After reading this, I was uncomfortable with the way in which you framed things, especially the table where liberal and conservative values were contrasted. After reading it again closely, I realized I had been reading through an American/2025 lens & in doing so had misread it.
My initial problem was that the terms used to characterize conservative positions weren't ones anyone would want to concede to anyone else, whereas the terms used for liberal/progressive positions were outside the usual range - including many terms socialists use but not democrats.
And now you see where I went wrong. The majority of US Democrats & all Republicans are in the right hand column. As the word 'left' is used in the US, it's barely in the left hand column. Imo the word 'progressive' is no longer useful in US politics, given that progressives are persona non grata among today's mainstream democrats. In a working democracy there would be an actual party on the left, a socialist party.
Nonetheless, your point remains valid for US politics, an environment in the which the right has controlled the narrative (and defined the terms) for maybe 50 years. And which has led us here. We need instead a political environment in which our problems and goals can be accurately framed and in which there is a party that represents those outside the corporate, technocrat, monied elite. It's hard to conceive of that happening.
Thanks for your essays; they always stimulate and inform.
The ruling class isn't homogenous. Old money hates new money for instance but they set aside their differences to organize AGAINST us. They just bicker over the details. They understand CLASS SOLIDARITY. Equality and equity for all life on Earth is the end goal. We can bicker over details on how to achieve that but that must always be the first priority and end game. That's OUR CLASS solidarity.
Your analysis is dead on. 50 years of neoliberal economics, elections polluted by dark money, poor education, public apathy, and the rise of the military industrial complex have culminated in the wealthiest people in the world have dismantled FDR's attempt to level the playing field. The real plan is accelerated death for the masses by every means possible. Deaths of sheer despair will accelerate rapidly as the economy crumbles and climate refugee numbers accelerate.
Great piece on the tip of the iceberg, the endless plethora of competing abstract "ideas" that hordes of humans identify with as we compete for manufactured sustaining resources, just as our ancestral migratory Hunter-Gatherers competed for real property, lands, and food stuffs. They were, afterall, cooped-up in iceage refugia for at least 4,000 yrs. during the last ice age, the spectacular "painted caves" of southern France and northern Spain, of which at least 400 have been discovered. H-G clans/bands competed with other clans/bands for food/land resources that sustained their numbers, never more than 150 (Dunbar number), and the total number of humans on the planet stayed at 2.6-5M, perfectly balanced with the natural environment, as they picked-up and moved from one sustaining environment to the next. With the jump to calorie rich sedentary grain agriculture and abstract symbols replacing real property, we no longer had real limits to population growth, previously provided by our competing H-G clan resource limitations, and our numbers have exploded to the current 8.1B, so 3,000 times greater. Every other downside you listed is the result of the massive human overpopulation that has resulted, not to mention the enormous stress and stress diseases that come with this just from a "real" world H-G lifeway and into the "modern" nightmare you so well describe.
My only question is it seems to me that all the points you make are already here. My only question is was it contrived, did it occur naturally, or a combination of the two? Not that it makes a bit of difference at this point.
I just read this article this morning,; the concept that right-wingers respond to challenges by scapegoating people (individuals and groups), whereas left wingers respond to the same circumstances by organising and seeking systemic change is intriguing:
Sarah Connor is one of the best voices in the collapse space and there is much in their work that aligns with the Just Collapse strategy and actions. But this article misses the mark on two accounts: 1) It mixes up liberalism with the left. The left addresses and mitigates structural violence. It is true that some liberals do too, but many donโt as they support capitalism and oppression (think the US Democrats) aligning them with the right, not the left; 2) the root of polarisation in collapse - a cause, symptom, and accelerator - is social inequality and equity. The smaller the gap between rich and poor, the greater the resilience of a society. The larger the gap, the less resilient (like in the US). The left (though not necessarily liberals), are committed to lessening inequality and inequity, and therefore contribute to greater resilience. This makes political contests between the left and right a good and necessary thing, not a collapse โbogey manโ, as it leads to more just outcomes.
After reading this, I was uncomfortable with the way in which you framed things, especially the table where liberal and conservative values were contrasted. After reading it again closely, I realized I had been reading through an American/2025 lens & in doing so had misread it.
My initial problem was that the terms used to characterize conservative positions weren't ones anyone would want to concede to anyone else, whereas the terms used for liberal/progressive positions were outside the usual range - including many terms socialists use but not democrats.
And now you see where I went wrong. The majority of US Democrats & all Republicans are in the right hand column. As the word 'left' is used in the US, it's barely in the left hand column. Imo the word 'progressive' is no longer useful in US politics, given that progressives are persona non grata among today's mainstream democrats. In a working democracy there would be an actual party on the left, a socialist party.
Nonetheless, your point remains valid for US politics, an environment in the which the right has controlled the narrative (and defined the terms) for maybe 50 years. And which has led us here. We need instead a political environment in which our problems and goals can be accurately framed and in which there is a party that represents those outside the corporate, technocrat, monied elite. It's hard to conceive of that happening.
Thanks for your essays; they always stimulate and inform.
The ruling class isn't homogenous. Old money hates new money for instance but they set aside their differences to organize AGAINST us. They just bicker over the details. They understand CLASS SOLIDARITY. Equality and equity for all life on Earth is the end goal. We can bicker over details on how to achieve that but that must always be the first priority and end game. That's OUR CLASS solidarity.
Your analysis is dead on. 50 years of neoliberal economics, elections polluted by dark money, poor education, public apathy, and the rise of the military industrial complex have culminated in the wealthiest people in the world have dismantled FDR's attempt to level the playing field. The real plan is accelerated death for the masses by every means possible. Deaths of sheer despair will accelerate rapidly as the economy crumbles and climate refugee numbers accelerate.
Great piece on the tip of the iceberg, the endless plethora of competing abstract "ideas" that hordes of humans identify with as we compete for manufactured sustaining resources, just as our ancestral migratory Hunter-Gatherers competed for real property, lands, and food stuffs. They were, afterall, cooped-up in iceage refugia for at least 4,000 yrs. during the last ice age, the spectacular "painted caves" of southern France and northern Spain, of which at least 400 have been discovered. H-G clans/bands competed with other clans/bands for food/land resources that sustained their numbers, never more than 150 (Dunbar number), and the total number of humans on the planet stayed at 2.6-5M, perfectly balanced with the natural environment, as they picked-up and moved from one sustaining environment to the next. With the jump to calorie rich sedentary grain agriculture and abstract symbols replacing real property, we no longer had real limits to population growth, previously provided by our competing H-G clan resource limitations, and our numbers have exploded to the current 8.1B, so 3,000 times greater. Every other downside you listed is the result of the massive human overpopulation that has resulted, not to mention the enormous stress and stress diseases that come with this just from a "real" world H-G lifeway and into the "modern" nightmare you so well describe.
Correction: "...that come with this JUMP (not "just") from a "real" world...".
Superb Sarah.
My only question is it seems to me that all the points you make are already here. My only question is was it contrived, did it occur naturally, or a combination of the two? Not that it makes a bit of difference at this point.
I just read this article this morning,; the concept that right-wingers respond to challenges by scapegoating people (individuals and groups), whereas left wingers respond to the same circumstances by organising and seeking systemic change is intriguing:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/05/power-of-positive-thinking/#the-socialism-of-fools
Sarah Connor is one of the best voices in the collapse space and there is much in their work that aligns with the Just Collapse strategy and actions. But this article misses the mark on two accounts: 1) It mixes up liberalism with the left. The left addresses and mitigates structural violence. It is true that some liberals do too, but many donโt as they support capitalism and oppression (think the US Democrats) aligning them with the right, not the left; 2) the root of polarisation in collapse - a cause, symptom, and accelerator - is social inequality and equity. The smaller the gap between rich and poor, the greater the resilience of a society. The larger the gap, the less resilient (like in the US). The left (though not necessarily liberals), are committed to lessening inequality and inequity, and therefore contribute to greater resilience. This makes political contests between the left and right a good and necessary thing, not a collapse โbogey manโ, as it leads to more just outcomes.