On Monday, October 25, 2004, at 07:13 PM, Bakker, R.B.M. de wrote:
Hydrogen energy, or whatever TECHNOLOGICAL effort to face the
permanent crisis we're in, CANNOT be a solution, Suppose even,
that it would work somehow, then the real problem just remains,
waiting to become acute in what always will be unforseeable
circumstances.
Many environmentally minded people would agree with you. They feel that energy alternatives that allow our growth based order to continue will only postpone the deadline and make the final outcome worse. The main problem for them is that oil based civilisation has led to massive overpopulation due to 'phantom carrying capacity'. The latter currently supports a population of 6.4 billion based solely on our nonrenewable hydrocarbon energy surplus and without which the earth could possibly support only about 1-2 billion of us. You factor in the probability of massive war, famine and pestilence over the next few decades coupled with catastrophic global warming and then the complete collapse of civilisation or even extinction becomes a possibility.
I've been arguing that no matter what truly sustainable alternatives are found we need to understand how we got into this mess in the first place otherwise humanity will be locked into the same cycle of boom and bust that has characterised modernity so far, into the eternal recurrence of the same human reality and its will to power. We need to understand the mechanism of the will to will and our relation to technology as the historical setup for modern understanding. But that's where I lose them as it's too philosophical to actually question one's own understanding, so here I am back in Heidegger's realm.
The only 'solution' can be: not working towards solutions anymore.
They themselves are the trouble. Cos they have their ground in
(the holding sway of) subjectivity. And any widerwille or rage
against not being able to bring solutions, will only entangle more
into subjectivism, at last completely irrational subjectivism.
(fundamentalism: principle of reason as will-to-will)
The solutions will be sought one way or another, such as the invasion of Iraq for instance, and I agree the coming energy decline will only intensify our entanglement in modern subjectivism. People en masse will be outraged, nihilist confusion will proliferate and some will turn further to the old gods while others sink into hopelessly skeptical nihilism as the new gods of liberal morality collapse into chaos and totalitarian technicism. Perhaps extreme nihilism will step into that breach on the edge of human extinction and there with the supreme danger the saving power will grow: An ecstatic nihilism that stands out into the openness of its own finitude and groundlessness, safeguarding the open region on the threshold of Heidegger's new great beginning for thinking. Either that or we fragment into feudal totalitarian states peopled by technological elites ruling over what's left of the impoverished masses until something like fusion energy allows the whole stupid mess of globalisation to start over again.
And meanwhile letting the world fall apart? Sure, it cannot be saved,
it is wrong to try to save THIS any longer. Cut the ropes, and stand
on your own feet, that's postmodern individualism, i suppose: carry
the cross of metaphysical completion: a destiny.
(then behind the world may come the earth)
Are you a 21st century flagellant Rene? Many anarchists share your distaste for our modern world and are neither surprised by the possibility that globalisation may collapse nor sorry to see it go. Myself, I'd rather see some form of internationalism reassert itself to mitigate the fall in a sort of rearguard rational decline of the project of modernity with at least the hope of a transition towards the good once the worst is over sometime later in this century. But this is all of course still merely speculation, who knows what the future may hold, perhaps the worst case scenarios won't eventuate and we will all be treated to a radically revised version of more of the same? The next decade may give us some better insights into the problem as we enter what may very well be one of the most interesting times in all of human history.
Cheers,
Malcolm
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