Metaconsciousness: Mythology for a Post-Civilized World
Chapter 5 | Contents | Chapter 7
In the previous chapter, I observed that "the perils of trackless jungles and over-hanging canyons notwithstanding, the most difficult and formidable obstacle facing any would-be contemporary diversity generator is reaching the decision to desert the 'main-stream,' and face the hazards of seeking higher ground." I have a friend who aptly calls it the "meanstream."
Reaching the decision really is a formidable obstacle, for consider: everyone reading this, including its Author – and practically everyone not reading it – has been born and raised in the thick of civilization, with an unbroken heritage, generation upon generation, for the past five thousand years. We have all imbibed from birth the unquestioned mantras of civilization:
All these things we have believed, without question or doubt, and in most cases, without even conscious awareness. Is it any wonder that anyone nay-saying any of these presumed "axiomatic truths" should appear to most civilized people as a madman? I certainly will not complain if any reading these pages should think me so; for I, who have been raised more or less like my peers, know intimately the long path I have taken on the way to the conclusions I have so far reached, and cannot "blame" anyone who has not taken a similar path, or reached similar conclusions. Therefore, if I seem to "bash civilization" in what may seem to some an "extreme manner," you may be sure I do so "in a purely Pickwickian sense." Which is to say, without malice toward anyone – including even "the secret band of robbers and murders" of which Lysander Spooner1 wrote so passionately over a century ago.
Nevertheless, it remains a stubbornly immovable fact that civilization doesn't work, and all who remain tangled in its coils are swiftly approaching the Abyss from which there is no further escape.2 Those of us who can see our peril must desert the "mainstream," and transplant ourselves on higher ground – or perish in the attempt, for we shall surely perish otherwise; or worse, live as slaves.3
We are not the first civilized people to have faced the prospect of abandoning our civilization. Quinn cites numerous examples, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, which have done exactly this.4 Ours is the unique privilege (so far as we "know") of having to abandon a global civilization. In the past there has always been a frontier, beyond which the tentacles of civilization had not yet reached. There was always a jungle, or a trackless desert, or an unexplored continent into which those peoples for whom civilization had lost its luster could vanish. Today, civilization is the jungle; so our predicament takes a somewhat different form.
Although in terms of "space" and "time," there is "nowhere to go" on Earth that has not already been preempted by civilization, there is "somewhere to go" in terms of alternatives to the patterns offered by civilization. These alternatives are patterns of the tribe, and of the "prehistoric" partnership civilizations which evolved from Neolithic roots,5 which have a proven track record stretching back millions of years into the human past – with the caveat, already mentioned, that pre-civilized and contemporary tribes haven't performed very well when confronted by dominator civilizations.
So how does a post-civilized tribe deal effectively with any manifestation of dominator civilization? This we must learn, or perish; and having learned, must never forget. We are advantageously situated right now in the very midst of the last days of global civilization run amok – so we have to deal with it, or die trying. If any of us succeed, we will have accomplished something monumental for the follow-on generations of all humanity. If none of us succeed... humanity may as well never have set foot upon the Earth. These are the stakes in the game we are playing. As the dwarf Gimli cheerfully remarked in the recent film version of The Return of the King, "Small chance of success; large probability of getting killed: what are we waiting for?" (Or words to that effect.)
If we're waiting for anything, I believe it must be for the emergence of a mythology that will transport us reliably away from the "mainstream" and toward a post-civilized social pattern that we can effectively implement beyond civilization. And I believe it is incumbent upon us to invent or discover such a mythology, and to put it into effect in our individual lives.
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2. Well, that is from the perspective of we particular individuals living our particular and local lives here on Earth. The myth of metaconsciousness, however, assures us that "we" are really One, without beginning or end, and hence are ultimately invulnerable to such "trivial" matters as the potential destruction of humanity, along, possibly, with all life on the planet. However, it is precisely from the perspective of an individual human and Earthly inhabitant that I speak; and I don't mind saying, from my limited perspective, that the Abyss is an eventuality I for one would passionately like to evade; for I see much richer potentials for our "little lives," provided we are able to escape this looming peril.
3. It may be of some solace to know that, when it comes to "living as slaves," we may rest assured that the condition will abide for only "a little while longer;" for it remains an irreducible fact that the existing slave-state, civilization, is inherently and irredeemably unsustainable, and therefore shall not be sustained very much longer on planet Earth. There; is that any comfort to you?
4. Quinn, 1999.
5. See Chapter 11, p. 86, ff., and Chapter 16.
Metaconsciousness: Mythology for a Post-Civilized World
Chapter 5 | Contents | Chapter 7