Overpopulation and Future Fantasy
If by some miracle our society decides at some point to get serious about rebuilding/regaining some semblance of our Paradise lost, there is going to be plenty for a whole lot of people to do for a long time to come. Maybe something on the order of collective resources and effort put out by our military at the moment, although if things work out as they should, it should be quite unlike the military in at least one way--i.e. it should be a force working with and for the overall “economy” rather than being a drain on it.
A society geared toward sane living, “appropriate” technology, working in the service of improving quality of life (as opposed to just making more stuff) and (necessarily) working toward undoing most of our godawful ecological damage before it is too late, in theory at least, seems like a conceivable goal. Neither simple nor impossible. Something requiring the exercise of our best minds and our whole-hearted muscle--pretty much the same way we ended up in the mess we’re in now. If we can dig ourselves so close to hell, why can’t we ladder ourselves just as far toward heaven?
As I said, such a revolutionized economy as that will take plenty of brains and brawn, it could easily supply lifetimes of work--and I mean real work, the kind that satisfies the soul and makes a real difference--enough for all the multitudes of people now laboring away in California, and then some.
Our current economy is geared toward death: more and more efficiency in gobbling up Mother Earth and in killing off everything we decide is our enemy at the moment, including each other. In the long run--everything.
Such a shift in economy will create job titles we haven’t yet heard of, and work for multitudes. More importantly, connection for multitudes.
We can just as well base our economy on life--and by that I mean the broadest possible array of life, not just me and mine--which is tantamount to death.
We know the me and mine way already. We know it well. We’ve had thousands of years to practice it, and we’ve come close to its logical conclusion--general annihilation.
More people are beginning to see that there might be a better way of doing things, a more positive kind of goal.
We’ve had our agricultural revolution. We’ve had our Industrial Revolution. Now we’re jumping for joy over our latest New Thing. We’ve had enough loud revolutions. Maybe we’re ready for a quiet one.
I had one at the age of 12 or so, when after years of shooting innocent birds out of the trees on our little farm, and actually enjoying it; I had a sudden revelation given to me by a mortally wounded House Finch; from that moment I gave the same energy to making life better for the birds in the yard that I had given to their wanton murder, and I enjoyed it even more. My own life became richer and more fulfilling simply by making a quiet, symbolic turn from death to life.
Chances are that you never had the luxury of being a bird--murderer as I was. But how many birds--and plants, and insects, and fish, and on and on--have you murdered without even knowing it? Everything we buy or wear or eat (least of all, eat) or put in the bank or play with or flush or throw out or live on or drive around on, all that stuff is yours at the expense of numberless “lesser lives.” Out of sight, out of mind…
Some things take a bigger bite out of the world than others--e.g. golf courses and large wardrobes, and shrimp. And why is environmentally disastrous cotton considered so P.C. compared with relatively harmless wool?
Thoreau put it in a nutshell: “simplify, simplify.” You might be surprised to find out the simpler you live the richer you are.
