Civilization
in Crisis
by
Richard Heinberg
It
was in late childhood that I first began to
realize that the society around me was on a
reckless track. I recall being infuriated by
the insipid materialism and commercialism of
America in the 1950s. As I learned a little
about history, I began to regard war as more
evidence of crassness and stupidity. Why did
people allow their governments to behave like
schoolyard bullies? It seemed that the fate of
the planet was in the hands of raving idiots.
Meanwhile,
it was clear that the world was in a whirlwind
of change: Every year brought new products and
inventions (like lasers and microwave ovens),
social controversies (such as those
surrounding the civil rights movement), and
cultural phenomena (like the Beatles). It was
all exhilarating, yet disturbing. The only
certainties were change itself and the general
direction in which it was headed toward
anything that was more, bigger, or faster.
In
1964 my high school geography teacher, in one
of her frequent sardonic asides to the class,
mentioned something about awful consequences
that would follow if America were to get mired
down in a conflict in Southeast Asia. At the
time, I attached little significance to her
warning: Asia meant nothing more to me than
words and pictures in a book. Only a few years
later, most young men of my generation were
either in Vietnam or trying desperately to
find a way to avoid being sent there. I was
one of the lucky ones: I had a high draft
lottery number and was never called. Instead,
I went to college and joined the antiwar
movement.
The
Vietnam War was an education for many of us --
but a very different education from the one we
were receiving in school. Our textbooks led us
to believe that America was the wisest and
kindest of nations. Our country, we were told,
was a torchbearer of freedom. Yet in Vietnam
our government seemed to be championing a
puppet dictatorship and ignoring the wishes of
the people. The war appeared to be the
creation of the very military-industrial
complex that Eisenhower, in his last speech as
president, had warned against -- huge
transnational corporations that were largely
financed by Pentagon contracts; that
increasingly controlled government policy;
that were interested only in raw materials,
markets, and profits; and that routinely
destroyed indigenous cultures around the world
in order to enrich themselves.
The
Mask Falls Off
Once
the debate over Vietnam had torn the mask of
civility from the empire culture in which we
were living, many of us began to see that it
was riddled with all sorts of contradictions
and inequities. It became apparent, for
example, that the way of life to which we had
become accustomed was polluting and exhausting
the natural environment; that women and people
of color were being routinely exploited; that
the rich were continually growing richer and
the poor poorer. This was difficult
information for any young person to absorb.
What to do about it?
Since
I had grown up in a religious family, my first
reflex was to look for spiritual solutions to
the world's problems. Perhaps humanity was
acting in selfish, cruel, and shortsighted
ways because it needed enlightenment. The
wickedness in the heart of the worst
industrial polluter or political terrorist
exists in my heart too, I thought, if only in
essence. If I cannot expunge envy, hatred, and
greed from my own soul, then I have no real
basis for blaming others for their
shortcomings; but if I can, then perhaps I can
provide an example.
For
the next twenty years I studied Buddhism,
Taoism, and mystical Christianity; lived in
spiritual communities; and explored New Age
philosophies, therapies, and trainings. It was
a time of growth and learning for which I
shall always be grateful. But eventually I
realized that spirituality isn't the full
answer to the world's problems. I often met
people whose dedication to God was
unquestionable, but who had adopted an
authoritarian or intolerant attitude, or who
glossed over economic and social dilemmas that
couldn't easily be framed in the context of
their etherial worldview. After two decades of
waiting for the formation of a "critical
mass" of enlightened pioneers to
spearhead the evolution of humanity into a New
Age of universal harmony, I began to realize
that in reality the world was worse off than
ever.
Meanwhile
my investigations of comparative religion were
leading me toward the study of tribal
societies -- such as those of the Native
Americans, Africans, Aboriginal Australians,
and Pacific Islanders. These non-industrial
peoples, many of whom had ancient Earth-based
spiritual traditions, didn't (at least, until
time of contact) share many of the problems of
the First World. Their cultures may have been
imperfect in their own ways -- the natives of
Papua New Guinea, for example, routinely
practiced human sacrifice -- but in terms of
environmental destructiveness they were far
less ruinous than the industrial societies of
the twentieth century. Their patterns of
existence were sustainable, while ours is not.
As I researched tribal peoples it became
apparent to me that their social and
ecological stability derived not just from
their religions, but from all the details of
their ways of life.
Modern
World Insanity
Simultaneously,
I began to see that the insanity of the modern
world is not due simply to a lack of morals or
spiritual awareness, but is embedded in every
aspect of our collective existence. Our
destruction of the natural environment, our
horrific wars, and the spread of poverty
throughout both the Third World and our own
First World cities cannot be fully halted by a
government regulation here or a new invention
there. They are inherent in the overall
pattern of existence we have adopted.
I
gradually came to see that what we eat, how we
think and live, and the kinds and quantities
of resources we use all imply a certain
contract or covenant with nature, and that
every culture makes such a covenant by which
its members (mostly unconsciously) abide.
Humankind and nature exist in a reciprocal
balance: just as people shape the land to
their needs, land and climate also affect
people -- leading them not only to rely on
locally and seasonally available foods, but to
entertain attitudes toward life that spring
from their adopted patterns of subsistence.
Desert pastoralists tend to have consistent
and predictable mythologies, forms of social
organization, and worldviews, no matter what
continent they live on; and the same can be
said of coastal fishers, arctic hunters, and
tropical horticulturists. Moreover, historical
hindsight and cross-cultural comparisons
suggest that some covenants with nature are
more successful than others.
Civilization's
Control
Civilization
-- the pattern of life that involves cities,
lifetime division of labor, conquest, and
agriculture -- represents a uniquely
exploitive covenant in which humans seek to
maximize their control of their environment
and minimize its constraints upon themselves.
In the past, many civilizations have fallen
because of their unrealistic demands on soil,
water, and forests, leaving deserts in their
wake. We are presently living in a society
whose patterns of reliance on nature appear to
be leading to similar ends. But in this case,
because our civilization has become global in
extent, we may seriously impair the biological
viability of the entire planet before our
institutions finally sputter and die.
Along
the way, a voice in my head raised objections:
Aren't you merely romanticizing primitive
cultures? If you actually had to do without
all of the conveniences of modern life you'd
probably be miserable. Anyway, we can't simply
go back to living the way our ancestors did.
We can't "uninvent" the automobile,
nuclear reactor, or computer. This voice
refuses to shut up. Sometimes its arguments
appear irrefutable. But as yet it has offered
no alternative solution to the great
underlying crisis of our civilization -- the
fact that we are presiding over a worldwide
biological holocaust. The voice of
"realism" merely says that the
crisis is somehow inevitable, perhaps an
evolutionary necessity.
But
of course there are alternatives, there are
solutions. The path away from our predatory
industrial-electronic civilization need not be
an attempt to imitate the lifeways of the
primitive peoples. We cannot all become Pomos.
But we can relearn much of what has been
forgotten in the march of
"progress". We can regain the sense
of responsibility to land and life that
indigenous peoples have always known. Even if
we cannot now envision all the details of a
post-imperial culture, we can at least speak
of it in general terms, discuss the process by
which it might come into being, and take
practical steps toward its realization.
 This
article was excerpted from:
A
New Covenant with Nature
by Richard
Heinberg.
©1996.
Reprinted with permission from the publisher,
Quest Books, http://www.theosophical.org.
Info/Order
book.
About The
Author
Richard
Heinberg has lectured widely, appeared on radio and television, and
written numerous essays. His alternative monthly broadside, MuseLetter,
was included in Utne Reader's annual list of Best Alternative
Newsletters. He is also the author of Celebrate
the Solstice: Honoring the Earth's Seasonal Rhythms through Festival and
Ceremony.
Another
article by this author.
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