THE LARGER CONTEXT FOR THE ENDLESS GREENIE DOOM-MONGERING

This is a longish essay by Wendell Krossa but it covers a lot of ground so I am not going to put anything else up here today. The essay includes brief reviews of several books

We appear to be building up toward another one of those historical peaks of fear, kind of like the building of a fever just before it breaks. All this scare-mongering of late points to something more fundamental about being human. Something a bit pathological.

Nietzsche spoke of the basic human mood or orientation- hating life or affirming it. The darker orientation of some people toward doom and gloom appears to be almost hardwired in human brains. Note, for instance, that fear is considered a primary emotion which is behind hate and aggression. All that nasty residual stuff exploding from the amygdala and related structures (the ancient reptilian brain).

Tom Robbins expressed something of the influence of this darker side of the human psyche on literature in his Harpers piece (Sept 2004) titled In Defiance of Gravity. Comparing comedy and despair in literature he said, "Comedy is deemed inferior to tragedy primarily because of the social prevalence of narcissistic pathology. In other words, people who are too self-important to laugh at their own frequently ridiculous behavior have a vested interest in gravity because it supports their illusions of grandiosity...many people are unable to function without such illusions". What has this produced in modern literature?

"Most of the critically lauded fiction of our time concentrates its focus on cancer, divorce, rape, racism, schizophrenia, murder, abandonment, addiction, and abuse. These things are rampant in our society and ought to be examined in fiction. Yet to trot them out in book after book, without the transformative magic of humor and imagination- let alone a glimmer of higher consciousness- succeeds only in impeding the advancement of literature and human understanding alike" (p.60-61).

And further, "Despair is as addictive as heroin and more popular than sex, for the single reason that when one is unhappy one gets to pay a lot of attention to oneself. Misery becomes a kind of emotional masturbation. Taken out on others, depression becomes a weapon".

He points to something David Altheide expressed so well in his book Creating Fear- the pathological human orientation toward catastrophe, disaster, the morbid, and despair. Consequently, many people will insist that things are getting worse and worse despite overwhelming evidence of the objective reality that "most citizens are safer, healthier, living longer, and more secure in their environments than virtually any population in history" (p.42- his research is on the US but the same principles apply elsewhere). According to sociologist Altheide, many media outlets tend to respond to and feed this propensity toward the dark and despairing in humanity and have become, not truth seekers, but entertainers. Hence, while murder declined in the 1990s by 20% in the US, media reporting on murder increased by 600%.

Such media reporting promotes the sense that the world is out of control. Altheide notes those who have a stake in promoting fear- government, military, and even sociologists- and the rewards they reap, such as social control, support for policies, and continued income for programs.

So are we just animals and slavishly subject to this nasty little reptilian leftover that orients us too often to fear and despair? Three highly related responses- no, no, and no. We are human. We have a cortex. It is wired for hope, optimism and love (John Pfeiffer, The Emergence of Humankind). It makes us something entirely different from animals and heading in an entirely different direction from animal life.

The cortex, which mediates consciousness, enables us to pause, to step back from the moment, and to place local catastrophe, cruelty, and accident in the larger, long term context of developing life. This is the best antidote to fear/despair and it is exactly what Julian Simon (The Ultimate Resource) and Bjorn Lomberg (The Skeptical Environmentalist), among others, have done. Simon says that researching the actual state of things is what saved him from his own depression. He refused to let his mental outlook- depressive- shape his research. Instead, his research and discovery of "the extraordinarily positive trends that have continued until now, and that can reasonably be expected to continue into the future" (p.xxxvii) changed and brightened his basic mood. And his depression never returned.

Another who has also wisely stepped back from fear to place events in a wider context is Luke Mitchell in his March 4/04 article called "A Run On Terror". The fear of terrorism has become "the animating principle of nearly every aspect of American public policy" when it ought to be on the level of concern of annual workplace accidents or drownings, both of which caused more deaths in 2001. As Mitchell says, this is not to dishonor the losses to those families but neither should their anguish eclipse that of others.

And better yet, step back even further and look at the greater universe story as set forth by Brian Swimme (The Universe Story), Harold Morowitz (The Emergence of Everything) and others. Progress is something far more fundamental to reality and life than just the positive trends of the past few centuries. From the moment of the Big Bang material reality began to organize from chaos toward order and from the simple toward the more complex. Emerging life followed this same trajectory from simple organisms to more complex and ordered ones. Now human society continues this trajectory in domestication or civilization. Some powerful organizing principle or impulse keeps us moving away from the random and chaotic toward the more ordered, reasoned, and humane. And as big kids now, it appears that we are becoming more and more responsible for this direction of life.

However one wishes to read this rising trajectory of reality and life, it can not be dismissed as just wishing for the best or whistling in the dark. It is hard nosed, rational fact that the universe and life are endlessly rising and progressing. And there are some 13.7 billion years of this evidence. It is the longest of the long term trends.

The rising trajectory of life in an evolving and rising universe (Big Bang- Simon Singh) resonates with the very structure of our cortex which, as noted above, is wired for hope. Perhaps then, hope, along with creativity and other features, defines ultimate reality.

The fundamental trajectory evident in the greater universe story- this trajectory of creativity, advance, and hope- will place us in touch with the Tibetan 'crazy wisdom' that Tom Robbins refers to in his article noted above. This is a form of playfulness that possesses "an unfailing capacity to arouse ridicule in those who crave certainty, reverence, and restraint...playfulness- a kind of divine playfulness intended to lighten man's existential burden and promote what Joseph Campbell called the 'rapture of being alive'". This playfulness says Robbins refuses to avert its gaze from the sorrows and injustices of the world, but insists on joy in spite of everything. It grasps the greater reality of rising, advancing, developing, and progressing life. So the ancient shaman quoted by Campbell was right then to urge us all, "Don't fear the universe". Don't fear life. Fear hinders the perception of what life is really about and it hinders human understanding and progress.

The orientation to fear and despair has found no more powerful expression than in Fall/apocalyptic mythology. And with the historical demise of such mythology, despair continues to find expression in newer more secular forms, including scientific ones.

This is evident in the article 'Waiting for the lights to go out'. It appears that the author, Brian Appleyard, is among the many who have fallen prey to one of the greatest deceptions ever foisted upon humanity- that of Fall/apocalyptic mythology. This mythology states that things were once better, sinful humanity has screwed things up, disaster is coming, and salvation is to be found in the denial of life and abundance; in a return to the 'moral superiority' of a simple, low-consumption lifestyle, preferably out in a mud hut in the bushes.

This barbaric and distorting mythology has darkened human consciousness like nothing else over human history. As in the case of this writer, it leads people to carefully select and quote experts that support your basic assumptions and orientation to despair. It shapes how people view reality and the evidence that they are willing to look at. This is why, despite the constraints of the scientific method, this mythology continues to influence scientific research. This is also why such science misses entirely the fundamental direction of the universe and life.

Appleyard's Fall perspective becomes clear in his comments on the fallenness and unredeemableness of human beings. "Our aggressive, tribal nature is hard-wired, unreformed and unreformable. Individually, we are animals and as animals incapable of progress". Pardon me, but what unmitigated nonsense.

Just look at the past twelve millennia of human existence. Note those early Sumerian attempts (Circa 2400 BCE) at democratic rule and rights for women. Remember those early Greek slave women advocating for individual liberty and rights (700 BCE). The story of humanity is so clearly a story of progression from the barbaric to the more humane.

The amygdala, along with its naughty friends hanging around there in the core brain, still influences us, but it does not define us as human. The cortex, with its more humanizing features, enables us to pause, to check the baser drives, and to choose more human response. The cortex, with its basic impulses and emotions, is what essentially defines us as human. This humanizing organ helps to explain the story of humanity as an unstoppable and irreversible trajectory of advance.

And no - progress is not built on a fragile foundation. Greg Easterbrook in his A Moment On The Earth blows this fragility-of-life idea out of the water. Life is exceedingly durable and resilient and nothing is more durable or resilient than human life with its consciousness. This amazing faculty of thought and reason enables us to now help nature out of the many dead ends that its chaotic and random impulses have gotten it into.

Brian Appleyard's apocalyptic stance is most evident in his reading of the world energy situation. Unfortunately, his mood and perspective lead him to miss entirely another fundamental feature of the universe and life- that of limitless generosity. Just recently the International Energy Agency issued its report, Resources to Reserves, Oil and Gas Technologies for the Energy Markets of the Future, which states that there are some 10 trillion barrels of oil in conventional reserves and some 10 trillion barrels of non-conventional. In Alberta alone the estimations are up to some 350 billion conventional barrels and possibly up to 2 trillion tar sands barrels. With current world consumption at 84 million barrels a day or 30.6 billion barrels a year, well, do the math. Sure, use will increase but so we will continue to make new discoveries and return to abandoned reserves that were uneconomical to extract at lower prices.

Wilfred Beckerman in his crisply argued A Poverty of Reason shows why sustainability ideology with its pessimistic outlook consistently misses world resource estimations by centuries and even millennia. Also remember, even with spikes in prices like the current oil spike, the overall long term trend in resource prices has been steadily downward.

This is not to dismiss the search for alternatives. As Beckerman says, it is silly to think we will continue with oil in the future. Along with this, remember Arthur C. Clarke's prediction that in some 50 years time we will have tapped into dark energy and accessed a limitless supply of energy.

Then I almost laughed out loud at the pessimism in the comments on exhausting new ideas. It reminds me of the US Patent Office clerk who stated in 1900, "Everything that can be invented, has been invented". Or the economist back in the mid-1800s who worried that with a limited supply of musical notes humanity would soon run out of new music. He should have lived to hear Enya's "Orinoco Flow" or "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong.

So yes, there is a positive function to death. It is a huge face saver.

And contrary to Stein's argument, increased population does not bring increased problems and increased disaster. As Simon (The Ultimate Resource) shows in his careful research on human population- increased population is the answer to our problems. It produces more Norman Borlaugs and Einsteins and many others who will find solutions that will lead us toward that better future that we all want. More human beings, means more human minds with more creative ideas and innovations. It's a simple addition thing.

"Perhaps we are close to the limit and the time of plenty is over". Well, this is about all that you can expect from the dark pessimism of sustainability ideology with its orientation to strict limits (A Poverty of Reason). It can advocate nothing other than limits because at core it is part of a greater anti-development and anti-progress ideology. See Alston Chase's excellent In A Dark Wood (one of the 100 best books of the last century) for a thorough treatment of the environmental expression of this anti-human ideology/mythology.

Finally, the refusal to accept apocalyptic mythology has nothing to do with being Pollyanna-like. It has everything to do with cold, hard, rational fact and the long term trends of life. This is not to deny recurring catastrophe, setback, downturn and the rest of the pornography of human suffering. But such things do not define the overall trajectory or nature of life.

Also remember how repeatedly apocalyptic has misled even the brightest minds. Remember Paul Ehrlich trying to panic the public about food production and mass starvation back in the 1970s. Fortunately, Nobel winner Norman Borlaug (arguably the greatest living human being) refused to listen to Erlich's doomsterism and went out to father the Green Revolution and save the hundreds of millions that Ehrlich predicted would die. He has been credited with saving the lives of possibly 1 billion human beings. Environmental doomsters continue to dog him about his use of fertilizers and try to stop various foundations from funding his work.

In conclusion, I would argue that progress is much more than just a modern Enlightenment fad. It has to do with what the universe is fundamentally about. It was certainly there long before conscious humans came on the scene. So it is more than something that we just cottoned on to a few centuries ago in relation to technological innovations and such.

As noted above, progress has a long and well established history, even in the human species. Steven LeBlanc (Constant Battles) and Paul Seabright (In The Company Of Strangers) together have given an interesting overview of our progress. LeBlanc exposes the archeological myths of noble savages to show the nasty pre-civilized past of humanity. Then Seabright shows how developing trust and trade between people led to the formation of modern civilization and the benefits of modern human societies. We have been steadily moving from barbarity to a more humane existence and we have been doing this for multiple millennia. This was long before we even understood what progress was all about. We have just been following that basic, universal impulse for something better; an impulse that appears to be fundamental to all the universe and life.

Focusing on the longer term context will shed more light on what life and humanity is all about, rather than just picking on reverse-type spikes here and there. Remember the scientist noted by Lomberg who argued from a short term counter trend in the 1990s that TB was getting worse (Skeptical Environmentalist, p.24). Lomberg exposed his conclusions with the longer term trend of TB declining. Let's not sink too far into our present moment that we miss the greater overall story of life.

Life in many elements is not yet perfect and progress may not be automatic, but we are doing better and better all the time. In this regard I have some interesting articles on such things as the historical trend in violence (Manuel Eisner's research), the democratic trend, war (Douglas Todd), and similar material. It's available here.

And just today we read of the release of the "Human Security Report" which corroborates Eisner's research on the historical decline in violence (from 20 homicides per 100,000 people in the 1300s to only 1 per 100,000 today). Kelly Patterson ('Global warfare less deadly', National Post, Oct.18/05) says that the popular misconception that we live in an increasingly violent world can be blamed on the media. All forms of political violence have been decreasing by significant percentages and only terrorism has increased but it accounts for only a tiny fraction of the annual death toll. Other security experts claim the terrorist impulse has no long term future.

Once again - enough of the despair of Fall/apocalyptic mythology. This writer, Brian Appleyard, has taken the dark orientation of an archaic mythology of despair and tried to fashion just another Johnny-come-lately version of the same old, same old. No matter how scientific it is made out to be, Fall/apocalyptic misses entirely the rising trends of life.

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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