19 June 2024 — Just Stop Oil activists paint Stonehenge and people are so upset and that is so un-funny to me because Stonehenge has existed for thousands of years, and Stonehenge will exist for thousands of years more, and the paint will lose itself to the sun and sleet of England1 while Stonehenge outlives capitalism as it did prehistoric-communism, feudalism and imperialism before it. Meanwhile, there are fewer and fewer mosques left in Gaza and there are fewer and fewer libraries left in Gaza and everything in Gaza more than seventy years old has been destroyed at least in part and everything in Gaza includes several temples that are a thousand years old and that is worth more outrage than some ancient stones that once were sacred and well-arranged but now are disused and disarrayed—
Insouciance, noun
Carelessness, heedlessness, indifference, or casual unconcern.
Nonchalance.
It’s remarkable how stupid2 Homo sapiens is given their role as the famously intelligent animals of Earth. We are lost. God would be embarrassed; but God is dead. Nothing there is that doesn’t love an outrage, and the past decade has seen such a vicious and depraved slough of empty outrage. Antagonism sells and our cultures have a lot of anthropocentric notions that are incompatible with our material reality. It’s easier to be divided under the premise that we matter than to be unified under the uncomfortable idea that we are all dust. This is the crux of the many ongoing issues in the world: Humanity broadly regards itself as Top Dog in a holistic ecosystem. It’s preposterous. Spend a few days in nature, helpless and unattached, and one will certainly see that they are nothing more than an animal in a generous-but-indifferent world. This is not cynical or even eco-centric: it is simple freedom; the closest humans can perhaps come to a true ‘freedom’ that is beyond their individual or social conceptions of rights and ideals3.
Activism has been intense these past few years. I reckon it will intensify further as we continue on the path of decline that seems to be the current trajectory of our civilizations. Between economic turbulence and climate crises, our broad human population seems likely to endure continued duress while a pedantic subset of nepotistic ultra-wealthy animals4 perpetuates the long-running cycle of labour exploitation, environmental savagery, & maladaptive moralism. This dichotomy is bound to reach a breaking point. The youth are upset, the old are insecure, the Middle Way is lost. Things are fucked, and this is nothing new. We’re beyond a century into the condition of things-are-fucked and though reformism has infected the optimistic minds of many fair folk, it simply won’t overcome the degradation of the commons. Thus, more will turn to activism, likely edging toward extremism the longer the crises compress civilization. It would be immature and frankly ignorant to take a headline surrounding the aforementioned Stonehenge event and think that it is inappropriate or dire in any capacity. ‘Desecrating’ a building, an ancient monument, or an artwork is exceedingly mild activism. If you think painting Stonehenge is a vile act or gluing oneself to a painting is a sign of mental duress, read up on resistance throughout history. This ain’t nothin’.
The manufactured outrage regarding the latest Just Stop Oil endeavour has especially rattled me because I find the response to be one of sincere insincerity predicated on the notion that our cultural artifacts & history matter while policy makers do everything in their power to subvert truth and integrity for the species. Our artifacts are not capital to protect or covet. They are ghosts. The tenuous spectre of our mortality and of the ephemeral nature of all living entities. Our artifacts are lessons in humanity and philosophy, not idols for worship or reverence5. It’s uncouth to consider the integrity of our idealism surrounding monuments as something more valuable than the living material conditions of our present moment. More simply, the unassailable conservation of Stonehenge is ultimately less important than the looming climate catastrophe6 to which OIL has largely contributed. This should not be as stunning or hot a take as it seems to be in some circles.
This brings us to insouciance. I consider insouciance to be a particular kind of complacency—one that is aware of its own misdoing. While we know what is happening, while we have all the information available to have an informed opinion—to make ethical, intelligent decisions—we cannot say that we are blameless or that we do not have a duty to our livelihoods. There is a knowing indifference instilled in our daily comfort living in Western complacency. We have all the information and resources required to become better than the cogs of capital we’re reduced to yet we are willfully heedless7 toward the moral quandary of our own existence. This is what makes us different from the activists gluing themselves to ancient artworks: we are the crazy people, we are the ones offending our own history. When we cannot see the message in the action, we are the ones who are blind & hopeless dreamers.
Unfortunately, we have had the great misfortune of receiving severe miseducation about the world. We are discouraged from seeking answers and kept inundated with meaningless comforts to keep us from attempting to apprehend some meaning beyond what our culture has taught us is appropriate or reasonable. This is generally what is meant when people suggest it’s time for people to ‘wake up,’ though even that term has been pirated for occlusive jargon like the so-called Woke Agenda8. Waking up, however, is quite troublesome when you live in a system that encourages such narrow-minded hyper-individualist consumption. Waking up is uncomfortable and discomfort is not a good investment, so we are loathe to adopt reason that introduces discomfort into our perceptual framework. Instead, we disregard such efforts as beyond our reasonable capacity for consideration. After all, why should we have to struggle through living AND consider the implications of our living. This is the unfortunate reality of the present paradigm: We are collectively burned out but have been raised in such a way that keeps us intellectually cock-blocked from actually addressing—or even considering—why we are collectively disassociated from our living. Our insouciance is both a consequence and contributor of our collective oppression. And what a load that is off the mind of the oppressor: our own hand now holds the boot that presses on us, aiding in our own supplication to the system.
Damn activists, though, right? What will they ever accomplish, ruining artwork and painting planes? At least we’re productive members of propaganda while they go about disrupting the narrative…
In fact, they have already washed it off.
Stupid here meaning does not consider existence beyond their solipsism, does not consider meaning beyond their shadows.
Personal freedoms under government legislation are not true freedoms but perfunctory rules intended to limit our capacity for personal freedom and self-actualization as mandated by our compassion, philosophy, and self-expression. No, I will not elaborate further.
Popularly known as the 1%, these humans are a serious problem, and it is genuinely uncertain what may become of them. History suggests they will be collectively murdered by the 99%. If that be the case, then I am glad to be in this latter camp even if I do disdain violence as a means of achieving stability and lasting peace in our global society.
In the material-attachment Capitalist sense, not in the spiritual sense. Of course, there are many artifacts whose sacred symbolism is relevant to many. Stonehenge is even one of these. However, that is another matter entirely and I’m not here today to get philosophical or pedantic about my views on spiritual materialism. All I will offer is a few lines from Daodejing: “When goodness is lost, there is morality. When morality is lost, there is ritual. Ritual is the husk of true faith, the beginning of chaos.” — from Stephen Mitchell’s translation.
I don’t use this terminology lightly. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that there will be significant issues with the climate in the coming decades. Whether or not these come to fruition seems a moot point. As I’ve said in another post: Pascal’s Wager ought to suffice for decision-making when it comes to the fate of Earth.
Obviously, this is a symptom of the aforementioned reduction we are subjected to under forces of capitalism. For this reason, I have a lot of empathy for others despite their insouciance. I understand why there is a nonchalance in our daily dismissal of the severity of events ongoing worldwide. We are exhausted. Nonetheless, we deserve an exegesis of this ennui through collective action. We deserve collective will to overcome the systems that no longer serve us or our planet.
It is important to remember that jargon and terminology (like -isms) are often a means of occluding genuine thought. We’re given a biscuit to gnaw on like a little child rather than being encouraged to go and bake cookies. This alone could warrant a series of posts, but others have far better writings on the subject than I could muster. Instead, I will offer the opening line of Daodejing: “dao called Dao is not Dao." — from my own rendition, inspired by the phrasing of the Addiss/Lombardo translation.