The Eve of Destruction !? …
Something has indeed gotten too big and unwieldy and seems headed for a totalitarian abyss, but what the fuck is it, really?
The post by Debbie Lerman linked to below presents a fascinating discussion. I’ve been following CJ Hopkins for a while now, having originally been turned on to his genius by his supporter and my acquaintance Matt Taibbi. I have to confess I remain firmly on the fence as to whether to accept CJ’s contention that the world-dominating system of “GlobalCap” is sufficient to blindly and unintentionally push humanity into the totalitarian cul-de-sac in which we’ve found ourselves, without the help of some sort of shadowy multigenerational “cabal” of committed feudalists whom “conspiracy theorists” keep insisting are driving the bus. Despite being as agnostic about this intellectual schism as I am about religion, spirituality and everything else, I’m going to keep writing fiction (and even some opinion pieces) AS IF I were a stone conspiracy theorist, because, frankly, it’s a lot more fun. Also, living in the aptly named Empire State for almost my entire life and noticing/investigating and getting threatened by the mobsters, lawyers and politicians who actually are involved in dastardly conspiracies, it’s not difficult to extrapolate that this shit might be happening all the way up a treacherous global ladder to some ancient, gold-plated lair deep inside a Swiss mountain.
Still, it’s entirely possible that CJ is onto something, assigning intent and agency to an extra-biological systemic organism he calls “global capitalism.” Somewhere in part 2 of the conversation linked below, he expands upon his theory, veering into what — please correct me if I’m wrong, CJ — seems to be metaphysical territory. To CJ, the GlobalCap “system” is much more than a mere mechanical concept. It’s a quasi-living, functionally sentient entity that evinces desires and seeks to achieve goals and has been busy mutating and evolving, especially over the last 35 years or so since the Soviet Union collapsed, leaving this dominating system with no rival systems to fuck with. Rupert Sheldrake with his concept of “morphic resonance” seems to be on a similar thought track, ascribing collectively subconscious oneness of thought and action to region-wide and even worldwide groups of genetically and historically related beings, including humans … in the way enormous flocks of birds organize themselves in flight into swift-moving, shape-shifting kinetic sculptures. To CJ, individual power players and “cabals” are, in and of themselves, interchangeable and replaceable parts of the greater system. When one individual or powerful group dies or fades into history, another fills the vacated slot to fulfill that function. The system is the driving force. Rupert, in his theory, includes planets, stars and galaxies as subject to this sort of fundamental force as well, assigning cooperative agency and intelligence to each group of like entities, from subatomic particles all the way up to and including the entire universe.
So who knows? Maybe we’re not screwed after all.
Anyway, whether or not Rupert and/or CJ are right, things don’t look from here like they’re going to end that well, unless we life-affirming bleeding hearts who want the world and universe to evolve into a peaceful fucking English garden rather than devolving into a toxic flaming butthole get our collectively unconscious shit together pretty damn quick and influence this big unwieldy motherfucker off the shoals.
Sorry for the metaphor-mixing, but for fuck’s sake …
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: violence and revolution will bounce back and bite you in the ass, every time. I’m not even close to being sure what WILL help ward off the inevitable, but if CJ and Rupert have a snowball’s chance of being right, it wouldn’t hurt for every single one of us 8.2 billion assholes to stop carping for five minutes every hour and say something like this, out loud to the universe:
“I seek only for myself and my children to live in peace and harmony with the fucking cosmos. Let’s all live long and prosper, and figure out how to make things better for all, without wrecking shit.”
As a dude who writes songs, I can’t always help myself. Here’s a song that probably won’t help:
https://on.soundcloud.com/5krdDVBZYg3JXQNb8
Meanwhile, here’s the promised link:
Forgive me for starting with this sentence, but it's true: I did my dissertation on how intentionality emerges in complex adaptive systems (which can be bacteria, a starling murmuration, a person, a society). It was later published as The Biologist's Mistress: Self-Organization in Art, Literature and Nature. You could say I have a PhD in conspiracy theory.
For a system like GloboCap to become a system, it has to be made of of individuals with their own goals and key players engaged in their own conspiracies, but with feedback and selection for conformity, the system builds self-reinforcing mechanisms that tend to constrain what people will do, even those at the top "controlling" things.
The key principle governing today's society is the fact that power is defined by how many digits you have in your bank account. Anyone who thinks that the powerful aren't going to just add zeroes to their digits is stupid. Our civilization has invented the most corruptible kind of system possible. In this sense, I agree with C. J. that totalitarianism is inevitable under these conditions.
What's the solution? It has something to do with the fact, as you noted elsewhere, that we are the HOSTS for the GloboCap parasites. We make/grow things; there is land under our feet and roofs over our heads. We could assert our control over material reality and let them keep their meaningless digits in their bank accounts. Somehow.