Imagine All The People

I’ve been listening to Rachel Donald’s podcast Planet Critical, and a question has been on my mind these past days: why is the planet in crisis? 

We’re living through a polycrisis the likes of which humanity has never seen. A single crisis - like a health crisis, for instance - may have well-defined edges and a known or mostly known duration, but what is a polycrisis? How exactly does it differ from a traditional crisis? A polycrisis is a crisis which takes the shape of the mythological Greek hydra; a serpent with many heads. Each of the crises in the series connects to and interacts with each other crisis, in a sort of vast and frightening web fraught with spiders. The economic crisis, the food crisis, the climate crisis, the ecological crisis, the energy crisis, the meaning crisis, and the civilizational crisis - which each of the other crises threatens to collapse - are just a few of the interrelated crises circling like vultures overhead. Humanity, at this moment in time, seems perched on the perilous and precarious edge of a slowly eroding cliff face. We are adrift. The galloping hooves of calamity sound out madly as they draw in from all sides; city and statewide water shortages, droughts, floods, landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, total crop losses, disruptions to the global food supply chain and the annual forest fires increasing in their frequency and devastation. Doom is on the menu. 


All around the common citizen, institutions are failing. Political parties no longer serve their constituents but instead seek to enrich wealthy donors and suck at the teat of powerful corporate benefactors who will invariably fund their next campaign bids. Looking towards the ostensibly infallible wisdom of Western Democracy, we can see events like January 6th signaling sure signs of rot and decay gnawing away at the lies of ‘liberty and justice for all.’ Recent Supreme Court rulings in America, rendered by the corrosive hive-mind of a hyper-conservative Republican majority, have decided that the president is above the rule of law and cannot be tried for criminal acts.  


Following the money reveals that short-term gains in the form of profits are to be protected at all costs and, everything else, like sustainability, consumer and environmental safety, resilience, self-sufficiency, public education & community, and even physical mental and spiritual health have been relegated to the realm of fatuous banality. These things are discretionary afterthoughts, not the primary focus of our economic machinations. 


Many people, when assessing the situation and inventorying the possible causes, eventually point the finger at capitalism as the likely culprit. And it’s true, there hasn’t been a more fitting villain in hundreds - if not thousands - of years. Capitalism is a predatory system that knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing. It’s predicated on exploitation, extraction, dehumanization, and the destruction of Earth’s natural resources and ecosystems. The glove fits. But what if capitalism is simply a symptom of a still larger problem? This doesn’t make capitalism any less odious, of course, but it gives us pause. 


Personally, I believe there are a complex set of systems interacting to produce a complex set of problems. If we’re looking for a single system or person or thing to blame, we’re not going to find it. But if instead we look toward how seemingly separate processes and vectors of influence converge to create imbalances and inequality, oppression, colonialist expansion, endless war and genocide, fear and alienation…then we might get closer to the root of it all. We may uncover a polyproblem. 


Over the last month, while working on a permaculture farm in southern Slovenia, I’ve been spending a lot of time weeding garden beds. From tenacious grassroots, to thickets of stubborn brambles - and everything in between - I’ve been noticing how the majority of our perception occurs at the surface level. Most things we see in life are like icebergs: they have an entire existence concealed below the surface of the water. This isn’t just true in the garden or in cold oceans, it’s true everywhere we look. What we perceive affects what we think. Take roots, for example. Once we establish the concept of root structures, it changes the way we approach weeds and briars. Now, although unseen when viewed from above ground, the wholeness of the plant is more thoroughly realized - as is what needs to be done to uproot the plant. Sure, the time and effort it takes to dig into the soil to locate and then extract the root takes considerably more energy, but it provides a more complete and lasting solution. Similarly, it takes far more focus and exertion to look inside ourselves and search for the cause of our own unhappiness, dissatisfaction, anger, frustration and sadness. In a culture glutted on instant gratification and quick fixes, it’s natural to embrace distraction, to escape into drugs and alcohol and holidays and food and sex or gambling, or, my personal favorite, suckling the sweet and carnally creamy brew from a pair of swollen and glistening goat tits; anything to avoid the dirty job of clawing through that seemingly impenetrable soul-soil. 


But if we were to pass our fingers through the loam and earth, what might we find? What complex relations between ground, insect, fungi, plant, water and temperature would we discover? It would depend on when we looked, I suppose. In the throes of summer, or perhaps during an autumn rain? Maybe when those frosty blankets of white ice drift down over the land in the dark quiet of winter?  


I’d like to make a brief point here about the season I omitted: spring. There’s something very powerful about this season in particular. So often, when discussing topics such as ecological collapse or the manifold other crises we face, we are likely to succumb to cynicism and pessimism. Right now things seem dire. They are dire. Hopeless, even. But imagine for a second you are an alien arriving to earth 500,000 years ago. Your spaceship crashes and is completely destroyed. You’re stranded on this strange and vibrant planet teeming with life and lush vegetation. Calendars haven’t been invented yet, and months and seasons still move unnamed, but when you arrive the days are hot and long. The planet appears a paradise full of proud abundance and unlimited diversity. Some time passes and you notice the days growing subtly cooler. Shorter. Darkness seems to greet you sooner each coming night. Fewer bugs buzz around your ears. Leaves dry out and begin falling from the trees. A sense of surprise and also perhaps worry rushes by on the breeze as you observe the verdant green forests and valleys awash in orange, yellow and red. Alarm continues to rise as the trees seem to rust and become more and more bare - food more scarce. What has become of those endless days of plenty from the time before? By the looks of it, the world around you seems to be withering and dying. You find it is no longer very comfortable to be in the chilled air during the night as you struggle to keep warm. Each day it’s darker and colder and no creatures seem to stir. Soon the sky itself seems to be dissolving, shedding small pieces of pale skin that either become cold stone or melt away in the morning light. The entire ecosystem appears to be breaking down all around you. You spend your days shivering, expending sizable energy scavenging for food which you can scarcely find. Frigid cold and darkness surround you, taunt you, penetrate you. Somehow the world which was before so wonderful seems suddenly wicked, cursed and cruel. You are forsaken, alone. Doomed.  


Impossibly, it gets worse each and every day. What terrible luck, you think, to have been marooned on a planet precisely at the moment of its death.  


And then…inconceivably, out of this wretched dark lifelessness comes a brilliant eruption of color and fragrance. Wispy particles of pollen float on the air, buoyant and dancing. Big bumble bees buzz, delighting on each dandelion. Pink cherry blossoms open like miniature umbrellas along the length of their thin branches. On warmer days, beautiful blushes of birdsongs tweet out from the tops of budding trees. How can it be, you ask yourself. In the face of certain death, miraculously, you are witnessing rebirth; something emerging from nothing. 


And this is the message of spring. It is a message of hope. Of life’s perseverance. Of surprise and magic and enigmatic wonder. It’s a lesson to us that even when confronted with insurmountable odds, there is still the chance for change.  


So, returning to the soil. What’s lurking there in our collective and shadowy human underworld? What abstract concepts, myths, stories and embodied realities are nestled in the ground below our feet? In our cemeteries? Decomposing bodies being reclaimed by the earth. What must the earth drink in as it peels away the wrapper of our skin and tastes the marrow in our bones? We are born of nature and return to nature, all the while forgetting while we are alive that we are nature. And here we land at one of the core causes of our current predicament. The myth of separation. As modern humans we see ourselves as separate from nature. Although we are animals, we don’t identify as such. In our stories there is man and beast and the thing which sets man apart from beast is our capacity to reason and speak and use tools to create art and paint on the walls of caves. Once we see ourselves as separate we begin to elevate ourselves above the rest of nature. Both Abrahamic religions and science play a vital role in strengthening this divide. Religions because they place our attention not on life, but on the afterlife - making the material world around us simultaneously a meaningless holding-pen and a minefield of vile temptation and sin. Science seeks to know the world through investigation and experiment at a distance, mediated through tools and instruments instead of our sensate bodies. All of nature is to be dissected and deconstructed so that we can understand it and, in doing so, conquer it by stripping it of all its mystery and denying it the ability to confound us. Once we establish ourselves as not nature, nature becomes something for us to use, to have our way with, to enslave, to consume and plunder while we wait patiently for our ascension to our rightful place in the realm of the Gods. 


But the myth of separation cuts deeper still. It not only divorces us from nature, and from our own indigeneity, but it estranges us from ourselves and our immediate communities. Today, paradoxically, despite being more connected than ever before, alienation, loneliness and suicide are on the rise. We are conditioned, in an effort to promote the demented toxic individuality necessary for fueling continuous capitalist consumption, to perceive ourselves as discrete, autonomous entities with our own unique needs and desires. We are led to believe we are small islands of intense and mercurial yearning. You have one life to live and you better live it up! Just do it. A deep rooted preoccupation with the self becomes paramount. Fret and obsess over your self-image in a compulsively self-conscious way; feel shame and self-loathing when you fail to meet unrealistic beauty standards; buy a new nose, or new lips, restore a receding hairline, climb aboard a new dieting craze, take pills to make your penis bigger. Total self absorption is the norm in the modern era. Once this idea takes root, the lurid and kaleidoscopic world of advertising finds fertile soil to fulfill its role as enchanter. Now, as companies collect information on you via your browsing data, email exchanges, social media posts and mobile phone usage, your exact needs can be targeted and catered to. If you’re feeling sad, meaningless and empty, simply buy the products they show you and you’ll feel whole again. The temporary satisfaction wears off rather quickly though, and before you know it you’re accumulating debt to try and buy yourself happiness. Or, if you’re fortunate enough to have some disposable income, maybe you find yourself chasing lavish luxury items to show off status and wealth because you’re told these are the things which prove you are a success. Certainly money, status and material belongings will remove that nagging hollow feeling inside, right? 


One last thing worth noting on the topic of separation is our separation both from where the products we consume come from, and how they’re made. Our choices are made for us. It is practically impossible to untether from the current system. Consider taking a trip to the supermarket, for example. Where does the grain come from in the box of Honey Nut Cheerios that you buy for your child? What are the conditions like in the factory where the cereal is boxed and produced? What safety mechanisms are in place to prevent you or your child from eating contaminated food products? Or those bio bananas that you have in your cart; what country did they come from? If you’re somewhere in the United States or Central Europe they had to be imported from somewhere. Have you ever considered how unnatural it is to have access to tropical or summer fruit such as avocados, strawberries, or melon all year round? Maybe you eat seasonally and you only shop at local farmer’s markets. What about your computer? Or your smartphone? What are the conditions like for the factory worker in FOXCONN in China where they assembled this electronic device? Are children working there? Are people working 16hr shifts to meet production demands ahead of the upcoming iPhone release? And what of the ecological impacts of manufacturing these products; of sourcing the rare earth elements that make up the components? How could you know if native peoples were displaced and an entire ecosystem leveled so that corporations could set up a cobalt or lithium mining operation? Is it possible there might be chemical contaminants passing into the drinking water of people living downstream from the mine? Maybe you only buy used electronics and shop in thrift stores. You even recycle. But where do the materials you recycle go after the truck comes and empties them into the back? All the plastic and metal and glass and other things like polystyrene and batteries which are harder to dispose of? Are they in a landfill somewhere in the global south? By separating us from the full lifecycle of the production process, we are kept ignorant and in the dark. Many people never ask these questions. Why should they? What can be done about it? After all, it isn’t you exploiting foreign workforces or destroying animal habitats in the name of capital. A still darker side is that we can separate ourselves from that process as a sort of plausible deniability. 


Except it’s important to remember that merely by existing inside capitalist structures, we are made complicit in harm. For example, I’m a US citizen. Right now my tax dollars are being used to fund a genocide in Palestine. Companies and governments are acting without my consent against my best interests and against the interests of those people - both human and non-human - whom I am connected to but cannot protect. 


But surely everyone knows - or at least knows someone who knows - this, right? Some of these topics must get covered on college campuses. But what if you can’t afford college and lose your God-given right to get pepper-sprayed in the face or brutally bludgeoned by callous police officers clad in riot gear as you take a stand against tyranny to protect your First Amendment rights? Roughly one in three adults in the United States are college educated. What impact must this have on shaping the critical-thinking skills of the voting public? How can Americans make informed decisions on the topics discussed above? As a globally interconnected people, it’s more important now than ever before to acknowledge that the decisions made in one nation affect every other nation - sometimes disastrously. Look at how the ‘war on terror’ worked out. Or the ‘war on drugs,’ for that matter. Trump’s appointment of several rightwing Supreme Court justices have huge ramifications not just for the bodies of American women, but for the fate of migrants seeking asylum, for marginalized groups far and wide. The rise of fascism and rightwing authoritarianism across the globe is more than grim and foreboding - it’s a reminder that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Education is a prophylactic against ignorance. 

But what are our educational systems teaching us? Are they teaching us to think for ourselves, to question authority? Or are they instead breeding conformity? Are they instructing us from a young age on ways to metabolize our collective trauma and manage difficult emotions like anger, shame and sadness? Do they teach us how to grow our own food, or which forest mushrooms are edible, how to maintain and repair common appliances, or tell us which species of plants, insects and animals are native to our regions and what their roles are within the ecosystem? What about our bodies and sexuality? Are teenagers informed on safe sex, consent? How much time is spent speaking about mental well-being, spiritual health, purpose, personal and collective meaning? Are we taught how to measure a life well-lived? As far as I can tell, the school system isn’t aimed at teaching people practical skills, nor does it prepare them to become well-adjusted happy adults. School is for teaching kids how to become productive members of the workforce. It’s a form of conditioning designed to produce docile taxpayers who ask few questions and know how to hire an accountant and follow orders. Education is historically underfunded and teachers are notoriously underpaid. Higher education is prohibitively costly for many Americans. The situation is bleak. For a fun experiment, compare military budgets to the education budget. Or compare police funding to what’s spent on communities, homelessness, mental health services. Money always tells a story. 


One particularly pernicious consequence of a flawed educational system is that it doesn’t properly cultivate the imagination. In fact, tremendous amounts of energy and resources are marshaled to train this quality out of students. Artists and other creatives are actively encouraged to get a real job, or choose a major which can financially support them. Dreamers with their heads in the clouds are mocked and ridiculed and generally viewed as anomalies; as though only artists possess this special ability to create and imagine. Imagination is a feature of nature! Humans are nature. We are inherently imaginative. The issue is we aren’t strengthening this muscle. More on this in a moment. 


So you take the following ingredients: the myth of separation, an underfunded and mismanaged educational system, a profoundly stilted imaginative capacity, and then add a splash of religious dogma to promote the idea of an afterlife somewhere in a galaxy far, far away, a dollop of scientific fanaticism which offers explanations for all of the universe’s mysteries, mix in a heaping serving of multinational corporate conglomerates working alongside armies of marketing and advertizing firms intent on selling us happiness via the promise of rapidly evolving cutting-edge technologies aimed at making our lives more comfortable and more convenient, then gently stir as you consider that these same conglomerates are buying our politicians to ensure favorable tax cuts and unimpeded access to material accumulation at the expense of the poor and working classes while exploiting foreign labor markets and destroying the planet’s natural ecosystems. Put it all in the oven to bake and voilà - you start to understand the sordid and sad state of affairs humanity is in today. 


Of all the things mentioned so far, perhaps none are as serious as the damage which has been done to imagination. If this faculty were restored and properly revered, many of the other problems would become easier to solve. A brittle imagination is cause for myopic thinking, poor foresight, an inability to innovate and a tendency to get stuck in the same patterns of thought and belief. We are what we imagine ourselves to be. If we are pests, or a planetary virus, that’s what we will see. That’s how we will act. If we imagine we are separate from nature and that our species is supreme and capitalism is good and the earth is doing fine and global warming is a myth and the free market will take care of itself and success is a swollen wallet and independence is the most important pursuit, then that becomes our collective truth. But the power of imagination lies in its ability to change narratives, to invent new ones, to bend rules and circumvent perceived limitations. In its simplest expression, it is another way of looking at things. Humans have a great gift for telling stories. We do it all day, every day. There is enormous power in realizing we can tell ourselves a different story. Imagine a story centered around a global community of 8 billion allies working to make life better for all living things. We can arrange ourselves in a dazzling number of political configurations, and we’ve done so throughout the 200,000 years of our history. It is only now, in the modern era, that we seem to have become stuck - willing to remain fixed in a white, patriarchal, nation-state configuration which uses capitalism as a default economic model. It hasn’t always been this way, and it will not continue to be this way. There is a way out. If you can imagine it.