Ethics of Collapse
by Jason GodeskyTo accept the inevitability of collapse can be a thing of terrible despair. It has earned this blog a reputation as morbid, depressing, and pessimistic. It has garnered me, specifically, such titles as “macabre ghoul,” and far worse. Unfortunately, there are far too many that agree with Rob McMillin’s view that we’re “cheering on the iceberg,” or Wood Connection’s review, “The Anthropik Network has no worry about civilization : these guys are waiting for the collapse, and they think that’s funny. … [T]his global blog tackles the problem from a quite selfish point of view : I’m in the system, and i plan to get out of it as soon as possible.” Ironically enough, the assessment of our situation that I agree with most comes from Alfred Lotka, in 1925:
The human species, considered in broad perspective, as a unit including its economic and industrial accessories, has swiftly and radically changed its character during the epoch in which our life has been laid. In this sense we are far removed from equilibrium—a fact that is of the highest practical significance, since it implies that a period of adjustment to equilibrium conditions lies before us, and he would be an extreme optimist who should expect that such adjustment can be reached without labor and travail. … While such sudden decline might, from a detached standpoint, appear as in accord with the eternal equities, since previous gains would in cold terms balance the losses, yet it would be felt as a superlative catastrophe. Our descendants, if such as this should be their fate, will see poor compensation for their ills and in fact that we did live in abundance and luxury.
My understanding of our situation is rooted in the ethics of a world where nothing is gained without cost, and actions have consequences. Such are my assumptions; all else follows from that. The consequence of our ancestors’ actions is collapse; it might have been averted 10,000 years ago, but it cannot be cheated now. The only “cheat” available is to merely postpone the event–and in so doing, make it worse. Our civilization nearly collapsed with the end of the Bronze Age. It would have meant the deaths of millions, and the ecological devastation of the Mediterranean. It didn’t; instead, iron was discovered just in time, and civilization moved on to the Iron Age. The crisis was postponed, until the Roman Empire’s collapse … and then again with the timber crisis of the 1600s. Each time, we “cheated” our fate by passing an even heavier burden on to our descendants. Now, it has come to us, and it is almost more than we can bear. If we did choose to be so irresponsible as to damn our children to an even worse fate, there are precious few means to do so available to us now. It does not appear to be an alternative for us. We are the generation that will have to pay the consequences for the actions of our distant ancestors–along with the accumulated interest of several “cheats” to keep it going a little bit longer.
If we were gods detached from the human race and observing all this with aloof superiority, we would note the passing of collapse as a wonderful thing. The end of a terrible way of life; the restoration of the earth’s bounty and biodiversity; the prosperity of the surviving Homo sapiens in a peaceful, prosperous culture to which they are truly adapted. The ultimate outcomes of collapse are all quite positive, and in several centuries, perhaps our descendants will see it that way.
But we are not gods. We are not detached from the reality we face. We are human beings in the thick of it. The ethics of collapse are eminently ambivalent; not because the questions involved are trivial, quite the opposite, because they are the most superlative questions of all. Collapse offers the hope of humanity’s rebirth, the end of nearly everything we would consider “evil,” and the restoration of everything we could consider “good.” The price–the terrible, terrible price–is paid in the blood of billions, and greater suffering than any animal has ever endured.
It is not left to us to choose if we would like to take this offer or not. It has been forced upon us as the consequence of actions that took place long before any of us were born. It is cold comfort, but there it is–the sins of our fathers have come down to punish us.
Once we have accepted the reality of the situation we face, we must find some way to come to terms with that. It can be debilitating. It still weighs heavily on me; I must console Giuli regularly when she thinks too long on it. Yet despair is debilitating an paralyzing. Worse yet, it keeps us from doing whatever little we can do about it.
We like to think that we are gods. Hubris is endemic to our culture. We like to think we possess the limitless compassion that our religions call us to aspire to. Of course, this isn’t possible. “One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.” So said one of the twentieth century’s most cold-blooded mass murderers, Josef Stalin. It haunts us so, because it tells us something true about ourselves that we wish wasn’t. Our capacity for compassion is not limitless. We really don’t care about the anonymous masses of humanity; we don’t even know them. That is precisely what Robin Dunbar’s research proved–that the number of people we know, effectively, our capacity for compassion–is a function of neocortex size. There are biological limits to our compassion. Beyond 150 persons, we know longer recognize “people.” We are not pained by the deaths of six billion; we are pained by the idea of six billion deaths. Our religions urge us to have compassion for all humanity. It is not only impossible, it is asking for compassion for an abstract, meaningless idea. In the name of “humanity,” for the “greater good,” countless “compassionate” people have destroyed the only element in this equation that really means anything: individual human beings.
Chinese junks may have skirted the coasts of the New World, but they were primarily moored in the harbors of the Middle Kingdom, sitting in smug content willing to let the outer barbarians wallow in their savagery. It was Christian compassion that motivated missionaries to spread the gospel of Christ throughout the globe, and with it, disease, slavery and the disintegration of indigenous cultures that had preserved those people throughout the millennia. Human compassion does not have a very sterling record of positive results, particularly when our compassion extends to people we do not know or understand.
I believe the first step in coming to grips with something as enormous as the collapse of civiliation is to relinquish our claims to godhood. To come down to earth and let go of our aloof attachment, but also to give up on our pretense of omnibenevolence. We need to understand that it is not the death of people that pains us, but an abstract idea. It is the people around us, the people dear to us, that we live and die with, and for. That must always be our first loyalty.
At the same time, we must also surrender our pretense of divine detachment. Gods and grandchildren can appreciate the good that collapse will bring, but those of us who live in this moment must never allow our view to be clouded by that. We are here; the people who will suffer and die are the people around us, our contemporaries, our neighbors–not an abstract notion of “humanity,” but the flesh and blood human beings who walk and share this earth with us. We must never forget how horrific the price is, how bloody and absolute the consequences of our ancestors’ folly will be. If we lose that, we lose ourselves to cynicism and a cold detachment from the rest of humanity.
In the face of something so big, what can we do? When we can come to terms with the ambivalent nature of collapse–when we can accept it in all its horror and opportunity in equal measure, stare it straight in its baleful eye without flinching and without need to denounce or glorify it, we can see clearly what we must do. The Talmud interprets the descent of all humanity from Adam with the teaching that every human being has the seed of a whole world inside him; so, whosoever saves a single life, it is as if he has saved the whole world.
Those of us who can accept the situation that looms before us have one distinct advantage: foreknowledge. This can translate into preperation. Some 99% of the human population will likely die in the next century, but it is largely up to us to decide whether we will be included in the 99%, or the 1%. It has less to do with random chance, than it does with our willingness to consider alternatives that will never occur to most people–primarily, tribalism, foraging, and primitivism.
As always, our first loyalty must be to our own. Our friends, our family, our community–our tribe.
Beyond that, you stumble onto the reason this website exists.
An open source, New Tribal Revolution. The creation of a new memetic variety, adapted to survive the changing material reality of a civilization in collapse and poised to inherit the earth. Our preparations and rationale are being made in public. For those preparing, perhaps you will find ideas here that will help in your own preparation. Or, perhaps this site will help people who never realized the immediacy of the present crisis to understand what the future holds. Every person we can alert to the looming danger, every person we can help in their own preparations, is one more person with a better chance of survival.
That’s why I write the long articles, and the (sometimes even longer) replies; that’s what motivates us, what keeps this blog going. In the face of something so enormous, it often doesn’t seem like we’re accomplishing much, but it’s all we know how to do. I can’t speak for others, but I know after the long, dark walk through doubt and depression that this knowledge set me down, I have come to terms with collapse, and I have found a way to deal with it, to prepare for it, and to do what I can to help as many people as I know how, and do all that I can to ensure that the opportunity opened by so much pain and suffering is not in vain.
I’m not in McMillin’s camp, but there are a few things that disturb me about your argument (and I have tried to read as much of it as possible).
1. I agree that modern medicine neglects the placebo effect, but it doesn’t have to, and I think that a future privative society will still suffer significantly for lack of modern medicine.
2. Despite your arguments to the contrary, I’m still not convinced that past societies were egalitarian (perhaps I’m just brainwashed by the propaganda of civilized society
). However, I don’t think those arguments address quite the right point. Even if past tribes were egalitarian, I don’t think that proves that future tribes will be. I don’t think prejudice and hierarchy are something that will automatically disappear with civilization, and it seems that such things could be very hard to root out of tribal societies. (In particular, I’m very concerned about sexism.)
3. Even if privative society is the utopia you claim, I think civilization is more tenacious then you believe. If there is a major collapse, I still think it’s far more likely that most areas will just be left with a civilization that sucks (think dark ages). (That scares me far more than neo-primitivism.)
4. You seem to take your own survival too much for granted, which strikes me as hubris. If civilization collapses, it’s certainly true that the prepared have much better odds of survival. However, I think that everyone, no matter how well-prepared, would have a high chance of perishing in such an event.
5. I wish you shared some more ideas about what could be done to improve sustainability within the context of civilization as well. Remember the saying, “Prepare for the worst, but prepare to be wrong.” (Not that you’d necessarily view the collapse of civilization to be “the worst”, but still…)
Comment by L33tminion — 8 April 2006 @ 10:44 AM
The fact that modern primitive societies do not suggests to me that’s probably not correct. It’s only sheer ethnocentrism that tells us that our ethnomedicine is any better than any other ethnomedicine; it’s never been proven, and in fact, it’s been shown false.
Ultimately, hierarchy is, well … wierd. It’s a luxury afforded by having lots and lots of energy. Most of the time, frankly, you can’t afford it.
It’s not a utopia. I’ve been very careful about that. It’s not perfect. In a way, a perfect world would be kind of, well, imperfect! If nothing ever goes wrong, what a boring life it would be! No, there are problems. The difference is, problems don’t define your life in primitive society, the way they do in ours.
It should–I’d be a lot more scared of that, too, but dark ages don’t just happen on their own. They need resources. Where are the resources to support a new dark ages? Is there an intermediate level that’s still viable? How does one farm in Iowa, without petroleum?
Perhaps, but my thinking is this … if merely understanding the situation puts you in the top 1% of “most likely to survive,” and collapse doesn’t kill randomly, but generally just takes the 99% least likely to survive…. Or again, collapse kills everyone who’s dependent on the system collapsing. If you’re not dependent on that system, what is there to fear?
I figured that was already covered in sufficient depth by Treehugger and a whole market of environmentalist media.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 April 2006 @ 11:49 AM
People in modern tribes still do die from diseases preventable or curable by modern medicine, do they not?
What about sexism? To me, that seems like a serious problem in modern society, and one that we are dealing with only slowly. How would future privative societies avert that?
A lot of hard work, I imagine. There are still many places in the world where farming is often done by hand.
That last assumption is the one that’s shaky. It assumes that death in a disaster (of whatever sort) is a completely deterministic process. Being prepared only give you better odds of survival.
For example, given a disaster that will kill 99% of the population, 1% must be the mean survival rate. Someone with a 5% chance of survival could easily be in the top 1% of the population in terms of survival odds, but they’d still only have a 5% chance of surviving.
Overconfidence and other people, mostly.
Comment by L33tminion — 8 April 2006 @ 12:32 PM
Less so than civilized people do.
Well, among foragers, sexism is liable to get you killed.
Those places also can’t support their population–they’re subsidized with food shipments from the U.S., which would be a desert if not for all that delicious oil. And those areas are becoming deserts from all that farming by hand, too. The Sahara is expanding–largely due to just such farming endeavors. Africa’s complexity is propped up only by the peer polity system. If that falls, Africa will finally be allowed to collapse. Being suspended the way Africa is, is the worst of both worlds–all the suffering of collapse, without the opportunity.
That’s true, but ultimately, getting out of bed in the morning is taking your life into your hands, too.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 April 2006 @ 1:06 PM
most of your arguments L33T are merely the trappings of modern programming and resistance to change that might make you uncomfortable. life doesn’t have to last 100 years to be good if you actually live instead of exist. break the chains that hold you in mental slavery.
so people will die due to a “lack” of modern medicine. so what? to live you must die, no its not always nice or pretty, but what in life is?
you’re very concerned about sexism? drop your modern mindset and adapt (actually regress). if you are refering to the traditional gender roles, they existed for valid a reasons. its a little hard to stalk and hunt deer with a wailing infant who needs to nurse. no, the gender roles don’t have to be concrete, but they did have a purpose and we’ve forgotten one important aspect of them: we survived and flourished. as jason put it, sexism in the society he and his tribe desire would ensure a short lifespan when rubbing against today’s women.
as for survival, you HAVE to believe that you are going to survive otherwise you’re wasting your time even trying. if you don’t believe you’ll survive why even try? and as jason said, being prepared makes a world of difference.
i’m not trying to attack you, but the clock is ticking and if you want to survive, you’d better get on board mentally as thats the part you can’t purchase and is the bedrock underlying everything else.
Comment by handforged — 8 April 2006 @ 1:58 PM
I will repost a question I had from yesterday that no one was willing to touch:
Comment by Al — 8 April 2006 @ 2:49 PM
L33tminion, the word is primitive, not privative. At least I hope that is the word you were meaning because:
privative means “causing deprivation, lack, or loss,” while
primative means “of or relating to a nonindustrial, often tribal culture, especially one that is characterized by a low level of economic complexity.”
Maybe that’s the root of the problem in your understanding of what Anthropik is trying to do, if you think that to adopt a primitive life is equivalent with “deprivation, lack, or loss.”
(definitions from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Comment by Tom Campbell — 8 April 2006 @ 2:49 PM
Hey –
I think I can say with some confidence that this was not answered as it was perceived not as a reasonable question but rather as a back-handed insult.
It IS true that as we get older we tend to get more set in our ways and therefore are less likely to accept the notion that everything we have belived is a lie. However, that is only a tendancy.
As it turns out, there are quite a number of older, ’successful’ participants on this board. I won’t speak for anyoe else, but my husband and I had ‘everything we were supposed to have and then some’ when we began questioning the common wisdom and looking for a different way to approach life and living.
After several years of not knowing where to turn, we read Ishmael which then set us on the path that eventually led here. Now, everyone knows that I do not agree with everything Jason has to say… but I DO think that he has built a solid, well supported model of ‘human society within the greater ecology’ (Man, it can be hard to ‘name’ a systemic model
), so for me it is really a question of interpretation, nuance and emphasis…
That being said, I can think of no reason why ‘…a successful engineer pulling in $100K a year or a successful lawyer on his way up in a firm is [not] going to participate in this.’ If you value science, openmindedness and preparedness, then there may be something here of value to you.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 8 April 2006 @ 4:46 PM
For myself, I do pretty well to this society, and my primitive skills right now are all but non-existent. So, once again, I’m actually moving against my dispositions here. For some it may be a coping mechanism, but there’s far too many here for whom it is anything but, to justify such a generalization.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 April 2006 @ 5:14 PM
Hey –
I’ve seen this question lots of times before, having gotten it all the time when I was dropping out of school. Rather than listen to my explanation for why I was dropping out/had dropped out on its face, a lot of people seemed to be skeptical, seeing my explanation as an elaborate rationalization for my “failure to succeed”. None of these people knew me personally, to say the least, so they couldn’t have known that up until I stopped caring, I had a nearly perfect school record. This perfect school record, what I was so “successful” at, was earned mostly by keeping my head down and my mouth shut, compliantly doing everything I was told. When I stopped doing these things, I stopped being “successful”.
So in one sense, I suppose these questioners have a point. I couldn’t succeed in this society because I’m not a mindless coward. But I refuse to believe that dropping out reflects negatively on my character, in fact I think it represents some of my most positive qualities — intelligence, courage, and integrity.
I might say it this way: if to be successful in this society means making $100,000 a year at a job I hate, then YES I cannot be successful in this society. But I harbor no bitterness toward those individuals who are successful, no secret jealousy drives my ‘rebellion’. I’ve been the type of person who is “successful” and I’ve found out how hollow and empty that success is. I’d much rather be a happy failure than an empty and self-loathing success.
Lastly, the example used is pretty ironic — my dad is a successful mechanical engineer, and if he worked full time his salary would be, guess what, just over $100,000. Except he doesn’t work full time anymore, because he has realized the very basic truth that money does not equal happiness. He’s been in UU seminary for many years now, has just reduced his hours to 25, and while he is not exactly going to be “participative” in my desired lifestyle (he says he’s too old for that) he is supportive. If anyone is jealous of anyone else here, I’d have to say that my father is jealous of me.
For whatever that’s worth.
- Devin
Comment by Devin — 8 April 2006 @ 5:41 PM
This is the main point on which I disagree with you. As I understand it, Dunbar’s number doesn’t have to do with a “capacity for compassion.” It has to do with the number of stable relationships a person can maintain. I can have compassion for someone without forming a stable relationship with that person. And if I couldn’t, how would I ever form a stable relationship with that person in the first place?
I also think you’re a bit off-course when you talk about compassion being the cause of all of these historical tragedies. To me, it seems just like what happens with religion. No one ever fights a war for religion. They fight a war for resources and use religion as the justification. It’s the same with compassion. The things you’re talking about weren’t caused by an excess of compassion. They were caused by expansionism. Compassion was merely the justification they used. That doesn’t make compassion bad any more than it makes religion bad.
Far from being god-like or arrogant, I think that an ability to empathize with others, even people you don’t even know, is a fundamental part of the human experience. It’s the thing that makes us so good at forming the groups that keep us alive.
As far as Al’s question is concerned, it’s a stereotype. So obviously, it doesn’t apply to all cases, or possibly even most cases. But you do have to admit that a primitive-anarchist philosophy tends to be more appealing to those on the fringes of society. Obviously, I don’t have any demographic data, but it has been my experience that most of the people who form the “core” support for this kind of philosophy are people who, in some way or another, have difficulty succeeding in civilized society–your hippies, your awkward loners, etc. I don’t think that takes anything away from the research that’s been done. It’s just a matter of who the first people to climb on the bandwagon are. And it’s pretty much exactly who you’d expect.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 8 April 2006 @ 5:48 PM
To be able to empathize with a particular example you’re presented with is one thing, but for it to mean much of anything, I would think that a stable relationship is a prerequisite for any meaningful kind of compassion.
That’s true, it’s not a sufficient cause, but I do think it explains why the Europeans caused so much pain and suffering in the world, as opposed to the Middle Kingdom.
When we hear about things like Darfur, if it doesn’t pain us, we’re not human. But is that pain “compassion”? I don’t know these people, I can’t even really appreciate the suffering there. How can I have compassion for something so huge, that I can’t even really understand it? I can only understand it emotionally–biologically, I’m incapable of feeling the full emotional impact of a tragedy on such an enormous scale. How can any claim I make to compassion be anything but hollow rhetoric?
That may well be, but Al seems to pose it as a dismissal. Since it is a generalization, there are many counter-examples. As such, while it may explain to some extent or another why people adopt this philosophy or that philosophy, I don’t think it can be used the way Al seems to want to use it, as a judgment of the philosophy itself.
I know a lot of people who cling to mathematics for psychological reasons–the stability of solid, indisputable numbers, the reassurance of unchanging truth, etc.–but that says nothing to the fact that 2+2=4.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 April 2006 @ 6:07 PM
I believe what you’re talking about would be more accurately described as love, for which you do need a stable relationship. But compassion is merely being aware of another person’s suffering and having a desire to relieve that suffering. I don’t need to form any sort of deep, psychological connection with the person in question in order to do that.
Yes. It’s actually the definition of compassion.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 8 April 2006 @ 6:19 PM
Question for people: Is this focus on post-apocalypse survival a coping mechanism for people who cannot be successful, financially or otherwise, in the current world?
This question is worded in such a way as to disallow it’s appropriate answer…If the focus really were on “post-apocolypse survival”, that would be one thing; Instead, atleast from what I can tell, the focus ranges from pre-apocolypse preparedness to mid-apocolypse adaptation. Collapse of a global system takes a long time, is punctuated by anomolous regional fits and starts, and likely will last far longer then any of our little lives.
It’s very easy to see those of us who think in these terms as escapist, if for no other reason then the least enfranchised experience the reality of collapse as immeadiate threatening, and thus will tend to be, initially, disproportionately represented in the population actively seeking to adress the issues of collapse.
Comment by M. David Bailey — 8 April 2006 @ 6:25 PM
I guess we just mean different things by the word, then. It seems quite hollow to me to say you have “compassion” for something you can’t even really understand.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 April 2006 @ 6:25 PM
Well, I was that successful civil/environmental engineer until I threw it all away for a life that I value. Then I had a golden opportunity to inherit an independent patent law practice - except that devoting three torturous years studying man made laws (and the recent, bizarre outcropping of “intellectual property”) makes my stomach turn.
Unsuccessful? Foolish? Hardly what I think. I am finding more of what I want than I could have possibly could have imagined, had I stayed on the conventional, “successful” path. I am continually inspired by the brightest people I’ve ever met and established relationships with - people with powerful analytical skills, a command of logical reasoning, geological & historical perspective, deep compassion and understanding, and joyful will to live better ways. Not to mention a bucket load of unique skills and knowledge… and a taste of emergent community.
Even if I’m not on the same exact path as Anthropik, I feel more secure as a part of it’s developing, rhizomous network.
Comment by JCamasto — 8 April 2006 @ 6:33 PM
But by that definition, there would be no such thing as compassion at all, since no one can ever fully understand what another person is experiencing.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 8 April 2006 @ 6:34 PM
You can have compassion for people you know, because you can understand them. No, you can never entirely put yourself in their place, but that’s what empathy is for, just like language is for communication: neither is perfect, but both are usually sufficient. That kind of compassion–compassion for a person–I can understand. It’s compassion for a concept that seems like hollow rhetoric to me.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 April 2006 @ 6:52 PM
Jason, you can have compassion for people that you don’t know. I tend to agree with Mike here but you knew that. In fact, I will even posit the the ability to be compassionate, while inherent in all of us, does wax and wane. It is an ability to be developed. For myself (and only speaking for myself), it is part of the Bodhisattva Path to develop compassion for other beings, not just to look out for myself. This includes strangers. They are fellow human beings afrter all. There are practical methods, developed over thousands of years, to actively expand and grow one’s ability to be compassionate. I’m not simply being a Buddhist mouthpiece here as these methods are very real techniques but they take time and many people do not wish to bother to do so. Feeling compassion for other people can also be painful.
As to my question, yes, I did phrase it in a somewhat controversial way. I read Ishamael as well about, oh, six or so years ago. Then I read the rest of Daniel Quinn’s work and that of others. I agree with much of it but I also see it as a very bleak view of the world. I also see mistakes in Quinn’s attitudes towards a number of things (especially religion) but I won’t get into that here.
So, I do understand the desire that people feel to opt out and build a better world post-collapse. I just, additionally, feel that there is a certain element of wish fulfilment going on. It is all the easier to see that when you meet people, as I have in a local Ishmael focused group, that clearly are the outsiders in society. Most of them are outsiders not because they made a conscious choice to live differently and with different values but because they just never were quite able to live within society in the first place or be successful. Maybe that’s a good thing from your point of view and they are the advance wave but I do have to wonder if many of these people, if they had been conventionally successful, would have bothered or if they bothered because they weren’t conventionally successful and needed to cope with it.
I am conventionally successful but I don’t think it is a great mark in my favor. It just is what it is. That doesn’t make me comfortable with society or else I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t be studying to be a Buddhist priest, and I wouldn’t be involved in the other groups that I am with. I will admit that I am biased in that when a person who was a successful lawyer with a family, a house, etc. says “I decided that it wasn’t for me anymore and I built a new life in a different style or developed a new spirituality, etc” that I tend to take it as having more weight than when I meet a college dropout who panhandles and couchsurfs with friends who tells me that modern society is sick and that they’re going to be ready when the revolution comes… The first carries more weight to me because I know that that person can be successful and from the vantage of that success, they are making an informed decision whereas the latter is just rationalizing (probably) their inability to do anything in this world with a hatred of this world and all it entails.
Comment by Al — 8 April 2006 @ 9:52 PM
As I mentioned, our religions often call us to godlike levels of compassion, but I don’t think that makes it any more possible, or the claim anything else but pretense and hubris.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 April 2006 @ 10:28 PM
That’s just a dismissal without reason. Why should I believe that? Simply because you say that compassion isn’t possible if you don’t know someone?
The only person who has said “godlike” in this conversation or the one yesterday is you. Buddhism isn’t about deities, it is about our innate humanity as much as anything else.
Comment by Al — 8 April 2006 @ 10:40 PM
Aren’t you being just as dismissive, dismissing the beliefs of others because of their motivations? At any rate, I’ve reiterated my reasons for that position several times now–Dunbar’s number, neurological capacity, and the hollowness of claiming “compassion” for someone you don’t even know. Your claims to have such “compassion” for strangers strikes me as, frankly, meaningless rhetoric. It’s a godlike level because it’s beyond humans–only gods can know everything and everyone, which to my mind would be a prerequisite before one could even aspire to the kind of universal compassion you claim to have. Buddhism may not have any avowed gods in the conventional sense, but I’ve always found the creed to be quite misanthropic in its own way–it denigrates the human condition as one of endless suffering, teaches us that being human is an awful and miserable state, and then teaches us to deny the things that makes us human and instead aspire to a hubristic, divine state. Some of the best people I’ve ever known have been Buddhists, but Buddhism itself has always left a foul taste in my mouth.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 April 2006 @ 10:57 PM
handforged- I recognize that my culture and society have a significant effect on my beliefs.
As far as sexism goes, I’m not referring to “traditional gender roles”. It’s not bad that gender roles exist in a society; that only becomes a problem when people are held to those roles by coercive force.
Rather, I’m talking about systems of abuse (systems that are distinctly non-egalitarian). Among other things, I’m talking about rape. (If you don’t think that’s still a serious problem in our society, you’re not paying attention.)
As far as survival goes, no one survives life. The prospect of death frightens me, of course, and I’d like to live as long as possible. However, civilization is the medium in which I thrive, so if it collapses I’ll likely die with it. Nor am I willing to make the current sacrifice necessary to render myself independent of the structure of civilization.
In addition, I’d like to preserve civilization, to see it transformed into something stable. I’m not sure I buy the argument that collapse is inevitable and civilization is doomed. That may well be a moot point, though, as I’d probably fight to “save” civilization even if I believed you guys and thought it was a futile effort (my individual contributions are likely to be rather insignificant either way :-P).
If civilization does collapse, I’ll probably try to survive and to help people where I can (but I probably won’t be very successful in the long run, what with the reactive approach). In such a case, I wish you guys luck in your venture.
Tom- That was, in fact, a typo. Oops.
Comment by L33tminion — 8 April 2006 @ 11:13 PM
Will whisper in the slightest words that outcasts are not who make up those who know the facts concerning growth in population and diminishing resources. The outcome of this agricultural experience is about to end badly for civilization, proving those who are supported by this experiment will be judged as the real outcasts. The natural sustaining energy on Earth can support a limited number of humans, and there is nothing whatsoever any man can do to change this fact. To deny this is to continue living a life of illusion.
When the non-renewable energy from oil expires, many humans will expire. This acknowlegement is without emotion.
Many billions of humans have already lived and died and no one feels compassion for them.
Comment by Rick Larson — 8 April 2006 @ 11:13 PM
I’m not “just” being dismissive of others’ beliefs. I’m questioning their motivations and justifications. You do the same so I’m not sure why it isn’t equally good for everyone. Is something really the best idea or is it just the best idea that you are capable of justifying to yourself for your own reasons? It is fair to ask the question.
As to Buddhism…I say, without ranchor, that you have a rather Western stereotyped view of Buddhism. I invite you to meet a Tibetan Lama or a Thai abbot. You will find them joyous, postive, and happy people. Why? Because they are free.
I don’t know where you’re attitude towards Buddhism comes from but it isn’t an uncommon dismissal. Perhaps it is your Christian upbringing, perhaps it is just what you’ve been exposed to, I couldn’t say. Unlike other faiths, Buddhism doesn’t expect someone to come save you. There is no God or Messiah that will do things for you. There is no rescue party on the way. It is up to each of us to save ourselves and then to save each other.
Buddhism doesn’t teach the being human is “an awful and miserable state.” It teaches that nothing is permanent, period. Your pain? It’s not permanent. Your happiness? It’s not permanent either. Your family? Nope. Your life? Not at all. But, regardless of that, you desire that everything should be permanent. You don’t want things to end because you want the good things to last. Except, of course, they don’t and it leaves the taste of ashes in your mouth. This is the suffering that we all experience if we live very long at all. Heck, even your very “self” isn’t permanent and is not, when you really look, even there. It’s like smoke and it cannot be grabbed or even seen if you look closely enough.
The Buddha’s answer to this was that there was a way to learn to not grasp after things, to not be pulled in by the con game. It is also a revelation that the lack of inherent existence (because nothing lasts and nothing has ever lasted) is actually liberating if you learn how to deal with it.
Maybe you find this misanthropic but I could say your view of civilization is misanthropic but you would counter that, no, it is just reality and the way it is. Well, this is just the reality of human existence. It isn’t misanthropic. It just is (and is not in the end).
I believe your brother already challenged your statements about compassion. I don’t claim godlike compassion at all. I claim normal human compassion and, from my point of view, you’ve given up on the idea of basic, normal, human compassion for others that you should have simply because they are human like you.
Comment by Al — 8 April 2006 @ 11:16 PM
Rick, but no one cheers that those billions of dead humans died and no one cheered their deaths, as a whole, before they happened. Can every Peak Oil Apocalyptic Fetishist around here (and there are a few, I think) say the same for all of the humans around them now? No, they cheer their upcoming deaths and talk about evolution or the greater good of the planet.
Comment by Al — 8 April 2006 @ 11:18 PM
Jason-
I suppose for certain diseases that’s a given, but it seems rather far-fetched as a general claim.
How so? And are you talking about current or past foragers, or how things would be in some new post-civilization society?
Oh, I have no doubt that a lot of people would die in such a scenario, but I still think some population is sustainable on subsistence farming.
Indeed.
(Also, where did comment preview go on this site? I could have sworn there used to be one.)
Comment by L33tminion — 8 April 2006 @ 11:27 PM
How many of us even have commpassion for the wildlands we live near? save the trees? but do we even know the trees? do we know them intimatly? prolly not, and this leads to many problems. so, instead we (those of western civ) save those trees in the name of an ideal, just like we forcefull saved Africans from their OWN HOMES (because we had “compassion” for the animals there “hunting to extinction.” or because they were cannibals, uncivil, etc. which are all totally false), by building Nature Parks–so that dirty humans can’t kill all those animals we see on the discovery channel……well, only white people can.
“humanity” is an abstract concept, just like our concept of what is “wild” and what is not. there is not collective “humanity” who CONTROLS all decisions and agrees WITH ALL DECISIONS. There are only individuals, with thoughts and desires.
if you think my outlook is bleak, you’re missing the point: the reality. if you can devise a way in which the world is not fed with OUT industrialism (farming, international trade, importing/exporting). if you can find a method of generating electricity that is sustainable, energy efficent (please dont mention alternative energies) and doesnt fuck up the air, water, soil, im totally for all of it. my mind is pretty closed, but it’s always open to listening to “solutions.” and is always going to be critical of every “solution” that anyone says (even me).
when i said bring on the collapse, i wasnt picturing some dog-eat-dog scenerio. or a rapture. i dont pray for it. but, i dont want to deny it and i recognize that the longer this world exists, the worse off we all are (Ie: more people die, and possibly the extinction of human race. who knows?). i dont live in a world where paranoia rules (where all my decisions of made from the idea that world may end! :\), rather, i try and live my life as unmediated as possible. i was just being blunt when i said that stuff in the other thread. and the internet can easily the most un-commpassionate place to have any kind of discussion.
Comment by Scott — 8 April 2006 @ 11:41 PM
I think rape will probably always be with us, but it does occur much more rarely in forager societies.
A “stable civilization” is a contradiction in terms.
“Just as,” as in, “equally,” not “merely.”
So you say, but, I have met such people. I’ve read much of the Sutta Pitaka for myself, as well as the Tibetan Book of the Dead and a number of other Buddhist texts. I’ve met many Buddhists, both Western and Eastern, and I’ve found that their understandings of Buddhism are radically divergent. The Western, stereotyped view of Buddhism is something I actually find far more fulfilling: it seems to emphasize the more philosophical and psychological aspects, which I find to be Buddhism’s strengths. Thai, Tibetan and other Eastern forms that I’ve encountered–both from practitioners and texts–seem to me to be far more interested in the same restrictive issues one typically associates with Western religions.
Obviously, my experience with Buddhism is quite different from yours. I’m glad you have something that you find so much value in–it’s important for all of us to find something like that. I’m not interested in denigrating your faith, but my decision to not share it is not based in ignorance. I hope you can understand that others might come to very different conclusions, without presuming that they must be ignorant to do so.
Yes, I have heard this many times from Western Buddhists. I have to say, I much prefer the Western forms, but I can’t reconcile this with the First Noble Truth of Dukkha. I’m sure there are many justifications, just as the Roman Catholic Church has many justifications for why Marianism does not violate monotheism. I’ve heard quite a few for both inconsistencies, but I have yet to hear one that I find satisfactory.
I find civilization misanthropic because it, too, takes a dim view of human nature, telling us that humans are fallen/ignorant/sinful/etc., and must be controlled–that ceding our freedom is the only thing keeping us from a Hobbesian bellum omnium contra omnes. In Buddhism, it is the First Noble Truth that I find misanthropic.
I’m pained when I hear reports from Darfur. I was consumed with rage when I heard what Debswana was doing to the Bushmen. Does that count as “compassion”? Perhaps I simply value compassion to highly to attach it to something that’s ultimately so shallow as those useless, paralyzing feelings that course through me from a thousand miles away. I don’t know them, I can’t truly appreciate their plight. To call that feeling “compassion” seems to cheapen the word. It can never be equal to what I can feel for the people that I do know. I find no shame in that, but I do think it is somewhat dishonest to pretend that we can feel for every stranger in the world even as we feel for our own family.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 April 2006 @ 11:44 PM
Both. Giuli used the example of a tomboy who wants to hunt. A sexist tribe won’t let her hunt–she’s just a girl. A non-sexist tribe will. Agricultural societies are sufficiently large scale to absorb such inefficiencies, but foragers are small enough that a small difference like this can make a huge effect. The sexist tribe will leave more game becuase of fewer hunters–game that the more egalitarian tribe will gladly take down, with more hunters. The sexist tribe dwindles and finally dies out; the egalitarian tribe profits at its expense.
I expect some small pockets of civilization to remain–few, small, and far between. Thus, they should be fairly easy to escape for those with the inclination.
It b0rk3d.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 April 2006 @ 11:53 PM
oh yeah, ive met a few Lamas in my day, and they are soooo happy, yet so powerless. i am GREEDY for life, i am going to attach myself to others and act on my desires.
i once asked a Lama what he would do if there was a man beating his child in front of him. he said he’d talk to him, tell him all this spritual stuff about non-violence. if that didnt work, he said he’d just pity him. all the while, NO thought about the kid who is being beaten. it’s almost…selfish. and i think this is common is buddhism. and as we know, most abusers arent gonna stop with words. neither with force, but one would do well to restrain that person and get the child OUT of the area FOREVER.
Comment by Scott — 8 April 2006 @ 11:59 PM
I sympathize, Scott. Non-violence is the second hardest aspect of Buddhism in my opinion (compassion being the hardest). The problem is that violence doesn’t end until no one engages in it. As long as it is acceptable to respond to violence with violence, it won’t end.
That being said, I used to work with a lama who was a martial arts practitioner and my current teacher (in the Japanese tradition) is one, as is the head of our school. They will respond with the bare minimum force necessary to contain a situation and, if necessary, will kill to protect others but never out of aggression. This is a difficult tightrope to walk and most Buddhists will just avoid it because it is very easy to be wrong and then you are simply justifying inflicting suffering on others. It depends on the people and their beliefs though. There is no Buddhist pope after all (and the Dalai Lama doesn’t even qualify as such within Tibetan Buddhism).
Comment by Al — 9 April 2006 @ 12:08 AM
Jason, you can disagree with the First Noble Truth but it doesn’t make it any less true. I can only refer to my previous comment.
If you are experiencing a life without suffering and know that you will find no suffering, not even death for yourself or the ones you love, in the future, tell me your secret.
I don’t require people to agree with me. In the end, people either come to some level of realization, regardless of tradition, or they don’t. Those that look, can find answers or people with whom to work on answers. For those that don’t look or don’t care, well, they live the life they live and then they die just the same as the others.
Comment by Al — 9 April 2006 @ 12:10 AM
How is a stranger a “concept,” as opposed to a real person? If a stranger is a concept, then so are the people you know. They merely happen to be more well-defined concepts.
And you admit that you don’t fully understand what even your closest friend is going through. Just like you don’t fully understand what a stranger is going through. So where do you draw the line between when your feeling for another person counts as compassion and when it doesn’t? What’s the magic amount of personal knowledge that’s required?
That’s the point. There is no arbitrary cut-off. Compassion is simply the ability to recognize and respond to suffering in others. And how much do you really have to understand a person to realize that they’e in pain? All you need to understand about them is that they’re human. It’s not like love where you have to establish a close personal relationship with the other person. Having compassion for a stranger isn’t “cheapening” the concept. It’s what compassion is for.
Yes! It’s the definition of compassion!
BTW… Aren’t Buddhists the ones who believe that all worldly life is suffering that only ends in spiritual non-existence? ‘Cause that might be why some people consider it misanthropic.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 9 April 2006 @ 12:14 AM
I don’t think existence is any more defined by suffering than it is by joy–to focus on suffering, as opposed to joy … that’s not realism, that’s just pessimism. I don’t think the First Noble Truth is realistic at all–I think it’s just simple misanthropy.
I don’t expect you to agree, but I would hope you can recognize there is a reason that your faith is faith, and not an established fact.
Buddhism has a lot to recommend it–and a lot that I disagree with strongly. Rather like most religions.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 9 April 2006 @ 12:17 AM
“Humanity” is a concept; it’s an abstraction. An individual stranger you can feel compassion for, but “humanity”? I don’t think you can feel compassion for “humanity” any more than you can feel compassion for “scientific reductionism.”
Comment by Jason Godesky — 9 April 2006 @ 12:21 AM
Well, since the word is not literally “suffering” but is as much “dis-ease”, one could argue about translation but I doubt if that will convince you.
I don’t put Buddhism in the same category as other faiths. The Buddha said, to paraphrase, don’t take my word for it, try it out for yourself. If it works, use it. If it doesn’t, get rid of it. He said to apply this to ALL beliefs regardless of the source, even his.
Buddhism doesn’t require a belief in God, Angels, Heaven, Hell, scriptures or anything. It simply requires a belief that there is a method for dealing with the troubles of life and that, if you try it and it doesn’t work, walk away and try something else but that there is a way in the end. That’s it.
Not terribly supernatural in its basis. I don’t think the Pope or an Imam can say the same thing about their God, their prophet, or the rules in their holy books.
Comment by Al — 9 April 2006 @ 12:23 AM
That seems like a typical free-market argument. There are two problems with this:
1. I don’t think such inefficiency is enough to guarentee the elimination of the inefficient practice.
2. I’m not sure all sexist practices are as inefficient as the one in your example.
At some point in history, civilization existed on that scale. Was it easy to escape then?
Comment by L33tminion — 9 April 2006 @ 12:36 AM
Especially because I’ve read quite a few, very different cases for very different translations. I think I understand the word in its own right well enough, and why it’s so troublesome for translators.
I understand that, but there’s a whole category of such faiths, including gnosticism and shamanism.
I think you’re greatly underestimating the supernatural content of Buddhism, and greatly overestimating the supernatural content of Catholicism and Islam. Most Western Buddhists I know are motivated primarily by their disaffection with such Western religions. How would you feel if I suggested that your devotion was only because you were incapable of adapting to Western rel