[Update at end]
Previously:
As per Timothy Leary:
'Drop out' suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. 'Drop Out' meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean 'Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity'.
I would suggest that were Leary not to have been hallucinating at the time, the turn from "self-reliance" to "get stoned" would have been predictable. Self-reliance is always more work than getting stoned and people, individually and in the aggregate, are always struggling to find the right balance between being productive and "abandon(ing) all constructive activity." In addition, self-reliance has always been a nice idea in theory, but in practice, people coming of age in the 1960s were conspicuously ill prepared to be self reliant, while rejecting the "materialistic, bourgeois life" of their parents. In reality, few people born into modern 20th century convenience and wealth (we are all Emperors and Kings by historical standards) have the requisite skill set to become truly self-reliant and in the 1960s the idea of self-reliant communities ("Hippie" communes on one extreme, Israeli Kibbutzim on the other) was still only operable at the long tail. There exists the potential for this to change.
An accumulating mass of large, intractable problems have led many in the West to doubt the ability of our elites to either resolve or adequately manage the various crises facing us. T. Greer has encapsulated a sense of a distant, incompetent elite, increasingly out of touch, which is fueling disquiet and motivating the still somewhat inchoate Tea Party movement: [HT: Zenpundit]
Americas Greatest Challenge--and Danger.
The American Republic is no longer governed by the people. The rule of the people has been replaced by an oligarchy of well meaning elites. Not limited by professional divides, these men occupy the vaulted halls of business, media, politics, and academia; they are united in only their unshakable faith in their own beneficence. Entirely sure of their ability to cast a society better than that which already exists, these elites are uncomfortable with democratic accountability or financial liability, and constantly seek opportunities to free themselves from both. This desire to be free from the censure of their countrymen easily translates into a bunker mentality that views individual empowerment, decentralization, and meritocracy as assaults on their power and influence. Unabated social stratification, the erection of barriers to political and economic participation, and the implementation of incomprehensible, unreasonable, and ultimately self-serving regulations are the consequences of this paternalistic culture.
Living lives that are isolated from their fellow citizens, the identity of the elite is formed along lines of privilege and class, not ties of community and country. Unsurprisingly, the oligarchy of good intentions has difficulty demarcating the divide between special and national interests. Nor can they be expected to construct sustainable solutions to the problems faced by the nation; a ruling class who has made a lifestyle of shifting blame is not an instrument suited to complete such tasks.The people have no desire to govern America's Republic. [All emphases in the original.]
Read the entire article for some interesting statistics and discussion.
John Robb has been at the forefront of those who argue that many of our current crises, from the sovereign debt to international crime to Islamic terror are reflections of a hollowing out of the nation state as our technology and globalization erodes national sovereignty. (This is an denominational data point for those who support securing the borders and addressing illegal immigration; John Robb might hold that we are already too late to rescue our sovereignty; the Tea Party protesters presumably would not agree.)
Most analysts (at least the ones that are worth reading) contend that the sovereign default crisis (Greece, Portugal, Spain, etc.) in the EU is about the collapse of a system that created monetary union without a political union. It isn't. That's actually a narrow, parochial view. Instead, the current sovereign debt crisis is about something much more interesting: it's another battle in a war for dominance between "our" integrated, impersonal global economic system and traditional nation-states. At issue is whether a nation-state serves the interests of the governed or it serves the interests of a global economic system.
Who's winning? The global economic system, of course. The 2008 financial crisis, the first real battle of this war (as opposed to the early losses in skirmishes in Russia, Argentina, the Balkans, etc.), generated a very decisive outcome. It was a resounding defeat for nation-states.* The current crisis in the EU will almost certainly end with the same results.
The entire post is worth reading in full. He is not sanguine about the prospects of the nation state and suggests that our future is bleak:
When this war ends, and it won't be long, the global economic and financial system will be the victor. Once that occurs, the nation-states of the West will join those of the global south as hollow states: mere shells of states that serve only to enforce the interests of the global economic system. ... The clear and unambiguous message to every citizen of the West will be:
You are on your own. You are in direct competition with everyone else in the world, and your success or failure is something you alone control.
For those that think that this will bring about a surge of peaceful economic vigor, you will be wrong. It will fragment society and lead to perpetual stagnation/depression, endemic violence/corruption, and squalor.
John Robb overstates the case, but those who continue to be dependent on the state will have very little recourse but to accept the gradual erosion of their security and wealth, punctuated by moments of terror and precipitous declines in welfare. This is inevitable; it is math, not fiction. At the same time, conditions are ripening for truly robust, Resilient Communities to become realistic options for the 20% who are able to act. (For more on the 80/20 rule, see In Every Generation.]
It is possible to imagine a future 20-40 years from now in which the price of manufactured goods and food moves toward zero. With mature molecular engineering and highly efficient energy sources (fuel cells that run on water and sunlight, for example) untold wealth will be available to all. The economy of the mid to late 21st century is very likely going to be an economy of abundance. In fact part of our difficulty in lowering unemployment in the next few years will rest upon the decreasing need for human intervention in manufacturing processes. Robots are effectively replacing manufacturing workers (and food producers) and a large cohort of humanity lacks the requisite mental skills and abilities to take part in an information economy. These trends will accelerate.
Getting from now to then is going to be a bumpy ride, filled with uncertainty and a rapidly escalating series of systemic shocks. If our institutions adapt quickly and adequately, we will succeed at muddling through until that time that our debt becomes a minor nuisance rather than a debilitating handicap.
The Tea Party movement is populated by, among others, people who have traditionally been as self-reliant as current technology allows. In other words, these are people who actually produce tangible goods and increase value (as opposed to so much of our current elite who produce nothing more than content free verbal arcana of no particular import. Spend some time perusing David Thompson's site to get a sense of the aridity of modern academic productions. Or consider these examples of what passes for sophisticated academic thought at our finest Universities.) If the tea Parties are able to rein in government and enable the American to do what they do best, which is to invent new ways of doing things more efficiently and create entirely new industries along the way, we may yet be able to negotiate the next few years with a minimum of disruption. If, despite all of our efforts,t he United States continues down the road to a failing European model welfare state, many Americans will begin to Drop Out, although in ways that Timothy Leary would have trouble recognizing. The early signs are there: parents increasingly taking their children out of failing schools for Charter Schools and home schooling. This has always been available to the wealthy but is becoming much more available to the middle class. At the moment, the local food movement is small and available to the wealthy, but as farming becomes yet another industry amenable to IT, local farming will become far more productive (ie, cheaper) and food availability will no longer be hostage to functioning just in time networks. (It is also likely that animal proteins will eventually be grown in vats rather than on the hoof, which will obviate many dietary and ethical issues.)
The three things that have always limited Resiliency have been the cost of energy, poorly distributed expertise and capacity for manufacturing, and the availability of food. Desktop fabricators are already allowing the glimpse of a new manufacturing base in which machined parts become available to anyone or any community with a fabricator and an Internet connection. Solar cells and fuel cells are slowly approaching a break even point with regards to price and efficiency. Small, highly efficient gardening techniques (farm in a box kits?) are becoming practical alternatives for anyone or any community with open space and sunlight. In practical terms, this means that a small community will be able to manufacture the basics, support their energy demands, and feed themselves even if their are chaotic disruptions to the supply chain. In fact, several such disruptions are all it would take for such movements toward Resilient Communities to explode.
As long as the national government does a minimally competent job in maintaining our security and wealth, few will make the move to a Resilient Communities ethic. However, another 9/11, an escalating series of terror attacks, gasoline at $5 a gallon and other unpredictable shocks to the system will change the current equation for the intrepid 20% and we are finally at that moment in history that Dropping Out does not mean subsistence living but in fact can be amenable to a high tech lifestyle.
Update: Joe Katzman reminds us today of a likely candidate to lend an urgent impetus to the Resilient Communities idea:
What's Killing Afghanistan's Poppies?
Because something certainly seems to be doing so. My personal guess, shared by a friend of mine, is pleospora papaveracea, a fungus that attacks poppies, but leaves other plants alone.
...
The fungus is found in India, Nepal, and Pakistan, so it could be natural. Especially given the Taliban's kick-up of cross-border people flows who handle poppies on both side of the border.
On the other hand, it could also be introduced; the American strategy does indeed seem to quietly revolve around sitting on the poppy growers in Helmland, per Staretgy Page's "This Is The Plan". ...
But how would we know?
...
Something to contemplate, as we face a religion for whom suicide-murder attacks on civilians have become, among many, the highest moral example.
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