Did things used to be better?

[Daniel Ross]

For some years now I have been sort of a Luddite. Occasionally I get into arguments about this with people, and hit a wall when they accuse me of dreaming of a non-existant pre industrial romantic ideal. So I was wondering can anyone here provide some evidence that things used to be better?

My views on this, as many views on complex matters can be, have been cobbled together somewhat haphazardly from experiences, evidence and various intuitions.

It began just over 5 years ago when I began an undergraduate course at a supposedly fine British university. It was maybe the most obvious time ever to be a Luddite. In the space of a few months filesharing and social networking had gone from being the preserve of a few nerds to being totally ubiquitous. 5 years prior a laptop had been a rare luxury for an undergraduate; affordable only to the rich for writing their essays on. Now it was very much essential. I watched those around me spend a great deal of their waking lives in their bedrooms, downloading films, clicking aimlessly on facebook, playing video games, and watching anonymously hardcore pornography; all of this was an easy alternative to talking to people they didn't really know. Facebook became the new social reality, breeding a new kind of vanity and self consciousness never before seem; literally 2-dimensional. I wondered how many similar revolutions had gone before,  which I had not been present to witness.

I read a few Kurt Vonnegut essays, and suddenly I was seeing the world through a Luddite's eyes; half convinced (which is a long way to be convinced of such a radical idea) that society could not cure itself of its ills until it returned to a more basic, primitive way of life.

But is there any evidence? you need evidence; one to prove to others that you are right; but more importantly to not actually be wrong yourself! Are these just the broodings of a dissaffected boy; or the naiive romanticisms of an idealist? Part of me blames not technology but the pathological agencies that wield it.

Or have I got it all wrong? is progress simply gruelling and problematic; afterall technology is an attempt by humans to solve problems. You see a problem and solve it. Thats natural. Thats right. Perhaps.

[Glenn "Lee" Howden]

@Vera

Senoi was a group started by 3 therapists they lived in a nice old house in a nut orchard outside of Eugene Oregon in 1969. They did therapy sessions there and held workshops on some weekends. Touchy feely stuff, techniques that would later be called New Age. I ended up there because my partner was a 6 foot tall, very good looking, very strange, blond. She couldn't leave the apartment without meeting a lot of people and one of those was a Senoi person and they invited us to move in with them. I was going to college and did handyman work around the place and my partner and helped with cooking in exchange for rent.

We also participated in workshops. My wife was super duper lucid dreamer. Me, not so much, but I was a good fixer and gardener. My daughter was born there the day that a celebration was going on, and may be the only person to ever receive a standing ovation 5 minutes after she was born.

The therapists helped a lot of people, but started to withdraw from that work because it is very intense and they were getting burned out. We wanted to stay together and find other ways of supporting ourselves but a neighbor spread vicious rumors about us and the landlord kicked us out. We did other things together, but slowly dispersed.

It worked because it helped people. Many of the clients became friends. We got along well together. Everybody carried their share of the load and man could we get it going on when the drums and noise makers came out.

Later I used the dream techniques to help my daughter with her bad dreams. It worked for her, but not for me.

[Andy Sheridan]

dominate verb

1 have power or influence over: the economy is dominated by multinational corporations.

2 be the most important or noticable person or thing in: he dominated the race from start to finish.

3 be the tallest or largest thing in a place

- Compact Oxford English Dictionary

As this definition shows, anything can dominate, and anything can be subject to domination; whether human or non-human, and whether living or non-living. To attribute domination only to internal human relations, or to give primacy to this, could be classed as an anthropocentric viewpoint. We can also dominate nature, just as nature can dominate us. In terms of human psychology, a domineering attitude toward other humans cannot be easily separated out from domination of the non-human world.

Domination, I think, is a fundamental orientation towards reality; to anything external to the self, whether animal, vegetable or mineral. And as Paul has pointed out, this orientation towards reality is not confined to humans either. However, we have the capacity to become conscious of our domineering ways, and to gradually overcome them, where possible. At least to the extent that this does not undermine our own existence; i.e. we can't decide to stop eating completely in order to totally prevent domination of other living beings without paying the price ourselves.

Domination can be about the advancement of one phenomenon, often to the detriment of another phenomenon; one thing takes, at the loss of another. Under this definition, would it be correct to say that domination, of the kind that we here condemn, is a feature of a buddhist monastery, if the outcome of this process is ultimate freedom? Is it possible to express domination as a means of giving? I feel another paradox coming on!

This is certainly the way the 'dominance' of the buddhist master over his students is viewed within such settings; as a form of compassion. It takes some tough love to break through the ego! Though once broken, something is revealed that cannot be dominated :o)

Of course, I'm sure that corporations and governments believe that they express donimation as a means of giving. But do they bring ultimate freedom? Do they reveal something that cannot be dominated, or do they perpetuate domination?

I guess corporations feed us and clothe us. But on balance, they seem to take more than they give. They dominate nature through the extraction of resources, through the use of chemical fertilisers and now GM, through factory farming, and through the burning of fossil fuels to produce and transport, without giving back. They dominate other people across the world through cheap slave labour, giving very little in return, even undermining local economies in many cases. They dominate markets, out-competing small local businesses, procuders, artisans and craftspeople, draining wealth to distant faceless shareholders, giving little other than the loss of autonomy through mundane minimum waged labour in return. And they dominate the consumer through a media driven culture, pushing inadequacy and insecurity to sell the next 'in thing'; inflaming the very fears and desires of self-centredness that bind us, an stand in the way of ultimate freedom. On the whole, many corporations are driven by the bottom line, profit. They dominate to take, rather than to give.

I think domination can also be about perception. An easy example of this relates to the third Oxford Dictionary definition above. Trees can be viewed as the dominant beings in a forest due to their size, hence the saying, 'can't see the wood for the trees'. Redwoods, for example, can appear very dominating to us. However the trees, in this sense, do not dominate as the expense of others. They are integral to the structure of the forest, without which, it simply could not exist. Similarly, mountains are often viewed as dominating, but they are an essential part of the global ecosystem. I suppose what is really dominating here is the feelings of awe, apprehension, and maybe even fear, which themselves result from the dominant ideas, beliefs and assumptions, conscious or unconscious, that shape our perception.

This illustrates one way in which the dominance of civilisation in our lives can be understood: the psychological effect of the physical structures that are built around us, in our societies. They can instil within us a sense of permanance and omnipotence, which can reinforce within us a sense of powerlessness, and discourage resistance.

We perceive the domination of the government and state, of the econonomy, of corporations in our lives. However, as I mentioned in a previous post, this domination is, at least in part, about perception. We see these institutions as taking from us, and from the rest of nature. But in reality, we give to them. We feed them. And in doing so we take from nature, through them. What would happen if on realising the true nature of all these things, we decided to no longer feed them?

[vera]

"What would happen if on realising the true nature of all these things, we decided to no longer feed them?"

Bingo. Harder to do than to say, though...

[Andy Sheridan]

Agreed! :o)

[Daniel Ross]

Paul Kingsnorth said:

I don't know what to do about this. The trouble is - most people think it's great. They'd rather sit round a telly than a fire. Until we can't make tellies anymore, I don't know how to change that.

I'm not sure if industrial collapse IS the only solution. I mean we could think of tele like alcohol; its a potentially addictive and damaging drug, but widespread misuse could be attributable to social problems; poverty, alienation etc. I mean much of the leisure modern people engage in is very passive; and that could be because they're demoralised and exhausted by their work. COULD be.

[vera]

Ross, near total economic collapse is the only solution to the Jevons Paradox. And we are heading that way. Take comfort... no tellies where we'z headin'.... :-)

[Andy Sheridan]

Terence McKenna certainly would have agreed with you, Daniel. In fact he had a lot more to say on the subject:

Electronic Drugs

In his science fiction novel 'The man in the High Castle', Philip K. Dick imagined an alternative world in which World War II had been won by the Japenese and the Third Reich. In Dick's fictional world, the Japanese occupation authorities introduced and legalized marijuana as one of their first moves at pacifying the population of California. Things are hardly less strange here in what conventional wisdom lightheartedly refers to as "reality." In "thi world" too, the victors introduced an all-pervasive, ultra-powerful society-shaping drug. This drug was the first of a growing group of high-technology drugs that deliver the user into an alternative reality by acting on the user’s sensorium, without chemicals being introduced into the nervous system. It was television. No epidemic or addictive craze or religious hysteria has ever moved faster or made as many converts in so short a time.

The nearest analogy to the addictive power of television and the transformation of values that is wrought in the life of the user is probably heroin. Heroin flattens the image; with heroin, things are neither hot nor cold; the junkie looks out at the world certain that whatever it is, it does not matter. The illusion of knowing and of control that heroin engenders is analogous to the unconscious assumption of the television consumer that what is seen is “real” somewhere in the world. In fact, what is seen are the cosmetically enhanced surfaces of products. Television, while chemically non-invasive, nevertheless is every bit as addicting and physiologically damaging as any other drug:

“Not unlike drugs or alcohol, the television experience allows the participant to blot out the real world and enter into a pleasurable and passive mental state. The worries and anxieties of reality are as effectively deferred by becoming absorbed in a television program as by going on a
“trip” induced by drugs or alcohol. And just as alcoholics are onlly vaguely aware of their addictions, feeling that they control their drinking more than they really do ... people similarly overestimate their control over television watching ... Finally it is the adverse effect of television viewing one the lives of so many people that defines it as a serious addiction. The television habit distorts the sense of time. It renders other experiences vague and curiously unreal while taking on a greater realit for itself. It weakens relationships by reducing and sometimes eliminating normal opportunities for talking, for communicating.”

The Hidden Persuader

Most unsettling of all is this: the content of television is not a vision but a manufactured data stream that can be sanitized to “protect” or impose cultural values. Thus we are confronted with an addictive and all-pervasive drug that delivers an experience whose message is whatever those who deal the drug wish it to be. Could anything provide a more fertile ground for fostering fascism and totalitarianism than this? In the United States, there are many more televisions than households, the average television set is on six hours a day, and the average person watches more than five hours a day – nearly one-third their waking time. Aware as we all are of these simple facts, we seem unable to react to their implications. Serious study of the effects of television on health and culture has only begun recently. Yet no drug in history has so quickly or completely isolated the entire culture of its users from contact with reality. And no drug in history has so completely succeeded in remaking in its own image the values of the culture that it has infected.

Television is by nature the dominator drug par excellence. Control of content, uniformity of content, repeatability of content make it inevitable a tool of coersion, brainwashing, and manipulation. Television induces a trance stater in the viewer that is the necessary precondition for brainwashing. As with all other drugs and technologies, television’s basic character cannot be changed; television is no more reformable than is the technology that produces automatic assault rifles.

Television came along at precisely the right time from the point of view of the dominator elite. The nearly one hundred and fifty years of synthetic drug epidemics that began in 1806 had led to disgust at the spectacle of human degradation and spiritual cannibalism that institutional marketing of drugs created. In the same way that slaverly eventually, when no longer convenient, became odious in the yes of the very institutions that had created it, the abuse of drugs eventually triggered a backlash against the particular form of piratical capitalism. Hard drugs were made illegal. Of course underground markets then flourished. But drugs as stated instruments of national policy had been discredited. There would continue to be opium wars, instances od governments coercing other governments and peoples to produce or buy drugs – but in the future these wars would be dirty and secret, they would be “covert.”

As the intelligence agenices that arose in the wake of World War II moved to take up their “deep cover” positions as the masterminds of international narcotics cartelsm the popular mind was turning on to television. Flattening, editing, and simplifying, television did its job and created a postwar American culture of the Ken-and-Barbie variety. The children of Ken and Barbie briefly broke out of the television intoxication on the mid-sixties through the use of hallucinogens. “Oops, ” responded the dominators, and they quickly made psychedelics illegal and halted research. A double dose of TV therapy nplus cocaine was ordered up for the errant hippies, and they were quickly cured and turned into consumption-oriented yuppies. Only a recalcitrant few escaped this leveling of values. Nearly everyone learned to love Big Brother. And these few who don’t are still clucked over by the dominator culture each time it compulsively scratches in the barnyard dust of its puzzlement over “what happened in the sixties.”

- McKenna, T., (1992) ‘Food of the Gods: the search for the original tree of knowledge’, Bantam Books, New York.



Daniel Ross said:

Paul Kingsnorth said:

I don't know what to do about this. The trouble is - most people think it's great. They'd rather sit round a telly than a fire. Until we can't make tellies anymore, I don't know how to change that.

I'm not sure if industrial collapse IS the only solution. I mean we could think of tele like alcohol; its a potentially addictive and damaging drug, but widespread misuse could be attributable to social problems; poverty, alienation etc. I mean much of the leisure modern people engage in is very passive; and that could be because they're demoralised and exhausted by their work. COULD be.

[vera]

Me too... me too... me too...!!!!

[Colin Bartie]

Luddite? yes please!
I went to a talk by Paul Kingsnorth at the Big Tent Festival in Fife earlier this year. After the the talk someone in the the debate (I think it was Paul) was 'accused' of being a Luddite, I tried to get in on the debate but was passed over by Lesley Riddoch. Then someone else in the audience was really scathing about someone who said their reaction to the coming 'catastrophe' was "to write a poem". Here is my riposte which I did not manage to get in at the event:

One of 'The Eight Principles of Uncivilisation' -

3. "We believe that the roots of these crises lie in the stories we have been telling ourselves. We intend to challenge the stories which underpin our civilisation: the myth of progress..."

To do this we must reclaim our language - we give words their meaning. Someone called me a 'Luddite' and I said "thank you". Boy were they confused!

Here is the start of my revolution - a poem:

The Heroes That I Sing

Ned Ludd and Captain Swing
The heroes that I sing
They saw like us at last
The future and the past
Are just a great big con
For profits marching on.

There is nothing wrong with fighting for a traditional way of life which is what Ned Ludd and Captain Swing did.
Be proud to be a Luddite, it is part of our tradition!

[PHIL FOGGITT]

Thats nice Colin-- I agree Ludd and his followers were wiser than they are credited with being
But don't you think the art we need to develop is being able to recognise genuine progress which can enhance our lives without damaging our environment?



Colin Bartie said:

Luddite? yes please!
I went to a talk by Paul Kingsnorth at the Big Tent Festival in Fife earlier this year. After the the talk someone in the the debate (I think it was Paul) was 'accused' of being a Luddite, I tried to get in on the debate but was passed over by Lesley Riddoch. Then someone else in the audience was really scathing about someone who said their reaction to the coming 'catastrophe' was "to write a poem". Here is my riposte which I did not manage to get in at the event:

One of 'The Eight Principles of Uncivilisation' -

3. "We believe that the roots of these crises lie in the stories we have been telling ourselves. We intend to challenge the stories which underpin our civilisation: the myth of progress..."

To do this we must reclaim our language - we give words their meaning. Someone called me a 'Luddite' and I said "thank you". Boy were they confused!

Here is the start of my revolution - a poem:

The Heroes That I Sing

Ned Ludd and Captain Swing
The heroes that I sing
They saw like us at last
The future and the past
Are just a great big con
For profits marching on.

There is nothing wrong with fighting for a traditional way of life which is what Ned Ludd and Captain Swing did.
Be proud to be a Luddite, it is part of our tradition!

[Colin Bartie]

Hi Phil I would question the whole notion of 'progress' let alone 'genuine progress'. Like 'luddite', 'progress' is one of those words which we have got to reevaluate: progress good; tradition bad is often a dichotomy which is forced on us i.e. if we are against progress we are against a better world as with luddite, but 'progress' is a very relative and value laden term. The farmer obviously saw mechanism as 'progress' because he got his crop in quicker and it made everything easier to manage but for the worker it lowered the value of his work, destroyed the rhythm of his labour and alienated nature from being, being from nature - it ushered in a new ontology. Progress for the worker would be to abolish the farmer or master - would that be "genuine progress"?

[Glenn "Lee" Howden]

Here is a link to an article on preconquest consciousness that seems appropriate to this discussion: http://www.danbartlett.co.uk/sorenson.htm

I got this link off the Dark Mountain site many months ago, but some of you may not have come across it. I think that it describes a way of being that we have a deep longing to get back to.

To me it suggests that us domesticated humans are actually traumatized, and that our seeking of of excessive material possessions, gadgets, religions and philosophies is just an attempt to fill the void left by the the suppression of our true sociosensual natures.

The other thing pointed out in this article is the fragility of preconquest consciousness when it comes in contact with civilization. It's as if the more psychopathic elements of civilization is a transmittable disease.

There will be those that say that practicing meditation, Buddhism, Sufism, Taoism and other means of personal growth are the way to go. This may be so, but these practices aren't very robust and the societal benefits they provide can easily be wiped out by the use of machine guns, swords and even television sets. Like some Zen dude said, “It is easy to be enlightened on the mountain top, but maintaining that state of mind in the market place is much more difficult.”