This is one of the ways an authoritarian technics is authoritarian: like any other despot, it cannot be questioned, even when it is killing all we hold dear, all we truly need to survive.
This is what we’re up against.
I’ll be clear. Imperialism can be defined as the taking (by force, threat of force, or even “persuasion,” if the power relations between the parties are grossly unequal) of another’s land or other “resources” for use at the center of empire. Using this definition, agriculture is imperialism, both against the land and against (human) people of the land. And if we change a few words in the quote at the beginning of the chapter we could easily hear it coming from the mouth of your standard apologist for empire (which, when it comes to intrahuman empire, Chomsky definitely is not), “If empire is inherently destructive, we might as well say good-bye to each other, because all of our energy and consumer goods come from empire, whether it’s coal from the internal colonies of Appalachia and the High Plains, tin from Bolivia, clothes from sweatshops in Haiti or Vietnam, steel from the slave-based factories in Brazil. Whatever it is. There is no reason to believe that empire and colonialism are inherently destructive.”
What would any reasonable anti-imperialist say to someone who said these same things? I think the analysis would be similar to what I’ve done here.
Empire happens for material reasons. German Reichskanzler Paul von Hindenberg described the relationship perfectly: “Without colonies no security regarding the acquisition of raw materials, without raw materials no industry, without industry no adequate standard of living and wealth. Therefore, Germans, do we need colonies.”119 You can’t have high speed rail without mines and smelters. You can’t have mines and smelters without empire. The fact that our way of life is dependent upon this empire is no reason we should not discuss it.
•••
I can’t stop thinking about these comments implying that because our way of life is dependent upon agriculture, then somehow we cannot and most importantly must not question agriculture’s inherent destructiveness. And I can’t stop thinking about how much they remind me of that Supreme Court ruling that if this way of life is based on land theft and genocide, then such land theft and genocide “becomes the law of the land, and cannot be questioned.” So, because we have enslaved ourselves to land theft and ecocide through agriculture, then any critique of agriculture must be dismissed by the suggestion that if agriculture is destructive we may as well say goodbye to each other?
No. If agriculture is inherently destructive, we should address this honestly. And if our way of life is based on agriculture, and if agriculture is inherently destructive, that provides all the more urgency to making an honest analysis. It’s like my doctor friend says about the first step toward cure being proper diagnosis. Well, if we’re going to short-circuit diagnosis before it even starts, then there can never be a cure. We are guaranteeing the continued murder of the planet.
I’m not interested in rationalizing the further murder of the planet. We need to face reality, no matter how painful.
* * *
115 Mumford, “Authoritarian and Democratic Technics,” 4–5.
116 Noam Chomsky, “Human Intelligence and the Environment,” International Socialist Review 76, based on a talk he gave September 30, 2010. http://isreview.org/issue/76/human-intelligence-and-environment (accessed August 27, 2014).
117 Jason Patinkin, “Kenya Conundrum: Kick Out Maasai Herders to Develop Geothermal Energy?” Christian Science Monitor, September 10, 2014, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2014/0910/Kenya-conundrum-Kick-out-Masai-herders-to-develop-geothermal-energy (accessed September 27, 2014).
118 Toby Hemenway, “Is Sustainable Agriculture an Oxymoron?” Pattern Literacy, http://www.patternliteracy.com/203-is-sustainable-agriculture-an-oxymoron (accessed September 25, 2014).
I really hope you read the whole essay. It’s fantastic.
119 Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale (London: Zed Books, 1999), 98.
Chapter Sixteen
Facing Reality
God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
I’m known for saying that civilization is killing the planet, and that it needs to be stopped before it kills what or who is left. I don’t say this because I hate hot showers or Beethoven’s Ninth. I say this because I’ve long been capable of doing simple math.
I can do subtraction. I know if there are six billion passenger pigeons, and you subtract a billion, and then another billion, and you keep subtracting them faster than they can add to their own population (and faster than they can feed all those others in their biotic communities who eat them), then eventually there will be none. I know if there are uncountable salmon, and you reduce their numbers to where you can count them, and then you keep subtracting, eventually there will be none. I know if you estimate the weight of all the fish in the oceans in 1870, and you call that 100 percent, and then you keep subtracting fish until by 2010 you get it down to 10 percent, then there’s something deeply wrong with what you’re doing. I know the same is true for native forests reduced from 100 percent to 2 percent, native grasslands and wetlands reduced the same.
And I want to bring down civilization because I know how to add. I know that if you take a number, say, 315 (as in parts per million), and keep adding to it, eventually you’ll get to 350. And if you keep adding to that you’ll get to 400. And if you keep adding to that you’ll get to hell.
I don’t understand why so many of us don’t seem to know how to subtract or to add. Oh, sure, I understand that people come up with lots of rationalizations for avoiding the simple math, and they come up with lots of fancy names and algorithms to attempt to convince themselves that 100 minus 90 doesn’t equal 10, or that 315 plus 85 doesn’t equal 400 or that somehow hot showers, Beethoven’s Ninth, and high-speed internet access for some of us all add up to more than life on earth, but whether you call it “managing forests,” “generating hydroelectric power,” “developing natural resources,” “sustainable development,” “green energy,” “agriculture,” “running the whole Earth,” or any of a thousand other names, the subtraction and the addition continue.
What makes the whole thing even more insane is that the economic system requires constant addition, and this addition requires and creates subtraction, by which I mean capitalism (and before it, civilization) requires that production grow—add 2 or 3 percent each year—and production is a measure of the subtraction, that is, of the conversion of the living into the dead: forests into 2x4s, schools of fish into fish sticks or sushi or fertilizer.
The math is both simple and tragic.
I think that for some people—especially those in power—the only math that matters is constant addition into their bank accounts.
But I think that so many of the rest of us do what we can to avoid this math because if we do the subtraction, do the addition, our own personal sum will be unbearable sorrow, terror, and a feeling of being entirely out of control. I think many of us do what we can to avoid this math because we know that if we do the subtraction, do the addition, our psyches and our consciences and our lives will forever be changed; and we know that no matter how fierce the momentum that leads to this subtraction and addition, no matter our fears that we may be crushed (or perhaps more fearsome, ridiculed), that we will be led in some way to oppose the subtraction of life and the addition of toxics to this planet that is our only home.
I’ll tell you my fear, and I’ll tell you my dream. My fear is that the subtraction and the addition will continue until there is nothing left on this planet but ashes and dust. That the oceans whom this culture has caused to go from 100 to ten continue down to zero. That the 200 spe
cies this culture causes to go extinct each day increases to 300, then 400, then 500, then 600. That the migratory songbird populations who have collapsed, then collapsed, then collapsed, disappear into that eternal night of extinction. That the bumblebees and dragonflies and bats and spiders and sowbugs, whom I already see far less frequently than even a few years ago, disappear as well. That the plastics that now outnumber the phytoplankton by ten to one increase that ratio to 100 to one, 1,000 to one, and so on. That what was 315 and then 350 and then 400 continues to rise. In other words, rationalizations and fancy names and algorithms notwithstanding, that business continues as usual.
I’ll tell you another fear: that the subtraction and the addition will last even one more day. Because for this two hundred species—and for all of us—that one day is one day too many.
Of course, business as usual can’t continue forever. I understood that when I was a child. We all—by which I mean those of us with any sense whatsoever—know this can’t go on; you can’t continue to subtract life and add toxics forever. But it has gone on long enough to reduce a number from 100 to ten, to reduce another from 6 billion to zero, another from 100 to two. In other words, it has gone on far too long. And it can reduce those numbers to zero.
I’ve never forgotten something my dear friend and environmental mentor John Osborn said to me, about why he does his work: “We cannot predict the future. As things become increasingly chaotic I want to make sure some doors remain open.” What he means by this is that if lynx and Selkirk caribou and bull trout are alive in ten years, they may be alive in 100. If they’re extinct in ten years, they’re gone forever. If he can help keep this or that patch of old growth standing for ten years, this or that river free flowing for ten years, it may be alive in 100. If it’s cut or dammed now, the damage is done. He’s saying, “These will not go down on my watch.”
So here is my dream, and what I spend my life working toward: that subtraction and addition switch places, so that each day there is more life on this planet, more fish and birds and insects, more forests and free-flowing rivers and grasslands and wetlands; and fewer toxics. This won’t happen because of rationalizations or fancy names or new algorithms. This will only happen because the social conditions—on every level, from the epistemological to the infrastructural—that lead to the subtraction and addition completely change.
That will happen. The only question will be what’s left of the planet when it does.
In the meantime, it’s up to each of us to ask what we love, and then to defend that beloved. It’s time for each of us to say, “Not on my watch.”
•••
Think about it. You’re driving a car down a tunnel at 100 miles per hour directly at a brick wall. Do you turn to the passengers and say goodbye? Do you tell them, “Our lives depend on this car not crashing. I see no evidence of a brick wall. And I see no evidence that car crashes must be inherently destructive”? No, you hit the brakes so hard your foot goes through the floor. If you can stop, great. If you can’t, it becomes a question of increasing your odds of survival. I’d rather hit the wall at 90 than 100, 80 than 90, 70 than 80. With your own life and the lives of those you love at stake, every mile per hour you cut away counts.120
But what does this culture do? It keeps its foot firmly on the gas.
Now, let’s say you’re a passenger in this car. What do you do? Do you turn to those in the back seat and say goodbye? Do you pretend there is no brick wall? Do you write up a petition you and the other passengers can sign requesting that the driver cut speed by 20 percent by the year 2025? No, you scratch and claw and kick and bite and do everything you can to get the murderous suicidal asshole’s foot off the gas, and press down with everything you’ve got on the brakes.
•••
Let’s try this again. This time you’re piloting a plane at 30,000 feet, and you smell smoke. A lot of smoke. What do you do? Tell your co-pilot goodbye? Pretend there’s no problem? Say there’s no evidence that big fires on planes are inherently destructive? No. You try to put out the fire, and you take the plane off autopilot and try to get it on the ground as quickly as possible.
The metaphors should be obvious.
I’m going to extend this metaphor with a story. I sometimes think about the pilots of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 that crashed off the coast of southern California in 2000. While they were in the air, part of the flight control system controlling the pitch of the plane failed, causing the plane to drop nose downward and fall from 31,000 feet to 24,000 feet in about eighty seconds. By pulling hard—130 to 140 pounds of force—on the controls, the pilots were able to stabilize around that latter altitude. They had already discussed making an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport. The pilot then wanted to try to coax the jet down to 10,000 feet before attempting a landing. But, and here’s the part of the story that always makes me cry, because Los Angeles is so densely populated, the pilot requested permission to try to lose that altitude over the ocean, so a potential crash would kill as few people as possible. The crew got the plane down to 18,000 feet before the crucial screw in the flight control system gave way, and the plane flipped on its back and dove for the ocean. The pilots tried their best for eighty-one seconds, but they hit the ocean at over 150 miles per hour. Everyone on board died.
I’m not too proud to mix metaphors. We’re heading toward a brick wall. We need to slam on the brakes as hard as we can. Or if someone else is controlling the speed—if there’s a madman behind the wheel—we need to figure out a way to force the brakes ourselves. But that’s where the car metaphor fails, because we’re not only taking out the passengers, we’re taking out everyone else in the vicinity of the crash. So, moving to the second metaphor, if we can’t stop or slow the crash, I wish we would at least have the grace and courage of the pilots of Flight 261, and make sure to save as many lives as possible on the way down.
•••
But things are far worse than just the authoritarian technics running this culture.
It should also be clear by now that members of this culture, for the most part, cannot even conceptualize living without the benefits they gain from these authoritarian technics, and they have what amounts to no real concern for the victims of the technics, the communities destroyed so they can have their luxuries without which life would be evidently unimaginable. I don’t think most people in this culture particularly care if the oceans die, except insofar as it affects their participation in these authoritarian technics (e.g., what does it mean for the economy and my role in it, and most especially, where will I get my fucking sushi?).
But things are still worse. Even the staunchest supporters of this way of life acknowledge (usually without realizing they’re doing so) this culture has based itself on overshoot and conquest. We could all become the purest of green pacifists, and the system itself still functionally requires overshoot and conquest. And this basis in overshoot and conquest—along with its associated “virtues” of “growth” and “development of natural resources” and technological escalation—far from being attributes we are collectively even remotely considering abandoning, are instead seen as positive goods. We’re ruining running the whole Earth, remember?
But it’s still worse even than this, because our human supremacism has long since moved from being an assumption or an attitude or even an unquestioned belief to being our very identity.
This is bad news, indeed.
•••
Mumford wrote, “Through mechanization, automation, cybernetic direction, this authoritarian technics has at last successfully overcome its most serious weakness: its original dependence upon resistant, sometimes actively disobedient servomechanisms, still human enough to harbor purposes that do not always coincide with those of the system.”121
•••
Once again, I think it’s even worse than this. While mechanization, automation, and cybernetic direction have
reduced the dependence of authoritarian technics on resistant humans—far more so now than when Mumford wrote this sixty years ago—I believe that this culture’s consumption and destruction of cultural and ecological diversity, and people’s declining ability to perceive or imagine a reality outside of this culture, and people’s increasing identification with the technics, has greatly reduced our willingness to resist, and our capacity to even conceptualize meaningfully resisting.
•••
Mumford wrote, “Like the earliest form of authoritarian technics, this new technology is marvelously dynamic and productive: its power in every form tends to increase without limits, in quantities that defy assimilation and defeat control, whether we are thinking of the output of scientific knowledge or of industrial assembly lines. To maximize energy, speed, or automation, without reference to the complex conditions that sustain organic life, have become ends in themselves. As with the earliest forms of authoritarian technics, the weight of effort, if one is to judge by national budgets, is toward absolute instruments of destruction, designed for absolutely irrational purposes whose chief by-product would be the mutilation or extermination of the human race. Even Ashurbanipal and Genghis Khan performed their gory operations under normal human limits.”122
•••
I have two responses to this. The first is to point out, regarding the weight of effort in this culture being aimed toward destruction, that members of this culture designed and built atomic bombs before they designed and built automatic washing machines. So, judging by where they spend the most money, and where they spend it first . . .
The second has to do with his comment about how even Ashurbanipal and Genghis Khan performed their slaughters under normal human limits. Recall that the writers and editors for The Atlantic called gunpowder one of humanity’s greatest achievements because it “outsourced killing to a machine.”
The Myth of Human Supremacy Page 29