Memetics has a strange relationship with primitivism. The primitivist critique of civilization draws much from Marvin Harris’s theory of cultural materialism—a post-Marxist theory which retains Marx’s idea of history driven by material factors rather than “great men and great deeds,� but eschewing Marx’s ultimately apocalyptic vision of an inevitable classless utopia. Primitivism critiques civilization on the grounds of cultural materialism as an inherently broken system. Much of it is based in systems thinking, arguing that civilization is systemically flawed because its scale is maladapted to humans, and its need to constantly grow is, in any finite universe, unsustainable.

Many will no doubt find the long foregoing discussion of collapse depressing or pessimistic. In “How Civilizations Fall: A Theory of Catabolic Collapse” [PDF], John Michael Greer hints at why this is, writing, “Even within the social sciences, the process by which complex societies give way to smaller and simpler ones has often been presented in language drawn from literary tragedy, as though the loss of sociocultural complexity necessarily warranted a negative value judgment. This is understandable, since the collapse of civilizations often involves catastrophic human mortality and the loss of priceless cultural treasures, but like any value judgment it can obscure important features of the matter at hand.” Greer goes on to characterize collapse in terms of ecological succession. In The Collapse of Complex Societies, Joseph Tainter makes a distinct point that collapse “is an economizing process.”

On my previous post on freedom and enslavement to the civilized system I alluded to methods of obtaining this freedom, and several people have since wondered about details. I could simply pull a Quinn and say “be creative,” but that is somehow unsatisfying as an answer. So, instead, here is example one.

Civilization means hierarchy. They feed off each other, and never is one found without the other. A concentration of surplus, which is a requirement of civilization, always leads directly to hierarchy. And, hierarchy can only be sustained by a denial of privileges to a lower class, otherwise, why would they obey? This denial is only possible through civilization. Indeed, some people have gone so far as to refer to them as being nearly synonymous.

Predicting the proximate cause of collapse is impossible, though, as we have seen, both environmental problems and peak oil present serious threats–precisely the kind of threat that has toppled civilizations in the past. On their own, however, such proximate causes are probabilistic. Peak oil may mean the end of civilization; or, perhaps we will be able to transition to some alternative. Environmental problems may destroy the most basic necessities of civilized life, or perhaps we will solve them, instead. What makes collapse a certainty, rather than a probability, is, ironically, the very thing that defines civilization in the first place: complexity.

“Syriana” is a term that appears often in the briefings of certain neoconservative think tanks to describe, in director Stephen Gaghan’s words, “a hypothetical reshaping of the Middle East,” though he said he used it more specifically to refer to “the fallacious dream that you can successfully remake nation-states in your own image.” The tribe’s been looking forward to this one for a while now, and if you’ve noticed a certain theme in the articles this week, it was largely a product of our anticipation. On Saturday, Mike, Giuli & I finally got to see it with our good friend, Jason Putorti. At its best, Syriana may help to wake up the willfully ignorant American public as to what its “non-negotiable … way of life” really costs. The film is being used in calls as environmental groups shift their message from cutting down on fossil fuels on envronmental concerns, to national security concerns. I remain skeptical that the film could live up to such a charge.

It is December 11. A Sunday. I work at a Mall. There are the usual assortment of stores. A Sears. A JcPenny. A Starbucks. A host of jewelry stores. A SamGoody. Etc. And this morning, early on a Sunday, the parking lot was full to the brim. When I expressed surprise, I was looked at like a new breed of previously undiscovered moron. “It’s Christmas, of course the Mall is full.” I know this. It would be kind of hard to miss after all. So why was I surprised when I should not have been? Silly me: I thought that Christmas shoppers would be at Church on Sunday morning.

When I try to talk to people I know about many of the issues facing the world they often use counter-examples to debunk my claim. These examples are uniformly limited to people in the middle and upper classes of Western Civilization.

When I claim that Paleolithic people had a life expectancy in the 60s and older, they reply that the life expectancy is 70 now.

When I claim that people were healthier in the Paleolithic, they reply that they can go to the hospital when they get sick.

Why did the United States invade Iraq in 2003? None of the stated reasons hold up to scrutiny. The threat, as originally presented, was that Saddam’s reconstituted weapons program would yield WMD’s that Saddam would share with his allies in al-Qa’ida. The “al-Qa’ida-Saddam link” was always patently absurd among those who understood the situation in the Middle East: the removal of Saddam was one of al-Qa’ida’s founding goals. Some made the argument that, like the USSR and Nazi Germany in World War II, al-Qa’ida and Saddam might have set aside their differences in the face of their greater, American enemy. This neglects the fact that America is only a secondary enemy in al-Qa’ida’s world, and only because of America’s unwavering support for their primary enemies: secular and fascist despots like Saddam Hussein! The attacks of 9/11 were not aimed to weaken America, but to rally the Muslim world against their local oppressors: that if even their American benefactors could be harmed, then surely the tyrants of the Middle East are not so invincible after all. The “links” between al-Qa’ida and Saddam showed some limited al-Qa’ida activity in Iraq, but popular American reporting neglected that the organizations thus linked to al-Qa’ida, like Ansar al-Islam, were all anti-Saddam resistance groups, like SCIRII, the Iranian-backed group whose members now form most of the current Iraqi government.

Peak Energy raises an issue brilliantly in “Peak Oil And The Philosophers Stone” that I’ve seen lurking about quite a bit, namely, that we see in the implications of Peak Oil whatever we would like to believe. “Big Gav” writes:

Kunstler has a deep seating loathing of suburban sprawl and modernity in general it would seem, so he sees peak oil as resulting in a semi-collapse that returns us to a future that resembles small town america of 150 years ago (plus wasted large cities and pirates ravaging the coasts of course).

Marco’s very often outrageously wrong about a great many things, like when he said that Garden State sucked. But occasionally, he’s wrong in such a way that it gives me a good starting point to say something important, such as when he wrote, “Why I’m not scared of peak oil,” where Marco argues that Peak Oil will be a non-event, because if the price of oil goes up, we can simply cut our waste and all will be well. Marco’s also a fan of the book Freakonomics, which had a thing or two to say about Peak Oil, as well.