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TechnoratiBeyond Hope, A 'Gratifying Life'
Abe Osheroff on the Struggle for a Better World
After a recent talk about the struggle for social justice and the threats to the ecosystem, a student lingered, waiting to talk to me alone, as if he had something to confess.
"I feel so overwhelmed," he finally said, wondering aloud if political organizing could really make a difference. The young man said he often felt depressed, not about the circumstances of his own life but about the possibilities for change. Finally, he looked at me and asked, "Once you see what's happening -- I mean really see it -- how are you supposed to act like everything is going to be OK?"
I hear such concerns often, from young and older people alike. Perhaps the questions are rationalizations for political inaction for some people, attempts to persuade themselves that there's no reason to join left/progressive movements. But most of the people I meet who struggle with this question are activists, engaged in all kinds of worthy projects. They aren't looking for a reason to drop out but are trying to face honestly the state of the world. They want to stay engaged but recognize the depth of multiple crises -- economic, political, cultural, and ecological.
Some organizers respond to such concerns with upbeat assurances that if we just get more people on board and work a little bit harder, the problems will be solved -- if not tomorrow, certainly within some reasonable period of time. I used to say things like that, but now I think it's more honest, and potentially effective, to acknowledge how massive the obstacles that need to be overcome really are. We must not only recognize that the world's resources distributed in a profoundly unjust way and the systems in which we live are fundamentally unsustainable ecologically, but also understand there's no guarantee that this state of affairs can be reversed or even substantially slowed down. There are, in fact, lots of reasons to suspect that many of our fundamental problems have no solutions, at least no solutions in any framework we currently understand.
Some have challenged me: Why give in to such despair? My response: If honest emotional responses based on rational assessments lead committed activists to feel despair, why try to bury that? It's better to grapple with those emotions and assessments than to respond with empty platitudes.
The damage to the ecosystem may mean that a large-scale human presence on the planet cannot continue much longer. The obsession with self-interest cultivated by capitalism may be so deeply woven into the fabric of contemporary identity that real solidarity in affluent societies is no longer possible. The deskilling and dependency that comes with a high-energy/high-technology society has eroded crucial traditional skills. Mass-media corporations have eroticized violence and commodified intimacy at an unprecedented level, globally.
None of this is crazy apocalypticism, but rather a sober assessment of the reality around us. Rather than deny the despair that flows from that assessment, we need to find a way to deal with it.
When I got home from that speaking engagement, I re-read an interview I conducted with lifelong radical activist Abe Osheroff, who was the subject of a documentary film I produced. His reflections on these subjects, excerpted below, have helped me struggle with my own despair. In my conversations with Osheroff, he never looked away from these difficult subjects, and he also never abandoned his commitment to politics, right up to this death at the age of 92.
Robert Jensen: I've heard you use the term "long-distance runner" before. Is that the key -- the notion that we have to be in it for the long haul and not expect things to change dramatically all at once?
Abe Osheroff: Not the long haul -- the endless haul.
RJ: What's the difference between long and endless?
AO: Oh yeah, there's a difference. We will never win the fight. We will influence the players. We may be able to make life better in many ways. We will blunt the shit that the government and the corporations throw at us. But we'll always be coping with things. My view is that there's no destination for the train I'm on. No destination, just a direction. No final station on that train. There's no final destination, no socialist society where we will all be able to sit back and have a wonderful life. Bullshit!
RJ: No utopias.
AO: Nowhere near utopia. In fact, we'll never get completely out of hell. But we can make some progress. In my lifetime, with all of its limitations, the movement has achieved some incredible things. Forty-some years ago it was still possible to hang a black person in Holmes County, Mississippi, and not get arrested. Right where I worked, the year previous, they hung a black person in public, with half of the fucking county eating box lunches and watching it. We've come a long way, in many ways. Women? Whatever the limitations they face, women have made a lot of progress in this country. Gay people? They have had their defeats, their ups and downs, but with successes, too. On all these things, at times the train breaks down, somebody fucks up the tracks, but it'll get back on the track and go on. There's no way in the world you can stop it.
In this country, one of the biggest problems we have as leftists is that there are so many strong reasons for not being an activist, in the sense that it's possible for people -- even if they're mediocre, but if they're aggressive enough -- to make a good life in this country. It's the easiest country in the world to become a millionaire. On the plus side, it's also the easiest country to be a radical. The potential penalties are very small. I have put in less than six months jail time in a whole lifetime of radical activism in this country. I would have been dead 30 times over in 20 countries I can think of.
RJ: So, we have this affluent country in which it's easy to avoid political engagement and obligation and most people are afraid of any risk. It's also a country in which people -- whatever their politics -- are used to instant gratification. Then you come along and talk about a direction, not a destination, and the endless haul. Do you find it hard to ask people to be hopeful?
AO: I talk to people about getting rid of hope and faith. And the strange effect of it is that it makes them more hopeful. I don't deprive them of that if that's what they need at that stage of their development. But personally, I'm not hopeful because I think hope is a kind of religion, and religions don't work. If you're hopeful you're going to suffer disappointments, whether it's politics or your personal life. You can care about things, you can want things to happen, you can work to make things happen without being hopeful. The way I guarantee not being too disappointed is to not put too much hope onto things.
Take this conversation between you and me, for example. Sure, I hope that we'll get something out of it. I want something to come out of it because I don't have a lot of energy these days and I'm careful about how I spend it. But if this interaction were a total waste, I wouldn't be upset very much. All that said, sometimes I wish I could be more hopeful. Sometimes I miss that.
RJ: Why is that?
AO: Because hope is comfortable. Because sometimes the way I think makes me very lonely, a kind of intellectual loneliness.
RJ: I use these terms differently. I make a distinction, as have others over the years, between optimism and hope. I'm not optimistic. If you ask me whether I think that U.S. economy is going to be fundamentally fairer in a year, I would say no. I'm not optimistic about that, because it's a question of rational assessment, and things seem to be going the other way in the short term. But I think there's a way to use the term "hope" that taps into our belief that -- in that endless haul you talk about -- humans have the capacity to be decent. I suppose it's about having reasonable expectations, which is what you are talking about. I'm just using different words, perhaps.
AO: Yea, it may be a difference in how we use the same terms. Sometimes people I deal with describe me as cynical. I tell them, "Where do you come up with that shit? Cynicism normally leads to inactivity. I'm 14 times more active than you are. You don't do shit, and you're labeling me cynical? If anybody's fucking cynical, it's you." Those people have yielded to society's bullshit, and I think I've refused to yield. I'm not optimistic, and I'm not pessimistic. I'm none of those things. I'm me -- learning, exploring, and, fortunately, along the way I discovered a way of living that is very gratifying. Let's start with that. I live a gratifying life. I ask people if they want to live one. If they do, I'll tell them some ideas on how it can be done.
----------------
The documentary "Abe Osheroff: One foot in the grave, the other
still dancing," has just been released by the Media Education Foundation
at a special price of $19.95. To order, go to http://www.abeosheroffmovie.
The transcript of the complete interview with Osheroff is online at http://thirdcoastactivist.org/
For more information on Osheroff, visit abeosheroff.org.
34 Comments so far
Show AllI dinna know, it's right to be realistic and properly assess one's chances for change. On the other hand, a life without hope seem pretty dismal and unhappy. Maybe it is an opiate for the soul, or maybe it is a wellspring.
Gary
“They restored my faith and my hope by helping me.”
-- Tyler Jones
"Maybe it is an opiate for the soul, or maybe it is a wellspring." -- Thanks for that.
And thanks, mtdon, for the lyrics. Thanks to Robert Jensen, too, for the ad for his biography -- even if that were all it is (I disagree), it let me know about something I'll want to see and wouldn't have known about otherwise. Surely Osheroff deserves a free pitch after 82 years of activism.
I think that arguing that the only choices are (1) hope, or (2) despair is a false premise. It reminds me of the age-old battle between hard-core scientists and hard-core religious believers. The reality is somewhere in the middle, or somewhere else altogether, and we may never know what it is, so we go with our gut, with what gives us real joy. I'm convinced that's where the only truth lies for individuals, and it dies with each of us individually.
So all the signs say we're going to explode as a nation and a planet, for a lot of good reasons. But every single day, I encounter people making special efforts to help strangers in the smallest ways precisely because things are so wrong and so difficult. So go figure.
The plain "cynical" truth is that the entire USA Incorporated empire is a total fraud in EVERY respect:
US "capitalism" = unregulated value-negative closed-market enterprise
US "republicanism" = arbitrary totalitarian monarchical imperial presidency
US "democracy" = meaningless elections of pre-selected non-representatives
etc., etc., ad nauseum
It's a totally stacked deck and there is only one realistic answer. But it will never happen because it's too uncomfortable for a citizenry that is too brainwashed and fearful to rebel against anything.
"Once you see what's happening -- I mean really see it -- how are you supposed to act like everything is going to be OK?"
I have struggled with this question since childhood - a long, long time. I felt I must be crazy, or stupid, or that the grownups must know something I couldn't see, because they were acting like everything was ok and it seemed clear to me that it wasn't (people getting beaten up for trying to go to school or sit at a lunch counter, nuclear weapons threatening the planet, etc.)
The answer for me was not to act like everything is going to be ok but to respect and honor my (correct) perception of how far we humans have gone astray. I grew into an activist, doing my small part (community education, protest etc.) to change the situation.
And I don't despair. Despite the execrable inequalities, the hideous self-destructive policies of most governments and other deeply distressing facts of modern life, there is still much good in the world. There is still generosity and kindness and empathy and compassion. This is what we must build on.
Hope, schmope ! It was just another stupid trick Obama used to play us for fools. I used to look at people warning me about Obama's deceptive spinning on hope as mentally out of tune but just like these people in this article, we were the fools who paid the price in the form of being left hung to dry. To hell with all these damn hurdles ! Enough with compromising and conceding ! When leaders refuse to respect the will of the people no matter how nice we try to be, then we have no choice but to fight fire with fire.
Be careful what you wish for, Stanley. I understand your anger, but realistically, do you think a few gun-packing survivalists, or proud card-carrying NRA members can match the firepower of the largest military the world has ever known?
if those in the military had the opportunity to quit...sort of an Amnesty Day...perhaps the same day we make many changes...police could quit...
what if we all quit what we regularly do for a breath? a chance to make positive changes without fear of isolation? how many would relish an opportunity such as this, but have no way to express this in their current context, due to social, financial, professional, or criminal reprisal?
speaking of hope...
I didn't mean it that way. I'm just saying that progressives and liberals have to stop conceding and compromising all the time. For example, let us talk about health care reform. We could have started out with a simple single payer plan instead of starting out with a complicated bill and then wasting a year complicating it. Until they took out public option, I was willing to be patient and hope that they would pass something for reform but now I see what a fool I was to wait and hope. I don't expect having a progressive tea party movement as the answer but we could end up with a new bloody revolution if one party keeps compromising and conceding to the other side. I'm still angry at myself for falling for hope and schmope when I should have listened to Nader and Mckinney. Obama has killed the word hope so far.
This piece appears to be little more than an advertisement for the documentary.
If you want to discuss the long-term future of the human race you HAVE to address the issue of population growth. If you look at a graph of world population over the last 10,000 years you see a classic "hockey stick." This isn't unique...in nature this is a universal pattern. Things take root, if conditions allow they grow, flourish, increase until nutrients have been exhausted and then crash.
This is happening in slow motion so it's possible to deny it or ignore it...that's what happened to Paul Ehrlich in the 60's. But he was right. We're headed for a crash folks. And a seat belt isn't going to save you.
"Things take root, if conditions allow they grow, flourish, increase until nutrients have been exhausted and then crash."
You are describing entropy, which is true in CLOSED systems. Observable nature is actually quite the opposite. In fact, "modern" science (from Einstein on) has shown us that the Universe is infinitely regenerative. (Unless you want to start arguing about God/Intelligent Design, which fits very neatly with the Entropy-Everything-Eventually-Dies-crowd.)
Yes, the human species may be doomed to oblivion, but it won't be because there are too many people. Rather, a few "really bad apples" in powerful places, is all it will take.
True, over-population seems to be a problem, but it is a SYMPTOM of a much more systemic problem. To wit, a powerful ruling class that keeps the masses conquered by exploiting differences to use "fear-of-the-other" to keep us apart and armed to the teeth, within an unsustainable "growth-based" economic system. Sex education, empowerment of women, and widespread use of contraceptives are all that are needed in order to combat your "classic hockey stick" bourgeois Malthusian argument of geometric population growth.
Like so many other things that threaten our very existence, we humans have the capacity to create ingenious solutions, but the window is closing...FAST.
"You are describing entropy, which is true in CLOSED systems."
The earth is a closed system.
Billions of people just watched the winter olympics. 99% of Canadians tuned in! Everyone put their minds to it, learning the names of the athletes and the intricacies of their various sports and returned day after day to follow the action. A city changed its driving habits, reducing personal traffic by thirty percent. People from all over the world got together in peaceful cooperation. It was a lot of hard work and demanded cooperation and education and sacrifice, but we did it. For what? So that some fit young people could slide down hills.
What if we had held a last ditch 'survival of the human race' emergency forum? First there'd be no funding and no cooperation. A few hundred fanatics would come, after bake sales and fund raisers to get them here. The media would not pay any attention. No one would watch it on tv.
So my plan is to have a huge gathering of scientists and thinkers come to vancouver for a meeting to try to save the human race - but we do it on skis and snowboards so that it is worth watching. Climate scientist could shout out the facts about global warming while doing complicated jumps in the half-pipe. Economists could enlighten us about the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few while negotiating the mogul fields on colorful skis. BAM, global audience, engaged citizenry, salvation of Earth. You're welcome.
Was it Mark Twain who said you get the IQ of a mob by dividing the average IQ by the number of people? What's 140 divided by 6 billion? A micro-organism can sense killing heat and move away from it to save itself. The Human Race is not that smart.
the average IQ is 100.
They didn't have IQ tests in Mark Twain's day.
I'm retiring at the end of next month, into a world where the pension I am to receive may be reneged on, Social Security, which I can't get for another year, may be divvied up among the criminal bankers who are always looking for new money to gamble with and skim. I saw all this social deterioration coming 40 years ago, the first Earth Day. Only things happened a whole lot slower than I thought they would. I never expected to still be here at this age, or for civilization to still be here.
We won't know how humankind will respond to this until things really start breaking down, when all hell is breaking loose and it becomes obvious to all that there is no "help on the way." Will we rise to the occasion and figure out how to work together to save each other, or will it turn into a free-for-all shoot-out?
” We won’t know how humankind will respond to this until things really start breaking down, when all hell is breaking loose and it becomes obvious to all that there is no “help on the way.” Will we rise to the occasion and figure out how to work together to save each other, or will it turn into a free-for-all shoot-out.”
You are right we don’t know how humankind will respond to all that is happening until everything starts to break down. When the government goes bankrupt and can no longer pay unemployement, foodstamps, social security and other safety net programs to help the poor in this nation and people no longer receive those programs than we will know the quality of human beings in the 21st century.
Will we be like our grandparents who faced the depression of the 30’s and work together to help each other survive as fellow Americans or will be turn into beasts in the jungle who don’t care about anyone else and will kill others for one peice of bread to eat? Struggles can bring out the best or the worst in people. Will what is coming bring out the best or the worst in us? As you say we won’t know the answer to that question until it all breaks down and humpty dumpty falls off that wall and breaks into a thousand little pieces.
Like Mad Max we might have to group together to survive. Groups of people for good will have to group together for our survival because strength will be in numbers. Alone we will die, but forming together in communities of like minded people will at least give us a chance to survive. I think the real question is what will we be fighting to survive for?
” “I feel so overwhelmed,” he finally said, wondering aloud if political organizing could really make a difference. The young man said he often felt depressed, not about the circumstances of his own life but about the possibilities for change. Finally, he looked at me and asked, “Once you see what’s happening — I mean really see it — how are you supposed to act like everything is going to be OK?” from the article.
I think many of us feel this way. One reason why I got so frustrated with the NSDAR (National Society of the Daughters of The American Revolution) is I felt like they didn’t want us to be political and that we were to just keep silent and pretend that every thing is peachy keen in this country and just pretend that America today is the same nation that was founded by our forefathers. I couldn’t do that!!!!!!!!!!
As the young man said how are we supposed to act like everything is going to be ok, when we see what is going on around us? How can I as a Daughter of the American Revolution just sit back and not say anything as the country that I love is sinking by the head. While I am trying to get us all to go to the life boats, they just want to sit on the deck and drink their ice tea and deceive themselves that America is ok and still the same. Yet, God, Country and family was instilled in me as a Daughter and I felt how could I be a true daughter and not FIGHT? How can I be a true Daughter and just accept my role of pretending everything is ok?
So I am willing to FIGHT and other Americans are willing to fight, the question is what are we going to do? What solutions are we willing to try? Do we have the courage to tell the American people the truth? Do we have the courage to lead by example and not just words? Is there a true Progressive leader who is WILLING TO FIGHT? Is there a true Progressive leader has the courage to take the risk? Is there a true Progressive leader who will answer the call? Or like many Daughters will they be silent and pretend? Will they put their own interests over the interests of the nation and the American people?
While it is a very good chance that even if we find a true Progressive Leader who will take the risk and fight we will still loose as it is to late to change things; I think we must still try our best. We must still try because of the children and youth who are depending on us adults to do what is best for them. To do nothing is the same as surrendering. The children in this country deserve better than us adults just giving up and pretending that everything is ok.
I think of that terrible Winter when George Washington was facing certain defeat. He didn’t give up and either must we!!!!!! Maybe we won’t be as lucky as George Washington and the other American Patriots who fought in the American Revolution, but we need to at least have the courage to try our best to win the battle that we are fighting.
What do we have to loose from trying to fight? If we try and fail we are no worst off than where we are now. Yet, if we try we might just win, and be in a much better place than we are now.
No matter how bleak things look one must never give up hope!!! Once we get discouraged to the point of loosing all hope that is when we have lost because we don’t even try anymore.
I may not be explaining this very well, but I just think that one doesn’t give up but keeps on trying their best.
Beautifully put! ...and, yes, we do have a true progressive leader, who is willing to fight, Dennis Kucinich.
the only way for progressive social justice seekers to survive without committing hari-kari is to know that DOING NOTHING will make you feel even worse.
It's like giving at christmas - the joy has to be in the giving not the getting........
enjoy the ride as best you can....find joy in the small things....know you're not alone and just keep fighting.....
it's the journey as they say....
at least feel good you're not a fascist bastard!
hey - that advise and 2 bucks will get you a shitty cup of coffee at starbucks!
"All the years combine, they melt into a dream,
A broken angel sings from a guitar.
In the end there's just a song comes cryin' up the night
Thru all the broken dreams and vanished years.
Stella blue. Stella blue.
When all the cards are down, there's nothing left to see,
There's just the pavement left and broken dreams.
In the end there's still that song comes cryin' like the wind.
Down every lonely street that's ever been
Stella blue. Stella blue.
I've stayed in every blue-light cheap hotel, can't win for trying.
Dust off those rusty strings just one more time,
Gonna make them shine, shine
It all rolls into one and nothing comes for free,
There's nothing you can hold, for very long.
And when you hear that song come crying like the wind,
It seems like all this life was just a dream.
Stella blue. Stella blue."
while I'm on my jerry garcia kick - one guy that knew things were fucked up but all you can do is keep on truckin and do your thing the best you can:
"I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's all right
We will get by
We will get by
We will get by
We will survive"
it's all about COMMUNITY and knowing you're not alone!
Hope, the actual human virtue, is probably a kind of poison in a world like this. A kind of neurotoxin that exhausts its victims slowly while tormenting their frontal lobes with ideas like "another world is possible". It is, I guess, but it isn't likely. Hope might not be as useful as curiosity. Both are sometimes their own worst enemy. But why get up in the morning without either?
"Hope", the brand, however, is a frightful mockery of hope, the human virtue. Orwell was only off in his choice of words. "Hope" is despair, with a smiley face. "Hope" is firing all the teachers, while bailing out the financial pirates who destroyed their communities and created the poverty that destroyed their "underperforming" schools. "Hope" is leaving Guantanamo open, practicing indefinite detention without habeus corpus, notice of arrest or trial. "Hope" is forcing millions into "underperforming" private health insurance programs, while taxing their benefits. "Hope" is Predator Drones, under Blackwater control, raining death on wedding parties in nominally friendly countries (Pakistan). "Hope" is sending your pathologically aggressive Chief of Staff to call your base "fucking retards" for having the audacity to suggest that you and your party actually keep a few campaign promises. "Hope" is using Republican intransigence as an excuse to do nothing about unemployment, environment, health or financial regulation. "Hope" is the enemy of hope. "Hope" is dead. Long live hope.
"We will never win the fight. We will influence the players"
How about if we all become the players?
http://www.ni4d.us/
Michael Albert addresses many of the same issues in this talk (it's very good):
http://www.zcommunications.org/new-left-lessons-by-michael-albert
Robert Jensen deserves credit for recognizing the insultingly obvious: "We" may not pull through. Says he, "There are, in fact, lots of reasons to suspect that many of our fundamental problems have no solutions, at least no solutions in any framework we currently understand."
The next step in political judgment is to recognize that it is increasingly likely that "we" won't pull through. Even lifelong activist Ralph Nader is fantasizing about Super-Rich who alone can "save" us. Carl Sagan ended up with a fantasy book (coauthored with his wife) that "saved" us via modest devices (such as time travel) that violate all laws of physics.
However, Jensen drops the ball in a very All-American way via his conversation with the venerable Abe Osheroff. Jensen says that Osheroff manages to banish "hope and faith"--hence banish disappointment--by his "long distance runner" philosophy of "the endless haul . . . . we'll always be coping with things . . . . we'll never get completely out of hell."
A moment's reflection should demonstrate that Jensen and Osheroff are in fact recycling the standard Christian denial of death. The Christians are so afraid of death that they don't even allow its real possibility--even the "damned" can't die (they are tortured endlessly in hell). In other words, Jensen and Osheroff are claiming to get rid of hope and faith by affirming the most preposterous faith in hope: "We" (humanity) will not pass away. "We" will survive our tribulations to struggle another day, and another . . . and so on in "the endless haul."
Real philosophers--such as the naturalistic Buddha (Pali canon), Heraclitus of Ephesus, and Epicurus of Samos--long ago declared "civilization" (class society) a dubious if not doomed experiment. Since then evolutionary biology has learned that no species is eternal; and that, most apropos Jensen's ruminations, Nature's innovations--the human development of (semi-)intelligence is certainly such--often fail in their first embodiment. Likewise with innovations in human technical history. To believe that human history is immune to this phenomenon is vanity--an "endless" vanity.
The real philosophers offered neither hope nor consolation, but a condition that needs neither--the condition called Acceptance.
You won't find it in America.
again I fill my pipe with dope
hoping it will give me hope
when it does for a while
my mind is melted in a smile
if only I could conjure how
to always be right here and now
with no yester nor tommorrow
no imagined future sorrow
Feeling overwhelmed? You betcha!
I'm in the same boat, concerned about the Garden of Eden we are systematically trashing, global injustice et al. There are a gazillion hot-button issues that all compete for my attention.
Years ago, I decided to be an activist within one, small issue; domestic animal rights. This alone absorbs all my free time in activism. I come here to CD to read about progress on other fronts, and occasionally vent my frustration via these comments, but I am not active on other fronts.
Having said that, even at a local level in my chosen field of activism such as starting an animal shelter in our small village of 900 people, DOES make a difference. It is a small contribution, but of we all concentrated on a small, albeit important progressive issue, and work locally, we can bring about change.
I had the pleasure of meeting Bob Jensen when he addressed a small gathering in my hometown, just after the invasion of Iraq. His talk was entitled "Bad news about the war news," and in it he described his upbringing in, I think, South Dakota. He likened progressive activism to shoveling snow in a Dakota winter--you shovel two feet of snow only to have it snow two more feet the next day. You have to learn to love shoveling snow; that is, you need to learn to love the struggle, because the payoff isn't likely to appear in your lifetime. If you can be glad and proud to carry the torch to the next stop without every seeing the big torch lit, you'll do fine as a crusader for social justice. Any other approach and it's you who'll burn out.
And do buy his DVD. Jensen is one of the good guys. Support him, because there aren't many like him and you'll miss him when he's gone.
JES. GALLAGHER:
"If you can be glad and proud to carry the torch to the next stop without ever seeing the big torch lit, you'll do fine as a crusader for social justice."
Thanks. That's a nice way to put it.
There is a remarkably simple answer to Earth's problems, and it has been around for a while. I recommend spending some time on the site, the logic of it, and contemplating this as a viable answer: http://www.vhemt.org/
daniel geery,
Interesting comment. I checked out the website you recommend. And, I disagree with its nihilistic message with all my heart. I think VHEMT is a very good example of how far civilized minds can wander.
Although, if you or anyone else chooses not to bring children into this world, I think that is a wise decision. Without freedom of choice what else really matters?
Of course the human population has grown far too large for the long-term carrying capacity of earth. I suggest a more sane concept is the replacement strategy for offspring (one child per adult). People like yourself and all the others that choose not to have children or can't have children plus wars, famines and disease would reduce the population to about 2 billion people in a little over 100 years.
What say you?
If you will permit me ....
The primary reason the human population has grown exponentially the past 5,500 years or so is a consequence to the sedentary social structure that emerged following the Neolithic Revolution. In hyper-brief, the culture of cultivation and livestock husbandry - began some 10,000 years ago in the Levant (modern Lebanon) - was a desperate survival subsistence strategy that borrowed heavily from the future to enrich the present. Thus, agriculture was (and remains) unsustainable. In time, agriculture always depletes the soil nutrients and reduces biodiversity of the land it is practiced upon. But, there is a great benefit to agriculture in the near term; the practice tends to yield more food per acre than leaving it wild to gather, hunt and scavenging upon. That great benefit is countered with a greater deleterious consequence - more food means more people needing ever more food.
Civilized (city dwelling) culture is a by-product of agri (rural dwelling) culture. In every case where cultivation emerged, as soon as the landscape filled up with farmers and herders, civilization soon followed. All civilized cultures - past and present - exhibit hierarchical social orders (which is why equality can never be realized), specialized tasks, divisions of labor, organized warfare, religion, bureaucrats, etc. One very important outcome to specialization was an ever refinement of technology to better exploit resources and prolong human life. Naturally, better tools and medicines greatly influenced the "more food means more people needing more food" cycle for all the obvious reasons.
The archeological record suggests Homo sapiens have been on this planet for at least 200,000 years but widespread agricultural based civilization is only about 5,500 years old. Although, considering human population, it was the Industrial Revolution that really ignited the explosion. Agricultural based civilization has been practiced for about 2.75% of our species time on earth. Clearly, It is a deeply flawed subsistence strategy that must change. And, it will change when it collapses in time.
Friend, humans are no more flawed than any other organism that evolved on this earth. A wolf will eat the very last snowshoe hare .... a moose will devour the final endangered flower.
Have a great day!
I don't know if you'll get this message, as CD doesn't appear to notify us when there is a response. I stumbled on yours just googling my name today, Aug. 16.
My original response to VHEMT was the same as yours, but the more I thought about it, the more I saw value in encouraging people to think about it. I advocate contemplating it, as it forces us to realize that if we want to keep going as a species, we need to get our act together, and get serious about asap.
Many people on VHEMT, evidently, only support population reduction, as do I.
I had one child of my own (now 34) and adopted another (whose mother I married). I struggled with the idea of bringing one more person to a planet I saw going down, back in the seventies, and things have only gotten worse. Thus I was almost a member of VHEMT without knowing it, until decades later!
I am aware of the things you say, at least in all the broad strokes.
I would argue, however, that humans are more flawed than most animals. My wife puts this quote on her emails at the end, by Mark Twain: If Heaven went by merit, your dog would get in, but you would be left out.
But at least now (for those who make the effort), we can understand our inner conflicts a little better in terms of evolution, and hopefully deal with them.
"We have met the enemy, and they are us."
--Walt Kelly, "Pogo"
I heard Abe Osheroff speak at the dedication of the Lincoln Brigade memorial on the Embarcadero in San Francisco two years ago.This veteran of the Spanish Civil War was ancient,and ill and in a wheelchair.He essentially said what he said in the interview above.I don't remember his exact words, but they were along the lines of " The bastards are always going to be trying to keep the people down, and it's our job to make that as diffcult as possible".He didn't have to talk about the long haul; he WAS the long haul personified.On the memorial, there's a quote from Camus-and again, I'm paraphrasing: "The tragedy of the war in Spain is that people could fight so long and hard for such a good cause, and still lose".Abe Osheroff died a few days after the dedication of the memorial.But, as La Passionaria said "The war is lost, but the struggle continues on other fronts".So-hope, yes.
"No destination, only a direction". Well, every other empire thought that they had BOTH factors going for them only to find out that their choo choo train invariably got derailed. If you don't like train metaphors, how about a Toyota on steroids when the brakes don't work. Face it - when a finely tuned system becomes increasingly unstable whether it be mechanical or biological it eventually fails. That gives me hope.
We have entered Humanity's Next Cycle.
There will be peace on this earth.