11 theses on our impasse(s). With inkblots and memes.

Interesting analysis, thank you. Thoughts below were written for response on X but maybe fit here better due to length. Hope you get more comments.

https://x.com/our_yesterdays/status/1842229799940399431

1. Re: being in deep trouble as a species but “most of us seem not to know.” Depends how we think of “knowing.” Most must be aware of serious problems but avoid thinking about them (too disturbing) & focus on what seems more practical or pleasing. Western “democracies” intentionally afford us a host of distractions & delusions.

2. Re: being stuck in praxis/cognitive traps, people only react in socially allowed ways (essays, performative protests of the “scraped-knee activism” sort). Apt expression. The point is similar to #5 below about reinforcing “affordances.” What’s needed is organized rebellion against capitalist governments, or building a new system, right?

3. Re: bias-confirming responses to protests: Yes, they don’t seem to change society’s thinking but just create memes and argument. The soup-spattering of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers reminded of a comic of businessmen admiring a painting of a homeless person while ignoring an actual homeless person lying nearby. The crowd loudly protesting the activists were the same.

Why the social media slot machine analogy here? You mean social media is also like a Rorschach test, all reacting to posts biasedly?

4. re: side-battles about evils/idiocy of the ecocidal State/Capitalism are just virtue signalling and futile. These actually seem more on point, unless just abstract intellectual debates/arguments. Viewing them as futile also seems to contradict concerns in #2 about needing more than protest within socially-accepted limits.

5. Re: affordances. I think these are what’s actually possible, not self-imposed limits. Reactions to protests (taking sides & arguing) reinforce accepted social/psychological boundaries which constrain & shape them. Better forms of protest are afforded to us but are so far ignored or not seriously considered–much.

All this is speaking generally, of course, and mainly about western capitalist societies. Some people with courage and means have also tried to withdraw from society to a rural lifestyle and/or communal one, attempting to live sustainably solo or in cooperative communities. Others probably try this in more limited ways in neighborhoods of cities in some places. This could be one good model for social change if it could be expanded in cities and finally change city government.

6. Re: arguments/protests disallow discussion of the failure of western societies to take ecological limits seriously; and most of us are relieved to retreat into fantasies of market or technological salvation instead. I suppose this depends on specific discussions, protestors, and groups. Current arguments/protests don’t exactly seem to disallow such discussion, but media and most people (influenced by media and social discourse) frame discussion as “liberal/leftist eco-activism” vs. “cultural values/what’s socially acceptable/denial of urgency.” Just Stop Oil protests estrange even the liberals who claim to be “sympathetic to the cause” (as if it were a charity fundraiser). Some (e.g. Hallam, Greta, Just Stop Oil) do talk about failure to take limits seriously, but they’re treated as radicals/eco-terrorists relative to accepted liberal “net zero” discourse.

7. Re: failure of parties, politicians, churches, unions, industry associations, movements, academics: largely, yes. This is mainly due to acting within limits of capitalist society, protecting jobs/careers/social status, and either wanting to continue business as usual or believing it’s necessary. Hence “co-optation, repression.” Many who exceed those limits go to jail (like Hallam). A basic problem for the co-opted seems to be not fully accepting realities enough to change radically and/or rebel (i.e., not just ecological or climate change realities but how the capitalist system causes them, lies about them, wastes resources competing globally for profit and power, and prevents sensible cooperation to make sustainable societies). Can people accept the need to quit consuming fossil fuels and meat?

8. Re: humiliation/guilt causes scapegoating of politicians/companies? That seems false causality, though partly true in that of course we like to shift responsibility away from ourselves. In fact, corrupt capitalists & politicians are the main problem: the source & main guardians of business as usual. It’s also a false dichotomy to think people are either entirely victims OR entirely complicit. They’re both: victims of social manipulation and complicit in accepting it–choosing the benefits and convenience of the status quo or social conformity.

Re: the Jungian archetype of “the shadow,” I guess this refers to an inescapable “dark side” we’re supposed to have, in this context including wilful conformity with ecocidal societies; and we want to deny responsibility for that evil by blaming others. We don’t need Jung’s pseudo-mystical theories to understand wilful conformity, and framing it as a psychological archetype really confuses the issue, even implying it’s just “unavoidable human nature”–like opportunistic claims that capitalism is the best system because “greed is natural.”

9. Re: being trapped in “webs of complicity, futility, hate, anger, despair, self-loathing, narcissism” (much encouraged by the machine): sadly, yes. The point goes back to the praxis/cognitive trap issue, but focused on psychological aspects among the mostly “aware” people frustrated by others’ corruption/ignorance/weakness and their own impotence/self-interest. Again, maybe lacking motivation & courage to act results lagely from not fully accepting realities (due to the social system, its messaging, practical needs within it, majority opinion, habit, convenience, wishful thinking, ambition, other distracting issues, escape into diversions, etc.). I’m assuming that if people are fully aware of an imminent danger, they naturally try to act appropriately to be safe. Those who feel despair but continue normal lifestyles probably still hope they’ll be okay–e.g., mistaken in pessimism or not personally affected much in their lifetime. The attitudes of ecological disaster victims and refugees should really be studied and published more. Someone in a doctumentary once said it takes suffering 2 disasters to get “climate religion.”

At #9, I wondered if there’s some ambiguity about your audience, as “we” seems to mean variously “everyone” and “those who know” (itself ambiguous due to degrees of “knowing”).

10. Right, we lack a “rigorous vigorous civil society” to respond coherently as a society. Again, I think this is why we need to change the whole system towards a socialist/communist type. But how?

11. Final thesis: Exactly, the rules of the game must be changed. Most of the activism and the articles with dire warnings appeal for change within our existing social system–by politicians, business leaders, and individuals simultaneously continuing to live within that corrupt system, still conditioned and constrained by it.

Related thoughts:
Conservatives labeling environmental activists as “communist” or “socialist” are actually savvier than liberals who scorn and deny such labels. Organizing society effectively to mitigate climate change and live sustainably almost certainly requires a socialist or communist system–to manage social changes as needed without profit interests causing inefficiency, conflict, and sabotage. Communism is usually conceived in the West as just authoritarian, as when social improvements decided by government (e.g., bike lanes) are resisted due to ignorance and selfish interests (e.g., skepticism about climate change, and wanting more convenience for drivers). In a culture where people trust the government to serve the public good (e.g., China), government can make many plans for social development without people crying “tyranny” and resisting policies self-interestedly. For communism to work, there needs to be a culture of cooperation and community, of caring for the welfare of all people and the environment; and there has to be trust that government is actually guided by those values, not corrupt (as we know governments are in the West).

It seems to me that criticizing liberal climate activists as “communist” could be a strategy by the capitalist ruling class to discredit both environmentalism & communism at the same time. The conditioned values of individualism and anti-communism lead people of both red and blue factions (or even NDPs and Greens in Canada) to strongly reject “authoritarian communism” AND identify as “communist” any radical eco-activism (i.e., calling for major systemic changes). So, with liberal environmentalists having to advocate only capitalist solutions to be acceptable in the mainstream, anyone advocating major social changes regardless of profit interests is clearly beyond the pale.

Eco-activism is also linked with communism in many media narratives & stories (e.g., eco-terrorist characters in films, such as Thanos). It’s a familiar trope now, aligned with propaganda defining communism as “authoritarian”–though in reality it’s egalitarian, cooperative, and benefits everyone.

Similarly, the media’s conflating “left” with liberals completely distorts the meaning of “left” by identifying it with liberal capitalism (a hypocritical capitalist faction that coopts some socialist issues to pose as “progressive” capitalism while doing little and preserving the corrupt system).

A system that prioritizes private profit & individual freedom of lifestyle can’t be coherent in values enough to coordinate broad social changes that are needed for people’s well-being and survival both nationally & globally; and it can’t cooperate sanely with other nations. Capitalist governments have proven themselves utterly corrupt, serving elite interests competing for resources, markets and political dominance–resulting in reckless overproduction & waste, unchecked ecological destruction, needless murderous wars, imperialism, fascism and genocide.

Questions:
Can people of western plutocracies (long indoctrinated to be egoistic consumers, culturally chauvinist, & anti-communist) fully realize the corruption and lies of their ruling class, turn against capitalism, and try to build new socialist/communist systems? Also, can they do this fast enough to slow global warming, adapt to changing conditions, and cooperate with all nations fairly so that all can perhaps build sustainable societies?

It looks unlikely, since people in the West are too confused (about reality and values), and too morally compromised by self-interested aims in a corrupt culture.

Bleak outlook:
Most likely, we’ll follow our corrupt ruling class as many times before into more global wars, now very close to causing WW3–even as the biosphere breaks down from pollution which is also worsened by conflict.

Best hope:
Quick economic collapse of the West or military defeat without nukes, maybe forcing the ruling classes to give up imperial ambitions to focus on solving problems in their own societies and trying to build global cooperation. Sounds utopian. Mearsheimer is advocating focusing on war with China as the “realistic” approach.