Most of our f*ckupery was simply "a good idea at the time"
Most of our f*ckupery was simply "a good idea at the time"
Part 2 to Chapter 11. Not muckin' around.
This is Part 2 of the Blame chapter. If you’re new here you can start at the beginning of the book and navigate around the previous 10 chapters using this Table of Contents.
The audio version for both Part 1 and Part 2 (today’s post) is at the bottom, available only to paid subscribers. Ditto the conversation in the comments section where we workshop things together in real time.
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Q: Why isn’t anyone doing anything? Why do we all suck so much?
"Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times; but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."
- Lord of The Rings
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Many of the questions and quandaries that arise in the comments section of this book serialisation (including in last week’s regroup post and the Part 1 to this chapter) made me feel I needed to put together a more detailed case for our candidacy for forgiveness, and for dropping blame.
I think the point stands solidly:
Blame achieves nothing, plus it distracts us from the noble work we must get on with.
Forgiveness, by contrast, equips us cognitively and spiritually for said noble work.
But I figure most of us here need some filling out of the gaps. Some of you have asked me to explain why so many around us are still in denial. Some of you rage, “Why isn’t anyone doing anything!??!!” I had to pass through my own tunnel of fury myself to arrive at something resembling constructive peace. I definitely get it.
I shall cover things off in a list that is, once again, not meant to be linear (it’s all of it, all at once). I’ve also used a sub-headline treatment to make it easier on the eye. I’m in no way trying to make a concise, “right” argument. It’s mostly some realisations and reckonings that build on some of the other arguments and theories we’ve been rolling around with. Some left-brain Spakfilla, you might say.
Systems be doing what systems do
As per the first part of this chapter (in the last post), no one intended to destroy the world with technology or by burning coal. It just looked like a terrific idea at the time. We have the urge to make things better, and we have so much ambition for ourselves and others. We built things and figured we’d work out the finer details later. And we took things like flourishing, belonging and the Earth’s carrying capacity for granted. We thought they’d just always be there. As Catherine Ingram, the Buddhist leader (and a friend), wrote in her viral essay “Facing Extinction”, (which she has since removed from the internet because it was too much work to manage the feedback):
“Nearly all of us went along on the ride and enjoyed the benefits, and now the party’s over and the bill has come due. But where can we lay blame?”
Catherine added, quoting theoretical physicist Peter Russell, “What if we saw ourselves as a cosmic flame blooming in the universe and coming to its natural end?”
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There is no overarching Machiavellian force at play or individual who devised this shitshow (although there are some godawful opportunists out there doing the ugly work of vultures - investment firms, Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Oil, and… Elon1). The post-industrial, hyper-charged super organism prevails because it can.
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Wall Street and the financial system is just doing its job: Making a profit. That’s what it does.
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There’s also the Shirky Principle2, which states: “Institutions will try to preserve the problems to which they are the solution.” That’s what they do. Clay Shirky writes:
“An organization that commits to helping society manage a problem also commits itself to the preservation of that same problem, as its institutional existence hinges on society’s continued need for its management.”
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Relatedly:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
- Upton Sinclair, Candidate for Governor
The way denial works is a very interesting thing to explore.
As a great starting point, it’s worth remembering that denial is essential for some people to function in the world.
Indeed, a recent theory of mind argues denying reality may have been central to our evolution as a species. As our self-awareness and intersubjectivity expanded, the accompanying overwhelming fear (our awareness of our own mortality, for example) ran the risk of being a dead-end evolutionary barrier. If we were to constantly freeze over in fear as we went about our humaning, we would likely get eaten or fail to reproduce.