Notes from the Megamachine

A friend with whom I hadn’t been in touch for quite a while wrote me, and in the course of the ensuing discussion wrote…

I actually went quite communist for a while, but came to a semi-conclusion that nature…doesn’t work in terms of equality.

I figured I’d post my reply, since it’s been quite a while since I tried to set down my thoughts on such broad issues in print, and I have nothing better to post at the moment.

no, equality doesn’t work, because humans are animals, after all, and are thus subject to the dictates of evolution, natural selection, etc. Thus the natural historical development of elites, commercial semi-elites, and the majority herds, tied more (as in the case of India) or less (as in the last century in the West) explicitly to birth.

but, unlike wildebeest, humans are also social and spiritual beings, and thus the toiling masses do not have to accept their station in life. They have the option of organizing themselves, to take whatever they can, or simply smash up the system in pique, if nothing else works.

So, in order for some sort of equilibrium and order to be achieved, it is necessary for said masses to believe in some sort of ideology. Be that ideology animistic mythology, Abrahamic religion, Marxism, or Nationalism, it has to promise its believers with some sort of compensation for suffering, be that eternal life, reincarnation, union with the universe, or martyrdom for Utopia on earth.

Because of a quirk of fate, for the last 50 years, the West has been able to get by without such an ideology, because it was going through the very peak rate of resource exploitation and energy consumption. Virtually everyone was able to see themselves or, at worst, their own children (never mind descendants) as potential members of the elites, and were provided by a quasi-socialistic state with a certain “floor” level of living standards and care, more or less in exchange for conformity and not making trouble. This situation though has been only a temporary respite. As we now enter the inevitable down-sloping part of the resource-extraction curve, we will have to re-learn collectively the value of such ideologies that were thrown away into the wastebasket, apparently forever, but in actuality, only temporarily.

Let us hope that the ideology emerging from this is as conducive to human flourishing as possible.