Wonderful interview. There are the old-fashioned liberals as you say and then this new group. The clear eyed (or “Purebloods” as my husband and I refer to ourselves) are seeking each other out. I feel most badly for young people who have so little support in this regard. My 27 y.o. daughter can speak openly to only one of her friends and the importance of young people seeing what is happening cannot be overstated. But the propaganda has been cultivated with the goal of from cradle to grave and I’m not sure how to break that apart. The uneducated (untainted) are ahead of us and maybe that is our only way out?
The carbon footprint of the ultra-rich is far bigger than that of, say, Africa. Make no mistake about the "population bomb": They made an issue of it, NOT because it's a real problem, but because it served as cover for their plan to wipe out "the unfit," and take the planet for themselves.
To my shame I only just listened to this and I now consider you, Mark, to be by far the most prescient commentator on current events. I have felt almost inarticulate ever since spring 2020 and the jaw-dropping coalescence of ALL media channels into a mass bullshit factory all the way over to the "Extreme Left" and including the entertainment sector ("Don't Look Up" - what a load of self-congratulating self-deceiving crap!).
And you are certainly right about TRYING to maintain a level head. My own recipe for just basic survival is NOT to get drawn into arguments with people who frankly haven't a fucking clue. They show a degree of psychosis that I never suspected them capable of. When I suggested that the BIG economic squeeze started before Putin made his move, one work colleague - normally likeable - briefly showed "body snatcher" tendencies - as in that bit where Donald Sutherland points his finger and goes "OOOOH!"
Wonderful interview, thank you Mark!! You mentioned at one point that the reason the Left has turned to the new Right is that CIA has infiltrated Left organizations and taken them over. Could you (or anyone else reading this) elaborate more on that in another interview/essay or direct me to a resource where I can learn more about this? Thank you!
Just a wonderful overview. I appreciate that both you and Tom have roots in the traditional liberal/left. Interviews with those who, though I may agree with them on many points, place themselves as right/conservative are often also engaging and informative, but won't be persuasive to my longtime liberal family and friends.
This interview is one I can share widely as it's succinct and doesn't have right wing sidecars.
Folks, The following may be pertinent herein. I posted on FB shortly after the outbreak of the “plandemic”. FYI. Mark, great chat. Posted on Twitter and VK.
Are we on the cusp of an Axial Age? Book Extract, posted and edited by Greg Maybury
👉🎯😎 ‘Between 900 and 200 BCE, a revolutionary transformation of ideas occurred simultaneously in civilisations across Eurasia from China to Greece. This “Axial Age” as the German existential philosopher Karl Jaspers famously labelled it, produced new categories and cosmologies to guide peoples’ thought, self understanding and religious and ethical views. During these centuries, people came to understand that they could use reason and reflection to see beyond their immediate reality and that societies exist in an extended flow of time and that we all have some capacity to exercise our agency to change our circumstances and fate, and that the mundane and spiritual worlds are fundamentally separate.
In Jaspers’ opinion, those of us alive today are the direct heirs of this transformation; we still think using fundamental categories and assumptions that emerged over a millennia ago. Could we be I wondered on the cusp of a new “Axial Age”, a transformation simultaneously around the world of the deepest principles guiding humankind’s diverse civilisations? And if it occurs, what might it look like. (To be sure, we cannot let the Bill Gates’ or the Jeff Bezos’ or the George Soros’ of this world determine it for us!)
More important, what would I want to come from this transformation? In planning for renewal after breakdown--for catagenesis*-- we need to have some idea of where we want to go to in the future, even if it's just an ideal goal that we know we can only partly achieve. And to figure out where out what our goal is we need to be clear headed about our values.
👍 In Western liberal societies public discussion of values is dreadfully impoverished.👍
As long as one person’s values don't interfere with other people's interests they’re usually considered a private matter. To the extent that we discuss values at all, we do so only when provoked by hot button issues such as abortion, drugs, race, sexuality, and political corruption.
And we often assume that most things around us in our societies don't involve value judgements of any kind. They’re just value-neutral facts of life. But whether or not we recognise the fact, people's values-often those of the most powerful among us-shape everything from the income gaps in our economies to the intimate details of how we lead our lives, such as where we live, work, and send our children to school.
In trying to make sense of values, I’ve long found it helpful to distinguish between three kinds. Utilitarian values are simple likes and dislikes were the one likes chocolate ice cream more than vanilla ice cream for instance. those are the values most familiar to economists and they dominate our consumerist culture. Moral values concern fairness and justice especially regarding things like the distribution of wealth, power, and opportunity among people across space and time.
Last but definitely not least, existential values apply to things that give our lives significance and meaning. Some people might call them spiritual values. They help us understand how we fit in the larger scheme of the universe, and they provide answers to questions like Why are we here? and What is the purpose of my life?
We all ask these questions when we're young until the obvious discomfort of adults around us makes us stop. Usually the adults tell us that we are naive and that we should take our annoying questions to a religious institution. When we get to the door of our nearest church, mosque or synagogue, we find there is no real opportunity for discussion. Instead we are handed a creed of some kind. We’re told what to think about values, not how to think about them.
Because we are reluctant or unable to talk about moral and existential values--and these values remain largely unexplored--utilitarian values fill the void. This is one reason why consumerism has developed such a firm grip on the psyches of so many of us in the West. Without a coherent notion of what will give our lives meaning we try to satisfy the need for meaning by buying ever more stuff.
In the process the mental muscle that allows us to think and talk about values in complex and sophisticated ways atrophies. Reduced to walking appetites, we lose resilience. We risk becoming hollow people with no character, substance or core--like eggshells that can be shattered or crushed with one sharp shock.
[Author Note] *Catagenesis: In my use of the term here I return the idea of a collapse or breakdown to a simpler form, but I especially emphasise the “genesis”-- the birth of something new unexpected and potentially good. In my view of it, whether the breakdown in question is psychological, technological, economical, political, or ecological, or some combination of these forms--catagenesis is in essence, the every day reinvention of the future.
Additional comments.
Everyone with a concern for the future of humanity should read this book, and I imagine that many of us who were already so concerned have become more so since COVID-19 came down the pike. Environmental disasters and degradation. Terrorist wars. Energy scarcity. Economic failure. Expanding income inequality. Pandemics. Political corruption. Nuclear accidents. Is this the world's inevitable fate, a downward spiral that ultimately spells the collapse of societies? Perhaps, says author Thomas Homer-Dixon.
Or perhaps these crises can actually lead to renewal for ourselves and our planet. The Upside of Down takes the reader on a mind-stretching tour of societies' management, or mismanagement, of disasters over time. From the demise of ancient Rome to contemporary environmental or economic breakdown, this book analyses what happens when multiple crises compound to cause what the author calls 'synchronous failure'. But, according to Homer-Dixon, crisis doesn't have to mean total global calamity. Through creative, bold reform in the wake of breakdown, it is possible to reinvent our future.
I may not be as optimistic as THD, but his book and its underlying theses makes for compelling reading in this age of profound uncertainty, fear, pessimism and anxiety.
I have tagged quite a few folks on this post, and invite you all to throw your Beanie into the ring, and share it promiscuously. This is an attempt to inject into the Facebook discussion landscape–which let’s face it (sorry), leaves something to be desired--some ideas and tropes which give people not just food for thought. I hope it also provides a constructive starting point from which to interact with others congenially, politely, and above all intelligently. The discourse of late could do with it.
Thanks for that. Will look it up. And in that regard i would also highly recommend this profound essay, which gets to the very root of the problem and offers a solution to it
Wonderful interview. There are the old-fashioned liberals as you say and then this new group. The clear eyed (or “Purebloods” as my husband and I refer to ourselves) are seeking each other out. I feel most badly for young people who have so little support in this regard. My 27 y.o. daughter can speak openly to only one of her friends and the importance of young people seeing what is happening cannot be overstated. But the propaganda has been cultivated with the goal of from cradle to grave and I’m not sure how to break that apart. The uneducated (untainted) are ahead of us and maybe that is our only way out?
The carbon footprint of the ultra-rich is far bigger than that of, say, Africa. Make no mistake about the "population bomb": They made an issue of it, NOT because it's a real problem, but because it served as cover for their plan to wipe out "the unfit," and take the planet for themselves.
It is SUCH a relief to hear you speak about these issues...bravo for a marvelously informative interview. 🙏
The propaganda is disgusting. You can see one lie after the next after the next for the stupid and weak-minded.
To my shame I only just listened to this and I now consider you, Mark, to be by far the most prescient commentator on current events. I have felt almost inarticulate ever since spring 2020 and the jaw-dropping coalescence of ALL media channels into a mass bullshit factory all the way over to the "Extreme Left" and including the entertainment sector ("Don't Look Up" - what a load of self-congratulating self-deceiving crap!).
And you are certainly right about TRYING to maintain a level head. My own recipe for just basic survival is NOT to get drawn into arguments with people who frankly haven't a fucking clue. They show a degree of psychosis that I never suspected them capable of. When I suggested that the BIG economic squeeze started before Putin made his move, one work colleague - normally likeable - briefly showed "body snatcher" tendencies - as in that bit where Donald Sutherland points his finger and goes "OOOOH!"
Wonderful interview, thank you Mark!! You mentioned at one point that the reason the Left has turned to the new Right is that CIA has infiltrated Left organizations and taken them over. Could you (or anyone else reading this) elaborate more on that in another interview/essay or direct me to a resource where I can learn more about this? Thank you!
Just a wonderful overview. I appreciate that both you and Tom have roots in the traditional liberal/left. Interviews with those who, though I may agree with them on many points, place themselves as right/conservative are often also engaging and informative, but won't be persuasive to my longtime liberal family and friends.
This interview is one I can share widely as it's succinct and doesn't have right wing sidecars.
Folks, The following may be pertinent herein. I posted on FB shortly after the outbreak of the “plandemic”. FYI. Mark, great chat. Posted on Twitter and VK.
Are we on the cusp of an Axial Age? Book Extract, posted and edited by Greg Maybury
👉🎯😎 ‘Between 900 and 200 BCE, a revolutionary transformation of ideas occurred simultaneously in civilisations across Eurasia from China to Greece. This “Axial Age” as the German existential philosopher Karl Jaspers famously labelled it, produced new categories and cosmologies to guide peoples’ thought, self understanding and religious and ethical views. During these centuries, people came to understand that they could use reason and reflection to see beyond their immediate reality and that societies exist in an extended flow of time and that we all have some capacity to exercise our agency to change our circumstances and fate, and that the mundane and spiritual worlds are fundamentally separate.
In Jaspers’ opinion, those of us alive today are the direct heirs of this transformation; we still think using fundamental categories and assumptions that emerged over a millennia ago. Could we be I wondered on the cusp of a new “Axial Age”, a transformation simultaneously around the world of the deepest principles guiding humankind’s diverse civilisations? And if it occurs, what might it look like. (To be sure, we cannot let the Bill Gates’ or the Jeff Bezos’ or the George Soros’ of this world determine it for us!)
More important, what would I want to come from this transformation? In planning for renewal after breakdown--for catagenesis*-- we need to have some idea of where we want to go to in the future, even if it's just an ideal goal that we know we can only partly achieve. And to figure out where out what our goal is we need to be clear headed about our values.
👍 In Western liberal societies public discussion of values is dreadfully impoverished.👍
As long as one person’s values don't interfere with other people's interests they’re usually considered a private matter. To the extent that we discuss values at all, we do so only when provoked by hot button issues such as abortion, drugs, race, sexuality, and political corruption.
And we often assume that most things around us in our societies don't involve value judgements of any kind. They’re just value-neutral facts of life. But whether or not we recognise the fact, people's values-often those of the most powerful among us-shape everything from the income gaps in our economies to the intimate details of how we lead our lives, such as where we live, work, and send our children to school.
In trying to make sense of values, I’ve long found it helpful to distinguish between three kinds. Utilitarian values are simple likes and dislikes were the one likes chocolate ice cream more than vanilla ice cream for instance. those are the values most familiar to economists and they dominate our consumerist culture. Moral values concern fairness and justice especially regarding things like the distribution of wealth, power, and opportunity among people across space and time.
Last but definitely not least, existential values apply to things that give our lives significance and meaning. Some people might call them spiritual values. They help us understand how we fit in the larger scheme of the universe, and they provide answers to questions like Why are we here? and What is the purpose of my life?
We all ask these questions when we're young until the obvious discomfort of adults around us makes us stop. Usually the adults tell us that we are naive and that we should take our annoying questions to a religious institution. When we get to the door of our nearest church, mosque or synagogue, we find there is no real opportunity for discussion. Instead we are handed a creed of some kind. We’re told what to think about values, not how to think about them.
Because we are reluctant or unable to talk about moral and existential values--and these values remain largely unexplored--utilitarian values fill the void. This is one reason why consumerism has developed such a firm grip on the psyches of so many of us in the West. Without a coherent notion of what will give our lives meaning we try to satisfy the need for meaning by buying ever more stuff.
In the process the mental muscle that allows us to think and talk about values in complex and sophisticated ways atrophies. Reduced to walking appetites, we lose resilience. We risk becoming hollow people with no character, substance or core--like eggshells that can be shattered or crushed with one sharp shock.
End Extract
Source: Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Upside of Down – #The End of the World as we Know it, and Why that May not be Such a Bad Thing, © 2006. (#Some editions published with the following sub-title: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization)
[Author Note] *Catagenesis: In my use of the term here I return the idea of a collapse or breakdown to a simpler form, but I especially emphasise the “genesis”-- the birth of something new unexpected and potentially good. In my view of it, whether the breakdown in question is psychological, technological, economical, political, or ecological, or some combination of these forms--catagenesis is in essence, the every day reinvention of the future.
Additional comments.
Everyone with a concern for the future of humanity should read this book, and I imagine that many of us who were already so concerned have become more so since COVID-19 came down the pike. Environmental disasters and degradation. Terrorist wars. Energy scarcity. Economic failure. Expanding income inequality. Pandemics. Political corruption. Nuclear accidents. Is this the world's inevitable fate, a downward spiral that ultimately spells the collapse of societies? Perhaps, says author Thomas Homer-Dixon.
Or perhaps these crises can actually lead to renewal for ourselves and our planet. The Upside of Down takes the reader on a mind-stretching tour of societies' management, or mismanagement, of disasters over time. From the demise of ancient Rome to contemporary environmental or economic breakdown, this book analyses what happens when multiple crises compound to cause what the author calls 'synchronous failure'. But, according to Homer-Dixon, crisis doesn't have to mean total global calamity. Through creative, bold reform in the wake of breakdown, it is possible to reinvent our future.
I may not be as optimistic as THD, but his book and its underlying theses makes for compelling reading in this age of profound uncertainty, fear, pessimism and anxiety.
I have tagged quite a few folks on this post, and invite you all to throw your Beanie into the ring, and share it promiscuously. This is an attempt to inject into the Facebook discussion landscape–which let’s face it (sorry), leaves something to be desired--some ideas and tropes which give people not just food for thought. I hope it also provides a constructive starting point from which to interact with others congenially, politely, and above all intelligently. The discourse of late could do with it.
Thanks for that. Will look it up. And in that regard i would also highly recommend this profound essay, which gets to the very root of the problem and offers a solution to it
https://oneworldrenaissance.com/2021/01/23/holism-fragmentation-and-our-endangered-future-a-new-vision-and-a-new-hope/ (and that entire blog is highly recommended with some very insightful essays)
can't open this - says parental controls activated?
Ask your parents to help?
I'm 65. No parental controls on my computer - or none that I put there.
I was kidding
Is peak oil a real thing?