Editorial

Apocalypto-Nihilism

Three fatal system errors and three mass “aha!” moments.

Apocalypto-Nihilism

Post Krieg, 2009 – Jean-Charles de Castelbajac

Imagine our global system disintegrates. Hunkered down in scattered pockets of survival, people try to adapt to the savage new landscape: scavenging for bits of food and water and defending themselves against marauding bandits. Imagine the recriminations and the finger-pointing as this dark age dawns … the gut-wrenching autopsy of our murdered way of life. What picture of blame would emerge? What were our fatal system errors and who among us was responsible for making them?

Culprit #1 would undoubtedly be the economists. How could this prolific class of scholars, wreathed in medals and PhDs, have led us so far astray? How could they not see that every product in the global marketplace was valued incorrectly, and that every purchase pushed us deeper into the cosmic red? And how could they, like villagers with their backs to Vesuvius, simply keep counting the money while the end drew so ominously near?

Culprit #2 would be the unholy alliance of commercialism and communication, which transformed our information delivery systems into tools of mass merchandizing. Why did we allow a cavalry of marketing hits to assail our minds every minute of every day, each of them telling us the same lie: that to live is to consume and to consume is to live?

Culprit #3 would be the corporation, or rather the way we abdicated our reason and endowed it with the legal rights of a human being. In doing so we created more than a person – we created a living monolith, stronger than any man and impervious to all assault. A supreme being who, once animated, could never, ever be stopped.

Now … imagine the power of three incidents of collective recognition. Three mass “aha!” moments in which we identify our fatal system errors and fix them, preempting the ultimate crash. First we break the unholy alliance of commercialism and communication and clean up the toxic areas of our mental commons … then we design a global marketplace in which the price of every product tells the ecological truth … and, finally, we kill the corporate “I” and get capitalism bubbling from the bottom up again.

Are we capable of such meta-level systems tinkering? Can we pull this thing off?

—Kalle Lasn

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Nihilism and Revolution

Adbusters #84 July/August 2009

Nihilism and Revolution

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July
01, 2009
02:29 pm
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"...brain-dead from the neck up." Being that no human being has their brain "neck down," I'd say you are one smart cookie. — Anonymous
July
06, 2009
11:12 pm
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I’ve been told that, as a male, my brain is well below my neck. Above my knees, though. — heat6622
June
30, 2009
08:00 pm
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"Are we capable of such meta-level systems tinkering? Can we pull this thing off?" No, you can't. And I'll tell you why. We are talking about a massive emergent system here. That is what society is. That is what the economy is. It's a vast emergent structure. If you try to "tinker" with it, if you try to regulate it or manage it, you will only cause instability. When a man decides he wants a nice, uniform, green lawn, he pipes in water, he applies fertilizer (re-distributing resources). He hires a gardener to bull out all the un-desirable species. The result is a nice uniform green lawn. A nice uniform green lawn that is eco-logically ruined. Deprived of bio-diversity and natural systems of resource allocation and structure, the eco-system is un-sustainable. As soon as the man stops tending the lawn, it will flower into proliferation again or, if the man grew his lawn in an un-sustainable region, the awn will die. This is what we are doing, when were try to control or fix society. This is what the government does, it destroys order, it destroys diversity, and it destroys sustainability. Why are we where we are? Because since the beginning we've convinved ourselves that we need to appoint man-gods to control society, to regulate, to coerce, and to punish us like the bad children we feel we are. We are not bad children, we are all made of stars. "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" -Aleister Crowley — Anonymous
July
11, 2009
04:43 pm
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Hey, what if “what I wilt”=government regulation of this secondary shadow government we call “corporations.” Um… then is THAT the whole of the law? But I wish more libertarians used this ecosystems metaphor. I wonder when they’ll see that an ecosystem is a far more complex emergent structure than a simplistic economy. Yet, the currents of business move us toward “engineering” our entire world system into a series of consumer products. Oh, but THAT’s ok! — Anonymous
July
17, 2009
12:48 pm
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So what is your solution if it is not a market based, privatized solution? Move us toward engineering our societal system into a series of laws and regulations? The competitive free market is closer to nature than any homogenized, monopolized, regulated state. — Anonymous
June
30, 2009
06:49 pm
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CULPIT #4 SELF-INTEREST AND THE INABILITY FOR HUMAN BEINGS TO RECOGNIZE SELF-RESPONSIBILITY AND COMMON SENSE. The fact is this: people ALL OVER KNOW that this world is in SERIOUS trouble, AND YET NOBODY WILL lift a finger to do ANYTHING ABOUT IT. Human beings are disgusting, self-absorbed, walking shitbags busily consuming the world with- not one consideration to anything other than THEMSELVES. "AS LONG AS MY LIFE IS ALRIGHT, THEN THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS! SCREW EVERYONE ELSE, BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY "GOD" LOVES ME BEST. WHERE ARE MY AIR JORDANS?" Kalle, you've just scratched the surface. The only thing that might... might make a difference whether or not we make it through the Next Dark Ages is a one-world government and monetary system (although No Money is preferable to me). The problems in this world are too difficult for one country to tackle properly. — Darryl Thomas
June
30, 2009
07:29 pm
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I agree with this 100 percent, as long as both you and I are willing to gruop ourselves into the "shitbag" category instead of acting as though we are superior. We are just as guilty as those we point our fingers at, if not more. — Anonymous
July
04, 2009
10:35 am
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Anon (if that’s your real name), your conditional agreement is irrelevant to the situation, thus missing the point. It’s not about “acting superior” when one points something out. This attitude of “don’t judge lest you be judged,” is one I have seen plenty in my life, thanks to the Gospels. Jesus didn’t make this clear, because “judging” and “getting to the point” are completely different. I characterized worshippers of consumerism as “walking shitbags” intentionally in the most direct terms, as shitbags who consume and shit and don’t care (or know) where the shit goes. I mean, that PERFECTLY describes beings living in the First World. Your conditional agreement tells me you accept the condition of the world as it is, placing you firmly in the camp of those who know that the world is in trouble but will do nothinng about it. I mean, why would anyone go through all that TROUBLE? You’d have to give up your life - in every sense of the word. I can certainly get behind NIHILISM as a rejection of all knowledge and spirituality. Knowledge and religion has gotten us nowhere… other than a place where we accept our enslavement to the System. Pathetic programmable human robots… Keep On Consumin.’ — Anonymous
June
30, 2009
08:36 pm
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Anonymous, True that: I will not pretend that I am not part of our economic system. However, instead of resigning ourselves to a nihilistic message and pointing fingers at culprits, we should all (“scholars wreathed in medals and PhDs” included!) try to make this a better world by everyday actions. Let’s look back at History for a second: do you remember the hurricane Katrina? I remember very well the medias trying to find the culprits, accusing the government, the local population, the engineers who built the levees, politicians, etc. While this was going on, people were living in unsanitary conditions, unable to leave New Orleans to find shelter and proper emergency facilities. Our attention was brought to the wrong question: what caused the levees to break instead of how do we help now? Today, in critical economical and environmental times, we must concentrate on how to fix these problems and how to improve the system. In order to do so, it helps to understand the causes of the problems, but we must not get stuck at this step of the solution. And remember, Adbusters, you don’t need “meta-level systems tinkering” to help. Little actions can go a long way when a million people participate. First of all, let’s all say no to nihilism! Yours truly, Gibb’s Free Energy — Gibb's Free Energy
June
30, 2009
05:40 pm
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M. Lasn, I will address your blaming the economists and scholars argument. First of all, you are blaming this “prolific class of scholars” for “leading us astray”. It is not the role of scholars to lead society; they instead do research, by observing objectively an area of the world. In this specific case, economists look at one basic feature of any human sedentary society (or even nomad in some cases): the exchange of goods between its consisting individuals, whether it is framed by a capitalist, arnachist, anarcho-capitalist, or communist system. Research in this domain is obviously focused on capitalism, as this is the current system in which most societies work in. But I would not be surprised that there is a large amount of research also done on alternative economical systems, evaluating their pros and cons objectively. Secondly, scholars, “wreathed in medals and PhDs” as you put it, also teach people. This duty is probably their most honourable one, as it allows a large number of citizens to better understand the basis of, in this case, the economic system in which they live in. It is then up to the students to decide if it is good or not, and if they will partake in it or not. But they will do so having good arguments to reason with, provided by specialists with PhDs and medals. So please leave the scholars and the economists in peace. They are only trying to make this world better through research and education. If I understand your first argument well, you are actually blaming the people who are participating in the system and making it work. But who are they? They are people who are paying for an internet connection to read this article, who are paying their rent each month, who are buying food at the market, in other words, every individual who participates in our current economical system. Finally, please refrain from using lyrical writing and poor arguments to spread a message of nihilism and pessimism, because it leads nowhere. Yours truly, Gibb’s Free Energy — Gibb's Free Energy
June
30, 2009
05:32 pm
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Who cares about corporations, consumption and economists when we got Argentinian love adventures, the death of an icon and Wimbledon to obsess on. — media joe
June
30, 2009
04:16 pm
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i have vivid visions of people living in the future cursing us for not derailing the economic machine that accepts nothing short of world-destruction. this is largely based on me cursing my elders that stood by or actively participated in the decimation of lakes and rivers previously teeming with salmon, pike, sturgeon and trout. the pores of my yet-to-come peers will ooze cancer, their breast milk be laced with dioxin and their bellies will be empty. "there is no future" won't be a snarky mantra they'll say to each other, but a devastatingly real inheritance they can't disavow, forfeit or transform into sweetness with tender lies. as ever, for the wild. — mikezephyr
June
30, 2009
03:39 pm
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Infantile thoughts disguised in flowery language. If we could just get rid of corporations, consumption, and economists, we'd be alright! — Diamond.46

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