Civilization

How do we become un-imprisoned without rejecting a civilization that is all we know?

By turning the purpose of civilization around so that it gives back to nature rather than just taking everything (without so much as a thank you!) Or at least attempts to gives something back, conscious of the need for balance, and that the long term survival of ourselves - our own self-interest - require a more balanced way of living.

By turning all of the powerful capabilities of civilization away from ruthlessly exploiting all other life on this planet towards nurturing life and building habitats not just for ourselves but also for the incredible wealth of life that we are so fortunate to live together with and upon which we depend.   By coming to see ourselves truly and accurately - scientifically - as the primates that we are, primates in a living landscape, and not as the gods or children of gods that our religious traditions imply (valuable culturally and morally as these traditions are,) and in that seeing, coming to know that we can’t just keep on taking without contributing to the landscape in which we live.

We can’t so much reject civilization but work to re-direct it, to clarify the purpose of civilization, such that we may again be its participants, rather than its victims, as so many of us seem to be, even the most economically successful or celebrated.  

There is a a sacrifice to be made, a giving up, because that is necessary.  We can’t have it all, if we are to live honestly.  What we must give up: the sense of entitlement to infinite supplies of food, shelter, transportation, health-care, entertainment, security, and even information that is so common in the First World.  Mostly, what needs to be sacrificed are delusions - comfortable delusions, delusions of comfort - which are being ripped away anyway.

And in exchange for sacrificing these delusions, we might have a shot not just at a more accurate understanding of ourselves but also a more reasonable way of living.  A way of life with a future to it, and not that Blade Runner future. 

This is not to say that by sacrificing our delusions that we will be assured of a viable future.  This is not about bargaining with the destiny our current civilization has us set up to meet. There is nothing sure or certain in this world.   It is simply to say that there will be sacrifices to be made. The future is not cornucopian.  There are real limits which can’t be wished away.  But there are paths that are more viable than others, attitudes that are more or less constructive, perspective that are more or less useful.

Being a “doomer” is not particularly useful.  But trying to see ourselves and our predicament clearly and having a framework by which to act upon that clarity of vision is useful, a framework which is bigger than the common humanism/anthropocentrism, such that we act in ways that benefit not just our own species but other life-forms as well.  Also, useful is a framework that does not reject the countless generations worth of work that has gone into building the civilization that we more or less comfortably inhabit, but instead turns our best capabilities toward better goals and the profit, the excess that we generate back to where it belongs, the larger system of life.