Who is responsible for this mess?
People don’t get along well. We don’t want the same things, and we dislike compromise. Which is unfortunate, because we often gamble everything on the hope we will get our way, and we often lose.
We, as a culture, and a species, are gambling quite a bit, right now, that global warming and abrupt climate change are not a serious threat to our well-being. Or, alternately, that these phenomena are not a result of our own actions, but result from “natural processes”, or that even if it is our fault, it’s too late to do anything, and the consequences are inevitable, or that even if we could do something about it, the alternative is somehow worse. Because the alternative is to compromise.
I frequently ask myself what would be the great loss if humanity destroyed its own home, the Earth, and subsequently we destroyed ourselves, or at least the world as we know it. The universe, the stars and dust and gases and millions of undiscovered planets and alien life would continue on regardless. Moreover, life on Earth would continue on without us, though with a much reduced chance of achieving technological culture, in light of our using up most of the readily available natural resources. Once all the iron has rusted, it will be virtually impossible to make precision instruments of sufficient quality to recreate a comparable civilization anew. And what would it matter?
In philosophy, this is the stoic approach, or the long view. It’s rot. Humanity is not wholly bankrupt. If I thought so, then I would have to believe that I, myself, and every human being on the planet was also wholly bankrupt. We are valuable, in spite of our beastliness, our monstrousness, with which I am sure you are all (a term I use loosely) quite familiar.
My oldest dream is for humanity to visit the distant stars. If we merely sit here squabbling on this tepid rock for a few more thousand or even million years, only to inevitably descend back into animals, then I will be very disappointed, in my imaginary ghost-like observer-of-futures-not-yet-happened form.
It’s a funny, even distasteful, thing to do, to try to imagine the future after I’m no longer a part of it. It’s probably a pathological behaviour. But my attempts to change it have all failed. I’ve tempered it with realism, and I’ve tried to shorten the distance my mind tries to wander into these fantasy lands of tomorrow, but I have not succeeded, and never will succeed, in reducing the scope of my foresight to that of my own projected life span. In fact, I’m not so good at imagining worlds of any kind in which I’m present. I am studiously absent from my own future-minded perspicacity.
Why should I dream dreams for others, dreams I will not live to see? Because the world as it is now is too awful to imagine continuing on ad infinitum. If the world as we know it is the end of history, then I hope that history does end as soon as possible, and all of humanity with it, and I would ask that all people please immediately stop having children, by committing suicide, if necessary. Because the world as it is now is simply wrong. And the only people who can change it are us. And if we don’t, then we should wipe ourselves out as soon as possible.
And yet I despise the conclusion to which I am driven. That there are good and bad people. But what other conclusion is there? Those who disagree with me are my mortal enemies. Though some bad people may be redeemable, many are not.
But who are the bad people? The violent. The deceitful. The wilfully ignorant. The irredeemably self-absorbed and self-centred. Those who take more than their share and fight to keep it by any means necessary. Those who hide behind the violent force wielded by others, pretending no responsibility for it while enjoying its benefits without guilt. Those without doubt. The rationalizers. The silent, complacent majority and their bilious, scheming masters.
And what shall the good people do with the bad people? Shall we use the same techniques? Shall we fight fire with fire, or with water? I can’t say. But I can’t lie, and I can’t murder, and I can’t live in denial, nor run and hide myself away. We will simply have to outsmart them and outmanoeuvre them. Not with lies, but with truth. Not with violence, but with compassion. Not with avoidance, but by meeting them head on. There is no other acceptable way. Our integrity is not negotiable. Without it, we do not exist.