Writing at the End of the World

While I may complain about the burden that poverty puts on a writer (especially one with a poor memory who does non-fiction), there is something worse, something beyond the personal handicap, beyond complaint.  It is a cross born by all present-day writers, rich or poor, whether they know it or not. In a word, it is this:  How can I write when so much is wrong?  Is that not why there are so many excellent writers yet so few great books written nowadays?  Granted, we have our short works of genius, the proverbial flight of fancy needs no runway, but the sustained effort necessary to produce masterpieces is hard to muster when the brightest people of our generation feel guilty for not spending their every waking moment trying to stave off the disaster happy idiots cannot see.

by robin d. gill, from The Fifth Season,
2000 translated haiku about the Japanese New Year,
published in 2007 by Paraverse Press.

Even if you did not have to witness the retreat of the beautiful reefs from the waters, the vanishing swamps and the paving over of paradise, even if you did not adore cool ceiling fans in the shade of giant trees and detest the air-conditioned nightmare, you might have known where we were heading by the late 60’s and early 70’s when books such as Ezra Mishan’s The Cost of Economic Growth and the Club of Romes' Limits to Growth clarified what had been obvious since the late 1950’s. Indeed, surveys at the time, showed that many if not most of the educated classes in the so-called developed nations claimed they understood what the world faced and wanted to do something about it, even if it meant personal sacrifice; but that resolve evaporated by 1980. The citizens of my country, in par-ticular, betrayed their ideals and sold out to mammon. Rather than living frugally to create a surplus with which to aid international development and slow or stop the growth of the global population, “we” turned physics into a cargo cult mediated by a God called The Free Market, and bet on harmless fusion energy, which never came, that was, with the aid of artificial intelligence, supposed to make great wealth for all, and not just force all who cannot afford secretaries to spend the time they do not have pushing buttons on phones to talk to fictive persons and  “technicians,” when they=we are not on hold.  In the USSR, people used to waste their days standing in line, in the USA, people do the same sitting alone by the phone, looking at their computers. Private cars, which should have been rationed, have multiplied and grown obscenely wasteful, while so-called "flyer miles" reward people for wasting energy rather than for saving it by staying put. 

The problem is not just wealthy right-wing egoists who rationalize self-serving and cruel government as good for the world they know so little about, or even Christian fundamentalists delighted to help bring about the Apocalypse. The left travels and otherwise wastes resources as much as the right and I have yet to hear a single progressive say that had we only encouraged other countries to control their population as the Chinese have done, we might have some hope for a decent future.  Of course, the Chinese population control program was not perfect, but it was far less cruel, less murderous than the Mad Max world we helped to create and are, even now creating. It disgusts me to hear complaint from the left about the growing Chinese consumption of fuel or pollution of the global environment.  What did we expect! What do we expect! We are the ones who used up most of the easily obtained resources of the world and grew quickly at the expense of the environment. Not only have we no right to complain, but fairness would dictate that we repay the Chinese and others for the free ride we got in our salad days. 

As a student, I wrote a long letter to President Nixon saying that even if Ho Chi Min was a scoundrel for betraying other nationalist leaders to the Japanese, we could not help in South Vietnam because too many of our soldiers were either immature if not juvenile or racist and the expense of the war was draining resources needed to create a more energy-efficient infra-structure while we still had the surplus to do so. Nixon did not start the Vietnam War. He got trapped in it. And, thirty years later, the Neo-cons, with their figure-head president and mercenary corporations lied us into the same fix.  And now, even more of our country is laid out wrong – i.e., for cheap and abundant fuel – and our debt to credit card companies (which, with the complicity of a corrupt Congress, behave worse than crime syndicate loan-sharks), future generations and those we import the most from has grown to record heights. Decades of neglect of development and family-planning aid has helped triple the Muslim population, a large part of which are fundamentalists who care no more for this world, the only one we have, than their benighted Christian counterparts, while we have gone out of our way to breed terrorists by talking up freedom and rights while building permanent bases and acting like tyrants.

I tell myself that books such as mine help people realize what counts in life and give them the conviction and courage to Just say No! to a criminally wasteful yet conceited culture, and seriously question the assumption that ours is the only major civilization. Fundamentalism does indeed threaten our future, not because it tends to create terrorists – it could as easily create peaceniks – but because only rationalism, graced with a touch of mysticism, has any chance of conserving the world, which is to say our cultural and biological diversity, by convincing us that our happiness and our duty lies in changing in order to cope with and delay the otherwise cataclysmic change to come. As Joseph Needham has demonstrated, China (and, now the whole Sinosphere) has a tradition of rationalism as old as that of the Occidental Monotheists (note: Islam is part of that Occident). For a concrete example, it suffices to compare the game Japanese call igo and Chinese call weichi to the cruder board game we call chess. The thinking people of the West will need to join hands with their counterparts in the Far East to create responsible societies, practicing not only population, but consumption control (only workable with limits on wealth) yet attractive enough to stop and even reverse the growth of know-nothing fundamentalism.

It is decades too late to avoid the real horrors that could have been avoided had the idealism of the sixties and early seventies taken root for good, then, when we had more resources to spare.  But, there is always room for more disaster, so we might as well keep trying to save the world.  Perhaps I am deluded, but I cannot imagine any intelligent person can believe otherwise in his or her deepest heart, even if he or she calls upon the Invisible Hand to give its benediction to the sin of living “life as usual” when nothing is.  

While I may complain about the burden poverty puts on non-fiction writer, there is something worse, something beyond personal handicap, beyond complaint, a cross born by all present-day writers, rich or poor, whether they know it or not:   How can I write when so much is wrong?  Is that not why there are so many excellent writers yet so few great books written nowadays?  Granted, we have our short works of genius. The proverbial flight of fancy needs no runway, but the sustained effort necessary to produce masterpieces is hard to muster when the brightest people of our generation feel guilty for not spending their every waking moment trying to stave off the disaster happy idiots do not even see. ◎ Even if you did not witness the retreat of the reefs, vanishing swamps and the paving over of paradise, even if you did not adore fans in the shade of banyans and detest the air-conditioned nightmare, you might have known where we were headed by the late-60’s and early-70’s when books such as Ezra Mishan’s Cost of Economic Growth and the Club of Romes’ Limits to Growth clarified the obvious. Indeed, surveys at the time, showed many if not most of the well-educated claimed to understood that and wanted to live responsibly, even if it meant personal sacrifice; but that resolve evaporated in a decade. The citizens of my country, in particular, sold out to Mammon. Rather than living frugally to create a surplus with which to aid international development and slow or stop the growth of the global population, ‘we’ turned physics into a cargo cult mediated by a God called The Free Market and bet on harmless fusion energy which never came, that was, with the aid of artificial intelligence, supposed to make a leisurely world of millionaires.  Instead, we who cannot afford secretaries to spend the time we do not have pushing buttons on phones to talk to fictive persons and  “technicians,” live on hold, while private cars, which should have been rationed, multiply, so-called “flyer miles” reward us for wasting energy rather than for saving it by staying put, and the post office gives up ships, forcing us to fly even books abroad!  ◎ The problem is not just wealthy right-wing egoists who rationalize self-serving government as good for the world they know little about or even righteous fundamentalists delighted to help bring about the Apocalypse. The intellectual left travels and otherwise wastes resources as much as any on the right and I have yet to hear a single progressive say that had we only encouraged other countries to control their population as the Chinese have done, we might have some hope for a decent future.  Of course, the Chinese population control program was not perfect, but it was far less cruel, less murderous than the dog-eat-dog world we help to create by doing nothing. It disgusts me to hear complaint about the growing Chinese consumption of fuel or pollution of the global environment.  What did we expect!  How can we, who, using up the easily obtained resources of the world, grew quickly at the expense of the environment, created a method of assured mass-destruction called The American Dream protest?  Not only have we no right to complain, but fairness would dictate we repay the Chinese and others for the free ride we got in our salad days.  ◎As a student, I wrote a long letter to President Nixon saying that even if Ho Chi Min was bad for betraying other nationalist leaders to the Japanese, we ought to leave South Vietnam because so many of our soldiers were juvenile or racist that our ‘help’ would backfire, and because the expense of the war drained resources needed to build a more energy-efficient infrastructure while we still had the surplus to do so. Thirty years later, the Neo-cons, helped by the Islamic cult’s destruction of the Twin Towers, a dummy president and mercenary corporations, lied us into the same fix.  And now, even more of our country is laid out wrong – i.e., for cheap and abundant fuel – and our debt to credit card companies (which, with the complicity of a corrupt Congress, behave worse than crime syndicate loansharks), future generations and those we import the most from has grown to record heights (This was written before the fuel hikes of 2007-8 and Recession of 2008-2009). Decades of neglect of development and family-planning aid has multiplied the population of those who are utterly ignorant of the global situation and least likely to practice self-negation for the greater good of the biosphere while ‘we’ went out of our way to breed terrorists by talking up ideals while acting selfishly (& building permanent bases). ◎ If fundamentalism threatens us, it is not because it breeds terrorists – change the message and it could as easily breed peaceniks – but because only rationalism graced with a touch of mysticism can comprehend the complex circumstances that dictate we change our consumption in order to conserve the cultural and biological diversity of the world to slow and, possibly prevent, the otherwise cataclysmic change to come. As Joseph Needham demonstrated, China (and, now the whole Sinosphere) has a tradition of such rationalism as old as ours (note: Islam is part of that Occident). In some ways, it is more developed. For proof, one need only compare the game Japanese call igo and Chinese call weichi to the cruder board game we call chess.  The most thoughtful people of the East and West  need to join hands to create responsible societies, practicing not only population but consumption control, both only workable with limits on wealth.  And this must be done in a joyful way.  Unless we set an attractive example and are satisfied enough to be able to share human and material resources, we cannot help, i.e., influence others who live in a more destructive manner. I tell myself that books such as mine only help people become aware of  what they already know and encourage them to question the assumption that ours is the only major civilization and Just say No! to a criminally wasteful lifestyle.  ◎It is decades too late to avoid the real horrors that could have been avoided had the idealism of the sixties and early seventies taken root for good.  But, there is always room for more disaster, so we might as well keep trying to save the world.  Perhaps I am mad, but I cannot imagine any intelligent person can believe otherwise in his or her deepest heart, even if he or she calls upon the Invisible Hand to give its benediction to the sin of living life as usual when nothing is.    Pardon my rant.  -  rdg