ENVIRONMENTAL EXISTENTIALISM, a punk manifesto
ENVIRONMENTAL EXISTENTIALISM, a punk manifesto
The art of cultivating emotional sustainability and critical thinking. Full booklet: audio, video, and text.
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Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between. ~ Maya Angelou
If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who among us is willing to destroy a piece of their own heart? ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Those are my principles. If you don’t like them, I have others. ~ Groucho Marx
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This booklet is a tribute to my mother, a staunch environmentalist who grew up in San Francisco in the 50s/60s.
As an anthropologist and teacher, she spent her life questioning mainstream narratives and exploring alternative paradigms. She relished exposing the skulduggery of corporations — Big Food, Big Oil, Big Pharma, the Military-Industrial Complex — and lies of the media. Amusing Ourselves to Death (Neil Postman) and Dallas Buyers Club (Jean-Marc Vallée) ranked among her all-time favs.
Freedom was her creed. Freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom to lead one’s life as one best sees fit. She raged against conformity, coercion, and orthodoxy in any way, shape, and form.
Coffee was her fuel. Sarcasm ran in her DNA.
She passed away in 2019.
Had she lived a few more years, she would probably have been saddened to see sustainability become a marketing buzzword. Protecting the environment, empowering women and the disenfranchised, and fighting racism — these were all causes close to her heart. To have them co-opted by corporate globalists and woke radicals, she would have probably agreed that something had gone tragically wrong.
This booklet is a tribute to those ideals. The purpose isn't to agree or disagree. It’s merely to explore other ways of thinking.
INTRODUCTION
Do apocalyptic predictions about the planet’s future make you feel anxious?
This booklet won’t downplay global warming. On the contrary, global warming and its devastating impact on the ecosphere will be taken as a given.
We’ll simply bring the big questions down to the level of the individual. How can we live our lives amidst impending doom? Can we remain cool headed when the house is on fire? How can emotional sustainability be cultivated?
THE BINARY NARRATIVE
Binary thinking and mainstream media have led us to believe that there are two kinds of individuals: righteous and sinners.
The righteous are committed individuals who adopt the behaviors, lifestyles and diets prescribed by mainstream media and media’s version of science. They see themselves as holding the moral high ground and profess that we all must ‘work together’ which means adopting their tenets wholesale and marching in lockstep. They believe that if everyone followed their lead, our global and concerted efforts would mitigate the effects of climate change and alleviate the pain of future generations.
The sinners don’t comply. Their noncompliance is vilified and viewed as shameful passivity. Why don’t they join the ranks? Reasons vary from one individual to another: convenience, fatalism, distrust in the media, or simply having other priorities. Whatever their reasons may be, their attitudes are deemed ‘selfish’ and ‘unconscious’.
This manifesto challenges that binary narrative.
CASH IS KING
We’re told to trust science. In our current paradigm of rational materialism, the concept of science is the gold standard.
Scientific research is expensive. Therefore, it’s legitimate to ask, who came up with the cash? Were any strings attached? Conflicts of interest? Were these methods rigorous? Are the results clear? Equivocal? Reliable? Which media outlet published the findings? Who owns the media outlet? Who pays for advertising? How did the journalist translate the science? What got lost in translation?
When such basic questioning is dismissed as conspiracy theories, we’re in deep trouble.
Karl R. Popper, the philosopher of science, considered that great scientists were ‘men of bold ideas, but highly critical of their own ideas: they try to find whether their ideas are right by trying first to find whether they are not perhaps wrong. They work with bold conjectures and severe attempts at refuting their own conjectures.’
When corporations put up cash for research, are ‘bold conjectures’ what they have in mind? It doesn’t take an MBA to know that a company’s priority is to generate dividends for shareholders.
It’s easy to vilify McDonald’s and Coca-Cola as products of consumerist capitalism. But corporations are corporations. Why would hucksters of fake meat and electric cars differ? We associate Coca-Cola’s red hue with its brand. Red is just a color. Green isn’t saving the planet. It’s just another marketing ploy designed to make you buy.
According to Popper, ‘Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.’
ILLUSIONS AND DELUSIONS
We place hope in the future and find comfort in happy-ending narratives. Media and marketing present us with a Barbie version of the world in which ‘science’ is unbiased, corporations and organizations always act in good faith, journalists are objective, and governments always have our best interests at heart.
Hope, notes Krishnamurti, creates distortions and illusions. ‘The house of humanity is burning. And we are not doing anything about it because we are all concerned with our own immediate security.’
Our secular societies have grown wary of religious concepts. Yet science, government, and technology are also concepts. Such concepts lie at the heart of our illusions. Reality is complex. Lumping individuals into concepts doesn’t simplify the discussion. It complexifies it.
Ask any researcher or journalist if he/she is acting in good faith; they would probably say ‘Yes, of course, I do’. In their hearts, they might even believe it, too. Don’t we all? Who, in the privacy of his/her own mind, actually sees himself/herself as evil? Selfish and self-centered, maybe. Ultimately, whether we’re a tycoon, a green activist, or a nazi soldier, don’t we all see ourselves as good people?
CRUSADERS
Media and marketing didn’t invent the binary narrative. They merely recycled centuries of religious precepts with two flavors of individuals: good people and bad people. The righteous and heathen.
What makes a person good? Altruism. Caring for the greater good, as opposed to selfishness and greed. Whether it’s the Church or the media, their discourse is predicated on the same moral compass.
This binary conception quickly induces a sense of Us VS Them. We all see ourselves as Us. Us is always on the side of the righteous. We all consider ourselves as the good ones. Whether it’s a sense of injustice, of victimhood, of self-recrimination, or saving the world for future generations, the ego co-opts anything to flatter itself. Even if this means living in delusion.
Consequently, it quickly becomes clear that our duty is to grab our swords and convert those who don’t share our ideals. Aren’t those altruistic ideals for the benefit of all? The media legitimizes the moral nature of these crusades. Don’t you care about humanity? Aren’t you a good person? Such propaganda stokes our egos and incentivizes us to go to war.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Wars and crusades throughout history were carried out by groups who believed it was their duty to coerce foreign nations into adopting their own beliefs. Listen to the zeal and sanctimony of green activists. Be wary of any crusader wielding a sword. Whether their banners promulgate God, so-called ‘science’, net-zero, or sustainability, the results are the same.
ENVIRONMENTAL EXISTENTIALISM
Questioning a paradigm begins by acknowledging that the paradigm is only a narrative, one among others. We’re told to adopt certain behaviors in order to alleviate the suffering of future generations. Before adopting this rationale, let’s consider other perspectives.
Aztecs thought a lot about the end of the world. They believed the world had already ended four times: once in darkness, once with a hurricane, once in fire, and once in a flood.
Hindus see time as working in cycles. For them, we are currently at the end of one full cycle in a tumultuous period named Kali Yuga. Once this cycle ends, a new one will begin. If this is the case, why fight a natural unfolding of the Universe?
Whatever narrative one adopts, we must contend with one irrefutable fact: life always comes to an end, for individuals and species.
As we face demise, existential questions arise. How does one live when the house is on fire and the end is near? What’s the meaning of it all? When the Titanic was sinking, what action did the orchestra take?
These questions aren’t fatalistic. By facing death, existentialists were simply being pragmatic.
Politicians comfort us with long-term measures they will probably never see through. This conveniently eliminates any accountability. The Climate Group claims that “Our window of opportunity is about to close”.
Let’s assume that the window has closed. Now what?
The outcome of this global shift remains elusive. The situation might be nerve-racking. The following manifesto presents 10 ideas to cultivate emotional sustainability and critical thinking amidst the storm.
ENVIRONMENTAL EXISTENTIALISM, A PUNK MANIFESTO
1 – PRACTICALITY
Once we stop believing that governments and science/technology will save us, we can be pragmatic. Simple, basic questions, devoid of morals or judgment. Is it practical to bear children when the house is on fire? Is it wise to invest in coastal real estate when sea levels are rising? Look at the cold facts and make informed, rational decisions. The cost of living escalates? Lead a frugal lifestyle, consider minimalism. Food prices skyrocket? Consider fasting, try OMAD (one meal a day). A flu triggers global insanity? Boost your immunity – cut alcohol, sugar, and refined carbs (or follow my mother’s advice: live fast, die young). Energy prices soar? Fleece blankets. Inflation hits hard? Invest in gold. Gas prices shoot up? Try public transportation or find a job closer to home. Sea levels rise? Summer in the mountains. Move with the groove.
2 – ACTION
All actions leave a carbon footprint. To eradicate that footprint, the only solution (and some environmentalists have gone down this path) would be to remove yourself completely. ‘There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide,’ wrote Camus. ‘Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that.’ Let’s consider that as plan B. So, if you are to live, what action should you take? Media and climate activists would love to convert you to their green religion. But is that the right action for you? No one else is living in your body. Your situation and circumstances are unique. As Gandhi was getting on a train, a journalist ran up to him and asked him to pitch his message. Gandhi took the piece of paper and scribbled 5 words: ‘My life is my message.’ What is your message?
3 – SUSTAINABILITY
The climate gestapo advocates cow genocide. Why? Cattle aren’t deemed sustainable. We must therefore eradicate their species and live on kale and tofu. Are birds sustainable? Whales? Cats? Fish? Sapiens? Who will the environmental inquisition come for next? Our beloved animals don’t worry about sustainability. Nor do they fret over the future of their species. Future and species are concepts. Beasts eat, sleep, and play. By doing so, they nurture their bodies. Our bodies are our garden. They’re our first and foremost ecological responsibility. If you’re destroying your organism with booze, tobacco, stress, sugar, and processed junk, why bother recycling? Before considering drastic measures, let’s start by making sure our own gardens are sustainable.
4 – CRITICAL THINKING
Wherever there’s a buck to be made, there’s always an intention, an agenda, and vested interests. Trust science? The buzzword science is a great marketing tool, it carries considerable heft. The problem with following the science is that the science follows the money. Not so long ago, science told us that smoking was harmless. What is science telling us now? Real science is like art: it’s complicated, expensive, and the outcomes are rarely marketable. Big Food, the 10 largest food corporations, controls a huge share of the global food supply. They turn cheap sugar, seed oils, and refined grains into profit. They also sit on the board of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committees. When such corporations, in cahoots with the media, claim that their products are healthy and sustainable, think again.
5 – DEATH
Environmental questions are tied up with spiritual considerations. According to Jean-Paul Sartre, existence precedes essence. What is our essence? We are all One with the living. Indeed, the same life force runs through all beings: mammals, plants, insects, everything. In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, We are all leaves of one tree. We are all waves on one sea. Communication uses language and words. Words are concepts. Such concepts break the One into 10,000 things. These concepts frame our perceptions. We perceive the cat as a cat, the dog as a dog. We think of ourselves as a bag of skin, a space suit, insulated from our environment. But when we look at the ocean’s surface, do we discriminate and name each wave? Wave and the ocean are one. Does a wave die? Death, from the perspective of One, is an illusion. If the human species comes to an end, the world will go on without us. We were merely a wave in the ocean. Nothing more, nothing less.
6 – NO FUTURE
Anxiety comes from the mind’s tendency to live in the future. Resentment comes from the mind’s tendency to live in the past. Past and future are only thoughts. No one has ever touched or heard the future. Only the present moment exists. When anxious, come back to the now. Be like the cat. Are you thirsty? Drink water. Are you tired? Take a nap. The media and the mind may balk ‘Think of the future of our children! Take action!’ Put down your phone. Turn off the mind, switch off the TV in your head. By reconnecting with the abiding peace within, you are doing far more for future generations than any greenwashed sustainability plan.
7 – RESPONSIBILITY
What is our responsibility? If we’re not individual bodies lost in a foreign dimension, but instead an integral part of a global organism, our responsibility becomes clear. Look at your skin. Scale down to the microscopic level. Cells are moving around, dancing about, doing their thing. No cell is coercing another cell into sustainability. Their actions are natural. Organisms are far too complex to be choreographed by rational minds. Now, rise above the clouds and look down on your city from the sky. Aren’t humans doing the same? Step out of the mind and come to your senses. Cells don’t need to think about their responsibility. Feel what is right for you at this moment. It’s as simple as that.
8 – MORALS
Do animals need morals? Do trees bother themselves with shoulds and shouldn'ts? Be still and feel the energy running through your hands. With practice, you start to feel the same presence behind all things. From that perspective, one individual harming another individual would be like your right hand pinching your left hand. If the same life force runs through everything, what difference would there be between killing a cow or killing a plant? Do lions have qualms about hunting deer? According to Nietzsche, if you kill a cockroach you are a hero. If you kill a butterfly, you are bad. Morals have aesthetic criteria. What do we label as right or wrong? A boy falls off a horse and breaks his leg. The following day, the military conscription officers knock on his door, and, seeing that he is bedridden, they don’t enlist him to go to war. Reality is too complex to be judged with binary frameworks.
9 – LAUGHTER
Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. (G.K. Chesterton) Why not laugh at the absurdity of our predicament? Laugh at our delusions, our grandstanding, our attitudes, our futile attempts to assign meaning. The media is pure entertainment. Thinking that you can change the weather by eating fake meat or that cow farts are destroying the planet is simply hilarious. As Soren Kierkegaard writes,
“When I was young, I forgot how to laugh in the cave of Trophonius; when I was older, I opened my eyes and beheld reality, at which I began to laugh, and since then, I have not stopped laughing. I saw that the meaning of life was to secure a livelihood, and that its goal was to attain a high position; that love’s rich dream was marriage with an heiress; that friendship’s blessing was help in financial difficulties; that wisdom was what the majority assumed it to be; that enthusiasm consisted in making a speech; that it was courage to risk the loss of ten dollars; that kindness consisted in saying, “You are welcome,” at the dinner table; that piety consisted in going to communion once a year. This I saw, and I laughed.”
10 – FREEDOM
Existentialists remind us that the big questions have meaning only in the way they're lived individually by each person. Neither the Church nor corporations, governments, scientists, or activists can answer these questions for you. You must figure it out by yourself. Each one of us is unique, living in unprecedented times. Each body has a bespoke set of shifting parameters, so diets must be tailored and adjusted as time goes by. Be wary of prescriptive rules. There will always be someone to tell you that whatever you're doing is wrong. Lessons from the past and words of wisdom may help, but ultimately, we must contend with our freedom.
NO SILVER BULLET
There is no silver bullet for sustainability. There’s only a bundle of paradoxes, quagmires, and inconvenient truths. Get out, explore the world, meet other cultures? Travel contributes to global warming. Stay home, Netflix and chill? Streaming and servers pollute. Shop? Eat out? Fast fashion, fast food, same conundrum. Switch to wind energy? Wind turbines are killing whales. Eat almond butter, drink almond milk? One almond has an average water footprint of 12 liters. Cultivate soy? Monocultures are ravaging the soil. Processed food? Glyphosate-laden. Processed meat? Filled with hormones. Organic vegetables? Lectins, oxalates and phytic acid wreak havoc on certain human bodies. Solving one problem only leads to ten others.
PRESERVING DIVERSITY
Diversity must be preserved. Biodiversity, but also diversity of thought. To quote Walter Lipman, ‘Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.’ Climate activists enjoin us to work together. Does that mean working in lockstep? Walking in lockstep? Marching to the beat of a drum? When does environmentalism devolve into fascism? The violence and the sanctimony of activists might stem from a desire to save the planet. But as Robert Oppenheimer points out, “It is perfectly obvious that the whole world is going to hell. The only possible chance that it might not is that we do not attempt to prevent it from doing so.” And Alan Watts adds, “All these wars are started by people thinking they’re trying to help someone, that it’s going to make things better.”
THE CAT
We started this manifesto with a question: What did the Titanic’s orchestra do when the ship was sinking? Did they help? Did they panic? Did they play their last tune? What does one do when the world has gone mad? How is one to lead a serene life?
When angst arises, be still and exit the mind. Treat yourself gently. Emulate the cat. Human minds might balk ‘That’s selfish!’ What else is there to do? For David Lynch, meditation is not a selfish thing. Even though you’re diving in and experiencing the self, you’re not closing yourself off from the world. You’re strengthening yourself so that you can be more effective when you go back into the world. It’s selfless, not selfish.
This booklet opened with 3 quotes, so here are three final thoughts:
One does not walk into the forest and accuse the trees of being off-center, nor do they visit the shore and call the waves imperfect. So why do we look at ourselves this way? ~Lao Tzu
Within you, there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself. ~ Hermann Hesse
People ask me: are we moving towards an awakening or Armageddon? How the hell would I know? Either way, my job remains the same: to love, to serve, and to remember (...) Everyone should smile. Life really isn’t that serious. We make it hard. The sun rises. The sun sets. We just tend to complicate the process. ~ Richard Alpert, aka Ram Dass
My mother, the San Francisco environmentalist and cat lover, would have probably agreed with those ideas.
You can find more about the author here:
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