RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
Countrymen,
I have seen the article on Kunstler’s The Long Emergency in Rolling Stone and recognized projections from Futurists in the 1970s, when I was thusly involved. However, the rural/feudal scenario was forecast — not by all but by many — for late 20th rather than first half of 21st Century.
I have always been skeptical of the scenario per se. Lower restless consumption and travel, I can see. It will happen, some voluntarily and most forced. And significantly lower population levels — though now I am not sure about the details of how that will happen nor its end-state conditions. But feudal agriculture … even an agriculture-based economy (past the fact that life at all is based on six inches of topsoil) … I do not see.
Then there are factors that this guy has not included — and that were included, though not always realistically, in projections during the 1970s. Especially, the global electronic envelope and specifically its aggregating/congealing effect, as seen by Chardin — in the 1930s and 40s!! — who described it as the physical analogue of the phenomenon of creativity (Cosmogenesis, which = Christogenesis in Teilhard’s neologisms). The phenomenon of creativity itself introduces so many imponderables — and so many unexpectables (paradoxes) — that to merely anticipate a devolution to tribalism, which is this guy’s actual theme — is unrealistic and, in principle, unwarranted.
Of humanity’s resistance to return to tribalism and persistence for transcending tribalism I am certain. There are reasons both external and, primarily, internal to life itself, including the life of man, that support and, one could even say, necessitate this certainty.
That said, significant curtailment of restless travel and ceaseless consumption — and how much our spoiled citizens do this — should be expected, and probably sooner than later. This was definitely foreseen — though expected earlier than actual — in the 1970s. Some of us tried to make it a choice then, and did personally. Mary’s and my fundamental choices in manner of living and employment support for it had this end in view from the start. And the overt Benedictine/monastic emphasis on manual labor for all was part and parcel.
The curtailment of travel and consumptions will not be temporary as in the 1970s when Feisal held the oil (note, he did this immediately after US production peaked, a canny fellow).
The Rule of St. Benedict, after all, even by our historians who hate religion and especially Christianity, is credited with saving the sources of civilization during the collapse of the Roman Empire precisely because it made everyone, including the sons and daughters of the aristocracy and every single monk/nun, regardless of office, spend 6 hours daily in the fields or at other manual labor (such as text copying and clothes / vestment sewing). The reforms of St. Francis were essentially to the same end, for the same reason, however by rather different — because of times-appropriateness — means.
I can see forced curtailment of travel, including commuting, and consumption of non-essentials before forced loss of food production. I can also see continuous and successful English-speaking (to include India) dominance of world politics and economics, sparing no cost, because, simply put, the alternative — Communist Hegemony, especially by Mongoloids — is unacceptable to the telos (inner necessity for fulfillment) of humanity and also history, which has its own spirit, and therefore unthinkable for virtually every nation excepting China. And China is neither omniscient nor omnipotent.
Although I do not consider it inevitable, I can see exchange of nukes with China and all that that would mean. But Chinese hegemony in any way, never. China, in fact, will be civilized by the English-speaking peoples, primarily but not exclusively, once again. The Chinese are not natively Communist, although they are natively tribal.
Experience indicates that war is the only means of defeating tribalism.
But that will not remove the need to cease restless travel and consumption here and everywhere.
My prescription for proceeding, in case anyone asks 🙂 :
1- The English-speaking peoples subdue the current salient of international terrorism, the Islamic cheats and idlers, garrisoning their countries of origin if necessary.
2- The English-speaking peoples give cheats and idlers of all kinds in their own nations, regardless of race, religion, creed, color, sexual orientation or the color of socks they wear, the news: work or do not eat, and if obese, enforced diet. How many millions of cheats and idlers are we subsidizing just in our country? Not Islamists, our own sons and daughters, roaming the streets and demanding services.
3- Close the borders and shut the immigration offices.
4- In garrisoned countries and also in those with governments genuinely seeking their citizens’ welfare, plant native shrubs and trees and build parks.
5- In garrisoned countries and also in countries with governments genuinely seeking their citizens’ welfare, ensure, for all citizens, safe water supply and environmentally sound waste water treatment.
BTW, any time someone uses the phrases “I know” or “We now know” or the like, as this guy does, I suspect their thesis. Those phrases are never used by an educated person because on the face of them they cannot be true. They imply non-ambiguity and even a pinch of omniscience, both impossible for any existent. “I see” or “I think” and the like are acceptable because they imply ambiguity and uncertainty, which are the condition of every existent.
*********
There may be many paths once this impacts. The important thing is that all agree we are going to be out of oil in 25-75 years. Our grandchildren will never know the world with oil as we have known it. And, we’ll never be able to implement nuclear power, etc, as we should be starting now.
I don’t see much ambiguity in the depletion analysis, only the timing.
Digging in on the Blue Ridge?
*********
Concur, it is the many paths once this impacts that I was addressing. The depletion has been unambiguous news for three + decades that I am aware and was an assumption of futurists when I was working so. I was fired from ghosting the futures book by Robert Theobald — Habit and Habitat — because, he said, my research made it look too hopeless and no one will ever believe it. Well, now they are starting to.
But oil depletion was only one, albeit major, piece of the picture. Others, especially the pandemics, the desertification and loss of biodiversity were even more terrifying because they were potentially more immediately threatening than the oil depletion, which we could see would be relatively slow and prolonged by creativity, as has happened (fuel efficient engines, electronic communications, etc). The focus of some of us then was on trying to encourage expansion of the range of creativities that could be applied to each of the threatening catastrophes. Much was done in all areas excepting desertification, which is really an effect of stupid water management, not a primary cause of discomfort/trouble per se, as for example oil depletion and especially pandemics. Even loss of biodiversity is more an effect of diet than a cause of trouble.
If you want to know how seriously personal this thing is, consider that the 1st world’s primary energy waste and pollution source is connected to meat eating. Ergo, the immediate way to answer oil depletion is, go vegetarian. It also happens to be the immediate best protection from pandemics. And it tends to force non-desertification. And it increases biodiversity. Meat eating is the principle cause of our restlessness. It is a stimulant. Vegetables and fruits are steady foods, unless combined improperly. Milk also is a stimulant but an useable one.
There is plenty of fossil fuel as long as it is used for necessities, of which meat eating is not on the list. In fact, make a list of actual necessities and your view of the oil depletion will show the bell curve flattening significantly with its apex moving way, way forward. I would estimate many hundreds of years, maybe thousands.
*********
What % of oil consumption could be saved?
It doesn’t matter. The oil will be gone soon. All of these solutions will be forced. How much of current consumption is due to McDonalds? Meat.
*********
A most salient question!! I will use your word “could” to formulate a response, in other words, to formulate a best-possible scenario. As you know, that statement is a caveat.
I can claim no research data, of course, but taking Mary’s and my life as if it were typical of all, I would say at least 50% and that is for a life-style our neighbors appear to find attractive, agreeable and laudable.
We used to joke that if people lived the way we do, the consumption part of our economy would run at 25% or less of its overall activity. Life would still be very good but just without frivolities. So my gut tells me that far less than 50% oil savings could be achieved by a general renunciation of frivolities, or as we say in theology, ephemerals. And I emphasize that that is maintaining a very fun, agreeable, respected standard of living.
Poor is not necessary. Poor is just the polar opposite of frivolous. Reasonable, happy, singing and laughing is necessary and this is entirely possible — and indeed is only truly possible!! — with minimum consumption, just of necessities.
As the saying goes, the shoe should fit. Our countrymen, by and large, are walking about in outsized shoes, in now very many cases wildly so, and the poor also are doing this, with their obesity and laziness and other subsidized negativities.
Nature will support any amount of necessary consumption. And oil consumption is a necessity, among others. It is a great blessing and should be used gratefully as such. But for extravagance? Nature will not support that and we are now hearing the notes of her tune to that effect.
The first use of oil should be for military and police, then food and water, then essential economic services such as power, manufacturing and retail, then consumption of housing, clothes, communications, furniture, travel, etc.
I can see a time coming when some type of rationing, hopefully along the lines of those priorities, would be felt as needed in the absence of voluntary restraint on travel and consumption.
An interesting sub-text of this situation is that a market-driven economy cannot by itself produce the answers to the problems it engenders. No existent structure, including ideations, is unambiguously good or evil, helpful or harmful. Market theory is a useful and appropriate structure but it does not have aseity, it is not sufficient in itself or some of its results. Reason-driven forces are required to solve problems engendered by market theory and are always, in fact, presupposed in market theory and active as givens whether accepted or not, wished for or not, accounted or not. And reason here means the structure of reason, of which the structure of reality is an analogue, not merely ratiocination.
I would think that 10% of current oil consumption would be a reasonable expectation from reasonable living. And I include expanded national defense structure and op tempo in that estimate.
The savings are by consumers, the morbidly frivolous. Among the morbidly frivolous I include colleges, universities and think-tanks (policy study institutes), which should number less than half their current aggregate, and social welfare programs, which could easily stand at less than 10% of their current population. At any given time, the population that actually needs subsidation is probably less than 1%. The rest is vote buying.
The nation has to get back to work and play. If by the American way of life one means our current frivolous consumption, I oppose it. The American way of life refers to the eternal verities of work, play, compassion, creativity, building, quiet and literacy that are intended by our founding documents and their creators. That way of life I support with my life and treasure, such as they are.
Update 1: In May 1970 I was in Phoenix, soon to move to Wickenburg, researching a book for Robert Theobald: Habit and Habitat. Before the book completed and was published (1972), Theobald ripped up my research (January 1971), literally, telling me no one would believe it.
My source was The New York Times.
I parted brass rags with Bob, informed the editor, asking him to remove my name from the project and book, and renounced claim to royalties. My part of the advance was not recalled because I completed my work. Bob published the volume under his name with glancing inclusion of my research.
I was as interested in anti-war protests then as I am now: zero. Never struck me as more than small-potatoes intrinsically and extrinsically mostly glandular turbulence. And, for a steadily increasing number of drug-addled visionaries, anti-war protests embodied lefties’ well-led (by KGB for one reason, CIA for another) brazen and ruthless march against Christian culture. That march, then and still — not anti-war protests — strikes me as big-potatoes.
And incidentally, industrial and agricultural pollution in 1970 also was big-potatoes. It was so big it presented lefties with a target opportunity they could not possibly fail to miss or exploit. I had documented a book’s-worth of it.
AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
