Offset The Juggernaut: A Guide for Liberals
The Yes Men
An earlier version of this article appeared in Good Magazine and can be viewed online here.
Jagannath ("master of the world" in Sanskrit) is an absurd but kind little god. Normally about six inches high and completely improbable in appearance, once every year he mounts an even more improbable wheeled contraption about five stories high. Row upon row of devotees perch on the different levels of Jagannath's throne as, clearly unsafe at any speed, he lurches through the streets of Puri. In reality, fatalities are usually due to passengers falling off the device, but an early European priest told of it mowing down the devout as they flung themselves in its path, and that's the story that stuck.
Today, we have our own much odder and much less kind Jagannath – "Juggernaut," as the priest wrote it – and while the occasional fatality is due to a devotee falling from the upper reaches of its improvised latticework (didn't one of the Enron managers commit suicide?), death more often hews to the priest's version... except that those that it crushes aren't normally devotees. The 20,000 victims of Bhopal, or the 650,000 (so far) in Iraq, just happened to be in the path of pan-national greed, sometimes fulfilling its dictates, but not really on purpose or with any special enthusiasm.
Now, our very own Juggernaut is preparing some much bigger death, in the form of impending climate calamity. Here too, most of us don't really want that.
A number of decent people do note that J. has produced some wondrous things. Sure, they say, India's transformations in the global free market do produce millions of unemployed farmers, of whom thousands commit suicide every year—but it's also producing a flourishing middle class, thanks to the Bangalore phone banks and tech joints. And though our world-master now threatens the death of civilization, it's also brought us unprecedented luxury and mobility. Even Nero couldn't eat kumquats in winter!
Yes, these folks say, this thing we call the free market may well be a hurtling, death-dealing thing, but it doesn't really mean ill—you just have to get to know it, like a big clumsy pet, and it will respond with love instead of with death. If all of us simply buy the right things, become better citizen-shoppers, leverage the powers of consumer-affection, everything will turn out just fine. Buy a Prius. Invest ethically. Show Coke how to live. [1]
The problem is, our Juggernaut is a force against which a few of us becoming vegetarians, planting trees in the Amazon, or riding bicycles to our jobs on Wall Street are no match at all. And despite the almost psychotically sunny predictions of corporate seers like Stewart Brand and Kevin Kelly, the global free market doesn't want much besides profits and growth; its own survival comes in a distant third, if even that.
That's why many of us think the culture of death needs to be jammed. The best way to jam it would be by withdrawing corporate charters after a company's very first mass murder (no second chances!), making the cost of products reflect their true cost to the world, maybe even stopping the production of gas-powered cars, as we did during WWII. The serious crises we face merit serious responses, and an acknowledgement that our society is sick at its core. Only then will we have the faintest hope of stopping our mean little god from crushing us all.
The trouble is, these kinds of actions require an answerable, transparent government to enact them. And here in the US we have chosen a government as uninterested in our survival as is the free market.
Until we can establish democratic government once again - i.e. one more interested in our needs than the wants of the rich - what are our options?
We can protest. This may be our best option.
Or we can do mischief. We can throw a laundry bag of dollar bills onto the New York Stock Exchange floor, revealing the "profit motive" for the rooting of pigs that it is (Abbie Hoffman, 1967). We can make billboards tell the true story about corporate caring (Billboard Liberation Front, et al.). We can simulate billionaires (Billionaires for Bush, 2004) or fake our way onto television as spokespeople for Dow Chemical (the Yes Men, 2004) in a pantomime of what's wrong.
We can graphically demonstrate that we already have all the technology we need to solve all our problems, as do the people behind WorldChanging – though it's unfortunate that they fail to mention in all those hundreds of pages that the only thing that's essential and missing is government that's up to the task, i.e. democracy. Without that, all those marvelous green solutions are just so much window-dressing.
Protest, mischief, and the sort of thought experiments that comprise WorldChanging are small measures, desperate ones, no better than saying "ride a bike." They go no deeper than the "solutions" Al Gore suggests in the credits at the end of his film.
But symbolic acts can, at least, make people more aware of a problem than they had been before, and more eager to address it through substantive means.
And there's hope. Like Jagannath, our own lumbering monster is at its core a very small thing – not a six-inch-high god, but a flimsy and absurd little notion, summed up in one short phrase: let the rich do what they want, and things will work out wonderfully for everyone. It isn't very hard to help others see this as the nonsense that it is, which is one reason that soon, the outraged may be numerous enough to bring the chariot to a halt, just as they did with segregation, the Vietnam War, and other stupid, suicidal constructs that were once thought inevitable.
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Footnote:
[1] Perhaps all the wishful thinking is just due to laziness. It's so simple to imagine that the market system can be managed without too much fuss, that we can turn the system around with no more effort than purchasing different goods. Or maybe it's also an esthetic problem. After all, free market theory is quite beautiful.... Without such faith in the market's inherent democracy, the task we face is both harder and messier.
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so what do we do?
The market system is driving us toward global suicide and a quick end to the Anthropocene Age. it doesn't seem likely that a rise in consciousness can overthrow it, even if there are a few more exponential leaps in awareness. The rise of "green capitalism" this year is predictable, and certainly meaningless compared to the systemic transformation that is probably necessary at this point in time.
My understanding of the situation would suggest that there will soon be more crises along the lines of 9-11 and New Orleans, although nobody can predict what form those crises will take (military, terrorist, famine, earthquake, etc). We are putting intolerable stresses on all of the support systems of the biosphere, and there can be little doubt the biosphere will soon start kicking back at us.
The "Eco-Anarcho-Fringe-Left" must move away from bewailing the situation or wasting its energy in meaningless protest, toward anticipating a time of chaos and transition, when the pendulum could swing to authoritarian-fundamentalism, or could swing in the other direction entirely, if there is an alternative infrastructure and paradigm in place to shift people into a different worldview.
The people of Biloxi, Mississippi, no longer have a problem with hippies, because Rainbow Family veterans were the only ones who came and built a medical clinic, a communal kitchen, etc., when the US Government was doing nothing for the people. (There is a wonderful video about this on-line somewhere.)
I suggest that the thrust of Leftist activity should shift from negative yelps (perhaps even smarmy-smart protests) against the ongoing cataclysms, to actually defining a workable new paradigm for the future, and an actionable strategy for attaining it. The inherited structures of our government may not be able to adjust fast enough to the types of rapid change we will see with accelerating climate shift in the next few years.
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
Cultural Actions Reverberate Deep
There will be no shift in societal behavior without a shift in awareness. People need to wake up. And artful political actions -- like the ones mentioned in this piece -- can have a profound impact on people, cracking the banal facade of consensus-existence and letting another kind of energy through. There's nothing meaningless about creative speech, which is what these theatrical actions are, as long as the "message" that comes through is one of hope.
Witnessing a Dupont spokesperson on the BBC take responsibility for Bhopal -- and the realization you have that comes from watching it, that it would have been entirely possible for Dupont to have taken responsibility all along -- shifts your expectation of what our society should be capable of.
Successful cultural jams are packed with meaning. Were we to see a sudden hundred-fold increase in culture jams, it would be a sure sign that the walls of the corporate-consumer ediface are beginning to quake.
Meaningful action
I would agree with Ken that protest is far from "meaningless". But I would also agree with Daniel that far more substantive action is required, and quickly. I would differ with Daniel in one major way: I haven't given up on government yet, as a category. Just because we've got a wretched one, and have for a long time, doesn't mean there's no alternative, and that we have to throw the whole kit and caboodle of what is generally called democracy into the trash. Sure, we have to change awareness, and the hippies of Biloxi are a great example - but how can that sort of shift stick if we can't establish any rules, or get rid of old ones? We have to bring government into the equation - which is the whole and sole point of our piece, really:
'Protest, mischief, and the sort of thought experiments that comprise WorldChanging are small measures, desperate ones, no better than saying "ride a bike." They go no deeper than the "solutions" Al Gore suggests in the credits at the end of his film.
'But symbolic acts can, at least, make people more aware of a problem than they had been before, and more eager to address it through substantive means.'
power structure=personality construct
"let the rich do what they want, and things will work out wonderfully for everyone"
Maybe the imbalance of the individual is being reflected on a societal scale. The rich having complete freedom to wring every last penny out of the rest of us is, possibly, a manifestation of the ego running from death, franticly pretending that it's not. The obvious irony is that the method for escaping death here is suicide. I know, no help really, except for being an argument for transforming your(my)self. Perhaps a critical mass of personal evolution is the only way out of this mess.
The UnMerry Pranksters
I'm just coming back from China, so I'm coming from an experience and a different perspective than that expoused by the Yes Men.
I want to ask, why is it that "liberal" means 'counter-active foolish pranskster,' or 'jackass', as the kids might say?
Why isn't Liberalism seen in its native context - Wealth?
That is, what is it to be liberal, other than to be wealthy enough to have the time to do idiotic things, like buying 600 dollar radios (iPods), or 22,000 dollar sort-of-not-gas-guzzling cars (les Prius).
But don't get me wrong, I'm no enemy of capitalism (and if you are, I'll ask you to evaluate its role in history).
Even the authors note that the little techie jobs in Bangalore will move people out of the flooded valleys (curse that they are flooding, but they are, and they will, as long as people want electricity, or the promise of it).
Or, in China, as that wild nation breaks its baby teeth on a new religion - not the Mao-ist religion of the past, but the possibility of actually earning something to take home (and yes, they work all the time, with no promise of safety as they cling to the scaffolding far, far, far above the Beijing streets, and beneath, in the sewers).
It's a terribly unfair world, and it always has been. So, you can toss a handful of dollars on the stock exchange floor - hell, if it's fun, and you want that experience, I'm not going to stop you.
So, is it possible that liberalism can mean more than a readiness to sit on the sidelines and snark at the crowd? Liberalism, after all, is not the same as equality - it is the opposite.
It is that notion of individual's ability - and right - to rise above the crowd on his or her own steam, ingenuity, and god-given gifts - Why liberalism means a constant combativeness with the going culture.
There's more, but mostly, I observe, or feel, that 'liberalism' has become its own cul-de-sac, and has little to offer that allows Liberation from the standard meme. But, I'm only touching on what lies beneath in my thoughts...
How about this -
Go to the stock exchange floor, invest in something that is going to earn a tremendous profit - take that profit, and forward your life, dreams, and goals with it. Too corporate? Too sold-out?
Well, if you can get mom or dad to pay the bills, I suppose it might be. Otherwise...maybe it's the most subversive act?
Just a thought, in process...
Hi Andy, Thanks for turning
Hi Andy, Thanks for turning up here and commenting.
From everything I have been reading and thinking about in relationship to accelerated climate shift and the depletion of planetary resources, it seems that the pace of change and the necessity of responding to ever-faster and more complex changing conditions could make it difficult, if not entirely impossible, for existing social infrastructures to handle the situation. Ed Ayres, former director of World Watch, predicted authoritarianism and then anarchy as the logical progression as resources become scarce, and millions of environmental refugees flee across borders.
We have a government that undergoes partial regime change on 2 year, 4 year, and 6 year cycles, and a world-situation that is rapidly changing every few months. Obviously we require some type of government, and obviously democracy has been a great step forward for human liberation. I did not mean to imply anything else. However, the underlying systems and structures can and do change, as in past transformations, and in the quite recent fall of the Berlin Wall. It seems naive to dismiss this possibility, and assume that the current system of government is going to be able to hold things together during intensifying crisis, whether it is Bush/Cheney or Gore/Obama in office.
I recently read Hannah Arendt's book "On Revolution" and was very interested in what she had to say about "direct democracy," the model that Jefferson apparently wanted to preserve through a nationwide system of townships or wards. We ended up with representational democracy instead, which has become oligarchy, more or less.
Protest may be a bit ineffective without a complete analysis of the current situation, and at least a vision or preferably a coherent plan of action for the time ahead. "Will the transformation."-Rilke