Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Saturday, January 15, 2005
All for the price of a token...I mean, Metrocard
You’re not wrong: “I may be right or wrong about this but that spirit—making that one last toss against the wall to challenge authority—is humanity at its best… “
Posted by Richard on from The great Red State of Texas 01/15 at 11:01 AMI apologize in advance for going off on a tangent with direct regard to your “All for the price of a token...I mean, Metrocard” post, but your ball-bouncing observation inspired the following screed:
Mickey Z,
Undoubtedly you’re correct.
I read that last sentence:
“I may be right or wrong about this but that spirit--making that one last toss against the wall to challenge authority--is humanity at its best…”
And I began to cry…
I believe I cry first and foremost because your example of the young girl being reproached for doing what comes naturally—namely the play-instinct—is reason enough for tears.
It is the sum total of seemingly small events like that one which add up to the legions of living-dead we encounter day-in day-out.
But I also cry because there are so few people who bounce balls against walls period.
We all love to think we’re ball-bouncers.
We bounce in accordance with the Merchants of Cool ( http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/ ) and analogs thereof no matter the age or peer group involved and targeted.
We are living breathing embodiments of a Consumer Revolution. Only the consumers aren’t revolutionary at all, they are subjects of the royal court of More is Better, Cool is New-and-Improved, and “Success” equals money, college degrees (alphabet-soup), television appearances, mentions in the NYTimes, home-"ownership", possessions-and-stuff, two cars, and 2.3 children.
We bounce balls with the likes of Michael Moore, Bruce Springsteen, and the fat-cats (no offense to our feline partners in crime) at NPR and Air Amerika Radio: False prophets of motive and motif.
I’m talking about genuine ball bouncing, throwing balls at the real enemy: Civilization.
The real mother of all macro-problems facing humanity—indeed all life on earth as we know it—is Civilization itself.
Our current way of life—the so called and oft-vaunted “Standard of Living”—is unsustainable at best and murderously destructive at worst.
We must bring down the machinery of Civilization if we are to create sustainable non-human-centered-existence in harmony and symbiosis with life on earth—natural disasters and universe-events notwithstanding.
We love to see ourselves as “advanced”. I agree, we are indeed an advanced breed of ape. But I strongly believe we are troglodytes in the figurative eyes of the universe, no offense intended toward our infinitely more authentic ancestral brothers and sisters.
I know in the depths of my heart that humanity will not come to its collective senses before the involuntary fall and inevitable destruction of modernity: the end of civilization.
A harmonious combination of Global Warming, Peak-Oil, Religious Extremism, Economic Collapse, and “Civilized” Implosions will do what needs doing. “They”, figuratively speaking, will accomplish what “We the People” could not.
It will be ugly, brutal, and deadly to be sure. But sea-change is never without consequences and literal and figurative deaths and rebirths.
For those of you interested in bouncing the ball against the walls of Civilization, here are some good pole positions:
http://www.derrickjensen.org/comm.html
(You’ll find an interesting list of provocative books on this page)http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~ira/illich
http://www.avidorstudios.com/I-home.html
http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich.html
The ball’s in our court.
Thank you for your words, work, and passion Mr. Z.
In solidarity and complicity,
David Emanuel
All our lauded technological progress--our very civilization--is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal.
~Albert EinsteinThe end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
~Ralph Waldo EmersonPosted by David Emanuel on from Yonkers, NY 01/15 at 03:16 PMMickey, loved this post...made me miss NYC a whole lot, at least the NYC I grew up in. It’s been a while, hope all is well.
David Emanuel, surprised you left out Daniel Quinn’s ishmael.com from your list of links.
Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 01/15 at 03:47 PMJames in Puerto Rico,
DOH!
Thanks!
Lists are notoriously incomplete, but that’s like omitting nails-and-a-hammer from a list of things needed to nail two boards together.
Speaking of which, here’s another Ivan Illich repository:
http://homepage.mac.com/tinapple/illich/
Generally speaking, if one peruses the sites listed above, one will find a wealth of anti-civilization and anti-modernity resources.
Again, I apologize to M.Z. for going off on a tangent.
Peace,
David Emanuel
Posted by David Emanuel on from Yonkers, NY 01/15 at 06:27 PMThanks all for the excellent comments. It’s been a goal of mine to maintain a site where people could visit, share ideas, disagree without personal attacks, and perhaps figure a few things out.
David, this comment of yours is both frightening and realistic: “I know in the depths of my heart that humanity will not come to its collective senses before the involuntary fall and inevitable destruction of modernity: the end of civilization.”
I guess I’m walking that fine line between allowing such a belief to paralyze me into nihilism and working as if humans can turn this around. As long as we’re not deluding ourselves and others into denial about the realities we face, there is no downside to working hard to reach people and change minds.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from 01/15 at 06:29 PMP.S. No need to apologize, David.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from 01/15 at 06:32 PMLively lists, gents. I’ve been following the links and educating my civilization-addicted brain about the end stages of the addiction. Especially love dieoff.org--forwarded this fascinating place to my fellow trogs.
MZ, I am pleased you’ve succeeded in making this a home for debate and discussion. Thanks for that. I like this comment a lot: “I guess I’m walking that fine line between allowing such a belief to paralyze me into nihilism and working as if humans can turn this around. As long as we’re not deluding ourselves and others into denial about the realities we face, there is no downside to working hard to reach people and change minds.”
This optimistic stance will be your greatest contribution, I know. For myself, I am paralyzed into comfortable nihilism by my complete, bone-deep conviction that humanity will “choke on its own latrines” (da Vinci) one day. I have no hope, still less faith, that we’re smart enough to avoid our fate. So my response is simply to live in civilization as I find it, since I don’t think anything will change it (really, “us” not “it” since people make up “Civilization"). This very discussion is an artifact of civilization. We’re using environmentally unfriendly energy to power our poison laden machines to discuss how bad the system is...ironic, no?Posted by Richard on from The great Red State of Texas 01/16 at 12:00 PMIronic, yes.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from 01/16 at 04:54 PM
Next entry: Grass Roots Tsunami Relief
Previous entry: Nazi Costume vs. Nazi Deeds
Copyright © 2005-2007 Mickey Z.
