I am writing this diary to respond to a question raised by Immanuel Ness who is a professor of political science at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and editor of The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present. His question: Could the great recession lead to a great revolution? is the title of his article in the Christian Science Monitor. This article expresses my own belief about the only way real change will occur in our time. That it is necessary is beyond question if you simply look at the reality around us. The question of why civilizations fall apart has been discussed by many. I recently received this from another group with which I discuss these issues:
Here is the question: We have awareness of the problems, anticipation/predictability of their consequences, and the technologies to address. But this, it seems, are not enough to incentivize us to act. Whatever one's bias or explanation, the outcome of failure to act is, value free or not, replicable across many contexts of human experience.
I have my own slant and will share it with you below the break.
Here is the answer I wrote back to them: It seems like a trivial question to me. The answer is so obvious. That I am correct is verified by the fact that you have heard the answer over and over again and still repeat the question as if it were new.
A complex system is an entity in itself. If that system has the attributes of an organism it has the capacity to heal itself. this is because it has both catabolic and anabolic processes and can use the fact that it exercises continual regeneration to grow, adapt, and heal. The system we call "civilization" is not a system in this sense. It is intricately a part of a larger system that sustains it as well as is influenced by it in profound ways. Civilization itself has many system like qualities, the major ones coming from the whole being far more than the mere sum of its parts. The role of human reason in all this has been far overrated. Human reason can produce technology, but can not fathom the way that technology will impact the greater system when implemented. Human reason can evolve an economic system that feeds the technology as much as it sustains the humans. What human reason can not cope with is the fact that human reason is not the cause of all this. It is a strong component in the production of technology and the manipulation of the economic system, but it is not in control in any sense of the word. Hence the human component to the larger system that we call civilization is governed by factors human reason can not even identify. It can not deal with the obvious fact that the economic system it has spawned is a cancer like process. It will grow until it eats its sources or it will be wiped out by defense mechanisms. So far the large system has tolerated many phases of this cancer called "civilization". It has survived them as they destroyed themselves. Now the "civilized" people on earth are waking up to the fact that their cancerous excesses are putting them in danger once more. They are calling upon the very "reason" that got them here to "solve" their problem. If I were an alien I find this rather humorous to witness. But as a helpless human I find it very grim. We have just experienced another demonstration of the uselessness off human reason in the affairs of humans. We experienced eight years of total disregard for the intellectual part of the human resource and yet we seemed to get along alright. The system grinds on however for the forces that shape it were set in place far before this. Whether or not civilization will collapse is really not the question. The question was asked before by many and it is the only legitimate use of human reason. The question is this: "What do you believe in? What kind of world do you want to live in?" Answer that question then live every waking moment as if you can really create that world. Whether you can or not it is the only reasonable answer.
Now let us see what Ness, an expert on revolutions, has to say along these lines.
In the last century, the opponents of the failed bureaucratic statism in the Soviet sphere and free-market capitalism in the West have struggled to find a discourse of resistance. While democratic opponents defeated Soviet Russia in the early 1990s, opponents of free-market capitalism have yet to gain traction, in part due to the general consensus among global rulers in defense of neoliberalism. As such, revolutionary movements have had to redefine themselves outside territorial borders as powerful tools of the global collective to petition for human rights and social justice for all.
People are inherently cautious and take extraordinary action only when they have little to lose and something to gain. The current economic crisis has pushed more people into poverty and despair than at any time since the early 20th century, to the point where alternatives to the current system can be considered.
Today, throughout the world, peasants, workers, indigenous peoples, and students are galvanized into movements that are challenging state power rooted in global norms of neoliberalism. New movements have gained greater traction with the legitimacy and strength of a global collective behind them, rather than as isolated protests. The oppressed are framing new narratives of liberation to contest power on a state and international level: whether peasants in Latin America or India struggling for land reform; indigenous peoples mobilizing resistance for official recognition of their rights; or workers and students throughout the world waging unauthorized strikes and sit-ins, and taking to the streets in support of democracy and equality.
Some will quickly pick at this without grasping what he is really saying. The use of the label"neoliberalism" is merely that- his way of putting a label on something. In my little essay above I am more pointed toward the real causes of what we are experiencing.
I use systems science ideas in a way that goes well beyond anything you may have encountered before. I see the world this way because of the very unique history I have lived as a scientist and as a political activist. Systems science teaches us about the way systems take on an identity of their own that is far more than its parts can be seen to explain. Hence the Earth System is far more than the human civilizations that have been part of it recently.
The essential truth Ness has identified is that when people's perception of their condition is that they have less to loose by acting than by not acting, they will act. Right now the world is watching the United States with great interest because the tipping point for them has to do with our success or failure to use this governing process we call "democracy" to manipulate a set of interlocking impredicative processes all of which are vital to their health and welfare. It seems clear that the failure of that attempt is built into its very origins and nature. Bold and radical action is imperative right now and we wallow in some notion of "bipartisanship". The republican and democratic parties are practically equally irrelevant when their efficacy to solve crisis level problems is used to judge them. There is no time for such shenanigans when the global system is about to be taxed beyond its limits in so many ways. It is time for action and we get a warmed over version of "business as usual". I don't care what you identify yourself as politically, it is time to shed that blindfold and see what is happening around you. Our economic system can no longer encourage consumption. It must think sustainability in every sphere. No amount of health care reform will produce a system that can heal what we are bringing upon ourselves. We in this country, even the poorest among us, are the world's fat cats and gluttons. Is it at all realistic to believe we can go on like this? The revolution will not be done by us. We will be the ones who are overthrown. No matter how good you think your politics are, they are irrelevant in this context. Your values and your basic political beliefs are going to be seen as a cause of the problems confronting the planet not as potential solutions. Scapegoating the republicans is easy for they set themselves up for it with all their arrogance and self-righteousness. But what about ours? Can we see it? can we understand that what we advocate is harming not helping? I think not. So I write this as a way of allowing thoughts that have been burning in my consciousness a chance to become words on paper. I expect to be either ignored or attacked, but this is what I see and I can not deny it.