Why Hope? : The Stand Against Civilization PDF
Preview Why Hope? : The Stand Against Civilization
Why Hope? The Stand Against Civilization Published in 2015 All rights reserved A Feral House book ISBN 978-1-62731-019-2 Feral House 1240 W. Sims Way Suite 124 Port Townsend WA 98368 www.FeralHouse.com Book design by D. Collins 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ix Introduction THE ABSENT AGE, BY LANG GORE 02 Part I: Origins 02 PREFACE 02 IN THE BEGINNING 12 NUMB AND NUMBER 21 ORIGINS OF THE ONE PERCENT: THE BRONZE AGE 44 ARRIVEDERCI ROMA: THE CRISIS OF LATE ANTIQUITY 44 INDUSTRIALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS: THE LUDDITES AND THEIR INHERITORS 74 Part II: Situations 74 PREFACE 74 NEXT WHAT? 81 BLOWN AWAY: GUNS AND "RANDOM" MASS SHOOTINGS 85 VAGARIES OF THE LEFT 88 FASTER! THE AGE OF ACCELERATION 93 A WORD ON CIVILIZATION AND COLLAPSE 96 Part III: Inspirations 96 PREFACE 96 ANIMAL DREAMS 109 LOSING CONSCIOUSNESS 119 THE SEA 128 WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HEALTHY? 134 WHY HOPE? INTRODUCTION The Absent Age THINKING ABOUT AN UNTHINKABLE REBELLION I n 1846 Søren Kierkegaard essentially anticipated the salient fea- ture of the postmodern age—where reality is always screened and the defining activities are Sitting and Watching—in an essay titled The Present Age. He noted: A revolutionary age is an age of action; ours is the age of adver- tisement and publicity. Nothing ever happens but there is imme- diate publicity everywhere. In the present age a rebellion is, of all things, the most unthinkable. How much more unthinkable must rebellion be in an absent age, where “all that once was directly lived has become mere representation” (Debord). Where domination assumes “a labyrinthine form without a centre,” to borrow the description of Gothic novel Melmoth the Wan- derer, must any prospect of revolt be absent as well? If so, our humiliation is complete. Michael Bakunin’s keenest insight was this: “Three elements or, if you like, three fundamental principles constitute the essential conditions of all human development, collective or individual, in history: (1) human animality; (2) thought; and (3) rebellion.” Some of us know we are animals, all of us imagine we think, many of us would like to be in revolt. Yet who can abide the endless publicity surrounding revolt? And who can abide the endless, alas!, deference to Karl Marx, who more than anyone has dominated the publicity sur- rounding revolt? Someone has said that history is made by those with a sense of
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