself endlessly! Quality over quantity.

Excellent discussion here in the video below, but the discussion has a glaring avoidance of the political dimension. Such one-sided approaches are frankly doomed to failure, at least now, at this time in history, when radical change can not be left to a multi-generational, slow and gradual transformation.

See also:

The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions

World As Lover, World As Self

Choosing Reality

The Hero With A Thousand Faces

The Perennial Philosophy

Dreamtime and Inner Space

A Short History Of Progress

Peak Everything

When Technology Fails

Ancient Futures

The Wayfinders

Retrotopia

Year 501

Necessary Illusions

The Shock Doctrine

A Game As Old As Empire

Mutual Aid

The Chalice & The Blade

The Ecology Of Freedom

The Discourse On Voluntary Servitude

Walden and On Civil Disobedience

Oneness vs The 1%

And my own books and writings:

Enlightened Democracy

The People vs The Elite

The Failure Of Propaganda

Importing From China

Sinking All Ships

When Liberals & The Left Lose Their Minds

The Worst Of Both Worlds

Why The Left Libertarians Are Right

Flash Drive Revolution

The Collapse Of The West

And

Slavery vs Rebirth,

– Which together, synthesize the core reading list above, and much, much more.

Note also:

The answer to our 21st century crisis of civilization cannot be found in the psychological-philosophical-spiritual-cultural spheres alone. The political-economic sphere must also be directly, and urgently, simultaneously addressed – as my work and Vandana Shiva’s work do, and to a frankly rare degree.

The outer affects the inner, as much as the inner affects the outer. Neglecting the political-economic dimensions can only lead to catastrophe. We need to bridge and unite the two realms, the inner and the outer, and now.

JTR,

Villa Samadhi,

Uruguay,

December 25, 2023

Why The Globalist Technocracy Will Fail

The globalist corporate elite have announced their plans for the world, via the WEF, the World Economic Forum’s publicly released vision for 2030, among other venues. Their plan is most accurately described as a global neo-colonial imperialist project of consolidating and further centralizing all power, all wealth, and all ownership, in their hands.

It is a hybrid global system they are pushing hard to construct now, which fuses Western corporate-fascism with Chinese corporate-communism, technocracy, transumanism and neo-feudalism. To call their vision dystopian would be a radical understatement. But their plan, which has been described as the Third Industrial Revolution by Jeremy Rifkin, the seemingly well-meaning but woefully naive intellectual in residence to the ruling Western power elite, who makes Klaus Swab and Yuval Harari look like the pseudo-intellectual talking poodles that they are; and which has been called The Fourth Industrial Revolution by Klaus Schwab, the lapdog spokesperson for the corporatist power elite; will fail. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as well as by evil ones. Here is why the technocracy will fail.

1. Global warming and the ecological crisis broadly can only be adequately addressed if small-scale, community-based, regenerative organic agriculture, permaculture, agroecology and holistic management are at the centre of our response. The elitists at the WEF and in Beijing, however, refuse to share power; therefore, this plan, which empowers the people and is radically decentralist, is rejected outright. That leaves the plutocrats of the West and the oligarchs of the East, only one choice remaining, and that is to further back the utterly failed petrochemical-industrial agriculture model, which has already been proven to be an economic, social and ecological disaster.

Pursuing the elite-driven, hyper-centralist plan, with industrial agriculture as its foundation, will only lead to further acceleration in species loss, pollinator die-off, global warming, global toxicity and pollution, aquifer depletion, soil erosion and soil depletion, pesticide and herbicide resistslant super-pests and super-weeds spreading, desertification, crop failure, food shortages, skyrocketing food prices, global famine, social unrest, riots and revolution, and systems collapse. And no amount of “big data”, “connectivity”, AI, lithium batteries, smart phones or surveillance, can possibly save it.

It is a system that is rapidly destroying its own social and ecological foundations. In other words, the power elites’ plan is just another historical example of imperial hubris and imperial over-reach, leading to inevitable collapse.

2. The Davos-WEF/Bejing-CCP plan relies on vast quantities of rare earth minerals, that simply aren’t there – lithium being just one example. Therefore, it is not renewable energy which will save us, but the more humble and courageous approach, of admitting that we have been addicted to materialism and consumerism, and that a voluntary simplicity, combined with decentralization, re-ruralization, re-localization, horizontal rather than vertical power relations, and a radical increase in quality of life, diversity, and freedom, are what are urgently needed now.

Again, the plan of the power elite is based in hubris, and wishful, magical thinking, or else in outright lies, and can only result in systems collapse.

3. The plan of the now deeply intertwined and partnered Western and Eastern power elites, rests upon further heights of complexity, in an already vastly over-complicated modern society. It furthermore centralizes power in an even more extreme manner and degree than already exists. And it further increases the already stratospheric inequality, in both power and in terms of wealth – “You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy.” As has been known for a long time, by Tainter, Aristotle, and others, over-complexity, excessive centralization, and excessive inequality, all lead to the collapse of regimes, empires, civilizations and societies. But, as is typical, imperial power elites are driven by egomania, power-lust and greed, and therefore, their hubris becomes their downfall, because imperial over-reach is something they cannot help, but compulsively fall into, every time. No matter how tall the ziggurat is built, it remains a castle made of sand – and the tide is coming in.

4. The financial and economic collapse that is rapidly approaching, which will make the Great Depression look mild, will devastate the ability of the Western and Eastern power elite, both, to carry out any such bold plans, beyond mere coping with matters of survival, as their empires collapse – financially and econonically, and also socially and politically, as revolution and rebellion explode world-wide, in the wake of the combined squeeze on the people – of economic devastation, simultaneous with a growing authoritarianism and staggering inequality.

The harder the oligarchy squeezes the people, the more rapidly the explosive flash point is reached. It is like squeezing plutonium: add enough heat and pressure – and boom. But again, all emperors and all empires do the same thing: imperial hibris breeds imperial over-reach, which brings collapse. So boom it is. Bastille Day is coming, fast.

5. Global oil production peaked several years ago, meaning, the era of cheap, abundant, fossil fuel energy is rapidly coming to an end. Between peak oil, and a peak in nearly everything else, including critically important rare earth minerals, the power of the twinned, Siamese empires of Davos and Beijing, and their ability to project their power, not only globally, but even locally and regionally, is rapidly crumbling beneath their feet. These two leading crime syndicates, which are the twinned, and now deeply intertwined, dominant empires on Earth, may be able to retain control of certain nations, regions, and totalitarian mega-cities for a while yet, but their twilight is approaching – and their collapse is now irreversible, and well underway.

6. Meanwhile, a global awakening, and a new renaissance, is not only emerging, accelerating, and growing fast – by now, it is unstoppable. The ruling power elite are trying to hold onto a dying worldview, paradigm, ideology, and system. But history is against them.

Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. And the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. The idea of freedom, with ecological stewardship, diversity and peace, is simply far more inspiring, and compelling, than an elite-ruled plutocracy, technocracy, or neo-feudal oligarchy, where a handful of people hold total power, and the values of freedom and individuality are said to be quaint relics of the past, “legacy” values, to be abandoned and dispensed with, in the pursuit of an imagined “greater good” – which is itself a lie. The people are waking up. And moreover, they are also waking up to their power.

7. As David Hume, Eitienne de La Boite, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Thoreau, among many others, have realized, the people always have the greater power. The ruling power elite depend upon, and need the people, but the people do not need the power elite. That means the people always have the greater power. Moreover, we outnumber the ruling power elite by nearly a billion to one. They have no chance.

When the people become fed up with a ruling system, power elite or regime, they will shake it off, like a dog shakes water off its back. And that time is coming soon. The plutocrats know this – which is why they are building bunkers as fast as they can, or else are daydreaming, a la Bezos and Musk, of blasting off into space. But even their bunkers will only forestall the inevitable, and for a very short time at that. Ozymandians of today, take note. Your time in power is nearly up.

Conclusion:

What do we have on offer now, at this most critical juncture in recorded human history, in terms of a vision for the future? Well, we have many voices, but few options.

There are, of course, many who echo Jordan Peterson, in saying that global corporatist neoliberalism is the best of all possible worlds. They can be dismissed at the start, being the Dr. Panglosses of our present day.

Then there is the dark Orwellian technocratic vision of Klaus Schwab and the new Royal Court, the new Palace of Versaille, which is the corporate-state de facto government, as the Financial Times calls it – the World Economic Forum – which aims for a global Borg society, based in transhumanism and technofeudal totalitarianism, in which “You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy.” If you like nightmarish dystopianism, this vision may be appealing.

Or we have the equally bleak vision of Yuval Harari, telling us the world is full of “useless eaters”, who are presumably disposable, along with the lucky few, who, like himself, will be willing if not eager Borg slaves, rather than be liquidated.

Yuval and “Dr. Evil” Klaus Schwab are in accord here, of course, both being the talking poodle lapdogs of the ruling corporate oligarchy. Both preach the beatitudes of neo-fascism and technofeudalism. Hell on earth, is what their “vision” amounts to.

Then we have the rosy eco-lah-lah of the tragically naive and blinkered Jeremy Rifkin, with his magically appearing mountains of lithium, with which to power his techno-wonderland, in which the elephant in the room, which is the emerging totalitarian police state, is imagined not to exist, and to be no threat at all. Cue the Pink Floyd, Sheep.

Or, we have several voices bearing imminent sanity, including, frankly, Vandana Shiva and myself, saying that it is now a matter of Oneness vs The 1%, and The People vs The Elite – and what must be done is to embrace our freedom and our power, and to heal our world through a much more thoughtful ecological stewardship, through unity in diversity, through a globally networked and federated decentralization of power, and through a rejection of all empires and oligarchies: to reseed the world and the future of our one human family on Earth, and build a better world for all, through a global renaissance and rebirth – based in the cardinal founding values of freedom, compassion, diversity, mutual aid, ecology and peace.

I think our choice should be clear. It is now a matter of freedom and rebirth, or technocracy and slavery, followed by collapse, and the extinction of the human species itself.

*

It is now a matter of slavery or rebirth. Let the revolution begin. And let it be Gandhian, as it must be, for strategic reasons alone. The empires are falling. The time is now.

J. Todd Ring,

Author of Enlightened Democracy, The People vs The Elite, The Collapse Of The West, and Slavery vs Rebirth.

Villa Samadhi,

Uruguay,

November 17, 2023

The Collapse Of The West: Chapter One: The Global Tectonic Shift

By J. Todd Ring

Preface:

I wrote this essay in January of 2020, then the covid crisis hit, and it was shelved for over a year. The macro-scale patterns have not changed fundamentally since then, although the slow-motion collapse of the US, and the West more broadly, has accelerated. I would offer the following as a synopsis and overview of what I see coming. I do not have a crystal ball, but the major patterns and trends are all deeply established and already set in motion; therefore, what I am predicting here, has a high probability of being generally accurate.

The US is headed for collapse, which will likely occur within this decade, and possibly very soon. Canada, Europe, Britain, Australia and New Zealand have all tied themselves to the sinking ship of the dying US empire, and so will suffer greatly for that deeply unwise move. Or rather, they tied themselves to the US after WWII, and were not perceptive enough to decouple from the US, when its decline became clear in the 1970s and ’80s, and undeniable by 2008. Russia and many other countries have largely decoupled from the US. Those who have not done so, will sink with the US, when it implodes and goes down.

China, Russia, India, Mexico and Brazil, will be the new economic super-powers, in a newly multi-polar world. Assuming we can avoid WWIII during the global tectonic shift, which is certainly not guaranteed, the world has the potential, at least, of becoming more equitable and more stable, as the global hegemony of the US and its satellites in NATO sink into secondary status, if not post-collapse chaos, and the Global South, or Third World, along with the East, find some long sought-after breathing space.

A multi-polar world will arrive, and with it, prospects for greater equality, freedom and peace – so long as we don’t blow ourselves up in the transition. The billionaire oligarchs who effectively rule the West, along with most of the world, however, want to maintain both their global hegemony, and their internal power: and the plutocrats are increasingly desperate, and are therefore taking increasingly desperate actions. That creates great danger for the world, including, most especially, for the people of the West, particularly in North America, Britain and Europe. But we should remember that desperate actions taken by desperate men show their weakness, not their power.

Meanwhile, Russia and China are now in an economic alliance, and each wants to preserve its own independence, above all, while they decouple from the collapsing US, but make short-term agreements with the Davos oligarchs, out of expedience.

It is an uncertain and dangerous time globally, to say the least. That is leaving aside the equally pressing issues of the environmental crisis, and fascism, which of course, also demand urgent attention and urgent action. But remember this. History is full of surprises. Nobody expected the American Revolution to succeed, but it did. Nobody expected WWI, but it happened. Nobody expected the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it happened nevertheless. Permanence is an illusion. Radical change happens unexpectedly. Only in hindsight, do the great majority come to see the precursors to radical change, after it happens, which the prescient few, saw in advance. It has always been so.

History is always unfolding, and full of uncertainty. That being said, we can see clear patterns unfolding. We can see the direction we are headed; and if we don’t change course, we will end up precisely where we were going, naturally. 

Freedom, democracy, equality, ecology and peace are the core issues, I would say; and the core obstacles to all of these, are empire, authoritarianism and artificial scarcity. That is, or should be, our big picture orientation.

The five maxims of empire are to divide, demoralize, disempower, indoctrinate and control. We must, therefore, do precisely the opposite: unite, inspire, empower, inform and liberate. 

As always, the future is in our hands. It just so happens, however, that this is, quite possibly, the most pivotal time in human history, and almost certainly so. 

The world needs us now, more than ever. And we need each other. Unite the people, and fight for freedom, democracy, justice and peace, and a clean and healthy, better world for all.

JTR,

June 18, 2021

***

The original essay,

Written, January 2020:

Global Tectonic Shift

“They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger… they are driven by greed, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor… They ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretenses, and all of this they hail as the construction of empire. And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace.” ~ Tacitus

“In 1492 Columbus discovered America. He too had been seeking the East, and America, unluckily for its inhabitants, happened to lie in his way round the world. Here there were no guns to face, not even weapons of metal; the coasts lay open, and the two organized empires, Aztec and Inca, were both new and oppressive; the invaders could go much further than occupying odd harbours, which in any case would have been useless. Mexico was taken from the Aztecs, with the help of their neighbours, before 1520, and Peru from the Incas in the 1530s. Neither Spain nor Europe ever lost the intoxicating memory of these two great realms overthrown in the twinkling of an eye by a handful of white men; it cancelled the triumphs of the Turks, and gave the West a perpetual confidence in its power and its future.”

• An excerpt from a very interesting and thoughtful book on the history of Europe and the world: The Oldest Europe And Its Neighbours, by Victor Kiernan, Zed Books

Context is everything. History matters.

“England’s East India Company had been founded in 1600. These two rivals represented a new imperialism, not in need of any crusading motives to nerve it for enterprises in continents now relatively familiar, or of any ideology beyond that of the counting-house. The Turkish threat to Europe was receding; besides, to Dutchmen and Englishmen, Spain and the Inquisition, not Turkey and the Koran, were the menace. They had no notion of spreading Christianity in Asia; these Protestants kept religion, business and politics in separate compartments. As the natives were going to be roughly handled in either case, it may have been better for Christianity not to be compromised, as it was in America, by getting mixed up in the matter. Anglo-Dutch power in the East Indies, until well on in the nineteenth century, marked the most sordid but least hypocritical phase of European expansion.”

But we went back to ideological rationalizations, sometimes religious, sometimes secular: as now, the systemic and brutal imperial violence, which is not only military, but more often paramilitary, and above all, economic, is carried out in the name of spreading democracy and freedom, or intervening out of humanitarianism. And Orwell still rolls in his grave at the obvious and extreme deceit, and self-deceit.

Kiernan himself, quoted above, stumbles back into such comfortable self-delusions as are the norm. The ethnocentrism, and sheer cultural arrogance and presumption, are staggering:

“Today when Europe is no longer in the lead it is tempted to think, or to agree with others, that the civilization it was incubating was no unique property of its own but a stage of progress that other regions were moving towards. India on this view would have had cotton-mills, Japan would have come by submarines, whether Europe had brought them or not. This is of course possible, but may be regarded as exceedingly unlikely on any time-scale of centuries rather than millennia. An intricate set of interacting factors is required to bring about any significant historical transition, and there is small sign anywhere else (most perhaps in Japan) of anything like the complex of material and psychological forces then at work in north-west Europe. No other part of Europe itself could have made an Industrial Revolution. It is even doubtful whether any Asian country would have modernized itself by imitation of the West, if not forced by the West to do so as India, Japan, China all in different ways were.”

It bears repeating:

Comfortable self-delusions are the norm. The ethnocentrism, and sheer cultural arrogance and presumption, are staggering. Alas, the white man’s burden is a heavy one…

Kiernan and a great many others have begun to realize the dangers of such cultural arrogance, and such recognition is well-put here:

“Yet Europe’s conviction of being the only really civilized region was becoming so strong that even its offscourings, these Ishmaels of the seven seas, carried it with them, and were fortified by it in their lawlessness. Whatever a white man did must in some grotesque fashion be ‘civilized’.”

However, in the same essay Kiernan argues in defence and apologetics of European colonialism, neocolonialism and empire, as we have seen. And such stark self-contradiction, and self-deceit, is also the norm in the North-West.

And back again to rationalizations we return again and again: conquest is always for the benefit of the conquered, the subjugated, and the plundered, don’t you know…

“Westerners impregnated with their new ethos of change, progress, energy, invested Commerce with the same divine right that monarchy formerly claimed, and were irresistibly tempted to resort to force. They could feel that by doing so they were doing right, as the French Revolutionary armies marching over Europe and carrying liberty on their bayonets had felt. To knock down decrepit régimes was to liberate peoples from the crushing burden of their past. In the first stage of European expansion Spain and Portugal thought of making a return to benighted regions for what they took from them, by giving them Christianity. Now there was again a feeling that expansion ought to have some ideal purpose, a goal beyond sordid greed, which came to be expressed in the phrase ‘civilizing mission’. Backward lands would be given civilization, in return for the products wanted by Europe; Christianity might be part of it, though a subsidiary one. The idea of Europe’s ‘mission’ dawned early, but was taken up seriously in the nineteenth century. Turkey, China, and the rest would some day be prosperous, wrote Winwood Reade, one of the most sympathetic Westerners. ‘But those people will never begin to advance … until they enjoy the rights of man; and these they will never obtain except by means of European conquest.’” – ibid

“The civilizing mission was now all the rage, whereas in earlier years it had often been rejected as too expensive. It was easiest of all to believe that what was good for Europe must be even better for the ‘natives’. By now the white man had worked himself into a high state of self-conceit; but all through the century his reaction to any natives who tried to reject the blessings of civilized rule was that of Dr Johnson to the rebel Americans: ‘They are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging.’” – ibid

We have told ourselves we are bringing freedom, democracy, and civilization to the world. But we have brought guns and bombs, economic predation, subjugation, exploitation, colonialism, neocolonialism, and stark imperialism, no matter how it is rationalized, justified, or camouflaged. This is bringing aid and help to our neighbours? I am sure our neighbours would all agree, that kind of help, they can do without.

As my great literary hero, Thoreau said, “If I knew someone was coming to do me some good, I should like to get as far away as possible.”

And moreover, “The better part of what my neighbours believe to be good, I believe in my heart to be bad. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well.”

I agree with TS Eliot: We are the hollow men. The leaders of the free world? We are neither leaders nor free. We are cleverly driving ourselves in a frantic race toward our own extinction – with tyranny and fascism, neofeudalism and war, a toxic landscape and a toxic culture, as landmarks along the way. And through our benevolent leadership we have convinced or coerced the rest of the world to join us in our madness, and our race to oblivion. Some leadership.

I agree with Gandhi. When he was asked what he thought of Western civilization he replied, “I think it would be a good idea.”

To the presumed superiority of (North-)Western civilization, I say, we are neither superior, nor civilized.

We are but one corner of the globe, for a time dominant, but in no way superior to other societies. Each society has its glories and its shames, its triumphs and its failings. We are no different, and no better.

Was Nazi Germany twisted, diabolical, demented, deluded and depraved? Unquestionably. Cultural relativism, nihilism and post-modernism are a wasteland of the mind, leading to madness. There are faults, and there are great failings, and we should not pretend that war is peace, or slavery is freedom, lest we simply lose our minds in the act of self-delusion.

And I agree with Thoreau. Is modern society, or modern Western society, either one, however you care to look at it, in any real way superior to older, earlier societies, or to native societies, for example? His response was a definitive, No. And I agree. As America’s greatest philosopher, Henry David Thoreau said, We have improved the houses men live in (perhaps), but not the character of the men who live in them.

Here, here.

We have gained much, but lost more. We have toys and trinkets and gadgets galore, but our souls are hollow, our minds and spirits debased, our communities and communion eroded and degraded and largely gone, our morals and ethics deeply in question, and generally serving power and expedience, over all calls of conscience or compassion. And we are less happy and less free.

We are fatter, weaker, less healthy, less vigourous, less strong in both body and mind, and in spirit; and every psychological, sociological and anthropological study shows us to be less happy, more lost and adrift, and more lonely and alienated than “primitive” societies of 10,000 years ago. Clearly we need to rethink our notions of “progress”, “development”, “civilization”, “freedom”, and “the good life”.

Medieval, ancient, “primitive”, and indigenous societies can teach us much. As can the global South, and the East. We do not need to become primitivists, or orientalists, but we do need to dispense with our ill-conceived and disastrous, misguided and frankly delusional sense of cultural superiority. If we do not, chances are that none of us, anywhere on Earth, will survive.

It will be a post-imperial world ahead, or it will be a post-human world. And to get to that post-imperial world, which is the heart of the transition we must make now, we will need guidance, as well as courage, compassion, and common sense.

Some of that good guidance will come from the West, some from the East, some from the North, and much from the South.

And we will be wise to seek counsel from traditional indigenous peoples, who still remember how to be stewards and protectors of the land and the waters, and not despoilers, looters and pillagers only.

“First Nation’s Peoples — and the decision of Canadians to stand alongside them — will determine the fate of the planet.”

—Guardian, UK

And we must note, and remember, how that spirit of common cause, unity, solidarity, shared purpose, and peace, is starkly at odds with the history of colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, and empire. The contrast between what must be left behind, and what must come next, if we are to survive at all, could scarcely be more stark.

*

The Doctrine of Discovery

“…to invade, search out, capture, vanquish and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ, wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all moveable and immoveable goods whatsoever, held and possessed by them, and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate to himself and to his successors the kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit.”

– Pope Nicholas V (Papal Bull 1452)

Infantile grandiosity? Imperial hubris? Extreme cultural arrogance? Sheer racist lunacy? Demonic possession? Whatever it was, such mutually destructive madness must end now.

The following battle lines will only heat up, mark my words; and to state the obvious, until the age of empires, and the war on nature, are brought to an end:

Solidarity, stewardship, and peace – not fossil fuels, pipelines, Big Oil, planetary destruction and imperial hubris: this is what we need, and now. Support native rights and environmental protection, with human rights, equality and freedom for all – not planetary pillage by a rampaging, Caligula-like, utterly delusional and power-drunk plutocracy, infused with suicidal corporate greed.

US professor of law and indigenous studies, Robert A. Williams Jr., author of Savage Anxieties, put it simply and directly, in an interview with the venerable Bill Moyers: “The Western world has been at war with the tribal world for 3,000 years.” This, along with the class war, the gender war, the wars of race and colonialism, and the war on nature, is the root of imperialism and empire, and the 5,000 year old social model based on hierarchies of power, conquest and domination. That war must end now, that social model must end now, the age of empires, along with its inseparably intertwined war on nature, must end now, or the human species will simply end, itself – or at least, anything resembling civilization, or the possibility for a decent human life, will soon come to an end.

*

We should remember that Europe was a cultural backwater, for nearly a thousand years after the fall of the inglorious Roman Empire. The conquest of the Americas, with its incomprehensible wealth, looted and pillaged by way of genocidal mass slaughter, propelled Europe into a position of global dominance. This mass theft, and mass slaughter, not an innate moral, cultural or intellectual superiority, is what gave rise to five centuries of global domination by Europe and its most favoured colonies. Let us now be unabashedly honest about it – for a change.

That inconceivably vast loot, stolen from two continents in the Americas; combined with cheap, abundant, destitute, near-slave labour, after the mass dislocation caused by the grand theft of the land and the commons, which was the land-enclosure acts; combined with a third staggeringly vast pool of resources, which was England’s discovery of coal reserves, equal to Saudi Arabia’s oil wealth at its peak, just under their feet; and combined with the unspeakable institution of slavery; together brought about the Industrial Revolution – and not just European cleverness and industriousness, as it has been assumed.

Remember also, that at the time of the industrial revolution, India had a higher quantity and also a higher quality of steel output than England. Active de-industrialization was part of colonization and empire building. It still is.

In any case, the global dominance of the European and Euro-American North-West lasted roughly 500 years, and is ending now. It is becoming a multi-polar world; and I think that bodes well for the world – including for that North-West corner of the world, which has become known as, “The West”.

History is never over, as some have foolishly posited. History is still unfolding – is ever unfolding. And we are either making it, shaping it together; or watching it unfold, pathetically and passively. But unfold it will, in either case.

And major changes lay in store. What shape they take, is largely up to us. What I do hope, is that the age of empires, after 5,000 years, can be put behind us, as foolishness from our youth.

Let there be freedom. And let there be peace.

*

We should remember also, that Europeans didn’t invent empire. There were the Persians, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, and many others before.

And we would do well to read the Book of Daniel. The succession of empires will end. There will be peace. How soon, depends upon what we do, or fail to do, right now. Extinction or rebirth? That is our choice, at this critical juncture, of our shared human history on Earth.

Europe didn’t invent slavery, conquest, domination, usurpation, annexation, or empire. Nor did they invent the heirarchical power structures, inequality and elite rule, which give rise to tyranny and predations, both at home and abroad, and which are the seedbed and germination of empire itself.

But the decline and fall of the European and Euro-descendent American empire, slow or sudden as it may come, and inexorable as it is, may well mark the growing of a global awakening across the world’s great human family, and the beginning of the end, of the age of empires itself. Let us hope that it is. Let us pray we are so wise; or simply, so sane. The alternatives are nothing short of grim, at best.

In fact, the likelihood is this: what we are facing now, in the early part of the 21st century, is either the dying of the age of empires, or the dying of humanity, and the human species on Earth. Let us hope we are sensible enough, despite the all-pervasive fog of delusion, and the stupor of imagined powerlessness, and denial, to choose the former, and not simply drift aimlessly into the latter, with a moan, and a collective whimper, or a yawn.

Stand, I say.

*

As Bob Marley sang:

“400 years

(500+ now)

Of the same philosophy…”

(Imperialism *is* neofeudalism)

“Babylon system is a vampire

Suckin’ the blood of the sufferers

Tell the children the truth

Tell the children the truth

That we’ve been grinded on the wine press

Much too long

Rebel

Rebel….”

And this means the people of the North and the West, as well as the South and the East:

Rebel, rebel.

Imperialism and neofeudalism, elitism and tyranny, always go together. We can have empire; or we can have freedom, democracy, justice, equality, and peace. But we cannot have empire, and also have the latter, infinitely superior things.

*

“Hardly any European countries had significant connections, other than imperial, with any continent except America. Towards the end of the century, the ‘age of imperialism’ proper, a craze for annexations seized on everyone who had any chance, and Italy, Germany, Belgium all got shares, with the USA joining in. Individual businessmen were obviously doing well out of colonies; nations were easily tutored into believing (nearly always mistakenly) that they could do equally well, especially when they saw that all their neighbours believed it.”

– ibid

Again, imperialism abroad, breeds tyranny at home; and in the end, either fascism or neofeudalism, as we are being driven into, like cattle, right now.

Orwell understood. Gandhi understood, as did Thoreau. Mark Twain understood. Martin Luther King Jr. understood. Do we?

Rebel, rebel.

It is time for justice. It is time for freedom. And it is time for peace. And we will not have peace, until we also have justice and freedom.

Rebel.

(Que the John Lennon.)

Power to the people.

*

Europe and Euro-America didn’t give the world Shakespeare, Einstein, Socrates, Botticelli, democracy and the Magna Carta *because* we set out to conquer the world, because of empire, but despite it. Empire, at its heart, is always brutal, is always the enemy of freedom, democracy, justice, compassion, peace, and civilization itself, at least in any meaningful or positive definition of the word.

It is time now for Europe and America to relinquish the empire-lust of their youth, and the infantile grandiosity which always accompanies it, and with maturity and grace, accept their position as great powers in a multi-polar world, where war and conquest, empire and power struggles, are not only barbaric and uncivilized as ever, but are now positively suicidal. It is time to become great civilizations. And that is only possible if we now together declare that the age of empires is dead.

Let there be peace. There is much to be shared, and much work to be done. We have a world to be saved from our own ecological neglect. Infighting and imperial power games will only distract and divide us, at a time when we need unity amidst diversity, as well as democracy and freedom, in order to save ourselves from ourselves, and from our own tyrannizing, world-devouring elites.

Remember liberty, equality, solidarity and mutual aid, on the road ahead – they are essential, and they are under attack.

Let there be peace now. Let the age of empires be over. It is entirely in our power to choose it, and make it so. There is much work, great work, to be done. Let us begin. Together, and in peace.

JTR,

February 20, 2020

The New Renaissance

There is a renaissance emerging now across humanity, as well as a paradigm shift in science; and a spiritual awakening is occurring, along with a political and cultural awakening. How do we best understand this historically pivotal shift?

The trends are toward: 

1. a non-dualist view of the wholeness, unity, interconnectedness, interdependence, and sacredness, of all life and all living beings, nature and the cosmos; 

2. a more inclusive, and less sectarian, more tolerant and pluralistic, cosmopolitan world view, approach to life, approach to scholarship, and approach to spirituality; 

3. an emphasis on experience, radical empiricism, and the mystical or more subtle dimensions of daily life, science, scholarship and spirituality; and what corresponds with it is a more humble and open-minded approach to life, science, scholarship, politics and spirituality; which, paradoxically, allows for, and nourishes and supports: 

4. a rebirth of human dignity, confidence, and mutual empowerment; along with, 

5. a rebirth, renewal, and resurgence of the local, in a spirit of federated, networked, and decentralized unity in diversity. 

I may be forgetting major elements here, but these seem to me to be the core five, in terms of the renaissance that is emerging now across the world.

The primary obstacles to the new renaissance which is unfolding now, are not, generally speaking, coming from dogmatic religious orthodoxy, which is waning, but from two major areas or sociological groups. 

First, it is no longer religion which is the bastion of absolutist dogmatism, but materialist science, and other forms of secular fundamentalism. Religion has begun to reclaim its core, which is experiential, and thus, radically empirical; and has begun to remember the mystery at the heart of being, which is also the heart of all religious doctrine or orthodoxies. (Certainly in the big seven: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and indigenous spirituality.) Mainstream science, however, having been confronted for over a century by an emerging paradigm shift, has dug in its heels, and become fanatically unscientific, even anti-scientific, anti-empirical, quasi-religious and deeply dogmatic, in its strident defense of the dying ideology of materialist reductionism.

To this we can add the other secular fundamentalists, which include the entire economics profession, and most of the political class, who are both stridently and dogmatically committed to the quasi-religious orthodoxy of corporate globalization, technocracy and neoliberalism. And of course, the business elite share this messianic faith, because it serves their interests; since all three of these strands of the new Holy Trinity are summed up in its essence, which is the merger of the business elite and the state – which as Mussolini said, is the definition of corporatism, which itself is the proper term for fascism.

These are the enemies and the roadblocks to the new renaissance which is being born now – not the clergy, but the new secular clergy of the corporate-state empire, and the Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Agra, and Big Banks who control it; along with the scientists, academics, the medical-industrial complex, the bureaucrats and the technocrats and the media who support it, whether wittingly, or more commonly, unwittingly.

We should remember, however, that nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time is come. And the heart of the new renaissance is a new set of ideas, all constellating around the central realization of, or reawakening to, the basic and fundamental interconnectedness, oneness, and sacredness, of all life and all living beings. That reawakening can be slowed, to some degree, it can be fought against, and it is being fought against, viciously and rabidly, but it cannot be stopped. And it will result, in the end, not just in a greater level and quality of awareness, but in a transformation of our world – including, a rebirth of democracy and freedom, and a sweeping away of the dying age of empires.

Nourish the light. We are winning. Even though things look dark, and will get darker yet before the dawn, the awakening will not be stopped, but will triumph.

J. Todd Ring,

May 26, 2021

Post-Script:

What are the core values of the new renaissance which is emerging now around the planet, and across humanity? To start, I would say that the values presented in the classic children’s film, The Wizard of Oz, are the founding values of a rebirth and a new renaissance of humanity – and they are: 1. courage; 2. compassion – or heart; and 3. presence of mind – or a functioning brain; and equally critically, 4. the valuing of truth over lies and illusions, and the willingness to question authority and question the norm: Do look behind the curtain! But there are other values that are re-emerging as well, and which I believe are fundamental. They include:

Liberty, equality and solidarity – the founding values of the Enlightenment, and of modern democracy, and the founding values of the American and French Revolutions.

Constitutional democracy and human rights – including the inalienable right to sovereignty over one’s own person, body and mind.

Unity in diversity

Decentralization – and a rejection of big government, big business, and increasingly fragile, long supply chains

Holistic health and wellness – the wish to not merely live or get by, but to truly thrive

Adaptability, self-reliance – or better yet, community self-reliance; and resilience.

That makes 15 key values for a new renaissance; and I would argue that these values will serve us well, and should be preserved, nourished, supported, and defended. Our future, in truth, depends upon strong values such as these, more than anything else – certainly more than technology, material wealth, government, billionaires or big business.

Excerpts from two Chinese poems summarize what we most need now – and fortunately, this is exactly what is emerging:

The first poem is titled, The Peasant’s Song. And of course, some people will object, saying, “I don’t want to be a peasant!” But what they do not realize, is that we are already peasants, and are becoming more so every day. John Lennon was right: “You think you’re so clever and classless and free, but you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see”. At least, if we are to be peasants, we can have freedom, good health, and a good life – if we choose them. That certainly beats being reduced to the level of serfs, or worse, which is the trajectory for most of the 99% now.

But to return to the poems:

“Sunups, we get to work;
sundowns, we get our rest.
Dig wells and drink,
plow fields, to eat:
what has some “emperor”
to do with us?”

“The long and short of it:
from what flows: grasp the best…
Left and right, we pick and choose, the finest.”

Let us forget, or at least set aside, the old notions of left and right, and forget, or at least set on the shelf, for the moment, the old battlegrounds of quarreling ideologies, clannishness and in-fighting. We must unite the people now. We must unite the 99% – or at least that small but dedicated, and growing minority, who hold that the core values of freedom, ecology, good health and peace, are the values that matter most, and are the values that can, and should, and must unite us now.

Decouple from the dying empire, I say, and let the building of a new world, begin in earnest.

JTR,
July 31, 2021

See also, for critical texts and essential reading:

Oneness vs The 1%, by Vandana Shiva

The Ecology of Freedom, by Murray Bookchin

World As Lover, World As Self, by Joanna Macy

And my own writings:

Enlightened Democracy

The People vs The Elite

And coming soon:

All Hell Breaks Loose: Global Geopolitics 1945-2045

Renaissance & Rebirth, or Decline & Decay?

And the demonic take-over continues…. Or so it would seem. Evil rules the political realm, the economic, and increasingly, the cultural as well. An awakening of humanity continues to unfold. But the war on compassion is only getting hotter and more intense. Cynicism drips from everything, like blood off rotting meat.

For example, and just one example of a countless many: Four or five “Netflix original” TV series I have sampled so far. All were too nauseating to continue watching. All were nihilistic, narcissistic, sadistic, superficial, lacking all depth, desensitizing, waging war on compassion, leading to a further hollowing out of human feeling, and making light of suffering and violence, while glamourizing them and reveling in them.

Yes, suffering, killing, violence and death are funny, amusing, and fun! LOL! Ha ha!

This isn’t Star Wars, Spielberg, Dickens or Blake – culture based in the values of the Enlightenment, and in universal values of compassion, love and solidarity. This is Satanic.

Do the corporate elite, who control virtually all the major media, want us all to become isolated, narcissistic, numbed consumers? Well, that is a naive question, isn’t it?

This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a mass derangement.

Renaissance and rebirth, or decline and decay? Both are happening. The jury is still out as to which will predominate.

But I can tell you this. It is up to us.

JTR,
August 1, 2020

Angkor Wat: Reflections On Our Modern World

~*~

Angkor Wat is the crown jewel of a 400 square kilometer set of temples and holy sites, set in the jungles of Cambodia. Built as a Hindu temple in the 12th century, later transformed into a Buddhist temple, Angkor Wat alone is the largest religious monument on Earth. That says a lot about the culture that built such a construct. Imagine the enormous cost, in terms not only of money, wealth and resources, but of human labour. It says that spirituality is of prime importance, if not the greatest importance – like the cathedrals of an earlier era in the West represent. And what do we have in the modern world today, for comparison? We have glass and steel skyscrapers that are monuments to corporate and financial power – monuments to greed. That pretty much says it all. No wonder our “civilization” is collapsing. It has nothing to do with a vastly over-hyped virus. It has everything to do with spiritual and moral bankruptcy, and a degradation of the human spirit and mind. But, we should bear in mind, we can remember as well as forget. Collapse does happen. So too does renaissance, and rebirth.

*

JTR,

April 15, 2020

https://www.bing.com/search?q=Angkor+Wat&filters=lite:%22.VHJpdmlhQ2Fyb3VzZWxeU1BPVExJR0hUQ0FST1VTRUxfRU4tQ0FfMV5QT0xF%22+BTEPKey:%22Encyclo_HPBS_20200319_0400%22+IsConversation:%22true%22&form=BTCAR1&crslsl=0&efirst=1

See also, The Keiser Report: The Bermuda Triangle of Pandemic

And the writings of Noam Chomsky, Morris Berman, Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, Ronald Wright, Jared Diamond, James Howard Kunstler, Helena Norberg-Hodge, and John Michael Greer, to mention just a few important thinkers and writers, who can help to lift the veils from our eyes, and pierce the all-pervasive fog – or is that smog…?

The Death & Rebirth of Freedom & Democracy

 

The two greatest threats to freedom and democracy in the West, as well as to peace, justice, or even a viable future for humanity, are, without question, the currently reigning de facto world government of neofeudal corporate oligarchy, along with its ruling apologetics, which is the corporatist ideology of neoliberalism; and the fascist order which it is rapidly morphing into.

The Red fascism of China’s totalitarian neo-feudal corporate-Mandarin model is simply the mirror image of the neo-feudal corporate fascism of the West. And although few realize this fact either, the two have effectively merged, like the double coil helix of a mutagenic DNA, which is the new cancer spreading over the world, and devouring all.

We either come to understand these three deeply intertwined phenomena better – the neoliberal corporate oligarchy of the West, and its mirror in China, and the global fascist order the two are clearly transmuting into – or we will soon be slaves, living in a poisoned, gulag world, watching the Earth slowly die.

*

What is fascism?

Fascism and neoliberalism are widely misunderstood. As is the state of contemporary China widely misunderstood, though perhaps less so, because it is so stark. This must change. We must first see, before we can act with both purpose and effectiveness.

Fascism is widely confused with flags and banners, slogans, uniforms, marching styles – mere outer drapings. It is even more widely confused with racism, xenophobia, and a very malignant form of nationalism. The latter three elements are common to fascism, but they are not the heart of fascism. The heart of fascism, and the only essential element, is what Mussolini himself defined it to be: it is the merger of business and the state.

And that is exactly what we have seen over the past 50 years, with the Powell memo of 1971 and soon afterward the Trilateral Commission’s publication of The Crisis of Democracy, the rollback of democracy and the re-engineering of the economy, the de-linking of the US dollar from any real world connection (the 1971 decoupling of the dollar from gold, and unilateral abandonment of the gold standard by the US), the birth of heavily financialized global crony capitalism, and the emergence of neoliberalism and corporate globalization. All of this represented the slow-motion fascist coup which is the big business take-over of both government and the global economy.

Fascism is not men in black uniforms goose-stepping in the streets, necessarily. It is the hyper-concentration of power in the hands of the few, whereby big business has effectively usurped and taken over the powers of democratic governments.

And there can be a fascism with a right-wing face, or a liberal face. The outer guise does not matter. It is the concentration of real power which is the central definition and sole, truly grave danger.

It is not the window dressings we need to be afraid of, but the lust for power which is at the core of fascism, and which has clearly been at the core of neoliberalism, its for-runner, for well over 40 years.

What is neoliberalism?

First of all, neoliberalism is not static. It is always changing. The cancer stage of capitalism describes it well, as the Canadian philosopher John McMurtry put it.

Neoliberalism is always morphing. There is no permanent state of neoliberalism. It began with crony capitalism, and it is moving toward its culmination, which is fascism.

The central tendency of neoliberalism is the same as crony capitalism, or capitalism itself: it is the tendency to concentrate wealth, and therefore power, in ever greater degrees, in ever fewer hands.

What began as liberal capitalist democracies in the late 1700’s, quickly devolved and descended into crony capitalism, which means societies effectively ruled by business elites, with democracy reduced, by and large, to an essentially hollow shell.

That wasn’t much of a step, since that was essentially the starting point of Western liberal capitalist democracies. They were dominated by land-owning elites, slavers, merchants and manufacturers from the outset. It was easy and natural to continue that trajectory of de facto elite rule.

Thomas Jefferson saw what was happening in 1812, when he said, “I pray we shall crush the birth of the moneyed aristocracy in its infancy, for already it bids defiance to our laws and seeks a contest of strength with our democratic government.”

But we failed to listen. We did not place checks and balances, or any effectual limits, on the natural tendency of capitalism to concentrate wealth, and thus to concentrate power.

The result is neoliberalism: a social order in which business elites – the less than 1,000 corporate CEOs and 1,000 billionaires who meet yearly at Davos – effectively rule the world, and rule over every major nation and government, with few exceptions.

But the important realization is that neoliberalism is not the final end point of this historically unfolding trajectory. It is just a mid-point on the arc. The descending arc of modern democracy runs from 1776, through crony capitalism, through neoliberalism, to its natural conclusion – which is the full merger of business and the state: which, again, as Mussolini said, is called corporatism – which, as he said, is the proper term for fascism.

There is nothing new with neoliberalism. As Chomsky said, it is not particularly new, and it is not particularly liberal. What it is, is a bid for power. Business elites 200 years ago simply wanted more and more wealth and power, and they got it. 200 years later, having effectively taken over the global economy, the financial system, the media, much of academia, science and the church, and most governments and international institutions in the world, the ruling business elite are now seeking to consolidate their power – before they lose it.

They are keenly aware that they have been in the midst of a rapidly deepening, global crisis of legitimacy, which is quickly coming to a global tipping point. Their advisors have told them what this means. It means the Western corporate oligarchy could collapse like a house of cards, virtually overnight, just as the Soviet Empire collapsed, between 1989 and 1991.

The Western elite are terrified of losing power, and at the same time, have never had such dizzying heights of power – although it is increasingly, and undeniably, fragile. They simply want to batten down the hatches and hold onto what they’ve got – as the new rulers of the world – by any means necessary. Fascism is simply the most expedient means to their desired end. In fact, it is the only means available. It is either that, or it is major compromise with the people, and the tolerating of real democracy – which they decidedly do not want; or else, losing power altogether – which they are adamantly opposed to.

The Western elite see the resort to a more authoritarian, and highly controlled, technocratic, scientific fascism, as their only means to keep their power – without having to compromise with the pesky 99.9%, or demands such as justice, equality, freedom, democracy, civil liberties, environmental concerns, or anything that might require a sharing of wealth or power.

*

In 2020, we are seeing the Western and Eastern oligarchies carry out a test run and a social engineering project with a global mass house arrest and lockdown of society, rationalized by a greatly exaggerated public health crisis.

The facts are coming in now, to confirm what should have been obvious from the beginning. The mortality rate in Europe this year is no higher than in the three previous years, and in fact lower, despite the “pandemic”. The centre, right and left all swallowed the hook, line and sinker of this latest propaganda war, and accepted the trial run of fascist lockdown – cheerfully. They will, it is hoped, soon come to their senses, and check the facts, and more importantly, question the rationalizations for a global police state.

What was emerging in 2019, was a global wave of democratic uprisings, and the beginnings of a wave of global democratic revolutions. This explains the 2020 lockdown, along with the end of the line for the ability of vast money printing to keep afloat a wildly unstable global economy.

The bastardized germ theory, or what has become the standard narrative, simply does not fit the facts. Sociological analysis explains what should have been obvious from the start. Elites are scared of losing power. They are lying in historically typical ways in order to hold onto power.

A sixth grade child could understand it. How is it that our best minds cannot?

*

Whether it is sooner or later, the people of the West must reclaim their democracy and their freedom. And in China, they must discover that this is, in fact, a better way than the Maoist-corporatist Confucian totalitarianism, which they currently have.

In the world’s biggest democracy, which is India, with the second largest middle class in the world, the people must decide if they wish to see the death of the Gandhian dream, of freedom, democracy, self-government and independence, tolerance and peace, as the country which for thousands of years has been one of the great spiritual lights of the world descends into a narrow-minded, bigoted, petty and brutal, barbaric neoliberal/neoconservative corporatist oligarchy and fascist state, a la Modi, sowing war both within and outside its borders, like a mad leper devouring his own flesh; or whether, perhaps, they can imagine something better.

(And I am with Gandhi, Vandana Shiva, and Arundhati Roy: I say they can.)

Whatever transpires in the weeks, months and years ahead, we will not see neoliberalism last. It is rapidly descending, or morphing, to be precise, into the full merger of business and the state, which is fascism. Only the willfully ignorant, or most dogmatic of ideologues, can refuse to see this most obvious fact by now.

Whether this new, second wave of fascism lasts decades, or is but a brief flash, is up to the people to decide. But if it lasts for long, not only will freedom and democracy, human rights and dignity be crushed, at least temporarily; but so too, will all chances and all hopes for a green and sustainable society; or even, a viable future of any kind for humanity on Earth.

This is our last stand. Make your choices well.

*

Roughly 650 years ago, in the mid-1300s, the Black Plague spelled the beginning of the end for feudalism. While the global “pandemic” of the CIA-Wuhan Flu in 2020, so far, and by all present measures, is infinitely smaller in magnitude than the Black Death, and more on par with the common flu; the draconian lockdown and mass house arrest of more than three billion people has caused an economic meltdown that is fanning the flames of social unrest, which were already extremely high and rising by 2019.

We can look at that authoritarian lockdown and its implications in two broad ways – other ways being frankly deceitful, or else delusional. Ominous and disastrous, is one side of the implications. Potential for great, tectonic social change, is the other side, and equally as real. Crisis always presents opportunity, as well as roads to change.

However, in the early 21st century, unlike the 14th century, with the neo-feudalism which we are now facing, both East and West, we do not have 400 years to throw it off, and rise above it.

If it takes us 400 years to overcome our present global neo-feudal order, or even 40 years, then humanity, by all likelihood, and almost certainly, will have ceased to exist, for the global ecosystems of the world will have long since been degraded to the point of collapse.

Whatever we are going to do, we had best reflect deeply, and be clear as to the true meaning and implications of our actions. What we do not need now is to forge the shackles and chains of our own slavery, or sow the seeds of our own destruction, thinking that is the road to freedom, to happiness, to security, or to a better world.

Moreover, whatever we do, we had best do it now. We have simply run out of time for any kind of denial, dithering, delays, avoidance or evasion, procrastination or hesitation. The time, quite simply, is now.

Democracy must be reborn. It truly is, now or never.

JTR,
April 8, 2020

Thomas Jefferson, Ursula Le Guin, and Collective Rebirth

 

Reading a novel by Ursula Le Guin, I think, not only is she a joy to read, in so many ways, but she refused to give in to a culture and a society that is, frankly, deeply lost. 

I think of something Thomas Jefferson said, “In matters of fashion, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.” Ursula Le Guin would understand that. 

(And yes, the morally bankrupt, or simply spineless and snivelling, will point fingers at Jefferson; but Jefferson, despite his faults, was a true leader, who helped to catapult us above and beyond our limits of the time, to a higher, though still far from perfect plane. And for that, he stands in general, many leagues above his rather petty and small-minded critics. I’m sure something similar can be said, and will one day be written, of Ursula K. le Guin, as well.)

The ancient Greeks, like the ancient people of India and China, recognized a pattern that was sometimes called The Four Ages of Man, and saw that 2,500 years ago we were already in a dark age, and have remained there, despite the boasting and the juvenile fanfare, though we are free to awaken from it at any time. I am sure Ursula Le Guin understood this quite well, too. Our culture and society are to be guided and corrected, not blindly followed or naively cheered.

She refused to become a typical post-modernist dogmatic nihilist, as has been the norm among “intellectuals” for over forty years; and she refused to embrace a staunch and unwavering moral relativism. 

She stood with timeless principles; and when conformity to the crowd or obedience to authority dictated that the bleating herd once again abandon all conscience to embrace the latest madness and depravity, in the unspoken and devoutly religious service to power, greed, vanity and egomania, she quietly left the crowd to their unthinking obedience and conformity, to fall in a ditch, unfortunately, as it is said, and rejected the self-serving demands of the elite to once again abandon all principles. 

She held to, upheld, and aspired to principles of devotion to family, community, service, sacrifice, spirituality, reflection, home and hearth, honesty, loyalty, kinship and alliances of neighbours and friends, patriotism in the thinking person’s sense (which of course forever questions everything, as it must, if it is not to be tragic, blind, or insane); and she upheld values of freedom, equality, compassion, balance, and both confidence and humility, which must always be balanced, along with open-mindedness, adaptability, courage, resilience, perseverance, patience, boldness, silence, duty, justice, forethought, ecology, and peace, and truth, among other high ideals, which we would be most wise to hold fast to, and to further pursue, and most foolish to abandon.

Unlike our present culture and society, she held higher values than narcissism, or collective narcissistic regression to an infantile and boisterously ever-demanding egocentric state, which is the current course and trajectory of both the self-deluded elite, and what seems to be the great majority – who are approaching staggering levels of self-delusion of their own, though they are modest compared to those of their masters. 

There are many who still do hold to higher values. And that is refreshing. And amidst a global awakening, which is occurring now, their number are growing. 

Margaret Atwood, Noam Chomsky, David Suzuki, Maude Barlow, Michael Hudson, Gerald Celente, Peter Dale Scott, Naomi Klein, Vandana Shiva, Arundhati Roy, and millions of others, hold to higher values than the current fashion of narcisistic hedonism and escapism, relativism, conformity, status-seeking, celebrity worship, and obedience to power – to name a few bright lights in the darkness.

She, and they – and we, any of us who seek to keep our hearts and minds alive, in a truly insane society that seeks to drown them both – are cause for celebration: and for confidence in the future; and for hope.

JTR,

February 19, 2020