SUNDAY, AUG 29, 2021: NOTE TO FILE
Ruben Nelson
Thinking Outside the Box
Eric Lee, A-SOCIATED PRESS
TOPICS:MODERN TECHNO-INDUSTRIAL CULTURE, FROM THE WIRES, WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY
Abstract: Ruben Nelson is old school, like H.G. Wells, and so can yet envision the need for a new world order and what it will need to look like to persist. He thereby becomes a person of interest.
COOS BAY (A-P) — Ruben Nelson caught on earlier than most in the 1970s to being a product of and serving a dysfunctional society that was not remotely sustainable, i.e. one that selected for its own demise (and of everyone in it). But he is no doomer dilettante. He endeavors to envision brave new worlds that may yet be. Consider his 1980 second edition of his 1976 book, The Illusions of Urban Man.
"For me, the most deep-seated illusion of our culture is that basically we know what we are doing; that refinement rather than transformation is called for; that ours is not and need not be a time of profound personal and social transformation.... So for us, much of our push from the industrial era has to do with our discovery of the horrendous human and environmental cost of the way we now live. The price is too high for so little satisfaction."
We fail to seek prescriptions for our continued evolution, prescriptions that involve standing down from our hubris heights, facing our unknowing, our need for transformation from a condition of pathology to "a time of profound personal and social transformation...."
And consider his 2021 thought crumbs to follow through the forest:
There is no chance that any national government is willing to even hint that we face a future in which the dominant work will be managing the chaotic decline of our Modern Techno-Industrial form of civilization. And, there is no chance that any national population is ready and willing to hear it. That, for good and ill, is where we are in 2021. If that message is to be given we must create the receptor capacity in those who are willing to skate on this very thin ice....
Nothing I said [above] suggests that we should not clean up, suit up and show up every day [but it does suggest one's enthusiasm will be limited or non-existent].
What I said, although in different words, is that we are up against not just the vested interests of our Modern Techno-Industrial [MTI] form of civilization, but our very MTI cultures themselves. Our MTI cultures [there is now one global monetary MTI culture of which all others are subcultures of with the exception of a few 'uncontacted' indigenous cultures fighting illegal MTI logging encroachment] are the “box” from which we need to escape. We have to learn to know, imagine, think and act outside of the “box” of our own Modern Techno-Industrial (MTI) form of civilization. This means that we are up against ourselves, in so far as we have been formed by and have learned to succeed in a MTI culture [to suit up and show up every day]. This means that as Pogo Possum put it, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” [Better: I have met the enemy and he is I.] This means that we cannot win by using what we see to be the best of MTI cultures against what we see to be the worst of MTI cultures. Any version of our MTI grasp on reality will lead us to death. It is this that has not been digested by most researchers and practitioners today. We suffer from the illusion that if we only do it “right” [e.g. we get the UN SDGs right] we can keep our MTI game going. Sorry, we can’t. Full Stop. [emph added]
Our 1st Enlightenment science can tell us that we are in deep, deep trouble. This much we know. Sadly, it is not reflexive enough to also tell us that in all humility, it cannot tell us how to get out of the mess of complex living messes we are in. That figuring out how to get through this mess of messes takes a person who have transcended, to at least some noticeable degree, their own Modernity. Those who still trust and rely on MTI science and technology, which is almost everyone of us, still place our hope in some form of the story that “the best of our MTI cultures is OK. It’s only the bad elements we have to struggle with.”
Sadly, this story is not profound enough to enable us... to stumble into life.
When [one writes or] you say that you want to “persuade people (to) think outside the box”, is this what you have in mind? If not, I fear you are offering a false hope.
A new and more powerful story is slowly emerging – one which recognizes the deep cultural dimensions of our situation. Bill Rees, the guy who conceived the notion of the “Ecological Footprint” is on the right trail. He is asking, “Will Modernity be the Death of us?” His answer is “most likely, although it is not yet certain.” If you Google “William Rees civilization” you will find some of his recent articles and a video exploring the question I noted above. I am surprised that in an article on the ecological overshoot, [he is not referenced]....
To me it is heartbreaking, but not puzzling, that we who are MTI peoples and cultures do not yet understand that the root source of our troubles is our own formation as MTI peoples and the MTI cultures which have shaped us, and which in turn we shape and extend. It is heartbreaking because it means that we know enough to figure out that we are in grievous trouble, but not enough to figure out how to respond appropriately. In short, we will not get the future we seek. We cannot bring ourselves to get serious about doing the one thing we need to do. We need to respond by committing ourselves to transcend our MTI formation and cultures. Tragically, and completely understandably, all our organized responses are framed, conceived and carried out with and within an MTI imagination of the world. This is understandable because in order to succeed in our MTI cultures we are required to be logical, rational and empirical. We are not required to be reflexive, let alone meta-reflexive. (In fact, being such can get you in trouble.) But… reflexivity is required if we are to transcend our formation. We are like flies in a Wittgensteinian fly bottle, evolved enough to be able to get ourselves into a death trap, but not evolved enough to guide our own evolution as persons, whole cultures and a form of civilization.
