Charles Eisenstein: 2013: The Space Between the Stories

[GliderGuider]

In my opinion, Charles Eisenstein is one of a small handful of contemporary thinkers who really understands What's Going On™. Fortunately for us, he is also one of an even smaller handful of contemporary writers who can express it so that your heart can hear. This latest piece is pure triple-distilled Eisenstein, one of his clearest expressions yet of what's happening to us right now, from Sandy to Sandy Hook, from the melting ice caps to the recesses of our own hearts.

2013: The Space Between the Stories

Sometimes I feel intense nostalgia for the cultural mythology of my youth, a world in which there was nothing wrong with soda pop, in which the Superbowl was important, in which the world’s greatest democracy was bringing democracy to the world, in which science was going to make life better and better. Life made sense. If you worked hard you could get good grades, get into a good college, go to grad school or follow some other professional path, and you would be happy. With a few unfortunate exceptions, you would be successful if you obeyed the rules of our society: if you followed the latest medical advice, kept informed by reading the New York Times, and stayed away from Bad Things like drugs. Sure there were problems, but the scientists and experts were working hard to fix them. Soon a new medical advance, a new law, a new educational technique, would propel the onward improvement of life. My childhood perceptions were part of this Story of the People, in which humanity was destined to create a perfect world through science, reason, and technology, to conquer nature, transcend our animal origins, and engineer a rational society.

Since my childhood in the 1970s, that story has eroded at an accelerating rate. More and more people in the West no longer believe that civilization is fundamentally on the right track. Even those who don’t yet question its basic premises in any explicit way seem to have grown weary of it. A layer of cynicism, a hipster self-awareness has muted our earnestness. What was once so real, say a plank in a party platform, today is seen through several levels of “meta” filters to parse it in terms of image and message. We are like children who have grown out of a story that once enthralled us, aware now that it is only a story.

At the same time, a series of new data points has disrupted the story from the outside. The harnessing of fossil fuels, the miracle of chemicals to transform agriculture, the methods of social engineering and political science to create a more rational and just society – each has fallen far short of its promise, and brought unanticipated consequences that threaten civilization. We just cannot believe anymore that the scientists have everything well in hand. Nor can we believe that the onward march of reason will bring on social utopia.

We do not have a new story yet. Each of us is aware of some of its threads, for example in most of the things we call alternative, holistic, or ecological today. Here and there we see patterns, designs, emerging parts of the fabric. But the new mythos has not yet emerged. We will abide for a time in the space between stories. Those of you who have been through it on a personal level know that it is a very precious – some might say sacred – time. Then we are in touch with the real. Each disaster lays bare the real underneath our stories. The terror of a child, the grief of a mother, the honesty of not knowing why. In such moments we discover our humanity. We come to each other’s aid, human to human. We take care of each other. That’s what keeps happening every time there is a calamity, before the beliefs, the ideologies, the politics take over again. Events like Sandy Hook, for at least a moment, cut through all that down to the basic human being. In such times, we learn who we really are.

[Demeter]

1. Well, of course things fell apart in the 70's

The Greedy decided it was time to get theirs, before all the Boomers sucked the air out of the room, and the profits out of an economy crippled by oil shocks. And the GOP, stunned and mortified by Nixon's faux pas, and the War Protest, decided to take Democracy apart.

In other words, panic set in. The Old World Order was teetering, so the Elite decided they needed a New World Order, with a tighter grip on the throat of the Proletariat.

Because panic is such a bad reason to do anything, the Elite are going to lose it all. This time, for good, I think. Because there are no more suckers left to shill. Not even in China or Latin America, or Africa (China's got all of them now, and so far, treating them a whole lot better).

The Middle East is losing its oil value, so that's good, in the long term. The Arctic and Antarctica, if they aren't for everyone, they aren't for anyone.

We live in interesting times.

[NoOneMan]

3. Greedy/Boomers/Nixon/Democracy/Proletariat/Elite/China

I don't mean to be insulting, but the Supermen and Villians of last century seem irrelevant in the bigger picture; citing political forces causing our suffering seems akin to an ancient theodicy. I'm not sure it is a useful way to organize reality any more, and may have merely been a narrative to yoke the masses to the system's will.

The bottom line, if altruism defeated greed and "the people" spent the last decade inheriting the spoils of the earth, wouldn't the earth still be spoiled?

We are lost in the rabbit hole. Should we continue to listen to the Mad Hatter explain the intricacies of the casual universe, who cannot see beyond his own self-delusion? Likely, all these righteous conflicts, win or lose, are just constructs built by blind men that further obscure our view of the cosmos (and our place in it).

[NoOneMan]

2. Are these views starting to garner momentum?

I am starting to see so many different similar threads of thought (my own included) intersecting at very similar points to dissect exactly how we organize our reality and interact with it (which is nothing but a cultural lens that may obscure real truth and hinder happiness). So I wonder, am I merely seeking these alternative views or are things reaching critical mass for some type of social transformation? Or will the transformation rather happen by force (disaster), with these voices finally given an opportunity to shine in the future chaos?

In any case, I think the story has changed in the last 3 decades and technology has a lot to do with it. As a child, I felt that I could walk on a fence and touch both worlds simultaneously; domestication was not ubiquitous. I felt that there was a chance of backing out, taking our shoes off and running barefoot through the wilds if we so chose. This made "progress" seem benign and exciting; something that we can take or leave depending on the outcome. Now, I perceive a trapped society that cannot take off their shoes; their souls are domesticated and the wilds are destroyed or sold to the highest bidder. The way back has been torched and servitude to corporations and technology is ingrained in the system, which will feed, house and clothe us insofar as its useful to furthering their totalitarian takeover of life. This new story promises comfort and technological toys as long as we are content in starving and exploiting the third world and toiling 60 hours a week; and if we are not content, there is always a pill to fix that.

Stories aren't just replaced. They evolve and act reciprocally with the environment. I think our has shifted subtly, and it presents a problem to people who find themselves drowning in dissonance, unwilling to accept the new narrative.

[GliderGuider]

4. Yes, but still within a limited constituency.

Most people still seem to be stuck on technofixes or pharmaceuticals as ways of dealing with the cognitive dissonance. Confronting the shift head-on is hard work, and the current social structures discourage it.

One of my big breakthroughs was learning about Marvin Harris and his theory of Cultural Materialism. The theory says that human culture can be seen as having three levels. The infrastructure comprises a society's relations to the environment (in the broadest sense of "environment&quot ; the structure is composed of the behavioral domestic and political economies of a society along with the institutions that enbody them; and the superstructure consisting of the symbolic and ideational aspects of a society including its values, philosophies and beliefs.

In a sense what is happening is that the infrastructure is shifting because of all the changes in the resource, environmental and population landscapes. Any time that happens, it causes changes in the superstructure - changes to the cultural narrative, or in Eisenstein's terms "The Story of the People". We're caught in a time when the physical aspects of our existence are changing, but neither our institutions nor our stories have caught up yet. I see one major stumbling block as the entrenched nature of our institutions - the structure will not shift until the infrastructure collapses out from under it. I don't think that just changing the story will be enough - it's necessary but not sufficient. Real social change in the upper two levels comes about in response to changes to the infrastructure.

That change is arriving, so now is an excellent time to be getting our new stories in place. I'm not as concerned about confronting the structural elements (institutions) of society right now. We need to wait for them to become weakened as their infrastructural foundation begins to come apart.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. There needs to be a distinction between "the scientists" and corporate technologists.

Scientists are in the "business" -- in quotes because not necessarily compensated in any proportion -- of discovering new knowledge. There's nothing inherent in science which says that any new fact uncovered must be applied immediately in some way that widely impacts society. The discovery that certain compounds are poisonous to insects, for example, does not lead inevitably to the conclusion that it is good practice to douse our food crops in them. But for people looking for a quick fix, or even more significantly, a quick buck, the "logic" of public policy and the free market is the same -- do this now, and discover the drawbacks later. A more scientific approach would be to study these potential "solutions" more thoroughly, be sure we understand how and why they work (if they do), and what their impacts are, before recommending (or not) their widespread practical use (with appropriate precautions and feedback). If we cast aside this cautious approach for the sake of quick profits, we should expect an inevitable comeuppance.

This applies even more strongly to the social sciences -- in the hands of well-intentioned and exceptionally competent reformers, knowledge of powerful techniques of persuasion could lead to great improvements in the human condition, but in the hands of demagogues and corporatists, great oppression, corruption, and corrosion of the social contract.

Knowledge brings power, but is completely amoral, enabling the best and worst elements of human nature without discrimination. The "scientists" in Eisenstein's reverie are conflated with the policies and agencies which implement, for better or worse, the changes made possible by increased scientific understanding. Let the fault for bad decisions fall on those who made the decisions, not those who informed the decision-makers. These same people were probably making bad decisions without new knowledge, but they are forgotten in this misty-eyed reflection. This isn't some fundamental failing of Western rationalism*, it's just political hacks and fast-buck hucksters spoiling the game for everyone, as ever. If there's a failing of any system here, it's the system of leaving everything up to "the authorities", and counting any well-heeled corporatist as an authority. I hope we never regress to that, but that's exactly what the party of billionaires wants us to do. Growing up may be disillusioning, but it's infinitely preferable to the alternative.









*which never did belong strictly to the West, and certainly doesn't now.