Puckett Publishing

Problems Of the Future

Someone has said there really is no place to "go" from here, unless, I guess, you consider this proscription:

(Funny thing. When I wrote this song, the words and images just sorta flowed onto the page, and, though I really liked them, they didn't necessarily mean anything. In the context of this topic, however, there seems to me to be a rather startling correlation. So now I at least know how to introduce the tune.)

But seriously, whenever I consider the enormity of the Problems, and the Complete Lack, even antipathy, of any initiative to move on them, I have to admit that, realistically, there is almost infinitesimal probability that the Situation can be corrected by anything other than Cataclysm. That, in fact, the only thing small bands of... I hesitate to use the word "enlightened", perhaps "circumspect" is better... of circumspect, aware individuals, the only thing they can do now is hopefully mitigate the extent and severity of the meltdown. If not necessarily for ourselves, then for our offspring, because, given the inertia of global systems, and the fear on the part of those who truly understand the fragility and interconnectedness of those systems, and thus will forego making overt actions to topple them, the oak may in fact stand longer than we personally live. But systems whose "stability" rest on singularities are incredibly susceptible to stimulus. A marble in a chalice, given a push, will oscillate but finally rest in the stable point at the well. A flawed glass pendant, made to look like diamond, and balanced on a sharp point, will collapse when pushed even a little bit. And reach a new trly stable configuration, albeit likely shattered and strewn about. Yes, our children reap the whirlwind, and I always feel a pang of guilt knowing that I have lived at almost the precise point in time (and place) so as to have enjoyed this incredible prosperity, and the next generation, or surely the one after that, will have to deal with likely chaos. If not that, then certainly a drastically reduced comfort and facility.

The tipping point could come from China & Russia calling in the debt. Peak Oil and a drastic realignment of energy availability might trigger it. Sufficient natural disaster might be the ticket. And I do not think the Problem is any way constrained to economic: climate change, man-made or no (though certainly exacerbated by our contribution) is upon us. That too is past the point of avoidance, of preventive intervention. The global energy crisis represented by Peak Oil will happen. Ancient Sunlight will be exhausted, and a conversion to coal on the scale our consumption requires is in itself a monumental catastrophe in the making, at least w.r.t. health and the environment. Fast-neutron reactors hold some hope, but come on: there's a hell of a lot less uranium than there is petroleum. Fusion reactors hold the greatest hope, but there is less movement in that arena than there's ever been, or at least there is absolutely nothing reported.

Our governments are deers in the headlight, frozen into inaction by the enormity of the Problems, and the unelectability of any candidate who would be willing to incur the cost and pain of doing anything meaningful about them. And hence the inherent flaw in democracies & republics, or at least those who either allow their populace to remain uneducated and informed or (as I suspect) promote ignorance and bad education (an electorate incapable of critical thought is an electorate that is most easily manipulated), those governments that depend on the will of the people, are, in such complicated emergencies as those we face, are hoisted on the petard of that popular will. Mayhap a Return of the King, or at least Plato's Republic, with its notion of absolute power vested in an neutral person of thre greatest ability, is a "solution". But what we'll more likely get is a strong-hand despot; when the cataclysm falls, in the darkness, Naked Power will more easily take control. In the name of Order and Stability, that is how That Hideous Strength will rise.

Which brings us to the other aspect of the Problems: already, our rights and freedoms have been, essentially (and voluntarily) curtailed and abrogated, and this just as a result of the minor emergencies we've so far encountered. In the face of the major disasters to come, economic, energy, climatic, whatever, and in a milieu of ignorance, functional illiteracy, five second sound bites and entertainment that teaches that every problem can be solved in a half hour to two hours tops, the likelihood of Emergency Powers Act is almost a foregone conclusion.

Yes, a cleansing and a renaissance may be in our future. But there will be much to cleanse. "Weep for my children, and for what they will see."

© 2015 Chuck Puckett