We stand on the cusp of one of the bleakest periods in human history when the bright lights of a civilization blink out and we will descend for decades, if not centuries, into barbarity. The elites have successfully convinced us that we no longer have the capacity to understand the revealed truths presented before us or to fight back against the chaos caused by economic and environmental catastrophe. As long as the mass of bewildered and frightened people, fed images that permit them to perpetually hallucinate, exist in this state of barbarism, they may periodically strike out with a blind fury against increased state repression, widespread poverty and food shortages. But they will lack the ability and self-confidence to challenge in big and small ways the structures of control. The fantasy of widespread popular revolts and mass movements breaking the hegemony of the corporate state is just that – a fantasy.
I do not. I find it liberating. I don't know about you all, but I am sure as shit tired of bumping my head against immovable power structures that just don't seem to break. I am tired as all get out of the circle jerk that modern politics. I am liberated by the thought that my job isn't to fix a broken system, but to contemplate what next.
Our little system of democracy has broken down into the oligarchy deemed as inevitable by Michels as gravity. I find myself wondering daily if a lottery wouldn't be a better way to choose our politicians.
I've been reading a lot of modern art and design blogs and getting way more positive philosophy there than I ever could on most political blogs. I'm thinking about things like production processes that take the eventual discard/disuse of the item as part of the creation of the product and a changing the way we make things to include the end life of a thing. I'm thinking about all the little crafters in the world making some money on Etsy doing old school things in modern ways like knitting and pottery, things that used to be considered purely decorative arts and the realm of women (and not of serious, read male, artists).
And thinking about making things safer and greener and better, or just making things, makes me happy. We can't actually cease all consumption as a species, but we can seriously change our philosophy when it comes to stuff we consume. And that skips all the eco bullshit that is really just a way to wrangle women back into unpaid labor under the guise of protecting the environment (go google femivores to see what I mean) by putting the onus of sustainability on the creator and not the discarder.
And I'm thinking about things like darknet economies as ways to, as the author of the depressing post says, keep the humanity of humans alive in the coming chaos. Hey, if these little words that I write on this screen inspire some random searcher a hundred years from now to think past the horror and into the possible, yippy. But in the mean time establishing little trusted circles of social interaction in the internet world maybe the modern equivalent of a cloister.
This is, of course, not to say that I won't still be sending the occasional douchebag email to members of our government or throwing tantrums when they do yet another stupid thing. It's just to say that I have given up hope of fixing it and would much rather concentrate on how to build a better mousetrap next time.
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