The Great Schism II?

Got rained out early today and am sitting here with a bit of time to consider a lot of stuff that's been on my mind hard for the last couple of weeks.

Do you feel the vibe out there? It's getting ugly.

For the last 25 years it's been very convenient to lump people into one of two camps: liberal or conservative. That was pretty stupid, and a lot of us didn't fit either of those camps very well, but the distinctions were useful for the media to use while enlightening us all about where the world was going. Really, never more than a caricature, but a useful one for a lot of people who had an invested interest in dumbing down the issues. It was exploited to the greatest degree, because you could win elections on trumping up the prolife/prochoice-- gun rights/gun control-- gay rights/burn all gays in bonfires false alternatives. What I find most interesting is the very rapid rise of the 3rd group, which most all of us fit into--those who recognize that we must have sustainable policy and we're looking square in the face at trainwreck of collapse if we don't get it together. The rest of that shit is just foolishness. Ideology has very little to do with it. One of things I enjoy about this site is the wide range of perspectives. While outright whackoism isn't tolerated, and while those with conservative bents may be more focused on taxation and the debt issues involved in sustainability, and others with ecological bents may be focused on climate change and ecosystem destruction, we're ALL interested in the destruction of watersheds and the depletion of minerals or fuel souces. You bet. It's a big picture perspective with very heavy first principles, and it's getting to the point quite quickly, quicker than many of us would have expected, where these issues will be day to day realities.

And then, there are those, who just don't want to think about all that. Here is where the gulf is. The gulf exists not between liberal and conservative or any of that bullshit, but rather between the people who understand that the ways of living of the last 50 years or so are over, never to return--and those who simply don't want to think about it. It's between those who understand that NINJA loans are a bad idea and that a nation that runs credit almost to the exclusion of productivity cannot maintain an economy-- and those who just don't want to think about it. It's beween those who understand if we haven't passed peak oil, we will by 2020, and we're unprepared for either--and those who just don't want to think about it. It's beween those who understand that while technology is a good thing, mostly, there ARE NO viable alternative fuels even on the drawing board or hypothesized that compete on a manner of scale with our current fossil fuel dependence-- and again, those who just DON'T want to think about it. I could go on and on and on-- but it's really between those who understand viscerally that our way of living is going to change, either by choice or duress or necessity, soon-- and those who just don't want to think about it. At all, ever. For good reasons too, as it would involve involving oneself in a thought process that if it had the slightest amount of intellectual integrity would require radical changes in priorities in what one did and how one lived one's life. That would be a pain in the butt, wouldn't it? But it's harder to maintain those narrow ideas every day, isn't it? And so the deliberate attempts to remain willfully and comfortably uninformed is getting downright snarly to anyone who suggests that perhaps the conversation should be broadened a bit. That "bit" I'd suggest, would be an honest comprehensive look at the state of the world--its resources, its state of health, its population, and every other pertinent detail and then projecting a sensible forecast. It doesn't bother me much if that forecast differs from mind, just that people do it. Then, and only then, we can work together perhaps. It is absolutely foolish in the extreme to stick with the status quo, a prediction no more sophisticated than this one: tomorrow will be just like today. While "statistically" that projection is 8 or 9 times out of ten true, no one cares. What we care about is not so much people who can forecast when things don't change, but when they DO change. That's what requires action. And in spite of the fact that anyone credible is screaming "train wreck!" there's next to no response from the "I don't want to think about it, damn it!" crowd. We need to realize that this isn't so much a difference of opinion, but rather sanity attempting to deal with a pathology.

Christ. . .

So what to do? Well, just what we're doing. Keep soldiering on personally working for a better future. Hopefully one that would be better for many, but better for oneself in the last resort. This is no small thing. It's going to get harder every day to live in denial, even in the level of denial that all of us who try our best to understand where the world is going still embrace in our lives. . .the Les Paul? Ah phooey. Easier to construct than a pipe organ! The amp too!

Anyway, just thoughts as we tumble down the rabbit hole.