I shall begin with this quote from Lewis Mumford in 1964
“I would not belittle, still less deny, the many admirable products this technology has brought forth, products that a self-regulating economy would make good use of. I would only suggest that it is time to reckon up the human disadvantages and costs, to say nothing of the dangers, of our unqualified acceptance of the system itself. Even the immediate price is heavy; for the system is so far from being under effective human direction that it may poison us wholesale to provide us with food or exterminate us to provide national security, before we can enjoy its promised goods. Is it really humanly profitable to give up the possibility of living a few years at Walden Pond, so to say, for the privilege of spending a lifetime in Walden Two? Once our authoritarian technics consolidates its powers, with the aid of its new forms of mass control, its panoply of tranquillizers and sedatives and aphrodisiacs, could democracy in any form survive? That question is absurd: life itself will not survive, except what is funneled through the mechanical collective. The spread of a sterilized scientific intelligence over the planet would not, as Teilhard de Chardin so innocently imagined, be the happy consummation of divine purpose: it would rather ensure the final arrest of any further human development.
Again: do not mistake my meaning. This is not a prediction of what will happen, but a warning against what may happen.”
Lewis Mumford, Authoritarian and Democratic Technics
Mumford spent the rest of the decade warning of the trends and tendencies leading the Western world into the Megamachine. Those trends and tendencies are still very much in evidence, in the psychic and intellectual preparation for expert manipulation and technocratic control, in the constant devaluation of politics, ethics, values, opinions in favour of science and technology. Unfortunately, this megamechanical mentality is pervasive throughout many of the most prominent oppositional movements seeking for force a top-down or extraneous societal and institutional transformation.
I don't want to hear the phrase "movements push and people follow" or any of its variants ever again. The people who have been most forceful in this pushing have had to face the criticism that their approach is counter-productive, turning people off and away, thereby stripping their cause of any social and democratic roots. Their response has tended to confirm the initial impression that they have zero interest in democracy and no organic roots in the body politic.
I thought that the lessons vanguardism and elects of all kinds had been learned a long, long time ago. And learned the hard way. Such a view comes straight from Elite Theory and is diametrically opposed to democratic values, principles, ideals, and ambitions. The hilarious thing is that many who embrace such a notion do so in a state of blessed naivety. Innocent of politics and history, and hence ignorant of the way that power proceeds by its own dynamics, they imagine the despots telling and enacting 'the truth' will be benevolent and enlightened. As a result, they end up entirely on the wrong side, preparing the ground for entry into the Megamachine.
I am happy to report that a couple of my latest works on this theme are gaining some traction, hitting the Top 5% in the Academia hit parade. I have also received words of praise and thanks. The problem is that I strongly suspect that the positive response is coming from people who are already sceptical with respect to the nature and approach of contemporary environmentalism. Those with the wit will see that I am securing the grounds of a profoundly human ecology, as against the manipulative, regulative, autocratic, bureaucratic and inherently anti-democratic road they are taking.
My concern is to pull the ecological question out of its rival camps and sterile grooves and get those pushing hard for change to stop pushing and start doing politics effectively – as in engaging with people as citizens, respecting citizen agency, persuading people, and building consent as well as will with respect to a transformative politics. That really is the only way to initiate and sustain an effective and enduring environmental politics. The other way is explicitly authoritarian and invites overspill and appropriation. The case for nuclear power – something that environmentalist activists vehemently oppose - is being made more insistently and more loudly the more the notion of a climate necessity is hammered into the political terrain. And why not? Isn't the climate crisis an emergency and an existential crisis? Aren't renewables unreliable, expensive, and insufficient? That's the problem with using necessity as an unanswerable argument – your political opponents inherit it in the aftermath of your failure, decline, and death.
Yes, indeed, scientists* are really stupid and clueless when they come outside of their areas of expertise - zero understanding of people, politics, and history. How hilarious to hear scientist-campaigners lecturing us on what "history shows" when it comes to politics and change; and how revealing is their use of science as authority. Environmentalism has gone down a cul-de-sac. Glad to say I am not alone in being critical. Mallen Baker takes this garbage apart. Unfortunately, contemporary environmentalists are cultist in their mentality rather than critical. And watch the video and it is made crystal clear that these activists are particular kinds of scientists, not climate scientists but people with certain credentials seeking to use science as an authoritative voice overruling and overriding political process. Unfortunately, I'd say some 90% plus of greens and environmentalists I know on social media support this kind of activism. They are wrong, they are hopeless in advancing their cause, and they are going down an explicitly authoritarian route. And I'm against them, politically, morally, and intellectually. I think this is what happens when people seeking meaning without religion, ignorant of history, and divorced from real people do "politics."
Mallen Baker – an abuse in the name of science
“If an egg is broken by outside force, life ends. If broken by inside force, life begins. Great things always begin from inside.”
That old saw “you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs” has reappeared in new clothes in recent times. “The end justifies the means.” “It will be so much worse under climate change” is the apology wheeled out to justify all manner of social disruption as a consequence of law breaking/civil disobedience/protest. And it is ticking people off big time rather than persuading them. The criticism that such activism is counter-productive in turning people away from the cause misses the point by a wide mark – such activism is about pressure rather than persuasion, and as such is one of a number of forces working to undermine democracy in the contemporary political terrain. Under questioning, these activists persist in making the claim that they have presented facts, raised the climate issue, taken part in elections, and it has made no difference. From this they conclude that (democratic) politics has failed. The truth is that it is they that have failed, on account of a poor grasp of politics, poor skills of communication/education/persuasion, and zero links with the people. They have contempt for the people, seeing them as uneducated, unenlightened, selfish, uncaring, indifferent – a stupefied, distracted, passive mass that stands in need of external education. It's a complete turn off. People are not so stupid as not to see and feel a condescending attitude on the part of smug and self-righteous people who are nowhere near as clever as they think they are.
There has been so much egg-breaking in recent years that I want to see a damned good omelette at the end of it all. Instead, I merely see authoritarian imposition of expensive policies and regulations that no-one voted for but everyone has to pay for. No taxation without representation, no expenditure without active consent.
“If an egg is broken by outside force, life ends; and if broken by inside force, life begins. Great things always begin from inside.” (Masingita Ringani).
This is a view I adhere to in politics, culture, language, and society. Of course things change. But it matters a great deal whether change comes internally via an organic process, something which is rooted in a soil in which things take and can grow, or is engineered, manipulated, and directed externally. All extensive – and expensive – schemes of transformation will fail or be perverted to opposite ends unless grounded in small-scale practical reasoning, inner motives, character, modes of conduct, and love of home and place. It is these things that give and nurture a sense of ownership and a sense of responsibility. In the absence of such an infrastructure those wedded to certain ideals and ends will resort to external force. “You can't making an omelette without breaking eggs” comes the response. The problem with those who make that claim is that they rarely ever make that omelette, let alone a good one.
I argue for the inner motive force, without which all your beautiful truths are empty and inert. Movements need to push when the inner motive power is lacking.
My recent work on this:
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