Thursday, May 31, 2007

Pulling Into the Driveway

As we come into December and settle down for the long winner, I'm back home after a trip to my in-laws with my wife for Thanksgiving in Dallas. It seems that so much has changed in the last month, and not for the better.

TIME magazine's cover was a simple one: "It's Over (?)". The cover photo was one of cars lined up at the gas pump with the subheading reading "Some say it was a price correction. Others say it was the end of an era. What do you think?"

Last week, I got to hear what others think. It was a large Thanksgiving dinner, with lots of being bossed around by my wife, my in-laws and anyone who had some opinion about what I should be doing. It was more of a contemplative time, and I simply sat back and listened to the conversations my wife's side of the family had before, during, and after Thanksgiving.

They talked about the new home in Dallas, about the hot, sometimes unbearable weather, about local politics, about the behavior of their neighbors, about what their hobbies and projects were, about who wasn't there, about tales of family history and whom couldn't get along with whom. What they didn't talk about were any major changes being made in their lives. If they were taking small, hesitant steps, they weren't sharing those steps with anyone. And if there was any perfect place to do it -- this being a time of giving thanks -- it wasn't being done.

The last six months have brought me to three sad, but inescapable conclusions.

1. Human beings are creatures of habit. They hate change. They will avoid change if possible.
2. If forced to change, they will change as little as they can get away with changing.

These two things are true whether the proposed change is good or bad. Even with a mass windfall of cash, they will try to preserve as much of their former life, friends, hobbies, etc. as possible.

There is sort of a "creeping back", an attempt to pretend that the events of 2007 just didn't happen. Never mind the hundreds of people killed in looting, rioting, starvation, homelessness, or just bizarre random acts of senseless violence caused during the most panicky stage. Never mind the assault on civil liberties. Never mind that a small sliver of our economy was sawed off and is floating out to sea. As far as America is concerned, it's still morning and all that icky stuff can just be forgotten.

I'm sort of reminded of the Roman Empire. How the Romans managed to keep the shape of the Roman Republic but lose its substance completely. The plaquards still read "SPQR", "to the Senate and People of Rome", when the Senate and the People had little power over the whims of the Executive. How even at the end of the Empire, when Christianity had sapped the willpower of the Empire (Gibbon), when the political structure had been sawed in half, when barbarians were invading the territories, when Britian had been told that it had to fend for itself, there were still people fighting over the meaningless title of Imperator as if it were actually worth something. On the outside, the Roman Empire looked fine, even though its art and culture had declined and what we were looking at was an empty shell at best.

So it shall be with peak oil. As another blogger said, the very concept of America is built around free cheap energy and the transportation across the vast spaces of the North American continent. We will keep as much as the "free cheap gas structure" shell forever but the reality will be very different. And not just in America. The shell of modern culture will remain; its substance will be much darker and different with all of the worries that privation brings.

When the day comes when we are no longer free, we will claim that all others are slaves.
When the day comes when we are out of money, we shall proclaim our wealth.
When the day comes when we our army is broken, we shall remain bellicose.
When the day comes when we no longer produce art or culture, we shall proclaim our cultural superiority.
When the machines stop running...then what happens?

(* * *)
So now what? Do we retreat into primitivism, anti-capitalism, a hatred of gas-powered technology for hatred's sake?

I hope not. What we do is simply this: "prepare for the worst, hope for the best." If you believe that peak oil is really a problem, then you should prepare for that problem while conditions are optimal and you're not worried about other things: like, say, survival. Learn how to conserve energy, using only the energy that you need. Learn what to do if access to cheap energy becomes a problem -- there are many things one can do, like growing one's own food. Use mass transit. Gently encourage others to do so -- but do not lecture them. They don't need your lectures, and they don't want them.

Why? Because there is a third inescapable conclusion:

3. No one likes a smart-ass.

(Remember Brainy Smurf? He always had the solutions, but the Smurfs would continually toss him ass-over-teakettle.)

Maybe there will be a wake-up. Humanity is a gem. Human beings have used their minds and their spirits to find solutions when all hope has been lost. They have resisted in situations where the smart and powerful have said resistance is futile. They have found solutions to problems that seemingly had no solutions. There might be a way ou of this, yet. (Hey, we might find a limitless supply of energy somewhere -- but don't put all your hopes there.)

Or, maybe there will not be a wake-up. Maybe the world will just go to sleep for a few centuries. But it might wake up again, later. In the meantime, learn to be clever, teach others, and learn how to survive. Carry the torch of knowledge on to the next generation.

As for now, I'm pulling this blog into the driveway and parking it. There's no more story to tell. Not for now. Maybe later. So I won't say "goodbye" but rather "au revoir" -- "until we meet again".

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