Deep Resistance to Deep Green Resistance

Have had a really interesting fortnight in my head.  I have for some time known about Derrick Jensen  through his books "Endgame" but I innocently happened upon a tweet from Dark Optimism about the film 2010 film End:Civ which features Jensen and the ideas generated by the Deep Green Resistance Movement (DGR). Their underlying philosophy is encapsulated by Lierre Keith:


 "The task of an activist is not to navigate systems of oppressive power with as much personal integrity as possible; it is to dismantle those systems."


End:Civ is a deeply disturbing film about the effects of our continuing and continual destruction of the planet, literally in order to fuel our inexorable industrialisation.  It pulls no punches at the scale of the destruction and at how environmentalists (Bright Greens) are deluding themselves that the world will voluntarily change in order to save the planet.  The only alternative is to "Occupy the Machine" and dismantle it either non-violently (through occupation) or, if necessary, guerrilla warfare.  Jensen wants us to destroy industrial civilisation - and possibly civilisation itself. 


The argument is compelling. The film changes tone two-thirds through as the advocation of violence becomes more strident and the condemnation of sell-out liberal middle-class pacifist idealism emerges. It is this that Jensen also blames for the consistent blasting of the planet: that the Bright Greens have helped to commercialise environmentalism which has allowed sociopathic corporations to keep cashing in thus contributing nothing to halt the decimation.  Finally he suggests that non-violence has never led to change and that such an ideology only pacifies resistance to power and that we must do a great deal more than 'like' a Facebook page or sign an online petition - all further sops to protect the powerful.

What am I to think about this? I  love the planet, but do not advocate violence - gawd I'm not even a proper activist, I just own a bookshop!!  Well, I do what everyone does.  I process according to the interpretative structures I have available and what a journey it has been!

First came the Anonymous, tweet.  A harmless graze along my Twitter feed and there it was: 


"whatever your activism is, keep it local, keep it focused and beware of egotists telling you what to do".

...and then an initially unrelated surf brought me to this very contentious article about the anti-civilsation movement in the Anarchist News . Interestingly it had this in its introduction:

It seems as though new ideologists haven't learned from the mistakes of the past, as we're witnessing the dawn of a new generation of “green-robed priests”.

It went on to say that the anti-civ movement was repeating past (Marxist) mistakes insofar as it was disaffecting other groups and movements by assuming that its premise is correct (when it is just a premise; a position).  Further,  that it was attempting to take control of the argument by the 'fuck patience' imperative, using some sort of emergency critique to force 'act now' scenarios thereby eliminating the opportunity for others to work through the consequences and impact of anti-civ action. 

Then another then...

What sort of coincidence is it that I am also reading "Mercurious" by the splendid Patrick Harpur? More to the question is why is it that a book on the art of Alchemy could speak in any way to this issue and help me process it? 

"Mercurious" has a dual narrative.  It is about the work of a modern alchemist priest (Smith) in the 1950s whose work (Magnum Opus) has been uncovered by a female intellectual/anthropologist, Eileen, who rents the vicarage in the present day.  She is herself a Jungian and interprets Smith's work for us by unfolding the principles of Alchemical Art as it became intertwined with the mythologies and psyches that are part of the human condition. Two relevant things have emerged from it.


Firstly,  human beings indulge in a process of dual classification.  In certain contexts we tend to characterise the world in terms of black/white, bad/good, heaven/hell, above/below, live/die.  This is to oversimplify a little, but the making of myths is all about these dual classifications.  Furthermore, although we are rational beings, in extremis we employ dual classification as part of our persuasively emotive toolkit to generate action. This is presumably because we have less time to think.


An example of how dual classification would work in this latter respect is:  so.. either do this (for this desireable outcome) or that, (the undesireable outcome), will happen.  A straight oppositional either/or. Yet rarely do things work out in the way we expect them to - good or bad. The 'options' are never straightforward. Usually we work things out in media res, as we are doing now whilst in the middle of this context of environmental change.   It is no doubt likely that our civilisation may be coming to an end but it  may also be fair to say that as with all civilisations, this is just a precursor to the next.  There's an alchemical process taking place here and now - a painful transition perhaps, but one which will eventually lead to transformation.   

Secondly, Eileen was also a follower of the famous French anthropologist and structuralist Levi-Strauss.  He understood that humans have a dichotomous relationship with their environment.  We know that we are 'of' nature but we also set ourselves 'apart' from nature. All societies struggle with the transition from Nature to Culture and in his study of tribes (and he produced many works on this, fascinated by our sharing of 'universal' mythologies), he sees that all civilisations  (and the question obviously needs to be begged about what a civilisation is) initially formed through fire (the transformative alchemical agent, by the way).  Fire allowed communities to domesticate, by enabling the process of cooking.  Fire is the driving force behind our ability to make culture - (stealing fire is also a major myth trope).  It is what made power structures in the first place: those owning the fire held the power.

And in the 20/21 century cue the oil companies, media moguls, politicians and oil corporations who have the resources to make our plastics,  our cars and to keep our domestic fires burning.  Interestingly, it would also be the produce of fire - explosives - that would be used by the anti-civ movement.  Then who would have the power, I wonder?  And what will be the 'new fire' once the oil has run out? Who would control it?  Getting  Promethean now.

So where has this go me?  Have I merely  rationalised a difficult message?  Perhaps.  But I do think I've travelled quite far - in my head anyway.   The alembic world is literally being 'cooked' and slowly transformed.  Despite the film, I don't believe the planet is dead or dying.  This is an arrogant 'apart from' assertion.  It has survived warming at orders of magnitude beyond conception long before we had anything to do with it.  

I do believe that civilised life as we know it may die out.   However, it is to me a question of transition. Impatience ruins years of alchemical work and there are many resurrectional (to use another myth) brightnesses  appearing  which gives hope for a future in which we can live in a right relationship with the planet. 

So am going to keep solid with my own local, focused and non-egotistical networks - and others like them in a larger scale, who are , Levi-Strausslike, engaging in the possibility of new structures because they are imagining them.  It's hard to see what sort of world the DGR imagines after the end of civilisation.

Fuck impatience.

************************************

The books referred to in this article are available from the Radishwebstore here:

Endgame Vol 1: (Collapse of Civilisation) by Derrick Jensen

Endgame Vol 2: (Resistance) by Derrick Jensen
Mercurious by Patrick Harpur

The Greecey Pole: The Slippery State of Funny Money

Being a radical bookseller allows one to keep interesting company. Such company has shed further light on previous developmental thoughts on the Greecey Pole having had a fascinating week: a Cafe Economique discussing Positive Money, a bit of reading around the subject finished off by a weekend at the Schumacher North Conference in Leeds.

The Greecey Pole should teach us about money - as distinct from economics. although I worry about the emphasis on growth that even the Positive Money crew espouse, they come to the incisive conclusion that, ironically, economists do not know much about how money works, or indeed, what it is. This accounts for why very clever people in charge of the economy have consistently failed in predicting future prosperity. Like us, they got suckered by the banks into thinking that money is 'real'.  We now know that it is not.  To those for whom this is news, I'll explain.

The banks operate a policy of fractional reserve lending.  Essentially this means that the they apply a fractional formula to how much they can lend out.  The more they have deposited, the more this allows them to lend.  So, suppose you get a loan. You will probably stick this in your account as a brief holding place from which to draw.  Banks are not able to distinguish between a deposit that has been borrowed and a deposit that derives from 'real' money.  It therefore uses the deposit of your loan to increase its lending capacity by whatever figure the banks' regulators allow.   The 'fraction' works like this: if your loaned deposit is, say, £1000 and the bank is allowed to lend 10 times this deposit, it means it can lend someone else £10000. This means that the banks have lent 'virtual' money; money that doesn't really exist - is keyed into a computer.

Essentially, then, banks have been given the license to create money.

It isn't rocket science to understand that this inflates what the banks see themselves as worth, and that the process is eroding away the value of money as a viable means of exchange.  It has nothing to back it up.  This is why banks are being given bail outs - instead of, for example, the government giving us money to spend (or save).  The idea is to 'monetise' the perceived reserve.  But of course this will never happen if fractional reserve lending is allowed to continue.

Okay then.  So what is this to do with Greecey Pole?  Well governments, ours included , borrow their money from the banks at interest.  Now, remember that banks do not possess the reserves that economists think they have - they're entirely dependent on the income raised through interest payments.  This sets them up to generate as many loans as they can in order to generate income.  It is this behaviour that places countries and their governments in human bondage for generations.

The Bank of England, through Quantative Easing has learned that it can still effectively print money.  It seems to have forgotten this and has abrogated most of this responsibility by giving it to the banks to do.  Consider for a moment the economic effect of ending fractional reserve lending.  The Bank of England prints the money - makes it physical and real - and gives it to the government.  The government stops all borrowing.  It then does not have to pay interest back to the banks.

The money saved would completely pay for the entire welfare state.

But this does not apply to Greece.  Greece can't print its own money - nor can any Eurozone country.  The 17 member countries depend on borrowing to regulate their economies and this comes at the cost of escalating interest charges again imposed externally by the vulturific ratings agencies.

Greece is emblematic of the whole situation in extremis.  It is at the mercy of a banking system wholly focused on its own internal psychopathy.  It has no interest in the human-scale devastation its demands for austerity causes and is possessed of complete indifference about whether a further funny-money loan will eventually lead to societal breakdown - notwithstanding the logic that when this happens, there is no chance of payback anyway.  For what is a bank for if not to lend?  So desperate is the ECB to get payback assurances, it is delaying any payout on the blackmail of ensnaring ALL members of Greece's opposition parties to sign up to the terms of the bailout agreement.  This ensures that Greece's democratic system is well and truly stitched up for generations to come. 

This is a situation not to be borne and it is hard to see how Greece can stay in the Euro - shouldn't stay in the Euro.  It is likely that Brussels will cut Greece loose when it finally realises that it will never be able to pay the funny money back.  for those whose savings are in Euros (which is why so many fear the exit), surely a duel monetary system can be operated - possibly backing their savings by sterling may be something constructive Britain can do in its attempts to market itself as the saviour of the world.

But for now is it possible that we can see the emblematic nature of The Greecey Pole as a lesson to us all to end our indentured servitude to the banks?  Possibly not.  To do this requires a truly courageous state, properly pro-active leadership that takes on vested interests to protect the human; one that isn't willing for the population to be farmed by Diamond bankers and which will never, ever refuse the vulnerable.

As someone said at Schumacher (paraphrasing someone else)... A leader can only lead if there is a flock behind them.  I am fully aware of how a banking collapse will affect us all - particularly the poor and the vulnerable the most and would most certainly not want to see this.  However, it will collapse anyway - its centre cannot hold - so transitional measures for reform should happen now.

If the politicians continue to behave with the same level of inertia (though interestingly not so with NHS reform) then we probably will have no choice but to flock off and take our funny money with us.

********************

Where might our money 'flock off' to?

Credit Unions

Mutuals

Unity Trust Bank

Triodos Bank

Co-op Bank (though this is slow to respond to customer requests for accounts and at present still practices fractional reserve banking).

For further reading on this subject, available from the radishwebstore see:


The Grip of Death:  A Study in Modern Money, Debt Slavery and Destructive Economics by Michael Rowbotham


The Courageous State by Richard Murphy


The Future of Money by Mary Mellor


Prosperity Without Growth by Tim Jackson


Small is Beautiful by E. F. Schumacher

The English Secondary Education System: a study in Fascism?

English teachers of a certain age will remember a book by Morton Rhue. "The Wave" is a short novelisation of a television play which told the true story of what happened in a school in California. Those dwellers in the world of Gove should read it and weep, for this seemingly inocuous little read has much to tell us about the direction of travel of our very own so-called liberal/progressive, insipiently Academy orientated education system.

"The Wave" is about a young history teacher, Ben Ross, who was frustrated at the lack of connection his students were able to make with the impact of the Third Reich. They weren't 'getting it' and couldn't see how it could have happened or indeed how the German people could have colluded in such a regime. So, being an imaginative and idealistic young teacher, he came up with a plan to personalise the classroom experience that would show the students once and for all the horrendous consequences of fascistic learning practices.

The class as a whole agreed to 'buy-in' to the experiment so that they could experience fascism first hand. His experiment entailed a strict regime of quick fire question and answer sessions delivered by a teacher (him) to whom the class gave absolute power. They stood to attention as he came in, all questions were closed, praise given to those who could and derision to those who couldn't. More rules were added and because the experiment spread like wildfire throughout the school it was named "The Wave".  

It spread because initially it was a huge success.  Grades improved as those who tended towards recalcitrance couldn't bear the peer pressure of not performing well. Indeed one boy, stereotypically disengaged and disenfranchised, grew in confidence and stature as the new 'structure' gave him the precious boundaries he was looking for. Soon competition was rife. Essays handed in on time, students insisting on grades the next day - Ross could hardly keep ahead of it all nor could he believe his good fortune.

Then the bullying started as students who couldn't make the grade were picked on to up their game and not let the class down in the new competitive environment. Fights broke out; liberal thinkers (represented by the school newspaper editorial team) got beaten up.  Our disconnected teenager became frontrunner in the new Stasi.  However the most telling issue that emerged - remember that this is a true story - is that after the initial successes the raised attainment was soon to plateau. Ross discovered that deep learning was not happening. All that mattered was the grade and the grade alone. Critical thinking was thrown to the wind, sacrificed to the altar of target.

  

I've been working in schools all my life and have seen the eternal pendulum of initiative and counter-initiative swing many times. The 'change agenda' drives the swing and beats the heart of leadership conferences and training courses in pursuit of the magic number picked out of the air by some Secretary of State with an opinion.   Schools are hugely data rich.  There are CATs tests, SATS tests (blessedly waning now), Reading Age tests, FFT data, all shouting to us what a child can and can't do.   School managers are driven to raise attainment by X percentiles per term, reducing education to  lesson objectives throwing wisdom to the wind in this sea of information. 

This is really the point of "The Wave". Emphasis was on target and not on learning and there is a well  recognised basic four-point plan for achieving targets in our secondary schools today:

• Lessons need to be in several parts so that the learning is 'chunked up' - (what a marvellous sick metaphor this is!).  Though this is aimed at breaking down concepts into more manageable...chunks... it also leads to grazing.  Where text and figure are visited rather than properly explored. 
• Needs should be differentiated and data can help in this, but in Year 11 children are physically separated and cohorts often taught offsite so their disaffected behaviour doesn't 'contaminate' those willing to learn.  Translate unwillingness to learn into inability to work the system and behaviour issues properly become a function of that system.
• For some key students, those on the D/C borderline hot-housing has to be the order of the day.  Often this will entail losing a subject - usually an arts or humanities - in order to spend more time on subjects that will make the school pass its targets.  They may express a concern that a student is 'taking on too much' or 'does Jason really need Geography'.  A conversation which is pure code for 'we need him to pass his maths if we are to get 55% A-C.'  (By the way, Jason actually may not need Geography.  He might need bricklaying or horticulture but this would divert the school from its targets too - and that's a whole other story!)
• Finally in order for the kids to learn, they have to attend the school!  No matter how bad the learning experience is, attendance is obviously mandatory.  All schools have attendance targets too and it's cleary a fairly good idea to get the students in, but instead of making our secondary school environments places of curiosity and excitement (like many of our primary schools, for example), some decide to bully and hassle parents through letters home - and, of course, comms systems which land texts into phones as early as 6.30 in the morning.

Chasing a target doesn't improve the learning. Chasing a moving target shallows the learning even further and disengages those who yearn for exploration, depth and connection.  Universities mourn the loss of basic literacy and independent learning; gnash their teeth at the spoon-feeding their students have grown to expect from their teachers.  And more... mandatory targets create a huge fear of failing and by this I do not refer just to students.  Exam boards, so terrified of not meeting commercial targets (yes, commercial) import droves of examiners into schools to teach cohorts exam techniques and more telling than this... we have only this week learned how the exam boards blur the lines between explication and just cheating in this inexorable race to the bottom.  

There are many theories about why Germany lost the war. The most telling one is that Hitler was crass and stupid, unable to bear intellectual engagement culminating in the 'figure in action' which was his book burnings.  A product of shallow learning if ever there was one. "The Wave", which demonstrates these dangers itself was banned, I believe, in Australia. One of its side-effects was that other classes that read the book attempted to replicate the damaging effects of the Wave again by pressing their teachers to help them discover for themselves if it worked.

Well Mr. Gove. It doesn't.   It hasn't. 

You can search for Morton Rhue's book from the Radishwebstore or by clicking on the title below:

"The Wave" by Morton Rhue.

The Greecey Pole Mark II

Told you so... http://wwwradishblogger.blogspot.com/2011/06/greecey-pole.html