A Thought for Today: "Losing Faith in Peak Oil's Transformative Power"
Posted by Prof. Goose on September 17, 2006 - 4:16pm
Topic: Sociology/Psychology
Tags: oil, oil prices, peak oil [list all tags]
The power of peak oil as an external force, a geologically driven catalyst, to act as a wedge to force sustainability and conservation on a world hell bent on exponential growth and energy consumption is what caught my imagination and gave me a sense of hope several years ago when I first investigated this issue. Seeing how the ideologically driven environmental movement of the 70's and 80's fell to the wayside to be replaced by conspicuous consumption I even had illusions that peak oil was the beginning of what could break the status quo and eventually lead to a radical transformation of our cultural values and reign in an era of ecological sustainability imposed by the geologic reality of resource depletion.(More under the fold.)
I have to confess that after years of at times obsessed immersion into this subject that lead me down investigative pathways of economics, geopolitics, religion, human group psychology etc. I have lost much of this initial hope that the transformative powers of peak oil, global warming or other environmental stresses are very likely to act on or threaten the status quo for a long time to come.I have naively hoped that if the resource, energy, that drives the global culture of consumption starts depleting, then stresses will build up in the status quo to force political or economic change toward sustainability. I was looking for ruptures or the threat of collapse in our global infrastructure to force awareness and change. There have been so many threads on this website discussing the US dollar, our debt based economic system, the housing market, Katrina type climate events, political and religious conflicts in oil rich nations, population dynamics, geopolitical resource wars amongst world powers etc. We look for evidence in these topics that the status quo is under enough threat to allow policy makers and world leaders to question the underlying systemic causes in the hopes that there emerges the beginnings of intelligent ecological and sustainable responses.
There is the assumption that we have been going along mindless of the consequences of resource depletion and that we are collectively heading toward the cliff.
What I have underestimated is the resiliency and the level of cooperation that goes on at the highest levels of our global poltical and economic systems to maintain the status quo. Central Banks and governments are far more aware of threats to their survival caused by peak oil and resource depletion than I thought they were. And they cooperate far more with each other than I assumed. Religious, economic and political institutions all have an aversion to social and economic chaos that could threaten revolution as this would be the greatest threat to their institutional survival. Even though on the surface it may seem that there is resource competition that could lead toward chaos, if we take a closer look at some examples we can see that the elite are far more cooperative than presumed. I don't mean this in the sense of a conspiracy theory but rather the rational response that these institutions take for their survival. China and the USA would both lose if they started an all out resource war. Central banks in leading economic powers cooperate more than presumed in directing the US dollars evolution away from being the only global currency. Does anyone really think that in 2007 when adjustable mortgages (ARMS) increase their rates that this will lead to a major housing collapse? Won't banks and government come up with more creative financial instruments as solutions to prevent collapse. You can take any example you want.
Instead of chaos and transformation I see the global elite preserving the status quo at all costs to prevent revolution. The real geological consequences of peak oil and related resource depletion and environmental stresses will only result in an increase of a two tiered class culture where the elites and wealthy will preserve their status and wealth and a growing underclass will be socialized to accept their decline and serve the interest of the elites. This will all occur in a backdrop of increasing environmental degradation as consumption levels will stay at the maximum level the available resources will allow.
I don't see revolution anywhere near the horizon. I would welcome any arguments to counter this rather dreary and pessimistic assessment.
I agree. Our existing society is very flexible, and much more cooperative than it seems, sometimes.
Poverty will never bring spirituality. I think Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a helpful guide here: satisfaction of security and basic material needs is needed before people can focus on self-actualization and spiritual growth, and anxiety about basic economic needs will never help that.
The '60's are a clear example of people starting to think about spiritual growth, at a time when economic needs seemed solved.
Those Americans who have more than enough economically haven't realized that there's more to life. The culture doesn't have enough info for them, as organized religion has pretty much lost it's mystical, spiritual growth side. Many people are reaching for more (in evangelical religion, new age ideas, etc), but don't know where to turn for something authentic and effective.
It's understandable that people would hope that shock therapy would wake people up, but it's wrong-headed. People need good information, not fear or coercion.
That's really not true. There's lots of information, but almost all of it is very low quality. Further, most people don't know what to look for: they don't know what they don't know.
"The fundamental issue is people's (and society in general) investment in the current paradigm..."
hmmm. That's certainly a factor. But a lot of people just don't have role models for anything diffeent from fulfillment through consumption, popularity, entertainment, etc.
And those who are strongly invested in authoritarian, inflexible ideas certainly aren't going to get reformed through adversity - they're likely to just get worse.
No role models for anything different than consumption, popularity, entertainment? You must be kidding. Ever heard of Jesus Christ, Buddha, Ghandi, or Muhammed? People don't pay attention to these role models because their personal energy is totally devoted to upholding the current paradigm.
I have news for you regarding authoritarians and dogmatists. They are by definition not open to reform, and struggle, possibly force, is the only way to get rid of them.
Well, I'm not sure now whether you were talking about spirituality or energy. I was talking about spirituality. There is an enormous quantity of info available, but most of it is misleading or low quality (see Carl Sagan's book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark for his discussion of bad info).
"Ever heard of Jesus Christ, Buddha, Ghandi, or Muhammed? "
I'm talking about role models in everyday life. The ones you're talking about are very distant, and their messages have been caught in the maze of modern organized religion, which as I noted above has completely lost touch with the mystical, spiritual side of religious practice.
"I have news for you regarding authoritarians and dogmatists. They are by definition not open to reform, and struggle, possibly force, is the only way to get rid of them. "
I'm talking about our friends and neighbors, who have been caught by authoritarian ways of thinking (I have to believe what I'm told by the Pastor, President, etc). I think possibly what I'm talking about isn't intuitive to you, because you seem to believe that coercion is the only way to make change.
If you look closely at the role models you mention, all (with the possible exception of Muhammed - I know what the Pope is saying lately, but I'm not an expert on Islam) advocate peaceful change.
Dark energy + Dark Matter == how many do you want ?
Trust me.
..ambivalence in the face of adversity on the
basis of a variety of outcomes...all of which
deny the dialectical nature of reality...which
by its nature is a dispassionate confluence of
events.
In other words, information and
synthesis equal state. Systemic change is a
natural event...its quality however is
determined by the underlying noise.
I hope you have been reading my Zimbabwe posts. I believe this can be illustrative of the likely path ahead. Mugabe's people are starving, but he has now purchased $240 million worth of Chinese fighters to further consolidate his power, and Chinese military advisors are training the Zim military how to supress popular revolt. Recall that Mao Zedong was very ruthless and successful with this strategy.
Most of the riots we see around the globe are by Peakoil ignorant masses-- they pillage when fuel prices or electricity prices are raised-- they riot for MPP. Americans will do they same when blackouts occur, or no fuel is available for their SUVs. People WILL NOT riot or protest for early paradigm shift whereby 60-75% of us and our children will abandon their vehicles, then spend their days in manual permaculture--But They Should Riot for this shift in lifestyle direction if everyone would accept detritus entropy. We are headed for the full Thermo-Gene Collision, IMO.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I agree that PO won't make people riot for a new paradigm of agricultural poverty.
I disagree that such a riot would be a good idea, or that agricultural poverty is dictated by PO: agriculture can run just fine with electric tractors (or possibly on E3 ethanol), and non-oil fertilizer combined with crops like soy that have low fertilizer needs.
Right now agriculture is dependent on oil-based transportation and ferilizer, and sudden depletion would be a big problem, but that could be fixed in a 10-15 year transition.
Totoneila's point is *not* that Zimbabwe's collaps is caused by peakoil. The way I see it Totoneila just points to Zimbabwe as an example of a collapsing society.
Some "peakoilers" (Whatever that may mean: It is not an ideology, nor a movement) point to Cuba as well, also not because Cuba's predicaments are caused by peakoil, but because it shows that a collapsing society can stop the collaps at certain level. And that does not mean those people advocate communist dictatorship.
As Matthew Simmons said: we are heading for unchartered territory. Therefore we have no ready examples in history. We have to do with these to give a tad of an idea what might happen.
Just as sadly China is only doing what the USA has done, and UK before, with other countries' regimes as dire or worse than Mugabe's.
Somehow we have to get the awareness of peak oil, energy and resource depletion into the consciousness of enough people for rebellion to happen - the current model is broken, the current powers that be won't change enough or fast enough.
Perhaps the tactic of brief takeover of broadcast media is worth considering?
Religion and Sprituality are NOT THE SAME.
Religion is a business.
Spirituality can function without religion.
Religion uses 'supposed' spirituality to blind the congregations. Into giving money, their time and ego to the leader.
We have lots of religion. We have almost zero spirituality.
Nicholas Lash, in Holiness, Speech and Silence
It sounds like a statement of authoritarian religion: "questions of truth and duty"? Duty to what? Obey authority? Obey conservative authority?
Any time someone uses a disrespectful term like "chattering classes", their burden of proof sharply rises. It's perfectly clear they have a strong bias, so let's see proof. Well researched statistics that people who talk about spirituality are in fact less responsible.
I have to suspect this writer just doesn't like intellectuals, or "liberals". He clearly distrusts people who think for themselves, and who aren't content with a simple faith.
A search of his book makes clear that he has no understanding of meditation, or a mysticism in the Christian tradition. He's a good example of what I was talking about.
There is, as you might imagine, rather a lot of argument lying behind that summary paragraph - and this isn't really the context for pursuing it further, although I do happen to believe that theology has an awful lot to say that is relevant to how we react to Peak Oil. Unfortunately most conversations - like this one - are vitiated by disagreements over the most basic terms. It's not an argument that we can just leap into, without a lot of preparatory work to clear the ground. Unfortunately.
By the way, Nicholas Lash is an intellectual himself (recently retired Cambridge Professor), and to claim that he doesn't understand 'mysticism in the Christian tradition' is a remarkably thorough demonstration that you don't know what you're talking about. If you'd like to learn more - in particular, to gain some insight into what Christian mysticism is and teaches - you should read his 'Easter in Ordinary'.
My basic feeling is that organized religion has lost the ability to use prayer and contemplation to make a real difference in one's life - to dissolve emotional problems, to become stronger emotionally so as to be both more compassionate for other and independent of arbitrary authority.
I see many individuals who seem to have inner strength who are active in religions, but I don't see a good indication that the religions actually foster that strength. They don't teach techniques of prayer or meditation that really are effective (that's what I'm referring to when I talk about mystical traditions).
What do you think?
I see religion as more of the "tell me what to do, I'm uncomfortable thinking for myself" ideology... Whereas "spirituality" always arises out of more occult and new-agey paganesque type of systems, usually people leaving the status quo cults. The ex-abrahamic cult followers who then turn to the nicer "spitiuality" and proceed to take yoga classes, etc.
Both are just systems of doctrine with different twists.
Maybe if you define "spirituality" with the "mysteriousness of science" then I'll be down with it. But it seems like you guys are going to route of incense candles and meditation? Who can win the semantic? No, no, my definition is right--each side implores.
As of now, the both of you seem arguing for your own splinter group definitions of that classic logic destroyer "faith", the the purveyors thereof.
Anyway, oil is hardly spiritual, or religious.
"to gain some insight into what Christian mysticism is and teaches"...... No thanks.
Are you sure you know what you are talking about?
I am a strict atheist (no gods, no spirits having any kind of "will" or individuality, no supernatural superstitions, no Gaia, etc...), yet I do have spiritual practices without any doctrine.
May be it is just me who have a different definition of spirituality?
=]
That is precisely why I joined up in a conversation about "religion" and "spirituality".
Avoid Voodoo Linguistics.
Spirituality isn't a monopoly of religious nutcases, nor are they allowed to define the meaning of words according to their paranoid tales (BIG God is watching you).
They may not pretend to be "masters", THAT'S THE POINT!
See Humpty Dumpty :
`I don't know what you mean by "glory,"' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument,"' Alice objected.
`When _I_ use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.'
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - - that's all.'
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
The first sentence here betrays Kevembuangga's poor, cavalier use of English.
It IS voodoo linguistics, with grammar so deficient that we could ask the questions, "Does Kevembuangga have a high school education? Is Kevembuannga the product of the American Public Education Ebonics Program?". Kevembuannga is a masterful butcher of the English tongue. Kevembuangga is a literary hypocrite who misuses quotes to make Kevembuangga's linguistorelativistic rhetoric seem to be legitimate. Kevembuangga is really identified here with the MASTER abuser of language, Humpty Dumpty, and not with the spiritual seeker of language clarity, Alice.
When I use the words 'spiritual practices', I know and understand what they mean. When Kevembuangga uses such words, Kevembuangga can only infer that they mean 'just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less'.
If you did understand the "first sentence" please rewrite it to your taste so I can learn from this.
As you claim to be a "genius" take one of the Uncommonly Difficult IQ Tests, say, the Titan Test and please reports the results on TOD, that will give you some "authority" that you seem to be looking for...
Year 1978; Wechsler Adult = 139
I am 52 years old and have had to live with myself since I was 6.
Now my wife and children have to live with me, too.
What was the relevence of your self confessed inadequacy?
When I was four and five years old, I spoke of a great many ideas that the others couldn't grok. My parents sent me to a child psychiatrist for doing that. The shrink told them that I was too smart for my own good and referred me to a psychologist, who gave me intelligence tests. I was proclaimed the family genius and was made to pay for being such ever since. They took me out of parochial school and sent me to a special school where there were 'others like yourself'. I have since realized that parents need to make up excuses for all the good things they do to their own children, as I have bred two imperfectly adjusted yet perfectly beautiful kids of my own. In any case, I sometimes wish that I was never gifted with the self-knowledge of my intellectual state. In order to keep from repeating my successes as a geoscientist, for instance, I become forced by pride to outdo them. Alas, this striving can make one weary. As Ecclesiastes laments, "1:17 I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also was a chasing after wind. 1:18 For in much wisdom is much grief; and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.".
Thanks, too, for not rising to my taunt, you have some wisdom too, that is good to know and sometimes hard to find in smart folks.
But you ain't that smart, one in a hundred, perhaps one in a couple of hundred, certainly no smarter than one in a thousand. Sad if your intelligence kind of blighted your youth, it sometimes happens.
Good luck with your children, all I can suggest is let them be and become themselves though that is always hard. Sad to hear you are not wise enough to not need pride.
I find little in the Christian and Muslim books to interest me, been thinking that monotheism is perhaps a fundamental (sic) problem. I'm more Pagan (though not really that) than Tao but I find this as enlightening as any:
http://www.thebigview.com/tao-te-ching/
I'm a dumbo next to you genius guys --probably an 80 on the IQ scale.
But as to monotheism being the problem --Doh! It is the worship and cultivation of the reptilian brain. You genius guys should have figured that one out at age 5.3141 if not earlier. :-)
No.
To emerge, the "father figure" needs the mammalian brain to unify the paranoid fears (reptilian) into a single omnipotent agency.
The Reptilian is Lord of all hosts.
Yee shall have no other before me.
Read your reptilian Ten Commandments.
In all reptilian religions the feminine/mammalian or limbic layer is subjegated to living under a burkah. It is not permissible but to hear one voice, one master. I am not only a paranoid and masculine master but also an angry and jealous one. The one is one. There is no other. There is no daughter. There is no holy spirit. Not three. Just the one. One supreme voice. One leader decider-man. Those who worship the three are an abomination. Those who acknowledge the many are followers of the pig and must face the sword. I am that I am.
...Oh...yeah...and Zardoz.