critical-mass.net

In the context of the 21st century levels of climate and ecological understanding can Anthropocentric focussed concerns ever produce truly revolutionary solutions? The answer is of course not without a revolutionary overthrow of anthropocentric focussed thinking.itself. When the actual real world context in which the revolutionary ideas of one century address has changed sufficiently to make those ideas no longer relevant to the new context, then in fact those ideas can become diversionary or even reactionsry. The test of ideas lies in their relationship to reality not in their relationship to history. In other words, if the reality which those ideas were intending to change has changed in any number of ways and the ideas have stayed essentially the same, then the possibility of them becoming irrelevant or even reactionary can become a probability.

In this regard, it is obvious that the central concerns of the revolutionary anti-capitalist ideas produced in 19th century Europe were developed in opposition to the extreme forms of human alienation and exploitation that existed during that 18th and 19th century period of industrialised capitalism. And of course these revolutionary ideas were formulated within a specific 19th and 20th century ecological, climatic and intellectual context. Whilst many of those important human focussed concerns are still relevant in the 21st century, the ecological, biological, climatic and intellectual context has changed radically. It also needs to be recognised that the revolutionary ideas of the 18th and 19th century were addressed from within a firmly held anthropocentric paradigm, and that deeply held paradigm has operated throughout most of recorded history.

That anthropocentric intellectual paradigm held that humanity was the central and most important species of life on earth and that all other species – no matter how complex they were individually – were no more than natural resources to be used as the most influential members of human societies saw fit. This anthropocentric and patriarchal way of thinking about life on earth first emerged in antiquity on the basis of the practical organisation of ancient hierarchical mass societies and has remained embodied within mainstream thinking ever since. The structural socio-economic practices of hierarchical mass societies were based primarily upon humanity interfering with and extracting from nature, everything that could be imaginatively used in order to benefit the ruling elites within those hierarchies, and capitalism has merely changed the form of this exploitation not its content.

Consequently, those economic practices gave rise to a broad range of rival secular and religiously based anthropocentric ideas and ideologies and these in turn became embedded within the institutional political structures of all types of elite governance. Monotheistic religion and elite philosophical discourse became the ideological mediums through which these rival anthropocentric intellectual concerns were disseminated among all citizens. Life on earth, as a phenomenon, became defined on the practical basis of what each warring elite patriarchy could and could not do, with the organic and inorganic material it had become able (due to its hierarchical mass society form) to control. It is important to understand that the period from which the recorded history of hierarchical mass societies began and therefore the period from when these rival anthropocentric ideologies were first established and consolidated was a period of relative climate stability; limited ecological destruction; and of only localised environmental pollution.

Apart from occasional volcanic eruptions, seasonal weather patterns, occasional violent storms and exceptional floods, the planetary biosphere was clearly biologically and climatically dynamic and diverse. Nevertheless, throughout most of history, that dynamism and diversity took place a within relatively stable atmospheric and within manageable ecological parameters. In terms of the intellectual development of humanity, it went through different stages but it is clear that the central concern and defining characteristic of the 19th century intellectuals who produced the conservative, liberal reformist and anti-capitalist ideas and proposals, were in anthropocentric essence the same as many previous generations of elite thinkers, leaders and critics since those of ancient times. The central and overriding concern for multiple generations has primarily been with regard to the internal situation of hierarchically organised humanity itself.

The rest of the planet in terms of its biology, its, topography and ecology, was treated as a separate, interesting and potentially useful, self-replicating given. Moreover, it was a ‘given’ which was considered everlasting. Consequently, in dominant anthropocentric explanations, this ‘given’ was guaranteed either by the chosen ‘lord god’ or because ‘natural selection’ (19th century generations could then take their pick) made it so. This is why the then current and future condition of nature (i.e. the rest of the interconnected network of planetary life forms) did not directly feature in those 19th century revolutionary concerns. This anthropocentric way of thinking about life on earth has so permiated humanity – as a whole – that few thinkers have managed to break free from its intellectual hold. Reality and thinking from within this anthropocentric paradigm saw that the only thing problematic with ancient and modern hierarchical mass societies, were those internally produced by the rival internal and external social relationships between human communities.

Thus the human devised class system, oppression, discrimination, unequal wealth distribution within them were seen as either natural, inevitable and sensible by some privileged citizens or alternatively as unnatural and problematic by some less or underprivileged citizens. From the left secular anthropocentric viewpoint, which emerged in 19th century Europe, it was the latter problems experienced by the underprivileged bulk of humanity which needed radically solving. Therefore, the political concepts of elite championed conservatism and elite championed reformism or elite championed revolution was to maintain or remove these historic problems for humanity. These were the philosophical and political boundaries to which anthropocentric thinking was confined. These limits represented three competing social, intellectual and political responses to the problems of hierarchical mass society living.

The hierarchical mass society form itself (flatteringly conceived as ‘civilisation’) was never seen as fundamentally problematic from within the religious, secular and political sectors of the anthropocentric paradigm. Indeed hierarchical mass societies, once they had been retrospectively re-branded as ‘civilisation’ were viewed on the left, right and centre (and still are) as the solution to humanities problems, once they were governed differently. Interestingly, even the most critical thinkers in history have been firmly held in an intellectual orbit circulating around one or other of humanities own centres of self-obsessed attraction. Take for example the following extract from a critical appraisal of human society by Karl Marx.

“Capital, in so far as it represents the universal form of wealth — money — is the tendency without limits or measure to exceed its own limit. Any limit can only be limited for it. Otherwise, it would cease to be capital: money in so far as it produces itself.[…] It is the perpetual movement that tends always to create more.” (Marx. Grundrisse)

The first part to be fully accurate in the 21st century, should now read ‘Capital, in so far as it represents a general form of social wealth‘ among modern humans – money’ – etc. Marx writing in the 19th century was still orbiting within the anthropocentric focussed circuit of intellectual discourse. Prior to and outside of the capitalist mode of production, capital is not a general or universal form of anything and certainly not of wealth. It can only ‘appear’ to be ‘universal’ or ‘perpetual’ or ‘wealth’, from within a paradigm of anthropocentric thinking which is dominated by the capitalist mode of production. Marx of course knew that, but nevertheless he was still operating from within the paradigm of anthropocentric thinking. Humanity was still being viewed as the most important species within the evolution of bio-chemical diversity of organic matter we now class as ‘life on earth’.

If we ask ourselves why Karl Marx, one of the most profound critics of the human way of life taking place during capitalist and pro-capitalist modes of production, whilst acknowledging the origins of humanity as ‘natural’, (as a product of nature), only mentions other species of life on earth rarely and only in passing, the answer will not long escape us. The then 19th century paradigm of anthropocentric science based thinking did not include a full understanding of two crucial aspects of life on earth. First, a) the minute bio-chemical cellular structure of all multicellular life on earth, was not sufficiently understood, and second, b) The integrated and inter-dependent reliance of all forms of life for breathing and nutrition on the entire bio-chemical web of species life on earth was not realised. The latter concern, despite the efforts of Humboldt and others, was still perceived as a nerdy and largely an impractical distraction from technical and scientific ‘progress’.

Therefore, until the late 20th and early 21st centuries the fact that the physical ability of the combined productive forces of humanity could be such – that if not radically altered – would eventually lead to widespread destruction and extermination of much of the earth’s natural self-replicating biological suport resources, was actually unthinkable. At least it was from a rational bourgeois and petite-bourgeois perspective. The 19th century thinkers in general and the 19th and 20th century revolutionary thinkers in particular, cannot be blamed for this lack of empirical evidence based understanding and thus for gaps in their knowledge. Having limited knowledge is a problem for each generation of thinkers about life on earth. Prior to the 21st century, the evidence to indicate that sufficient numbers of key life support species (e.g. insects, soil and sea based photosynthetic microorganisms, large and small) were being sufficiently reduced in quantity and quality to possibly trigger extinction level collapses of life on earth in general, was simply not available. However, that is no longer the case.

Further evidence accruing in the 21st century has now transformed the basis of that projected extinction possibility into a projected probability. Sufficient evidence is now so emphatically available that to continue to minimise its implications or to ignore them is nothing short of incredible. Therefore, 21st century revolutionary thinkers who fail to fully incorporate modern ecological understandings centrally into their analyses or proposals cannot escape blame for such obvious failures or for failing to remind their readers of the unavoidable as well as the avoidable limitations imposed upon the 19th and 20th century revolutionary minded intellectuals. The 21st century dissemination of this probable extinction scenario linked to production and consumption is now widely publicised, so much so that it has been received as a profound shock to the social and emotional psychology of many people. The greatest shocks have been felt by those who are directly involved in the numerous economic activities of mass production, mass distribution and mass consumption which are the root cause of climate instability, ecological degradation and environmental pollution.

It has been so much of a shock that many are still in denial about its possibility or probability. This shock has been all the more intense and general because throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the increasing efficiency, and increasing rate and volume of human productive capacity was overehelmingly viewed as an entirely positive attribute of the socio-economic system of capitalism. Even my own particular anti-capitalist hero, Kal Marx, in Das Capital viewed industrialised levels of productivity as largely and potentially positive. Human scientific and technological ingenuity and application in the production processes were seen generally as ‘positive progress’ by humanity – at it’s most intelligent! The application of science and technology to production was viewed as fundamental to the essence of what it is to be human. Furthermore, that is still the dominant viewpoint of the majority of the human population, including many anti-capitalists.

According to 20th century pro-capitalist ideology, to be fully satisfied as a 20th century human being was to fully consume both objects and experiences as frequently as possible. Indeed this, anthropocentric obsession has continued to be the dominating ideology of 21st century capitalist promoted consumerism and as such permeates much left thinking. The only differences between some on the left and those on the right are over whether everyone or just some privileged individuals should be able to fully consume to their hearts content. Earning the ‘right to consume by working hard to produce’ has become something of a general anthropocentric cliche but which overlooks the shocking fact that working hard and consuming are both polluting and ecologically destructive activities; they are two sides of the same self-destructive hierarchical mass society process.

Consequently, the shock of linking existing human production and consumption to pollution and extinction has produced two basic sets of responses. A) denials of the evidence, or denials of the probability, or denials of the inevitability, together with denials of responsibility. B) schemes for limiting, reducing and managing the polluting and ecologically destroying effects of the mass consumption of natural resources, that currently feed and fuel the mass production and distribution industries around the globe. Yet a serious reality check reveals that none of the schemes implemented or proposed are (or will be) effective in reducing the knock on effects of the mass production levels which are geared to the needs and desires of the leaders and populations of the current hierarchical mass society structures. This has led to further suggestions by those who are not entirely in denial about the possibilitites and probabilities of serious extinction events. For example in considering the alternative of a degrowth Communist perspective to a capitalist one, one group asks;

“What would this alternative look like? How do we end mass production and mass consumption without reducing living standards? What do we need to do to redress global inequality without accelerating the rate at which the planet burns?”

In the 21st century, living standards for human beings and redressing global inequality (also primarily for human beings) are still the main concern for those still with their minds and consciousness anthropocentrically and hierarchically focussed. Most of these suggestions advocate that there needs to be an equal entitlement to consume and these proposals are still coming from within some sections of the anti-capitalist left. The problem as I see it is that these suggestions (e.g. growth or de-growth within hierarchical mass societies) from the left is that in essence they are based upon the same historic anthropocentric hierarchical mass society human-centred viewpoint as previous generations with regard to future production levels.

We therefore, have the spectacle that even the most radical opponents of the current hierarchical mass society mode of production (ie. anti-capitalists) are only projecting a slightly more ecologically sustainable use of natural resources in the future and a more egalitarian distribution of the results of that industrialised and automated method of social production. For example a recent anti-capitalist internet post ended with the following conclusion.

“The wreckage of people’s lives caused by capitalism now extends widely. The venue of capitalism is global, by its nature. Political support for workers and their political formations in the Global South hits at the essence of capitalist power. The promise of basic change lies in that direction, and that’s so too with alternatives to the capitalist system. Those struggles for social justice and equality that are confined to the world’s industrial centers do target aspects of capitalism, but without far-reaching expectations. The full effort consists of: pushing for reforms that ease burdens placed upon working people, building mass opposition, and – crucially – advancing the international solidarity movement.”

Solidarity for what? For its own sake? The first two sentences are still reasonably relevant, but support for political formations no matter where and ‘pushing for reforms to ease burdens upon working people’ only are still based upon 19th and 20th century anthropocentric considerations of ‘reforming’ – not overthrowing the entire mode of production! In other words these were formulated when significant climate change, significant pollution of soil, sea and air, and significant species extinctions, were unknown. Therefore, in the 21st century, we now have an international phenomena of intellects on the left advocating the dusting off of social formulas and intellectual thought processes which were advocated one, or in some cases even almost two centuries ago.

Lets be clear. The essence of the above anti-capitalist conclusion is to go no further than to support; “Political formations, struggles for social, justice and equality; pushing for reforms that ease the burden placed upon working people and advancing the international solidarity movement” These suggestion are almost identical to the 19th and 20th century left proposals with no recognition of the global climate, pollution and ecological problems that have been revealed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Easing the anthropocentric based extractive burden upon the rest of our natural support resources – nature – is nowhere mentioned. It is clear that far too many on the anti-capitalist left have remained (intellectually at least) in the 19th and early 20th century anthropocentric obsession of hierarchical mass societies own making. Consequently there is currently also a resurgence in recommendations by left commentators that people in the 21st century should uncritically and seriously address the intellectual works of previous 19th and 20th century revolutionary minded intellectuals such as, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Gramsci, Luxembourg, Castro etc.

As noted earlier, the fact that some of these intellectuals were ahead of their time in one or more senses, however, does not of course mean they were not individuals who had largely been influenced and limited by the assumptions, and evidence sources they had available to them at the time and which was further mediated by their declared and undeclared personal hope’s and dreams, also emanating from within the prevalent anthropocentric paradigm they shared with everyone else at the time. Revolutionary ideas for the present and future need to address the full range of problems that have emerged in the 21st century not simply regurgitate those rooted firmly in the 18th and 19th century past.

Therefore, trying to uncritically reactivate and reinstate these 19th and 20th century concerns and ideas as central to problems faced in the 21st century, simply because they were once considered ‘revolutionary’ amounts in fact to nothing more than a thoroughly ‘conservative’ and even reactionary type impulse. It detracts and deflects those with limited time and resources into delving into historical cul-de-sacs rather than pursuing real time practices based upon limiting the negative effects of human economic and leisure activities upon the rest of our life support species who share and sustain what remains of our healthy environments. Only such practical actions can now count as revolutionary – not the dogmatic preservation of the entire ethos and ideas developed in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 21st century global context only those proposals which include an overthrow of Anthropocentric based thinking and their resulting practices can be considered as manifestations of revolutionary creativity, emanating from within humanity, but focussed on life on earth as a whole. In view of the abscence of such a general perspective it is hard not to conclude that the future of life on earth is not one which will have a recognisable basis from the evolutionary past.

Roy Ratcliffe ( September 2024)

In part 1 of this article pointing out the neglect of larger social issues it was argued that blaming the victims of the hierarchical mass society system has become a default position of all political tendencies within the neo-liberal phase of the capitalist mode of production. The mainstream media’s parroting of the ‘Thugs’ and ‘law and order’ narrative emanating from all sides of the political spectrum over the summer of 2024 ‘Riots’, is now being replicated from a different angle – this time from the reformist left. Yet again with regard to civil disturbances and citizen unrest, the social and economic context of the current neo-liberal phase of the global economic system is being either largely or totally ignored.

This socio-economic amnesia is emanating from many of the left who occasionally posture as radicals is similar to the centre and right. It seems that some powerful motive prevents many people from blaming the way we humans are enforced by current circumstances to live collectively. The left, right and centre of the established elite political system will not countenance any serious internal criticism and opposition to the system which privileges them. Their narratives are selected to eliminate any of the problems arising within these societies. Here is another example produced this month by a left liberal campaigning group based in the UK;

“The street violence that has gripped much of England and Northern Ireland since 30 July instead tells a story of who the modern far right are, how they organise, what they believe, and the coalition of hard-right politicians, commentators and influencers who have empowered this hateful movement to inflict widespread violence against families fleeing fear.”

As they openly confess, “instead“, of socio-economc facts it’s a story of the “modern far right”.  For these left liberals the street violence in the UK is a “story” about the “hateful” far right movement of individuals. So in fact it is a ‘story’ which deliberately misses out the facts of a socio-economic system which for many decades in the UK and Europe has increased the wealth and privileges of the rich and decreased the wealth and well being of the working and non-working poor. In this left liberal ‘establishment‘ mindset, the economic, social and political reasons for the rise of right wing beliefs and whatever experiences have made them “who they are”, are apparently not even worth mentioning, let alone seriously considering. I suggest this neglect is because this reformist section of the British establishment and its political representatives in the British Labour Party and assorted NGO’s have for a generation utterly failed to adequately or seriously represent the interests of the lower middle classes, the union organised working classes and the precarious and unemployed working people of the UK and elsewhere.

As a consequence of this failure of the soft ‘left’ to ‘represent’, the interests of a significant sector of UK society, a small section of the latter’s victims of the system have broken away from the ‘established’ reformist wings of the British class system and are seeking alternatives. Disgusted with the two or three generations of three (or two) party establishment pattern, they are choosing to follow what they mistakenly consider are alternative radical means to hit back and disrupt the current established elite ideas, practices and policies. But the above noted mediocre middle class, think-tank intellectuals, rarely start from reality.

So the lefts, typically for intellectually trained individuals, conveniently reason that it is not the actual experiences of the working classes in the UK and Europe which inform what ideas they are expressing, they prefer to assert the opposite. To most intellectuals, their mental  ‘camera obscura’ turns reality  upside down. They follow the mistaken philosophical proposition; ‘I think; therefore I am’, when in fact the real world operates according to the observation that; ‘I am; therefore I think’. Just seriously and self critically reflect on your own intellectual process or watch any new born baby for confirmation that ‘being’ (experiencing) always precedes thinking. Hence these trained liberal reformist inverters of reality  think that it is simply the ideas and messages that the rioters have been given and are expressing which determines how they behave. Thus they write;

“These messages have gathered pace over the past four years as the former Conservative government ramped up messaging to “stop the boats” and accused migrant people of abusing the system while being “child rapists” and “threats to national security”. In the same time period, growing anti-immigrant rhetoric and a failing policy to house asylum-seeking people in hotels has repeatedly triggered real-life violence and intimidation, mainly outside the hotels housing families.”

So the decades of living through austerity and measures undermining the living standards and security of millions of working class citizens administered by Conservative, Liberal and Labour governments is being ignored. Also being ignored is the undoubted ability of the masses to deduce for themselves the overwhelming unfairness of the current system which rewards the few and punishes the many – even during a Pandemic. All these decades of complicity by all wings of the British political establishment is being ignored and instead they want the rest of us to believe that it’s the ideas of the right wing fringe political tendencies which are stirring things up and causing the unrest. It is perhaps inevitable that the manufacturers of so-called politically correct ideas about who is allowed to define themselves as feminine and who is not, would also manufacture ideas which conveniently omits their own class-based complicity in the reality of decades of British and European life.

In this inverted way, the left liberals conveniently avoid dealing with the part of the British ‘establishment’ socio-economic reality they are actually part of promoting, whilst living at the expense of it and protecting it. They are simply adding their influences to the law and order campaign orchestrated by the latest Labour Government’s left liberal ‘benighted’ ‘establishment. The spectacle of an antiquated ‘knight of the realm’ (arise Sir Keir) repeatedly urging the criminalisation of confused and serially angry young teenagers for loudly protesting and wildly throwing office and street furniture about the streets, actually indicates the existence of an alternative story.

The alternative is a story about the experiences of more than one generation living throughout their lives with a lack of adequate school buildings, disappearing youth clubs, few decent skilled jobs, adequate social housing and decaying community environments. The targets these indigenous victims chose (immigrants) as the catalysts for the current riots and disturbances, as confused and as mistaken as these expressions are, are nonetheless the limited and distorted expressions of something deeper. In the UK, Europe and elsewhere there are increasing numbers of exasperated human beings who are now refusing to be treated like sheep and who are refusing to be silenced. Mentally herding (or physically kettling) them toward or within whatever ‘story’ or space seems convenient to the established elite, is no longer working. So long term imprisonment in a prison estate which is already failing and close to collapse is to be tried

Another crucial missing chunk of reality from the current establishment narrative in the UK, Europe and the West, is the ‘story’ behind  how come so many foreign countries have become so inhospitable to their own people? Why is it that those born into them are so desperate to get away that they will risk life and limb in a overcrowded piece of boat shaped plastic and pay out all the money they possess to escape the clutches of their systems and its governing elites? How come many regions of Asia, Africa, and Oceania, which have historically supported large numbers of resident peoples and whose societies literally lasted for thousands of years whilst doing so, with only a relatively few Marco Polo type intrepid travellers venturing beyond their own shores? Why have Asian and African people in the 21st century, suddenly wanted to urgently leave their homes in such huge numbers?

Could this neglected alternative prequel ‘story’ have anything to do with the period of colonial history in which the European elites conquered and subdued these foreign regions? Did the deliberate European ruining of their local indigenous social systems and economies perpetrated in order to obtain possession (or control) of their ample natural resources, not have anything to do with current problems? Could the increasing exodus of people from these now rapidly failing puppet state regimes, be anything to do with the 20th century installation and ongoing 21st century manipulation of them by European and North American country elites? Indeed, the installation of those regimes were deliberately set up by the UK, European and US elites so that they would become long term enablers and agents of the west who would comply with European and North American elite economic and financial requirements.

We need to ask why are the UK and European establishment voices of all political tendencies of left, right and centre, remaining silent on this undeniable Do they think that the modern descendents of these ravaged communities don’t know this colonial and imperial back story to their present urgent need to become immigrants? The Hey Day of the Colonial and Imperial period is in the past but there is still continuing foreign military, financial and political interference, subjection and displacement behind the current wave of immigration. In reality, rather than racist myth, the majority of immigrants, are not raiders of our reduced social funds, they  the current victims of economic, political or military oppression by regimes still supported, fully armed añd equipped by the UK, Europe and the West.  Could it be, that the silence by all these ‘established’ well educated sectors concerning, the impoverishment and oppression of the European working classes and the poverty and oppression of the foreign immigrants trying to get into the UK and Europe, is actually a lack of knowledge of the colonial period of capital accumulation, its horrors and assumptions? I doubt it!

Or is it perhaps a decision to deliberately ignore some highly embarrassing past histories upon which knighthoods, privileged forms of parliamentary living, reporting and ongoing foriegn investment returns (private and institutional) are still fully based upon? So much silence in 2024 on any possible alternative motivational ”stories’ concerning riots and disturbances from the professionally trained chattering middle classes of modern societies, must have a powerful reason to explain it. You normally cannot turn their verbal X, tik tok, Facebook, Radio or TV dihorea off, it normally keeps on gushing out. Commodifying sentences and selling them whether they are repeatedly banal or not is keeping thousands of them in the salaried means to purchase, consume and pollute the planet locally and internationally. Words are cheap to produce, particularly now there are AI sub routines to expedite the recycling of banality; however, corrective humane actions are what is needed.

With regard to the many victims of the current hierarchical mass society systems it is to be hoped that the stoked up frustrations and anger of the current suffering populations in Europe and elsewhere, will soon be re-focussed on the real problem for life on earth and the suffering sections of humanity. I suggest the focus of anger and frustration should be calmly redirected onto the current nature of the elite governed socio-economic system itself. And not just on its latest capitalist based mode of production. Non-capitalist elites are just as problematic as capitalist ones in regard to authoritarianism, oppression and the exploitation of humanity and nature.

Anyone who doubts this only need to read about the reality of Leninist Russia, Maoist China and North Korea under the Kim dynasty. As an alternative to repeating past mistakes, individuals and groups of concerned individuals need to begin thinking and seeking to actually implement alternative, more ecological and humane ways of living now. Being a supportive, cooperative part of the humann species rather than a competative warring section, would not only be preferable in particular but also more in line with the evolution of life on earth in general. Of the millions of species existing on the planet, throughout their millions of years of evolution, no other species has systematically treated other members of their own species with so much hostility and aggression, nor destroyed the environmental resources they needed to lived upon.

Roy Ratcliffe (August 2024)