28 May 2014

and now for something completely different

The inescapable failure of a society built upon growth and its destruction of the Earth's living systems are the overwhelming facts of our existence. As a result, they are mentioned almost nowhere. They are the 21st century's great taboo, the subjects guaranteed to alienate your friends and neighbours. We live as if trapped inside a Sunday supplement: obsessed with fame, fashion and the three dreary staples of middle-class conversation: recipes, renovations and resorts. Anything but the topic that demands our attention.
Statements of the bleeding obvious, the outcomes of basic arithmetic, are treated as exotic and unpardonable distractions, while the impossible proposition by which we live is regarded as so sane and normal and unremarkable that it isn't worthy of mention. That's how you measure the depth of this problem: by our inability even to discuss it.

George Monbiot yesterday in the Guardian.

6 comments:

Ajax said...

I'm big on the Gaia theory myself- Global warming is something analogous to the earth running a bit of a fever, an attempt to shake a pesky virus. We are that virus.

Hello and all the best to you.

am said...

Thanks for the link, Sabine.

"It does not take you long, pondering this outcome, to reach the paradoxical position that salvation lies in collapse."

Anonymous said...

That is quite an article. Thank you for linking to it. The tragic future is all we have to leave the next generations.

Fire Bird said...

yes, we really have to wake up, but I recognise the slumber in myself as well as in others...

Rouchswalwe said...

I wish an article like this one would be going "viral"!

The Solitary Walker said...

I don't agree with absolutely everything George Monbiot has said and done, but I'm in big sympathy with most of it. Sometimes he trips himself up but, hey, that's the risk you take for being brave enough and willing to stand up against this materialistic, go-getting, self-serving society.