The Secular End of Days: How Good People Get Greedy

Al Gore gave a stirring speech in Oslo on Monday, upon his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize.

As you might have expected, he made the case that people all over the world are burying their heads in the sand when it comes to global warming. With his unique tone (mixing, as it always does, self-consciousness and high-mindedness), Gore urged that we all need to pull our heads out of the sand and open our eyes. As he put it:

"'[W]hen large truths are genuinely inconvenient, whole societies can, at least for a time, ignore them. Yet as George Orwell reminds us: 'Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield'."

When reading this part of Gore's speech, I experienced an epiphany. A goddamned epipany. And it wasn't just about global warming.

Here's what hit me: Gore is wrong on one crucial point. People are not ignoring the inconvenient truths of our time, such as the rising concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, or the extreme disparities in wealth in the world. On the contrary, despite their uncertainty as to specifics, people are very aware of these issues. Innundated by images and data from the internet and the media, people know what is going on.

I am not saying that people know the finepoints of the science or how to analyze the numbers. But we are not "imprisoned by a dangerous illusion," as Gore suggests; we do not need to awaken to a new "truth force"; we are not looking to be "steered by the stars". We get it.

It's how we're dealing with it that's the problem.

I would go so far as to say that, increasingly in the last 20 years or so, the central orienting position in people's minds in the developed world is that the good times are not going to last much longer.

So Gore is speaking to his audience of solutions and readiness, "a bright and hopeful future." He ends: "We have a purpose. We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act."

But people have already heard the news. And they are not rising to the purpose he's got in mind. They are acting more and more out of a sense of scarcity -- they are digging in, battening down the windows, putting up higher, automated gates and fences, enjoying the holidays within their own small circle, shutting the world out.

Why do I say this?

Take a look at our political landscape. The health care debate, for example. Last night I saw Michael Moore's Sicko. In the film he points to the mystery of why, in a country of so many good, kind, charitable people, we do not consider it important to provide health care for all citizens. Well, guess why, Michael? It's because people have a sense that this ship is sinking anyway, and they better take care of their own family first. They have lost confidence in the idea of making a difference. At least, they reflect, they have their own private insurance plan, however unreliable. The idea of risking that for the larger community is suspect.

Or take our national debt and the growing debt for American households. What explains the conspicuous consumption of the superrich in this country? And the apparent lust felt by the consuming masses when they see the TV shows and the magazine spreads on this conspicuous consumption? What explains the desire of the many to imitate the luxury lifestyle of the few, even when it means falling into debt? The attitude, again, is: You better enjoy it now. It ain't gonna last.

Or take the so-called "hotbutton" issues in today's politics. The heat is the result of people's fear that America is in its end of days -- and the things we hold most dear are going to be snatched away soon. Immigration? What your hear on the Right is that the Mexicans are stealing our opportunities and want the land back (the myth of the "Reconquesta"!). The environment? The market-driven ads suggest that you better drive your yellow Humvee fast, while you can, before the oil supplies run out. Religion and politics? The impulse seems to be: if the end is coming, my values are my last defense -- and so I need to see them enshrined in law.

The global awareness brought on by the arrival of the information age has changed domestic priorities.

This is the secular end of days.

This is how good people get greedy.

*

What can I add from the perspective of a parent?

Well, let's bring it home.

It's like when you shouldn't eat those two remaining Christmas cookies on the plate left over from the party... but then again, if you just take them both then they will be gone and the anxiety you feel will be over. So you reach out and begin the binge that will herald the end. I don't mean to trivialize it, but ours is the left-over Christmas cookie era.

So how do we stop it? How do we reverse course? How do good people get un-greedy?

That is the true challenge ahead. It's not a question of ridding ourselves of ignorance; it's a question of ridding ourselves of our sense of coming loss.

As a parent, I try to emphazise to my children that they can have a cookie later. Or there will be some other treat after their nap. I emphasize that this is not their last great idea.

It strikes me that the environmental movement to end carbon emissions and reverse global warming will only work effectively when people have a vision of a treat on the other side of it. We have to develop a vision of a society which functions without carbon emissions, and with a more equal distribution of resources between and within nations.

But Communism is discredited. "Socialism" is vague. Green has become another political slogan. A widescale return to small, aboriginal communities is impractical. So what's the vision? What is the secular and nonreligious vision of the Second Coming? We need it more than we would like to admit.

And as Gore says, we may not have long. We have to learn to dream again.

Comments

[Jonathan]

My wife and I have a similar observation about a simple everyday thing -- the baggage carousel. Have you noticed how everyone crowds right up next to the thing looking for their own bag, blocking the view of those behind them?

If those folks could take one or two steps back, then everyone could see. Instead, only the aggressive people who have only themselves in mind can see what's on the carousel, and that's okay with them, since we're apparently only in it for ourselves these days.

If we could somehow convince everyone that it's in ALL of our BEST INTERESTS to work together, then these problems would not become crises, or at least, they might be less so.

[ASpear]

Tom --

been meaning to actually record some thoughts here, first and foremost that I'm enjoying reading all of this, and am grateful to you for stimulating discussion on many fronts (I had an intriguing conversation on the playground about your Thomas the Tank Engine post of a few weeks back).

Today, though, I have to say I think I'm with Al, and that while I agree with you that part of the problem is our reaction to what we (think we) know, I don't think we have fully assessed the magnitude of the problems that face us on the climate front.

I sense a mood in what I see of our culture (which is the Berkeley, we-know-the-planet's-getting-hotter-and we-need-to-compost-and-drive-less, very limited corner of the culture) which suggests that -- as human nature proves again and again -- we're all hoping that we can tinker with our habits and make the problem go away. Or, more to the point, that we can tinker with our habits (recycle diligently, be good about composting, buy those cmpact fluorescent bulbs, turn off lights when we leave rooms, drive more fuel-efficient cars, etc.) and wait for some really sharp scientists to figure out the bigger solutions to this problem. As in most situations where a significant change of habits (or, really, lifestyles) is necessary, we're not going to do anything major until the crisis comes to our doorstep.

It's coming. We do know that, at least in some vague way. Or we say we do. But we aren't acting like we really know it -- we're acting like we do when we think the solution to the problem is a relatively easy one. And that's where Al Gore is right -- we pay lip service to the notion that the world is changing, but for the most part, we're still doing all the things we were doing five years ago. We know that the polar bears are losing their habitat, that ocean coral is disappearing, but all of that, for most of us, is still pretty abstract. (And when I say 'most of us,' I mean most of us who actually read those articles and think about them, which, let's remember, isn't most of the country.)

And in case we need a reminder of that, check out the Times story today about how the US is preventing much substantive action at the Bali conference right now.

Now, here it's probably relevant to cite the comparison of the homes of Al Gore and George W. Bush, if you haven't already seen it at http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp, and for me to admit that despite my words here, I'm still in the adjust-my-habits-and-I'll-be-part-of-the-solution camp. It's not going to be easy to reform our ways and live more simply; we've not been raised with that in mind, and our economy is driven, in fact, by an opposite kind of behavior.

The problems are deep-seated. But we're going to have to face them -- or, as may be most relevant (though given the most lip-service, too) to readers of this blog, it'll be our kids whose lives will be nothing like ours, and who will be making the sacrifices.

Are we going to have to get as extreme as the family in New York who's spending the year buying absolutely nothing at all? I'm guessing not. But the reality may be closer to their example than to the way we all live right now.

Maybe, in the vein of the folks who posted above, what we have to do is at least shuffle away from the baggage carousel a little bit -- and if we all do that we'll start to see things a bit more clearly.

But saying that and then actually taking the step back... well, it's not as easy to do as it sounds. It's going to take -- well, it's going to take more than an adjustment in our thinking, and more of the significant shift that Al suggests. I wonder what he's done with his house since the story about it surfaced on the web... and I wonder what else I need to be doing right now...

[DemocratDad]

ASpear, you're right that we do little things and ignore the enormity of the problem. But again, what big shift would work? What is the dream? You mention that couple in NY that lives without buying anything -- http://www.noimpactman.com. Well I guess now there's a book and a movie coming out. Imagine the impact of those marketing efforts...

Thanks for the feedback! Great to hear from you.

[Lord Sekular]

We need to boycott bad companies who are running us and our freedom into the underground. NASA was made not for life in space, but for life on Earth after Dizazstar and so far only the elite have tickets for their "space" program.