OpEdNews' master of ceremonies, Rob Kall, delivered an intriguing, articulate and progressive vision in a recent interview by Burl Hall and Meryl Ann Butler (in her Envision This! programs). In-depth thinking and reading, plus countless interviews, invigorate this three-way chat, summarizing Rob's unabashed, activist tool kit to save the world from its own worst habits.
Optimistic like Rob, I favor awakenings, empowerment, and experiments but along with defendable models with grounded, sustainable planning. No question that "advanced civilization" incurs high costs, certainly physical and emotional maladies rare in simpler cultures. And yet, the small-is-beautiful mantra raises big questions, not only about the permanence of decentralized non-systems, but the interface between the idealistic small vs. limitless monoliths averse to change (militaristic nationalism, energy, resource, and electrical grids, capitalism/Wall Street, or the complexities of disease, health and safety). Reluctantly, I fear Rob's "bottom-up" future provides insufficient user protection or checks on corrupt corporatism. My aesthetic embraces Rob's models, but my analytic training identifies daunting problems, in the name of pragmatism and/or revolution.
Responses and opinions welcome. Indeed, "bottom-up" provides ultimate grassroots democracy, everyone getting their five minutes with the megaphone.
1) Climate: What about planetary dilemmas that demand centralized, enforceable, unpopular rules certain to face high resistance? What if survival becomes a battle between the ransacking status quo vs. an international force tasked to cut carbon outputs on behalf of species survival? What if decentralized solutions deliver wholly inadequate fixes to greenhouse quandaries, for global sustainability demands global interventions?
2) Lifespans Grow. What if top-down civilization, for all its new diseases, improves two problems for every one it brings? Modern medicine, plus superior sanitation and nutrition, have doubled the average earthling lifespan since 1900, from 30 years to over 64 today (and rising). Wealth, income, and medical expenses correlate directly with longer life. Can we truly decentralize high-tech research, regional/state water systems efficiency, or worldwide advances to farming, diet and living conditions? That life for billions is still brutal doesn't mean tragedies (like infant mortality) were not more rampant 100 or 200 years ago. "Four generations ago, the average Swede had the same probability of dying as a hunter-gatherer, but [environmental] improvements in our living conditions through medicine, better sanitation and clean drinking water decreased mortality rates.”
3) Self-interest Rules. What if family/tribal "self-interest," even selfishness, dominate human nature more than heroic sacrifice (by one or many) for a higher good? What if the current, inequitable structure reflects a logical extension of heightened, all-too-human self-interest? Military prowess of the richest dozen countries can reinforce widespread, indeed imperial, control over suffering masses for decades to come. Revolution and insurgencies will strike lands with high suffering, but what affluent western nation brims with revolution? The world is still fiercely nationalistic but, paradoxically, increasingly joined at so many, undeniable hips.
4) Surviving Apocalypse. What would become of independent, vulnerable outposts if major systems implode, per apocalyptic nightmares voiced by left and right alike? What sort of village life -- other than subsistence living -- would emerge were distant and specialized resources unavailable (like fuel or tools)? Might not isolation, reminiscent of medieval dreariness, prevail were transport and communication links broken?
5) The Price of Winning. Would truly independent outposts, as facts and as symbols, be tolerated by the itchy powers-that-be? Would not growing numbers, living off the grid, challenge the viability, if not profitability, of intact systems? Success could well incite new crusades against the "unwashed heretics," as thumbing one’s nose carries jeopardy. Would tomorrow's power elite be more tolerant than today's, judging simply by the massive, ongoing over-reaction called "anti-terrorism"?
Dividing Small from Large
Overall, I find grand paradoxes in such progressive visions of systemic change. If you deliver successful, peaceful, non-capitalistic alternatives, all the more reason for billionaires and militarists to justify their existence with attack. And since violence (and arms) would not be part of anti-war, anti-big growth mindsets, might not such experiments be easy to isolate or control (as in "exile the lepers")?
On point, how many self-sacrificing volunteers would forego "civilization," not just for countless food, housing and travel options, but urban attractions (entertainment, live performances, gatherings and parties)? Would I trade off half my writing time to grow food or secure fuel? How would critical information/education/activist exchanges from global travel continue without international corporate entities?
These observations extend to many ill-defined projections that dream of displacing modern capitalism, alienation from work and nature, and lack of community spirit. Returning power to the people, in the face of Walmart or BP or JP Morgan, will require not only a coherent plan but masterful execution. I also remain suspicious of the nostalgic tone across utopian models right and left -- wanting to retrieve, even improve, a lost golden age that wasn't so golden.
Technology Tie That Binds
Further, doesn't most technology inescapably increase our personal linkage to large systems? Much radical thinking in fact contradicts what huge majorities favor as "progress" (cell phones and transportable, wireless computers, breakthrough drugs and interventions, new fuel/transport options). This problem is separate from imagining, let alone building, a public engine -- with mass leverage far in excess of Occupy. What if centralized, high technology is key to clearing the deck of monopoly resource controls so that self-reliant outposts have a chance? I endorse community enterprise and organization, but anything that boosts “revolution” invites thorny battles over core beliefs (like private property, how taxation, inheritances and assets are divided, federalism and religion).
And along comes another major contradiction: that the status quo is unsustainable but hard to change without actions (potentially violent) that typically produce destabilizing, unintended consequences. I see parts but no critical mass (or mechanisms of leadership) that would integrate radical dreams now inhabiting the upsurge in progressive activism. With no small irony, as disgust with the status quo expands, so does the overall political and economic imbalances between the powerful rich and the struggling populace.
Modernity puts us, in short, between a rock called bad capitalism and a hard place called planetary overpopulation/climate change that tests earth's life-carrying capacity. True, paradigm shifts are inevitable, but what's reasonable or executable remains a blur through a glass darkly. Any "revolution" for me begins by fully acknowledging what now exists, why it exists, and how the resistance to change will mirror the magnitude and boldness of new proposals.
