Because We Can. Those three words may be apt to describe the Western mentality from the second half of the 20th century onward. In the past tense they may make a fitting epitaph for our civilization.
Because We Can informs a sort of consciousness that is inherently self-destructive. It is a mode of thought that pays lip service to other considerations while placing above them the maximization of production and consumption. Balance, caution, restraint and everything else that impedes the prime directive are discarded, albeit rarely overtly, as either irrelevant or simply too inconvenient. If it can be done it must be done and it shall be done.
The Arctic sea bed perfectly illustrates the point. Believed to hold a vast reserve of oil and gas, the Because We Can-types, like our own prime monster, virtually soil themselves in anticipation of the day when sea ice is no longer an impediment to their rapacious appetites and dreams of economic superpowerdom.
Given that existing known reserves of fossil fuels represent, in terms of carbon emissions, fully five-fold the remaining carbon-carrying capacity of the atmosphere if our grandkids are to enjoy at least a bearable world, the Arctic reserves are patently, ridiculously redundant. Except that they're ours and except that we are ruled by political and corporate leadership who take communion at the Church of Because We Can.
It's a trite observation that corporations are inherently sociopathic. That's because they're businesses, not people, something conveniently overlooked by the USSC in Citizens United. When corporatism dominates the political sphere, it too may become functionally sociopathic. This is manifest in the radical rightwing of the U.S. Congress and our own federal government in its reckless obsession with achieving short-term superpowerdom at perhaps any cost to our country, to future generations of Canadians, to the world itself.
Unfortunately, the opposition is a reluctant adversary, unwilling to hold a mirror to Harper, to present an alternative vision to Because We Can. Perhaps as a society we're already too far gone for cultural rehabilitation, too wedded ourselves to the promised bounty of Because We Can, too fearful to face much less embrace alternatives. Yet, even if all those things were true, does that excuse the opposition from at least trying to show us another course, one far more accommodating to our children and grandchildren and generations far beyond them? There is reason to fear that Because We Can has become our default mode and, should that be the case, the worst case, we're going to need leadership that eclipses all of the current offerings of both opposition parties before we'll have any hope of changing course. Until then, for me, it's "none of the above."
5 comments:
A rather confused post. We "can" do a lot of things. We could, for instance, wake up one day and decide to fire the entire remaining nuclear stockpile at each other. We "can" do this, but we don't. Why? Because it would be pointless suicide.
We "can" mine the Arctic and everywhere else, and burn it. That would also be suicide, though of a slightly less obvious nature (unfortunately), and highly attractive to those who would make money out of the process. Unfortunately, the fossil fuel industry is in the last stages of its development as identified in Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma, where its only answer to all problems is "more of the same, but a bit more efficient."
But you know what else we "can" do? We can switch the world's sources of power over to carbon-free and renewable, and in the process have several times more power available to us. The theoretical maximum potential yield from wind power in the United States alone is twenty-three times present power usage. Even if only ten per cent of that is developed, that's more than twice the power the US presently uses, from wind alone. With that sort of power available all over the world (the wind and the sun respect no borders), what precisely is impossible to do?
Our problems are social, not technological. On the one side, declining sectors of our industrial base are denying the reality that their day is up. We can no longer afford to burn oil, coal, and natural gas. On the other side, all too many in the "progressive" ranks are curled up into a sort of fetal position, vainly hoping that the population of North America suddenly adopts their lifestyles and whining about the sins of modernity. This ends when someone finally says: yes, we can have it all. The entire world can live at the same material level, if it only remembers one rule -- don't piss in the well you have to drink from. And that means no more carbon in the atmosphere, but luckily, there are a lot of other ways to generate the power we'll be using. We just need to make it socially possible, beginning with a switch to renewable/carbon neutral energy.
"because you can do a thing doesn't mean you should do a thing".....worf, startrek
and in international affairs the leader of the alliance "end times" church has withdrawn diplomats from iran
this act pushing the final apocalypse has been lauded by israel
weekend services will feature a military recruitment table
bagals and cake will be served
mike
@ sunsin - I had thought I put because we can in the context of maximized production and consumption. Try reading it again in this context and you may find it less confusing.
Yes we can switch to other energy options but that's almost impossible without first ridding ourselves of the corporatism to which we've become harnessed.
You're wrong, however, in claiming that we can have it all. We're already consuming resources far in excess of our planet's ability to replenish them. To bring civilization back within those finite limits while also ensuring the entire world lives at the same material level would mean Westerners reducing themselves to what they would perceive as penury.
The UN Sec Gen Ban recently stated that, for India and China to live at a Western standard of living would require the resources of three and a half Earths.
@ Mike - I've wondered something along those lines myself.
Chris Hedges recently wrote an article entitled We Distract Ourselves With Petty Spectacles While the World Goes to Hell. It addresses our collective capacity to ignore what is happening to the planet, and the role the corporate agenda plays, leaving us little to hope for in the future.
It can be found here:
http://www.alternet.org/hedges-we-distract-ourselves-petty-spectacles-while-world-goes-hell
Thanks for the link, Lorne. Hedges' piece sounds eerily like the Monbiot op-ed from late August.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/aug/29/day-world-went-mad
Yes, it's hard to resist the morbid conclusion that we've lost this one and, like Hedges, I no longer believe we'll find any solutions through the ballot box.
The time realistically needed to turn this around is no longer ours and the social cohesiveness such efforts would require is being shredded by those who prey on the rich chaos of divisiveness.
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