WEDNESDAY, OCT 27, 2021: NOTE TO FILE
A Tale of Two Letters
Two domains of discourse
Eric Lee, A-SOCIATED PRESS
TOPICS: PRESIDENTS XI AND BIDEN, FROM THE WIRES, TWO CULTURES
Abstract: A letter to Presidents Xi and Biden gives expression to almost everyone's hope for a better future (for modern techno-industrial—MTI society). Few envision that the MTI society's coming to an end could be other than a catastrophe.
COOS BAY (A-P) — The first letter:
October 1, 2021
President Joseph Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
President Xi Jinpeng
Central People's Republic of the People's Republic of China
Zhongnanhai Ximen, Fuyou Street Xicheng, District, Beijing 100017
The People's Republic of China
Dear Presidents Biden and Xi,
The habitability of the planet can no longer be taken for granted. Both of you have done, and are doing, much to counter the profound threat to the future. We are at a crossroads. The two of you have made possible an historical change that might save us all from unimaginable disasters. PLEASE lead us into the new possibility you have created.
I served in the U.S. Army for three and a half years in World War II and in the occupation of Japan. I awoke to the self-destructive practices of the modern world in the late 1960s, and I have worked to replace the individualistic materialism and militaristic nationalism that have been leading the world to utter catastrophe with an understanding of the mutual relationship of all things. The recognition of our dependence on one another calls us all to work for the common good. I am a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Now, at 96, I am distressed by the prospects faced by my five grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.
Beginning in the early seventies I have led a number of conferences on the ecological crisis, Including some for Chinese. My conference career climaxed in 2015 in "Seizing an Alternative: Toward an Ecological Civilization." Among the two thousand participants, three hundred came from China.
I have published some fifty books. In 1970 I wrote a little one entitled "Is It Too Late?" Since then, I have looked on with deep pain as more and more has been irretrievably lost. I speak now for millions of concerned people who are grateful to the two of you for reviving our hope and are asking for you to build on what you have achieved.
President Xi, you have committed China to becoming an ecological civilization. That inspired the title of the conference mentioned above. China still has far to go, but your progress is amazing. You evaluate your provincial governors as much by their improvement of the environment as by their contribution to economic growth. You are eliminating extreme poverty. You have ended population increase in China. You are developing the rural villages, and more people are now moving to them from the cities than are leaving them for the cities. You are cutting back on coal despite your lack of oil and natural gas. You are ready to help other countries to move forward.
President Biden, your commitment to stopping climate change before it destroys civilization is clear in both your words and your actions. In your address to the United Nations, you call for giving this task top priority. In your actions at home, you are implementing your commitments. You know that unless the world's peoples and their governments prioritize dealing with the global problem, we will all suffer terribly. You recognize that the United States must take a leading role globally, but that it must do so in partnership with others. You are willing to set controversies on other issues aside to make such partnerships possible. You know that the most important of all such partnerships is with China and you have already reached out to explore possibilities.
The whole world is indebted to both of you. But there is a danger, a terrible danger, that established policies and commitments will block the wonderful possibility that the two of you have created. The United States still names China as its number one enemy. Unfortunately, this is not idle rhetoric. American foreign policy, military policy, and even financial policy are affected by this declaration of enmity. It is not possible for China to have the necessary trust to collaborate whole heartedly with a nation that treats it as its primary enemy. Nations can disagree on many topics and still respect one another and work together. If the United States wants to influence China's policy on Hong Kong or Tibet, the chance of doing so would be far greater if it made suggestions as a friend than if it makes demands as an enemy. What the world needs, desperately, is for the United States to offer China its friendship as a context of working together for the salvation of the world.
Although we understand, President Xi, that you cannot collaborate wholeheartedly with a country that treats you as its enemy, we beg you, for the sake of the planet, to respond to any gesture of friendship on the part of President Biden. It is hard for him to change deep-seated prejudices and suspicions, characteristic of many Americans, or to act against them. It may turn out that the friendship so urgently needed will grow in face-to-face meetings. It may be better to hope for friendship as an outcome than to demand it as precondition.
Of course, the rest of the world must cooperate. Even if you together take leadership, there is no guarantee of success. However, if you both give primacy to saving civilization, other nations will join you. If you continue to give primacy to competition for dominance, the positive initiatives of others have no chance. The fate of human civilization is in your hands.
We know that there are many people who like to have an enemy on whom to project all evil. Some of them do not recognize that we are heading for disaster. They will not understand your cooperating with the erstwhile enemy, and they may attack you viciously. We are asking you for courage, even heroism. Our shared cause transcends us all. Only you two can lead us.
Most sincerely,
John B. Cobb, Jr.
[American theologian, philosopher, and environmentalist, often regarded as the preeminent scholar in the field of process philosophy and process theology.]
October 27, 2021
President Joseph Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
President Xi Jinpeng
Central People's Republic of the People's Republic of China
Zhongnanhai Ximen, Fuyou Street Xicheng, District, Beijing 100017
The People's Republic of China
Dear Presidents Xi and Biden,
Humanity is colliding with Nature. The habitability of the planet (for humans) can no longer be taken for granted. A damaged biosphere will persist. We humans may not be part of it. As each of you may admit in the privacy of your own minds, there are no political solutions. I am willing to assume that both of you have done, and are doing, everything you can to lead humanity towards a better future. Meanwhile, the pace of planetary destruction will not slow.
You are the two most powerful leaders in modern techno-industrial (MTI) society, now global. One is leader, for a short time, of the dominant superpower of the twentieth century, while the other leads the emerging, since the 1990s, next dominant superpower. The Euro Empire, that had shifted to the Americo region, will now climax in the Sino region.
China is the only threat to current US hegemony, and so is perceived by servants of the US expression of MTI culture as their greatest existential threat. Growth/eMpower is transitioning to the Sino region as it had from the Euro (aka Eurasia) to the Americo Empire in the twentieth century. All who are in power, from local boards to supreme leaders of corporations and nation-states, are, as their predecessors were, riders of the storm (complex, adaptive, but non-evolvable dissipative structures operating far from thermodynamic equilibrium) who take credit for their region's fossil fueled growth (as none now or in the future will take credit for their social order's dissipation). The awe comes before shock, and the awe of modern empire building will climax in Eastasia. There is nothing either of you can do to more than tweak the remorseless dynamic.
I am a know-nothing from the hood who just doesn't get it. We MTI ones are repeating a pattern that began millennia ago. As all prior empire building ones have, we expect a different outcome. That those who may pass through the coming bottleneck will again repeat the pattern of raise and dissolution concerns us no more than it concerned our predecessors. I am distressed by the prospects faced by my two grandchildren and their descendants, if any, to well beyond the seventh generation.
Beginning in the late sixties I observed the rise of the environmental movement and counterculture. I had begun to understand the implications of the exponential function and the need for foundational systemic revolt. Environmentalists were mere political activists, not revolutionaries, and the counterculture was not nearly counter enough. All forms of money are counterfeit. Energy is what's a-happening.
I have self-published over 250 'missives' (as one of my occasional readers, countable on one hand, refers to my offerings). I have answered (reacted to) 370 Quora questions with 144k views and 400 upvotes. One person has read more than a few, more than five. He is a nihilist (and I am not). I do not tell people what they want to hear. I speak for no one. I do endeavor to answer questions that posterity may ask, truthfully.
President Xi, you are a successor of Emperor Shenzong of Song, whose word was literally law, yet he too was constrained by the social system and events. As you know (but some others may not), in 1069 CE the emperor Shenzong (Shen-tsung), having recognized the brilliance of the political thinker Wang Anshi (An-shih), appointed him Vice Chief Councilor in charge of administration and gave him full power to implement his ideas in the Emperor's name. Wang based his reforms on thorough study, but both he and the emperor failed to take account of the bitter opposition that the new policies would arouse among those whose private interests were threatened by them. "Even in the short run, the cost of the divisive factionalism that the reforms generated had disastrous effects." Opposition to Wang was so intense that he resigned permanently in 1076, and during the eight years following Shenzong's death in 1085 most of the reforms were rescinded or drastically revised. Wang's own former associates were canceled, and his policies became nothing more than an instrument in bitter political warfare. As Zhuangzi noted: “The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.”
President Biden, you are a successor of the Athenian statesman Solon (6th century BCE) who worked tirelessly to abolish hektemorage (roughly equivalent to serfdom) in Attica while allowing the aristocracy to retain most of its wealth and privilege. His legislation was successful. But it also had unexpected (as usual) consequences that Solon surely would not have approved. The liberation of the "serfs" resulted iin a labor shortage that led the Athenians to purchase or capture numerous slaves from outside Attica, so that Athens was transformed into a slave society. Another indirect consequence of Solon's legislation was the Peisistratid "tyranny" (populist dictatorship) that ruled Athens during a substantial part of the 6th century BCE. As you should know, the trajectory of the Roman Empire had little to do with who was emperor. If Bernie Sanderus had been emperor instead of Caligula, he might have freed the slaves leading to the collapse of his empire 300 years sooner. May all your legislation be successful (or not).
The whole world is indebted to both of you (for a time) for helping to keep the global economy keeping on keeping on. But there is a danger, a terrible danger, that established principles of system dynamics will prevent you from serving posterity. You exist as leaders because you serve the MTI system. You have no choice but to, apart from resigning. You, and the homeless panhandler or denizen of a labor camp, are all captured and being dragged along by a complex, powerful and remorseless dynamic that automatically thwarts all attempts to stop it. If you do not put time and energy into understanding it, all are doomed to go with it, right to the final curtain. But endeavoring to understand would distract you from ruling. Rather than working together for the salvation of the world, you should both consider sitting on the banks of a remote mountain stream together, while such streams still exist. When you return, more may listen to you than me, myself, and I put together.
Although we understand, Presidents Xi and Biden, that you cannot collaborate beyond shared short-term self interests, posterity begs you, for the sake of the biosphere, to stand down and listen to Nature (Tao) who has all the answers. If you do not count listening to Nature among your talents, then as a person stand down and listen to those who endeavor to listen to Nature. The social constructs of 'nation' and 'political power' will vanish of their own accord if you do not believe in them. Then you may lead others to stand down from their hubris heights and listen to the small still voice of Tao (Gaia, Mother, Aluna...).
Of course, the rest of the world must be entreated to stand down too, in full knowing that few can. All who would pass through the coming bottleneck with information packages intact must form pockets of sustainable ecolate civilization able to weather the collapse of the Euro-Sino Empire. Otherwise, any remnant populations, after perhaps 500 years of environmental recovery of soils, water flows, forests, and sequestration of waste, will pulse again regionally to repeat the pattern until they can't.
They will, of course, never again form a global empire as there will be no planetary larder of fossil fuels to eMpower them. They will be at high risk of never again recovering information lost. We are playing (badly) a high-stakes endgame. I'm sure you can join me in hoping some play a different endgame than those who serve MTI society can play.
If you both were to give primacy to replacing MTI civilization with its opposite (e.g. a MEL civilization), others would join you, and perhaps our trajectory could have a different outcome than complete collapse as usual. If you continue to give primacy to competition for dominance, the fate of human civilization will not be viable.
We know that all clothed tribal animals like to have an enemy on whom to project all evil and blame for all failures of policy as such failures are frequent, given that the social system, among all others, is not only more complex than any human knows, but more complex than any human, or their AI, can know. Some do not recognize that we are heading for catastrophe. As H.G. Wells noted in 1920, we are "in a race between education and catastrophe," and education lost by serving the Great Acceleration. Most will not understand your cooperating with the erstwhile enemy, should you do so, and they may attack you viciously. In our imaginations, you could cooperate to destroy the MTI hegemon that selects for its own failure (and the dissipation of all who serve it).
We understand that you will do as you must. We who walk away from your MTI monetary society will do as we must, choicelessly, as our understanding dictates. No one can lead their illusory self (as social construct) or the selves of others. As subsystems who let go into the humility of not knowing, we can be obedient to the nature of things which are systems of no things. We cannot know truth. We can but iterate towards it, swimming less complacently in the surrounding sea of error, ignorance, and illusion. We can but dance with the system, let go into not-knowing, and listen. To think is to listen. Listen.
Yours in iterating towards truth,
Eric Lee
"Go, set a watchman,
let him declare what he seeth." — Isaiah 21:6
And no, posterity isn't paying me
to be a watchman, nor will they
appreciate what I seeth.
But that's who I work for.
[American by birth, a harmless drudge who has never been a theologian, philosopher, nor environmentalist; unknown proponent of replacing MTI culture with a MEL (Matter-Energy-Li) non-monetary (hence viable) civilization of enough that may evolvably persist, as the millennia pass, as the biosphere's handmaiden anew.]
PS: Yes, more words, words, words than Cobb, but I've bought and read one of Cobb's 50 books: China and Ecological Civilization 2019. I failed to find verities to cite, but that's because I'm not even wrong. He probably actually sent his letter. I will not, as moderating my error, ignorance, and delusion is to die for. I work for no one's bread, so I sing no one's song.
