Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 6:33 pm Post subject: Limits are not a myth
Do yourself a favor and take 15 minutes to read this essay by Wendell Berry in the May issue of Harper's. It deals with the cultural impact of the mass self-delusion of "limitlessness" that characterizes modern life. It's nothing we don't already know, but this man has an infectious way with words, and it's great to see somebody paint the Big Picture so eloquently. Quality stuff.
Quote:
Our national faith so far has been: "There's always more." Our true religion is a sort of autistic industrialism. People of intelligence and ability seem now to be genuinely embarrassed by any solution to any problem that does not involve high technology, a great expenditure of energy, or a big machine. Thus an X marked on a paper ballot no longer fulfills our idea of voting. One problem with this state of affairs is that the work now most needing to be done -- that of neighborliness and caretaking -- cannot be done by remote control and the greatest power on the largest scale. A second problem is that the economic fantasy of limitlessness in a limited world calls fearfully into question the value of our monetary wealth, which does not reliably stand for the real wealth of land, resources, and workmanship but instead wastes and depletes it.
Joined: Aug 03, 2007 Posts: 3636 Location: Boston Suburbs
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 11:36 pm Post subject: Re: Limits are not a myth
I think the unwashed masses should read this stuff, but these sorts of manifestos don't really move me anymore. The whole deal about putting humanity on trial like Q in Encounter at Farpoint is just getting a little stale.
We have to move beyond the finger pointing and the remorse. The question for me now is where do we go from here (besides throwing your hands up and embracing die off fatalistically ala Montequest). _________________ Peak oil is sort of like a mental Everlasting Gobstopper, except it tastes like ass and you can't get it out of your mouth.
Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 12:15 am Post subject: Re: Limits are not a myth
mos6507 wrote:
I think the unwashed masses should read this stuff...
We have to move beyond the finger pointing and the remorse. The question for me now is where do we go from here.
To me, that was one of the main thrusts of the essay, that we can't go anywhere from here unless the "unwashed masses" somehow, on a global scale, accept that growth for growth's sake is a dead end, literally. How to go about that, well, I don't know. How do you get billions of people to admit they were wrong? People, individually, hate to do this. People will pick a position and defend it, no matter how insane or self-destructive it is. And when the position has, in effect, been picked out for them from the moment of birth... that's a tough paradigm to abandon.
Right now, (late night, after a few drinks) I like to think that good ideas can be infectious. Can't destroy darkness with darkness, as MLK liked to say, or something to that effect. Some semblance of reason has to be preserved, however small, by any means necessary. And then tomorrow, I'm quite sure I'll encounter yet another brainless walking corpse who will singlehandedly wreck my faith in humanity for a while...
Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 12:18 am Post subject: Re: Limits are not a myth
Thanks for posting this essay. I've been distributing it to folks I know. Just about everything this guy writes is brilliant, IMVHO.
By the way, you have to get the album cover image for your avatar, sheik!
moss, I agree, but every way forward seems frought with political, demographic, resource use, or ecological impossibilies or catastrophes. Do you see a best way forward at this point?
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