In 1968, I got my first real inkling that the trajectory of the human race was hurtling us toward a less-than lovely tomorrow.
Evanston Township High School, freshman biology, somewhere between counting fruit flies and dissecting fetal pigs, we studied population growth rates and the effects of overpopulation on the social bonds and behavior of rats. That unit convinced me that our species’ ever-increasing numbers posed an imminent threat to our own well-being and the health of our planet.
Also in ’68, I read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. From my vantage on the outskirts of Chicago, I could see clearly that the untamed wild my urban-born soul longed for was hard to come by. Carson’s heartbreaking seminal work revealed that, in fact, we were poisoning what was left of the wild while ruthlessly turning our hospitable Terran home into an inhospitable hellscape.
The political-activism genes I’d inherited, particularly through my mother’s line, were triggered big time that year by the Tet Offensive and My Lai Massacre, by the draft facing our senior and junior boys, the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, race riots in the Second City’s urban ghettos, and the Chicago Democratic National Convention.
Quick digression – the musical Hair opened on Broadway in 1968, making the title of this post an enormously witty tie-in.
In college, my population/pollution/politics trinity gelled into a personal vision of humankind’s most probable future. After gutting Mother Earth for all she was worth, I theorized, the greedy rico capitalists who owned it all would inflict greater ruin upon us (and upon her) by levying the full might of their militaries against each other in pointless pissing contests and throwing Hulk-ish temper tantrums that would smash everything they weren’t able to take by force.
Regrettably, in all these years, I’ve never found any reason to alter my prediction. As much as I wish it weren’t so, my vision has failed to meet expectations only in the speed with which it is coming to pass. I thought I’d be long gone before our planet started to cook, our water, soil, sunlight, and air became noticeably toxic, and megalomaniacal dictators a lá Palpatine ruled the better part of the world. Before we approached the brink of existential destruction.
Yet, here we are, at the Lugnasadh of our era. The beginning of the harvest season, when, like it or not, it’s time to start reaping what we have sown.
It’s early days yet, but, as I’ve noted before, we’re already contending with heat bubbles, deadly heat waves, heat islands, record-setting cold winters, fires and smoke, flash floods, atmospheric rivers, an uptick in tornadoes, and invasive plant and animal (especially insect) species. And we’ve got it easy. Those living on the fringes of Mom’s habitable-for-humans areas are already facing/ dying from next-gen tsunamis and hurricanes, sea level rise, droughts, and water shortages that have resulted in agricultural collapse, devastated residential infrastructure, and forced relocation.
While anthropogenic climate change is directly attributable to specific human activities (cutting down rain forests, burning fossil fuels, that sort of thing), suicidal adherence to these activities stems from the interlocked threats I identified back in high school. Overpopulation. Fragmented social bonds. Scarcity of resources. Capitalism. Greed.
As for the New World Order my college-self predicted, we’re scary-close to there. Only 13% of the global population currently live in liberal democracies. The percentage that live in illiberal autocracies varies depending on the parameters, but the range is from 39% under strict authoritarian regimes to 72% under authoritarian rule when “autocracy” is more broadly defined. Not only is there an abundance of tyranny world-wide, two out of the big-three super-powers are oligarchies (America, Russia), and the third (China) is a one-party dictatorship with personal-dictator tendencies. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, dear readers, the pissing contest has begun.
From political analysts to podcasters, historians to comedy news-hosts, distant relatives to the people next door, the question everyone keeps asking (and endlessly trying to answer) is: How did we get here?
My younger self assumed our species’ natural imperatives and basest instincts would be the source of all the tsouris (troubles). I still think those factors are hugely influencing our current situation. But – I’ve got one thing high-school and college me didn’t have! A fresh perspective, courtesy of First America, a podcast about American history.
It’s not the history of the two-party system or the American fascist movement. It’s not about the lingering animosities of the Civil War or the legacy of robber-baron capitalism. It’s American history with Native Americans in the picture, and omg but the people of the First Nations know a whole heckuva lot about the origins of authoritarianism on this continent – because it’s their story, the one that was largely and intentionally precluded from being recorded in the first place, and that was spuriously rewritten or wholly expunged from the record whenever it somehow managed to sneak in.
No spoilers, but here’s a teaser: The precepts of autocratic rule are embedded in our Constitution, inked in as legal justification for the methods the colonists employed to “solve” the “Indian problem.”
If all this is making you feel less-than joyous or un-celebratory on this blesséd cross-quarter Lughnasadh Day, first remember that pessimism is not fatalism. Then, click on the podcast title above, follow the link, and give a listen. (The link goes to Apple Podcasts, but you can find First America on Pushkin, Spotify … or wherever you get your podcasts?)
Learning this omitted/erased history from those who have never forgotten it and have been living under American authoritarian rule for generations has given me hope. Clearly, resistance is not futile. Surely, the time to fight for our rights and freedoms, protest injustice, speak truth, advocate for those who are suffering most, and cultivate greater compassion is now, when things aren’t going so well. And, surely, the way to handle the madness and stress is day-by-day, cheering the good news (sweeping progressive victories in the American primaries), laughing at the farce (have you seen the Wiggy Wanker’s new hair? (click HERE), honoring the season, connecting with community, and holding those we love in our heart of hearts.
Maybe the world is going to hell in a handbasket … but we don’t have to take the direct route.
This poem by Kimberly Blaeser (Anishinaabe (aka Ojibwe, Chippewa), White Earth Nation) says the same, says more, and says it better.
About Standing (in Kinship)
We all have the same little bones in our foot
twenty-six with funny names like navicular.
Together they build something strong—
our foot arch a pyramid holding us up.
The bones don’t get casts when they break.
We tape them—one phalange to its neighbor for support.
(Other things like sorrow work that way, too—
find healing in the leaning, the closeness.)
Our feet have one quarter of all the bones in our body.
Maybe we should give more honor to feet
and to all those tiny but blessed cogs in the world—
communities, the forgotten architecture of friendship.
May all the blessings of the season be yours.