The Oil Drum

Howdy;

From all accounts, and from a fairly wide and varied bunch of friends here in little old Ireland, our societies are basically captive to these discourses that focus on economic performance to the exclusion of practically all else.

Within my lifetime i've seen televisions supplant and eradicate a sustained culture which has probably survived on the irish western seaboard for something like 8000 years.

Archaelogical finds suggest that after the ice age, our forebears lived day to day with essentially the same equipment used by my grandparents, minus a bit of metal and finer textiles.

If 'the powers that be' - and these same powers have had the foresight to avoid investing in public transport, education and health for decades (/sarcsm) - continue to ignore anything not of immediate concern to a tiny group of undereducated postcolonial investors (who are all assured positions on the board of directors from birth), then indeed it is prudent to cost-benefit some preparations for the worst-case scenario.

These people have homes without bookshelves ! - they remind me of the migratory groups that Jared Diamond described in 'guns germs and steel' who, in adapting to the very easy life on a paradisiacal island, even lost the ability to make fire.

Editorial control of the narrative, of the consensual hallucination, has historically here in ireland been the privilege of the Fili, or druids and poets.

These days the same power lies in the hands of the 'free' press, entirely beholden to advertisers eager to appeal to the most-easily-stimulatable desires of thier selected demographic segments.

So this situation has very carefully stripped out any consideration of, or responsiveness to, anything but the bottom dollar and the quarterly result.

I even heard that G.W.Bush's administration excludes from consideration anything further away than 3 months.

The extreme feminist views of kristeva and cisoux etc, demolishing the entire patrifocal linear narrative seemed to me to be a recipie for mass psychosis (might explain the huge number of pharmacies in urban france !).

Narratives seem essential to psychological coherence, though perhaps I lack the imagination to see beyond the camp-fire-light.

I can't forsee the emergence of any force or factor sufficiently strong and coherent to cause real change in the discourse, except for the olduvai cliff itself.

TVs are still filled wall-to-wall with car and holiday adverts (last time I looked at one).

The only examples I can think of, of societies whose discourses were demolished, are those vanquished by colonising forces; think of proud, fierce and wild amazonas hunters ending up shining shoes in a slum in Rio.

Perhaps that is what is really in store for us all - an end to captivity and return to the feral state, ironically just at the point when we have captured the last remaining wild humans in the snares of consumerism.

At end also I should confess that in selecting the doomer banner to march behind, I find purpose and invigoration .. which I lacked whilst contemplating a future history comprised only of ever-more-'efficient' mass consumerism!

So, in conclusion, am I betting my kids lives that somehow Bruce Willis will turn up and compel us all to power-down to 19th century tech?

Nope.

I wouldn't miss this for all the chi in china :)

j

The universe at its core is just doing its universe thing and it takes us humans to assign the concept of "fair" or "unfair." Without humans (more specifically, without the presence of representational language), "fair" could not exist.

Many people are going to see peak oil as "unfair" and stay at that age. For people who speak publicly about peak oil or any other serious matter that occurs as threatening to people, the job is always to lead the audience into an adult conversation before the speech is complete.

Andre, I wanted to thank you and note an appreciation for your posts in general and this one in particular. Well done.

"fairness" may be one of the most intransigent and harmful "monkey concepts" we have to come to grips with (and probably won't). Even among intelligent folks, "making the situation fair" is often a tacit overlay for any consideration or action. It drastically limits the rational options for action.

kudos.