Nihilism and cornucopian ideology

 

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.