Dean Forster wrote:
>(Even if I did cackle a lot during the "Golden Calf"
>boardroom scene in
>Dogma. But Matt Damon... oh, never mind.)
>
>** That is my favorite too. AND ONE TO GROW ON!
Heh. "But you FORGOT TO SAY BLESS YOU!" "LOKI...." How could they make
the Angel of Death so- likable?
>** what, you don't remember my gun whacko debates?
Oh, ok. *That* Dean. Hold still while I paste this "that gun whacko guy"
sticker across your forehead.
>As far as our debate about corporations and the
>free market go, I hear what you're saying and I think
>you hear what i'm saying. but we don't have anything
>to debate unless you can come up with an alternative
>to what we have now- we could compare the current
>system with your hypothetical one. Or you could
>propose we switch to a system in use in another
>country currently.. From where i'm sittin, what we
>have isn't perfect but it's the best show in town.
>freedom baby, yeeaah!
Well, as I said, gimme at *least* five years before I save the worlds. If
nothing else my exams keep getting in my way. I do have, however, a few
interesting theories....
One rather depressing one (from my point of view) is that the political
pendulum will end up swinging towards the religious. I think it already
would have done so if the dominant religion around wasn't so
anti-environmentalist and the New Agers weren't so wimpy; but look
closely, and you will see some major symptoms of religion amongst
environmentalists, such as the dogmatic belief (even when unsupported by
knowledge or facts), the distrust of and rejection of "factual"
information as actually *damaging* to the cause, the sense of martyrdom.
>From a practical point of view, religion has been the one surefire way of
making people sacrifice something they *want* to an abstract concept- and
not just a few fringe people, but entire masses of 'em. People already
talk about "the environment" with only the vaguest possible idea of what
they're actually referring to, rather like most of us talk about God;
they haven't actually *thought* about what they're talking about, they're
just using a handy and significance-filled work. Some serious
environmentalists, like (I hope) myself, deplore this tendency; they try
and encourage people to examine their beliefs closely and hone them.
Others, also quite seriously, encourage the loss of thought. They urge
people to blindly trust their emotions and call anyone who questions an
unbeliever- even those within their own belief structures who are only
seeking clarifications.
I think the resemblance is pretty clear.
(Okay, okay, you say, but the Christians were also shaped and
strengthened by the presence of a relatively tolerant society, which in
their time was degenerating into corruption, overindulgence, sexual
perversion, and generally loosing their drive, whereas we... uh... okay,
*I'm* going to go hide in the basement now.)
I don't like this. I'm an agnostic. But I think it's happening. Now, I
know that what I've just handed you is a strong characteristic of *any*
fringe cult, which is no doubt what plenty of people still want to call
the environmental movement, but I think the movement has outgrown that
defination. Anything that can effect the policies of major governments is
no longer a cult. And, no, sadly it *wasn't* the science that affected
the governments; it was people making so much noise that they could no
longer *ignore* the science.
I think the religious overtones of the environmentalist movement are an
inavoidable reaction against those who have persistantly set themselves
up *against* the environmentalist movement- the coldly logical, the
businesslike, that entire cult of justified selfishness. It had to come;
the pendulum had to swing; people are too tired of being logical, of
being told that this piece of land has no value but what I place on it,
that this forest goes down no matter how much they've liked to walk in
it, because unless we put up a fence and make you pay to get in "like"
doesn't count for shit. Unfortunately, it is in the nature of pendulums
to swing far too far the other way. There are a lot of perfectly rational
and good people in the environmental movement, but the more we get people
like, well, George W. in charge....
I see it going two ways: one, there's a lot of compromises and we (the
environmentalists) end up something like the Gaiasts in Earth, respected,
often scientific, generally rational except for those embarrassing people
out there making the snakes biting them and stuff. The other way- well,
we end up as the Baptists. (Apologies to all Baptists: I'm thinking of
the tent revivals that occasionally happened in my area.) Or like the
Catholics in the Middle Ages, more likely, controlling governments with
moralistic threats, deliberately keeping the "masses" ignorant, and
hanging people up by the thumbs when they dare disagree with us. Or find
things we don't like. Or, you know, *look* at us funny. (And now I need
to apologize to the Catholics for bringing up that embarrassing period in
their history... honest, guys, it's all in the service of the metaphor.)
I'm not sure if this is what you were asking or not. And I am certainly
welcome to opinions. I *hope* everyone here knows me well enough to guess
what I'm hoping for. But I honestly don't think the swing away from
rational capitalism can be stopped, not anymore; and it really worries
me, sometimes, what might spring up in its place.
Caesar is dying, the knife in his back; long live Caesar.
Kat Feete
-------
It's an old magical principle -- it's even filtered
down into RPG systems-- that magic, while taking a lot
of effort, can be 'stored' -- in a staff, for example.
No doubt a wizard spends a little time each day charging
up his staff, although you go blind if you do it too much,
of course.
-Terry Pratchett
