Dealing With Peak Oil Depression
By Peter Goodchild
17 December, 2007
Countercurrents.orgExplaining the problem of dwindling hydrocarbon resources to seven billion people is hard enough, especially since my computer tells me that there are only seven hundred people really concerned about the topic. (I don’t include people who believe modern technology is going to save us from ancient sins.) But when I turn off the computer, put the books back on the shelves, and call it a day, I still have to deal with the fact that it is depressing to think that I myself am saying goodbye to the very world in which I grew up: New England in the 1960s, perhaps the closest thing to heaven that has ever existed on the mortal plane.
For many who have experienced the epiphany of the petroleum bell-curve, a sense of despair is the common after-effect. How does one accommodate oneself to that realization of dwindling material resources? And oddly enough, it is often the most astute, those who have the most to offer, who are in that very position of having to navigate the darkness.
It’s odd that the word "depression" is used most commonly to refer to two things: a state of mind characterized by unhappiness and a host of secondary symptoms (fatigue, insomnia, sexual dysfunction, irritability, excess salivation, psoriasis, etc. etc.) and an economic state characterized by low prices, low wages, and a generally stagnant economy. But the fact that the word has these two uses is not solely due to the convenience of a certain Latin verb.
The two uses of the term actually have much in common, simply because the individual and the world are a reflection of each other. The individual is the microcosm, the outer world is the macrocosm. Any ill, therefore, that befalls the one is likely to befall the other.
But there is a paradox in the concept of "progress." On the one hand, it is possible to say that there was no real idea of "progress" before about the eighteenth century. It would be very hard to wade through literature before that time and come up with any clear evidence of a belief in progress — the assumption that "life gets better and better" as humanity passes from savagery to barbarism to civilization. That idea of progress was very much a product of the Industrial Revolution. It may be said to have died at some time around the First World War, when "the war to end all wars" turned out to be merely the start of many.
The paradox arises from the fact that the idea of "progress" is also related to the sense of "vision," the feeling that "tomorrow will be a better day," the impression that there is hope, that there is light, that there are horizons of green grass and blue skies.
In "The True Believer," Eric Hoffer quotes Hermann Rauschning, describing the aftermath of the First World War and the rise of Nazism, who says, "The feeling of having come to the end of all things was one of the worst troubles we endured after that lost war." On a saner note, we might consider the statement in Proverbs: "Where there is no vision, the people perish." It seems that the difference between the 1960s and today is precisely that problem of belief in the future.
Edward Gibbon wrote a book called "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Paul and Anne Ehrlich wrote one entitled "Population Resources Environment." Except for a space of about two millennia in the subject matter, the two books seem to be telling the same story, that of unlimited, mindless expansion leading to an inevitable collapse. A significant factor in this destruction is humanity’s eternal belief in the wisdom and benevolence of its leaders. The thought that we are led by fools and thieves implies so much injustice that the mind refuses to harbor the idea.
There is in all of us a great desire for a "people." There is also a great desire for a "land." "Wo bist du, mein geliebtes Land?" — "Where are you, my beloved land?" — is a line in a poem set to music by Franz Schubert. Although in our own times there is something doubtful about the admiration of fertility, faced as we are with too many people and not enough land, it is easy to understand the ancient prophets who spoke of an imagined country where one could live without war or hunger, and where one’s children could be as numerous as particles of sand.
For me the essence of "depression" in the economic sense becomes visible when I am in the center of a city and I see someone walking toward me, dressed in the costume of a rabbit or some other animal. He or she waves at me and hands me an advertising brochure. What runs through my mind first is not that the costume is probably hot and unpleasant, nor that the job is low paying. I am struck, rather, by the fact that the job is so lacking in honor and dignity.
The "peak oil" problem is linked to a number of economic issues. In general, economics is a morass that is better avoided. Nevertheless, the depletion of oil and other resources comes at a time when the average person is already beset by the evils of globalization and the resulting massive unemployment. The two problems of oil and employment are synergistic. The owners of department stores may be wondering what they will lose first: the customers or the transportation.
The concept of "under-employment" is important — in the sense of a shortage of working hours, and in the sense of a failure to fully employ human talents. But equally problematic is something that might be called "tolerated employment." It is hard to find work that is honest or dignified, so everywhere I see people choosing what remains: to do something, during the long stretch from dawn to dusk, that will be "rewarded" with a paycheck, but something that is merely permitted, tolerated, tossed at the worker as a bone is tossed to a dog. A century ago, there was a kind of joy in working in the fields, knowing that there was a family waiting for the products of that field. There was a joy in hammering nails, a joy in the gentle whir and thud of a loom. Now there is no joy, and those who are employed must count themselves lucky to be facing another Monday on the job.
Having taught so many students, I know what they face nowadays when they are pushed out onto the streets. Not so long ago, I used to tell them they needed a good resume. Years later I had to tell them that they needed to post their resumes on job sites on the Internet, although the number of posted resumes was infinitely greater than the number of meaningful jobs. Those students never believed me when I told them they had to work hard, and I myself never really believed what I was saying. If they were lucky, they would be tolerated. Basically, they were unwanted, unnecessary, and unwelcome in capitalist society.
Finding a new world for tomorrow means finding a way of life that respects Nature, a life that is more attuned to the land, the sea, and the sky. There is no way for any small group of people to reduce the immense power of the multi-trillion-dollar global economy, although it will disintegrate by itself over the next few years. For now, there is only one direction, and that is out.
We must literally step out of the global economy — and by "we" I mean those few who are clever enough to be saved, those few who make the effort to pack their bags. We must stop being part of "society." Ultimately, I suspect, it would be best to give up using money, at least money as we now know it, since it is money that chains us to the global economy — although at the moment there are so many rules, from building codes to tax laws, that make it difficult to provide oneself with food, clothing and shelter without spending money. The details are uncertain, but the general picture is not too hard to draw. I envision a world where people can open the front doors of their houses and greet the sunrise. I imagine a world in which people can live with nobility, dignity, and grace.
Peter Goodchild is the author of "Survival Skills of the North American Indians," published by Chicago Review Press. He can be contacted at [email protected].
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