Planet and PEOPLE

Climate change is a symptom of a deeply sick, destructive ideology: a belief in ‘entitlement’.   A belief that wealth is its own reward and can put you above the law.

Nietzsche in his book Beyond Good and Evil, identifies two types of ‘morality’ – that of the master and that of the slave. Master-morality values power, nobility, and independence: it stands “beyond good and evil.” Slave-morality values sympathy, kindness, and humility and is regarded by Nietzsche as “herd-morality.” To Nietzsche slave morality was a mark of ‘mediocrity’.

Those with unimaginable wealth and power, see themselves as the Masters and they despise the rest of us. Slave morality is for slaves. They are ‘beyond good and evil’. However in reality nothing, and no-one, is beyond good and evil.

It was not always so. Once upon a time, those in authority, tribal chiefs, war-band leaders, and medicine men and women, understood that they held their positions in trust, and that their power was contractual – if they failed to protect or benefit the community they led, they would be replaced.  

There was a general acceptance that nature was greater than any human or other creature.   That there were forces that were greater than us.   They might be appeased or opposed but ultimately,  only the gods are immortal.  The rest of us are subject to sickness, old age, loss of the people and things we love, and death; and our actions are all that define us.

With the growth of farming and the greater populations it sustained, conflict grew between people for the basic necessities of life.  Whereas a hunter gatherer group generally managed its population numbers to stay within ecological limits, from the Neolithic onwards, the ecology started to be managed to sustain higher population numbers.   Fields represent exclusive use of the land they occupy, for the benefit of the people that plant and harvest them.  The animals ate the crops and the farmers shot the ‘vermin’.    Cain the farmer appropriated the land, and murdered Abel, the herdsman who appropriated the livestock.   A relationship of power arose with those ‘possessing’ the land able to exclude the dispossessed.  

If a farmer’s fields are set on fire and laid waste, they cannot be moved elsewhere.   So they must be defended; and any surpluses stored against future disaster.  If this fails to prevent hardship or starvation, the only way to survive is to raid the neighbours.   The advantage for the herdsman is that his /her resources are movable; and although the most productive land may be only accessible by invading it, so long as there is plenty of common, unappropriated land unsuitable for agriculture, there remains a large enough resource to sustain the hunter and the herder.   However over the centuries, and especially in the last 200 years, more and more land has been appropriated. Mars was the Roman god of war and agriculture. 

Note that this need to control is actually based on a fear of losing control; and the more you try to control, the more vulnerable you become.   It is a sort of catch-22.

So starts the exponential growth of conflict and increasing violence that has now brought us to our present existential crisis.  It is a conflict ultimately between ‘power over’ and ‘power with’.  A number of religions throughout the world have traditionally drawn attention to this, using their own concepts to express it.   Denial of ‘God’ does not mean the refusal to believe in an old man on a cloud, but the denial that there is any force greater that human violence.   Violence can take many forms, from nuclear weapons to biological, technological, and psychological warfare.   It ‘entitles’ the most ruthless and destructive to pout themsleves above ‘morality’ – at least in their own minds. However, at its root is the fear that it has ultimate power over the non-violent.

Historically, as competition between humans increased, so did the fear of ‘failure’ and the perceived need to fight harder.  The weak had cause to fear the strong.  A bigger, and more organised population would become a resource in itself,  provide more labour in the fields and more fighters to defend them – or raid others.  The need for greater organisation led to growing dependence and the emergence of groups, and later individuals, as protectors and providers.   The centralisation of power was reflected in the landscape as the start of urbanisation.  It also divides people from ‘nature’ and encourages the idea that everything outwith the urban exists only to be exploited.

We equate urbanisation with ‘civilisation’.    A ‘civilised’ society provides goods and services to the ‘urbane’ , the ‘citizens’, at the expense of  the ‘other’, that is, the ‘wild’, the ‘barbarian savage’ who exist safely out of sight and out of mind.   It is a a society based on exploitation, violence, – and hypocrisy.   And the art and architecture and other glories of civilisation are really demonstrations of power.  Look what our violence has delivered.  Is it not desirable?  But it is exclusive to us, and to those who think and act like us.    If you join us you might receive some reflected pride; and even in a few rare cases, some wealth of your own with which to exercise power over others.  If you do not, you are too poor, too wee, too stupid to matter at all.  You are a ‘loser’ and fair game for us to exploit and destroy.

A ‘city’ is an expression and a tool of centralised power over other people and nature.  It sucks in resources from its hinterland, and spews out its waste for others to deal with.   Cities around the world have generally been established by those with power and wealth for their own benefit.    The problem for the lords, kings and emperors that built them is that the cities as engines of power have a history of asserting themselves, developing their own oligarchies, and challenging existing power structures.  We have now reached the point where a small number of people, with more ‘wealth’ than entire countries, have decided to turn the entire planet into a ‘city’ where everything and everyone can be controlled and exploited at will.  The problem is that a city depends on a non-city, a hinterland to exploit.   But the planet is finite – and so the world’s oligarchs look to space as a ’final frontier’ and as that fails to satisfy them, they can only fight each other.   Perhaps this is the predicted final battle, Armageddon. 

The growth of centralised power, of urbanisation and Empires,  meant the development of an accompanying conceptual framework.  The king or Emperor was your protector from your enemies and also from nature, taking the role of priest or even god, as well as warrior and provider.   Monotheism conceived God as a divine ruler and judge to be obeyed, standing above and outside nature.  Kings and Emperors claimed a divine right to rule that did not depend on a social contract with the ruled.  this ‘entitled’ them to rule.  The suffering of enemies might be a necessary evil, but conscience could be salved by remembering that God was on your side. Whatever happened was God’s will.   However,  they were still subject to scrutiny – if their their actions were not effective in providing peace and prosperity for you, or failed to protect against natural disasters,  God was clearly displeased.   Thus they could be judged and held accountable, even if it required more violence to remove a tyrant.

Those in positions of power were all the more obsessed with control and a need to protect themselves against acts of God.   Everything and everyone became ‘resources’ to be exploited – like addicts, they would do anything to feed their craving.  The planet, the universe was explored to exploit it.  It was researched to find ways to control it.  And apparent success in developing new technologies became its on justification.   Look upon these works, ye mighty, and despair.

With the so-called ‘Enlightenment’ and the Industrial Revolution, entitlement to exercise power and control no longer depended on God.  In fact, with technology, humans had taken over as lords of the universe.   We were now a god-like species unique in the universe.  Humans ruled the planet, and within humans a hierarchy existed with the “Masters’ who controlled technology at the top.  They now ‘owned the science’ which would henceforth only produce the results they approved.  They also owned the planet, including other humans – their ‘slaves’. Wealth and power were enough in themselves to demonstrate the invincibility of those who wielded them.   And it was always the same prospectus.  If you obey us, you can aspire to a lifestyle like ours.  If you do not, you will suffer for it.   It was always a lie. Wealth ‘trickled down’ as little as possible. And any that did, was swiftly sucked back up again.

The Chinese ‘social credit system’ has made this explicit.  The same model is being quietly introduced here in the west too.    However, that philosophy of a world controlled by debt is like the snake eating its own tail.  Already, a growing number of countries are determined that there will be a multipolar world.   Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.   

The wealth and power of the super-rich actually depends on us.  It only exists through fear.  Science – real science, not ‘scientism’ – has given us all the power o work for the benefit of people and planet together.  There is enough for everyone’s need, but not anyone’s unlimited greed.  We no longer need to oligarchs to ‘protect’ us from other oligarchs or from nature.  We are nature, and the only thing we need to protect ourselves from is fear.   The super-rich and super-powerful are redundant.  Their lifestyles provide no desirable carrot, and the horrors of their sticks reflect only on them.   

‘Entitlement’ is one of the roots of our social, economic, and psychological problems.   If you have more money than me, it does NOT free you from ‘slave morality’ or entitle you to bully or belittle me.   

I don’t care too much for money.  Money can’t buy me love.