The Essential Question

Crossing to another side.

The essential question on display as we all watch the COP repeat empty promises for too little too late that many have now is how to we prepare the young for the apparently inevitable collapse of civilization in the face of an absence of adequate political will, for whatever reason it is absent.

This is the heart question. And before we prepare anyone else, it might be prudent to prepare ourselves.

I have heard many people cheerily say in effect, ‘the young will save us.’

They will save some of us but not most. The numbers just don’t add up.

It will not be possible, is already too late, for much we love.

That is anguish beyond bearing and reality.

Much is dying, dead or will imminently die and that’s why many of us are doing grief work. Unfortunately, though grief work is personally useful, it doesn’t help the collateral damage of denial and inaction on most of the Earth.

The first task in any collossal problem is to recognize the scale. Evidently many people aren’t there yet and many others have no intention of ever getting there. Most are in fight or flight mode. Sticking with the problem is left to a relative handful of others, including most of us here.

Some of this is about triage. Some of it is psychological acceptance, girding for the worst. My Indigenous friends seem braced for the latter. Neither science nor illustrating the present, let alone the future seem to be adequately moving any dials.

I also agree about how problematic activism is now. I am not sure what kind of activism will help.

Corporations and governments have dug in their heels, walled themselves up and allied with fascists.

I asked a friend, given the bleak evidence for proportionate political will at the COP what value could my book add to our future? She responded in effect, 'resilient persistence despite all.' That is a preciously modest prognosis for effect.

On FB this AM I wrote about myself, “I asked a friend, given the bleak evidence for proportionate political will at the COP what value could my book add to our future? She responded in effect, 'resilient persistence despite all.' That is a preciously modest prognosis for effect.”

There is, of course much we can and all will still do but speaking for myself, I eschew indulging in any Pollyanna ideas. I am fairly sure the future will not be as pretty as it is now and what is required of us all will make our present feel like the longest vacation ever. Reality seems to require radical humility or go insane.

The most important task I foresee ahead besides joyfully doing the best we can individually is to hang together and help each other wherever and however we can.

One of the strengths artists bring to our current crisis is, “creating situations fostering dialogue,”

I would emphasize, however the what and why we discuss.

Languaging uncertainty is another way of approaching the physics of chaos, which is all about adaptation to and the process of change. In writing about the COP yesterday, I was trying to emphasize an essential agent in our current chaos which is scaler. It is not only the uncertainty of our future but the scale of trauma as we go thru that chaos.

In my forthcoming book, “Divining Chaos,” The whole point I make and the reason for that title is that art can “divine” a path through chaos. That is the gist of trigger point theory premised on the thermodynamics of emergence in complex adaptive modeling. It’s still a longways until advance copies will be available but I hope people here will read thru the depth of my thinking on that basic premise.

Pragmatically and psychologically, I think the discursive “way in” to the path forward I describe, is both practical and emotional. I firmly believe hard science is part of that equation and art can walk that path with science in many ways. Lucy Lippard wrote an extensive foreword to my book in which she flagged from my writing, “She focuses on the preposition with, which, “is what distinguishes compassion from empathy. With is the analog of the Boolean AND and the trigger point I’m trying to find for hope.”’ 

Lucy didn’t miss the polemics I also flag, writing, “Her battle with ecocide, with its roots in white supremacy and fascism, continues. So, of course does patriarchy, which she defines as a social, not just a gendered system.”

This too, no matter how uncomfortable for some, needs to be part of our discourse, inextricable from racism and colonialism. 

There are many relevant and pertinent texts on these topics. The nexus of discourse around colonialism, patriarchy and ecocide in the legal system is where I see promise. One aspect of COP that has given me hope has been increased interest in prosecution for genocidal ecocide, especially in relation to First peoples. I think this is indivisible from how and if women’s thinking is recognized and honored.

I think we are way beyond what individuals can do though I do think individual insight can be invaluable. There are perpetrators amongst us practicing ecocide with impunity. I don’t know/ believe anything will push them to willingly give up their power. Rather I see the US RNC colluding to reinforce & consolidate global oligarchic control driving towards ecosuicide. As far as people having children vs adopting, don’t get me started. So that perhaps brings us to the words willingness, willingly.

I have consistently proposed that we might all agree we all hope/ want to think art can move along some of those intransigent types before we self-destruct in one glorious conflagration. In fact, I believe it can. I’m just uncertain how and nothing I’ve seen so far looks like “the” answer. And yes, that possibility requires what I would call radical humility, I think salvation needs a crowd sourced community effort from us all. We can strategize for that but likely will only accurately identify the trigger point (s), butterfly effect in retrospect if any of us survive that long.

This is somewhat rhetorical, but I often encounter panic when I discuss the possible, even worst case scenarios for our environment and vulnerable peoples. It seems like this is a human condition issue about what we are and aren’t willing to live with.

We don’t like discomfort, grief, trauma, pain, limits, feelings of helplessness and powerlessness. As artists, we’re pretty good at containing & focusing those experiences into our work. And ideally, that work makes it easier for others to do the same.

I have a question about the initial embrace of the diagnosis. Is all of the above the reason it is so hard, so scary that many just run the other way? Even when there are clear solutions and paths forward? Because they can’t bear the panic with hope of agency and faith to mitigate the pain? It’s easier to go to fight or flight? Blame someone vs engage in the necessary respectful discourse to effect change? At the point of contact between heart and reality? Is it a kind of muscle we need to develop?

In the November 1 issue of The New Yorker in an article about Mansour Abbas, “A Seat at the Table,” by Ruth Margolit. Abbas is an Arab-Israeli legislator. On discourse & change, Abbas was quoted, “when you try to change someone, you threaten them… why should they change?  But when you say, ‘Let’s talk, let’s try to reach an understanding, come get to know me and my history and my hardships and my narrative, and I will do the same’- then both sides will change. This isn’t some mystical belief. I see it daily.”

Maybe that requires a combination of radical humility and radical joy- humility about the Other, joy in a new connection.

I have to say it has served me well to be transparent and open. Yes, I often fail. To connect or connect in a way that feels fulfilling But in response to the quote from Abbas, I ALSO often get insight and a new friend. And how could we have discourse any other way?

So maybe friendship, openness is a good start too.