Toward Ecosophy

Another podcast for your listening pleasure, with JMG talking with host Hawk Zatar about my novel Retrotopia, and the distinctly odd reactions it's fielded, both from readers and from the actors in Hawk's theatrical production of the original episode-be-episode blogpost version. A good lively hour of conversation was had!  Check it out here. 

I've been scratching my head for a while now over the increasingly frantic and bizarre way that people on the privileged end of the American left have been trying to erase history -- demanding that statues be torn down, streets renamed, books removed from libraries, programs taken off the air, so that the past leaves no trace. To some extent, that's understandable -- it's been pointed out, for example, that nearly all of the Confederate generals whose statues are now under attack were registered Democrats, and today's Democrats have good reason not to want people to remember that in 1860 their party was pro-slavery -- but it's seemed to me all along that there's more going on than that kind of pragmatic dishonesty. 

While I was walking home from the grocery store this afternoon, the penny finally dropped. What sparked the insight was a comment by one of my publishers that Retrotopia, my quirky novel about a future North American nation that deliberately turned its back on progress and thrived as a result, is far and away the most successful of my titles with his firm. That startled me, but it makes sense, because more broadly -- across a very wide range of American subcultures -- a great many people are now realizing that the present really is worse than the past.

Were injustice, oppression, squalor, and abuse common in the past?  Of course -- but these things are just as common today as they were, say, half a century ago.  There's been some change in who gets the short end of the stick, but that's about the only difference. Meanwhile certain other things have changed dramatically.

There are plenty of people alive today, for example, who remember the days when you could feed, clothe, and house a family here in America, and even provide your kids with the occasional luxury, on a single working-class income. There are plenty of people alive today who remember when health care was cheap enough that most people paid for it out of pocket, and health insurance was there to keep you from having to declare bankruptcy if you got hit with a big-ticket illness or injury. There are plenty of people alive today who remember when American public schools were among the best in the world. There are plenty of people alive today who remember when a college education was easily affordable for many, and when most people didn't need one because there were plenty of jobs for which the only qualifications you needed were a good work ethic and a willingness to learn. 

And of course there are quite a few of us who remember when the streets of San Francisco weren't spattered with human feces...

The problem with these simple facts, of course, is that according to the beliefs of our comfortable classes -- the main constituency of today's mainstream American left -- this cannot and must not happen. Faith in progress is the established religion of our time; like all established religions, it upholds the interests of the political and economic status quo -- and it's being disproved right in front of us. To add insult to injury, the policies backed by those same comfortable classes are among the central reasons why the myth of progress is being disproved in front of us. The corporate media and the officially approved talking heads have spent the last few years saying, in effect, "Who are you going to believe -- me, or your lying eyes?"  These days, though, the answer they get is increasingly not to their taste. 

The frantic attempt to erase the past altogether is the logical consequence. If you've staked your entire identity and your sense of self-esteem on the idea that you're on the right side of history, helping to lead the way toward a future of perpetual improvement, the realization that the leaders you revere and the policies you support have presided over half a century of impoverishment and immiseration is intolerable. Outbursts of blind vindictive rage, frantic efforts to enforce belief in the failing religion, and over-the-top virtue signaling meant to shore up one's wavering faith and convince God or Progress or whoever to deliver on the promises made in its name -- all these are bog-standard features of a failing  prophetic religion in extremis.

The usual next phase is the widespread collapse of faith in the belief system. If that begins to build in the weeks and months ahead, hang onto your hats; the shock waves will shake the world.