How Intractable is Our Lack of Agency?

 

Farm near Douthat State Park, Virginia

One of my primary goals for the past several years has been (and continues to be) to try to bring about realization of the difference between a problem and a predicament. The reason is that most people tend to see our condition from a reductionist and/or siloed perspective, which is due to the social cultural conditioning, the indoctrination, and the propaganda techniques which form our belief systems. My last article went into some of this, but I want to bring back some articles from some time ago to demonstrate why our lack of agency befuddles us so much (see also this article) and combine them with some newer material just to present how intractable this all is. In an update (3-24-24) regarding free will, a new article about Robert Sapolsky's book, Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, explains that meritocracy is merely system justification and free will is, quote:

"A behavior is the end product of what happened in your brain a second ago, of environmental stimuli, which condition those neurons in your brain to do what they did a second ago. And the hormones you had in your bloodstream this morning. And what happened to you in the last few months. Your brain may have changed its structure during your adolescence, childhood, or fetal life. Either because of your genes or because of the culture in which you have grown up. It is biology, over which we have no control, interacting with the environment, over which we have no control. And when you look at all of these influences, you realize that neurobiology influences your decisions, as does genetics, geochronology and social psychology. It is not that all these disciplines are different, but that they become one discipline."

I have discussed recently about why people worship technology so much and only tend to see the positive aspects of it and ignore the negative aspects. The cultural conditioning that accompanies civilization and modernity today incorporates a great deal of propaganda which tends to produce the wetiko that we suffer from. Building on what was presented in Fantasies, Myths, and Fairy Tales (link provided in above sentence), I add more information in my article about the MEER idea, proving once again that marketing, advertising, and propaganda are really the only hallmarks the idea is actually big on. With so many false beliefs and denial masking reality within society, how would we (if it was possible) ever bring about radical transformation voluntarily? As I have pointed out time and again, regardless of whether one is talking about the Degrowth Movement, or some version of electrification, or some other type of so-called "solution," these are all seriously thorny issues that are destined for the dust heap of noble ideas that just didn't work out.

The people who are busy promoting these ideas suffer a great deal from optimism bias and, unfortunately, denial of reality. Sure, these folks might be making a living off of marketing their idea, but is the actual idea behind the marketing effort going to provide the solution it is being marketed for? In a nutshell, NO. The trouble here once again is that we aren't suffering from a problem. We are suffering from a predicament; and predicaments have outcomes, not solutions. 

I've spent some time in the past pointing out how idealistic plans for utopian societies or communities have all failed, one after another after another after another. Some communities that were established as utopian societies still exist, but these function either differently from how they were originally formed or had rather limited "utopian" qualities to begin with. The Transition Town movement was started to form a model of a more sustainable community, and it has gathered limited success, but these ideas again are based on civilization, which is unsustainable. I've brought up The Venus Project as well, which is destined for failure as well because of the idea it is based upon. Of the two ideas (The Venus Project and the Transition Town movement), the Transition Town movement would be the more sustainable one. 

The biggest boondoggle within all of this is the web of propaganda, manipulation, cultural programming and conditioning, indoctrination, and belief systems which surround all of us. Our addiction to energy use and technology use prevents us from tackling precisely what would reduce ecological overshoot, and yet because of the belief systems surrounding us, few if any of us really want to reduce our energy use OR our use of technology. Human loss aversion has much to do with this as I pointed out in a recent article. Nate Hagens adds to these reasons with the Behavioral Stack, which goes into a considerable amount about how we tend to steer our thinking into left-brain thinking (reductionist), which breaks the world down into parts (separate entities) rather than seeing it holistically (interdependent and intertwined, as it actually is). It also describes how we spend most of our time in the dopamine-hijacked world. Most of us are more in a "me" state (all about me) versus a "we" state (all about us), which goes back to the wetiko state of thinking I mentioned earlier. Now, take all of this and add the biological imperative of the Maximum Power Principle, and what do we wind up with? If you answered, "Lack of agency," I think you would be correct.  

Many people tend to think that society can reduce overshoot, and they would actually be correct if it was something that everyone wanted to do. However, when almost nobody truly wants to do that, what are the chances that it will ever happen voluntarily? Too many defense mechanisms exist to rationalize the situation and generate more convenient-sounding narratives, which lull people into a false sense of security that "somebody somewhere is working on it and will come up with a solution." AANNDDD, we're back to the whole "solutionista" thing again where I have to remind everyone that we face a predicament, not a problem.

Helping to heal trauma and promote natural togetherness and connectivity is something I think can also help to bring about awareness of wetiko and our other psychological crutches that tend to prevent complete comprehension of the situation we face. Still, we must face the simple facts implied by trauma and the illusion of separateness it facilitates. Even though I am aware of my own wetiko thinking, I don't always catch it at first - it flies under the radar and can be quite stealthy. It is entirely possible that we may never entirely bring awareness of wetiko and the psychological defense mechanisms we employ to the forefront of society or that even if we do, not everyone will be able to see it. 

Speaking of being able to see it, many people don't realize precisely where we are as a species. To help bring a more complete sense of this for anyone who hasn't read many of my articles, let me bring up an article I wrote almost 3 years ago, What Will We Miss the Most? In this article, I highlight a video by Tad Patzek (queued up to the specific point in the video where he points out precisely what will happen to civilization - explaining the scenario revolving around the stepping down of civilization to 400 exajoules/year from 600 exajoules/year [rates of energy use]) and an article from Rob Mielcarski that really impressed upon me just how close we are to the point of mass realization of collapse. When I wrote the article, my understanding was that we were 5-8 years away from that point, which is now down to 2-5 years. Those of us who are aware of this can already see it; but unless one is actually looking for it, they will more likely get caught up in the distraction of propaganda, war, politics, etc., and the narratives they generate. 

Perhaps one of the best ways to learn about our lack of agency is to point out the simple fact that climate change is irreversible on human timescales or that electricity is unsustainable and the grid will disintegrate this century or that civilization is unsustainable and ask people what they think should be done about it. Most of the responses you get will be complete nonsense based on a considerable amount of ignorance about the subject, but even cogent responses will run the gamut. (Almost) Nobody will suggest returning to the way humans did things before the dawn of agriculture, yet what if that ends up being the only option? With such a range of ideas, most of them unworkable and the remainder of them unfeasible socially and/or politically, how much agency do you think we actually have at changing who and what we are as a species or changing the system of the biosphere to bend to our will? Obviously, we've been trying to change the biosphere since we began using technology and it hasn't worked. Even after thousands of years, we still don't truly control nature. The only other option is to change ourselves. Tom Murphy has a new article that goes into quite a bit of detail about it.

Right now there are a wide range of response options, including bargaining to maintain civilization, which I expect a rather large portion of society to continue until it can't. But as many of the above links demonstrate, as time moves forward, these options will become fewer and fewer, taking many of the responses available today out of the mix. The likelihood that human society is going to suddenly "wake up" and act responsibly and ethically within the next 2 to 5 years is remote at best. Even if that were to happen, due to the aerosol masking effect (AME) issues I brought up in my last article, conditions would NOT get better as a result. As the outcome of that, I am pretty certain that things will continually worsen from here on out, with war one of the most predictable responses, given our history as a species. In my previous articles, you've seen what Art Berman has to say, you've seen what Tad Patzek has to say, you've seen what Vaclav Smil has to say, and you've seen what Nate Hagens has to say. Here's what The Honest Sorcerer has to say. After reading that article, here's one to follow it up with from Alice Friedemann.

For some folks, this is old hat and something we've known about for quite some time. For others, this might be absolutely devastating news. For those in the latter case, I highly recommend the Spirituality Resources File. I have written a few articles designed specifically to help, such as The Cycle of Life and Activities Which Can Help Us Deal With Climate Anxiety. Another article designed to help is Are You Running Towards Life or Running Away From Death? Whatever you do, Don't Postpone Joy. That is a big reminder to get out there and Live Now!