Nihilism and cornucopianism
Today in the
world there seems to be a great ideological dichotomy between castastrophist
nihilism and techo-cornucopianism. There
is a spectrum with progressivism on one side and declinism on the other
side. We
appear to be at a stage where there is an extreme bifurcation of expectations
in the international psyche. If we are
to conceptualize the prospects of human civilization as a Gaussian probability
distribution, this bifurcation would be represented as two distributional humps
on both limbs of the Gaussian distribution.
Any prospect of a moderate and realistic progressive future has seemed
to fade away – leaving people either drift towards flights of
techno-cornucopian fancy, or alternatively gravely accept an inevitable decline
of humanity to its’ final grave.
There are prophets of tech-cornucopian
ideology such as Elan Musk. No idea of
his, seems to be too far-fetched from the perspective of many millions of his
followers. Many millions expect to see
colonists going to Mars and hyperloops bisecting the Earth. The expectations run high. People are expecting these wonders to emerge
in the near emergent future. City to
city rocket transport is to become common.
There is also slightly more moderate
cornucopian thought. Many insist that industrial
economies can continue to double every 25 years or so. No serious thought is expended on considering
resource limitations. There can be
macro-economic limitations – as the U.S. economy is anchored to the floor with
low wages and debt accumulation. But the
natural resource limitations are more decisive in the long run. Real and tangible limitations in water,
minerals, energy, and agriculture will probably cap growth this century. No serious quantitative analysis is sought in
confirming the wishful thinking of continuous growth.
An increasingly prominent ideological
theme is the apocaloptimist ideological perspective. In this ideological theme, we are first warned
of how climate change could cause Earth to become uninhabitable by humans. But then we are given great cause for optimism. We are informed that if centrist politicians make
some nice-sounding proclamations, and some of us make individual consumption
decisions, then our industrial economy will be magically transformed into a
sustainable system.
This ideology has been recently gaining popularity. It may be the most pervasive ideological
perspective in the developed world at this time. People are now expecting free unmetered
energy from infinitely abundant renewable energy. They are expecting fossil fuel companies to
soon have stranded assets of unsellable fossil fuel deposits due to the energy
system be transformed to a renewable system in a few short years. No serious quantitative analysis is even
attempted in showing credibility for such unsupported claims. The only way to get a good idea of how a
transition off fossil fuels will look like, is to employ thousands of engineers
and physical scientists in creating the preliminary designs of industrial
systems which enable this to occur. This
transition will almost certainly be very long and difficult. More likely than not, some industrial
contractions will occur as the world struggles to adapt to various natural
resource limitations.
On the other side of the balance,
are the nihilists and primitivists. Some
expect an inevitable complete collapse of industrial civilization. Primitivists hope for this; others accept
this with some misgivings. Some expect
the extinction of the human race. Some describe
themselves as doomers or collapsatarians.
Often, from a hardcore declinist position, civilization is seen as
inevitably slipping back into a future that looks like the past. This can include feudal lords and an
abundance of violence and brute force in the governance of populations. Just as the extreme optimism of tech-cornucopians
can lead them to perceive a future of Star Trek communism, the extreme pessimism
of castrophists can lead them to expect a full return to the past – with all of
its’ shortcomings. In James Kunstler’s
book, “A world made by hand”, defacto feudal lords reign, with most of these
malevolent. John Michael Greer describes
a world where gangs of violent young men roam the countryside exacting their
brutality on those who are unfortunate to encounter them.
The contemporary world that has
emerged is one in which aspects of realistic progressive thought has been
suppressed. Cooperative strategies for
non-elite populations are suppressed.
Forbidden are many ways in which broad proletarian cooperation is used
for the good of a nation. A small
plutocratic class maintains influence over the doctrinal system. Through this influence, public ownership of
enterprises and organizations are generally shunned. Progressive character of socialism thought has
been suppressed, in order for a pervasive ideology reign supreme in which
people generally lack even curiosity about alternative choices to a thoroughly
corporate plutocratic cultural environment.
This is an environment in which
strongly bifurcated ideologies emerged representing techo-cornucopian and
declinist perspectives. People either
gravitate to visions of a promising future, or gravitate to accepting a final
defeat in their loathing of the world that currently exists. In doing so, they remain distracted from the plutocratic
oligarchic control of society. They
remain attached to the yoke of ideological conformity, as the plutocratic oligarchy
drives them forward to a dystopian future.
