There is little that disgusts me more than those who would retreat into a narcissistic spirituality when confronted with the news of human extinction. As if the endless self reflection and quasi-therapeutic trappings of this new spiritual movement will do anything to alleviate the despair and anger of the 7.5 billion people who face certain annihilation. As if the young people of this world, having seen our future dashed upon the rocks of this civilization's hubris, want to hear about accepting despair, and working through anger. We have a right to this anger, we need this despair.
The goal of this spiritual movement is to prepare it's adherents to die peacefully. If humans are to go extinct, they say, then what is left but to turn inward. This will never work, and probably cause more harm to it's adherents.
I find this movement despicable in it's retreat from any notion of actually doing anything, in a very real and terrifying sense it is the graveyard of environmentalism. I'm very sorry, but many young people will not accept that, and even if they know that all hope is lost, they will still want to fight. They will want to fight for spiritual redemption, for emotional healing,and to exact a kind of justice on the classes of people who have condemned them to death.
The appropriate spiritual response to human extinction is not self reflection, but outward rage and playful destruction. This rage acted out on the edifice of civilization will not save our species, but it can save our spirituality now.
My generation really fucked it up. I'm old. We knew about overpopulation, the environment, pesticides & chemicals, carbon dioxide, plastic in the oceans, our evil government, the connectedness of all things. But we sold out (not every individual, of course) and had a bunch of kids, bowed to the main goal of making money (OK, not me personally) --but the values that were going to help the planet survive were co-opted, mocked, minimized, legislated against, and disregarded. Peer pressure (which is manipulation by many with ulterior motives) dictated slaving at a job, achieving some bullshit thing, subjugating one's individuality to corporation and state, concerts like "economics," "success," fitting in for god's sake. Marginalizing people who don't buy into the system properly...has always been. And--when will you young 'uns do something about the total loss of privacy, monetization of data, corporate & government surveillance, the rising-to-the-top of sociopaths, and irritating crap like advertising in every venue, Google, drones, and no one who will "be here now?" The mandate to be linked in at every moment even on top of a mountain with the f**ing workplace, say, has made me lose 10 years off my life. Finally, most people don't give a fuck about nature, but they should. In your generation too--there will be about half of the people who don't care about anything, or anything real. A reason why I look forward to our species' demise.
ReplyDeleteI don't blame past generations. It's not like you chose to organize civilization that way. You were born into a 12,000 escalating destructive system just like us.
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