[spudbuddy]

One name: Kunstler.

This was the author who ushered me into the dialogue of Peak Oil in the first place - first glimpsed in "The End of Suburbia" back in early May of 2005.
I immediately read The Geography of Nowhere, then Home from Nowhere, and about six months after that, the Long Emergency.
(that was just the bare beginning - many books read since - I work in Canada's largest library.)

Quite frankly, there was something about his caustic humor, style and whit that appealed to me - and especially concerning the issues of which he speaks.

This is my first posted new topic on this site. It could be my last.
The reason for bothering at all - is that it fascinates me no little bit, the amount of debating that goes on over his views. I suppose Kunstler is one of the "dark angels" of Peak Oil dogma, rhetoric, frenzy, panic, and all the various steps of coming to terms with the thing.

The reason I chose the Psychology forum in particular to post this - is that to me it is an appropriate place to discuss the profundities of psychological response to the topic of Peak Oil and all its attendant by-products.

I have wandered through many threads over the past year and a half - full of numbers, plots, scenarios, wishful retributions, nit-picking the tiniest details, and no end of any amount of academically polished and precise points of view - mathematical, scientific and otherwise...

-but what really fascinates me is the psychological and especially the esthetic. (which is where Kunstler's appeal comes from in the first place.)
One by-product of my personal "cat out of the bag" relief to expound upon the subject - is the great release of finally admitting suburbia-hatred. (in spite of the fact that this is where approximately somewhere over half of all North Americans live.)
Perhaps this is somewhat of a scapegoating exercise - but I hasten to add that I don't hate the people who live there (many friends and family are suburbanites.)

When I first stumbled onto the topic - I quickly realized that I'd hated suburbia all my life, having never actually lived in any true suburban setting - but more importantly - for all the reasons stated by Kunstler and other authors.
I knew I hated suburbia with a passion - but I didn't really know why.

Until recently - I'd never been able to afford a car. Thus my experience of suburbia was always as a pedestrian. You can imagine - this did nothing to improve my estimation or esteem of any environment designed specifically for vehicles.

It is my personal bias to enjoy small-town Main streets, old red brick and brownstone, 19th and early 20th century design, large trees and realisically walkable and accessable public domains.
Incidentally, I've recently discovered the historic truth about Luddites. They did, in fact, smash machinery and attack new manufacturing infrastructure - for the simple reason that much of it either put them out of work, or seriously under-employed them, or reduced their working lives to wage slavery. Rather rings a bell, doesn't it?

Our oil-glut energy wastefulness has hastened our ability to create an ugly world. You may think that life looks rosy from behind a jet-fighter styled cockpit/dashboard, gazing beyond the tinted-glass windshield. I rather think of it like being strapped to a life-support machine. A ton or two of glass, plastic and steel is quite a ball and chain to haul around.

If the esthetics of travel have ceased to include such simple things as the sound of wind in the trees, back alley echoed dog barks, footsteps on pavement, and the time it takes to compile the endless detail of surroundings...then what true sense of the worth of any of these things remains? What was once a daily experience, and a fundamental part of life, becomes reduced to an annual vacation-packaged theme-parked excursion (if we're lucky.)
What does it take for people to notice what they've lost?

I save my best for last (and few other than Kunstler and a handful of other authors seem even willing to bother to address the subject.) When I first read it, I stood and applauded. Really.

For much of my peak oil "career" - I've belabored a particular aspect of the disease, and with great gusto!
You see - I like kids. I really do. I write for them. I enjoy their energy, their vitality, their frankness, their humor, and their astounding ability to give an old fart like me such remarkable hope for the future.

From the age of two until sixteen - I lived in two places. One was a small town, and the other was a small city. In all those years, I was chauffeured somewhere in my father's car exactly once.
Every single thing I did in that town and in that city, otherwise, was accomplished by using my own independent mobility.

I am absolutely astounded, and often outraged - by the inability of so many people to consider that this might actually be important.
I know their reality. Run off their feet constanly, in a never-ending cycle of vehicular expeditions to dispose of kids into an endless array of drop-offs and subsequent pickups - school, practice, rehearsal, sports , parties, shopping, errands of endless description and design.

I'll say it: I spent my childhood composed of endless days peeling off the onion layers one at a time - learning how to navigate and negotiate my way through the public domain. Of mischief there was no small bit. It was all grist for the mill, and a learning curve, don't you know. I was not unusual. Every kid did this.
I was not composed or disposed in a private bedroom, accessing the world through the internet. I was out there in the real thing. And either alone, on my own, or with my peers. No meddling adults around (although they were never really that far away - unless we disappeared into the surrounding countryside, or wilderness - something that increased exponentially as we all got older.)

One of my favorite quotes (I admit I can't remember exactly where I read this) - "kids now view their world like visiting foreign dignitaries, taking in their "public" domain through tinted glass. One almost expects them to wave a tiny white-gloved hand."
But - who would they wave to, and why?

I believe we have lost our grip. That we are not outraged on their behalf. Run off our feet to taxi them around and keep them safe - while moving through the world we've created for them. With all its attendent horrors and dangers. They are all too real - of course. Who will take responsibility for that? A societal shrug is all they get.

My inner city neighborhood is actually a community. Kids move around it and through it like they always have. It makes me smile, to see them. It makes me smile to hear the sound of them from the schoolyard a block away. It always has amazed me - how much that sound reminds me of running water, as in a brook. It is a natural sound, as natural as birdsong or thunder. It is one of the most beautiful passages in the soundtrack of life. I would much rather hear it - then the sound of a "free" way.

When Peak Oil first attacked my sensibility - I was torn two ways. The first, and most obvious - was high anxiety for the future. The possibility of great change and upheaval loomed large. Visions of anarchy, recession, depression, stock market crashes and societal melt-down, an end of "progress" (as we know it.)
The other side?.........perhaps a great sobering and shuddering swoon, after which we are forced to come to our senses. Perhaps then we will discover some of what we have lost, that it would be a good thing to have back again.

While writers write, and readers read - our little planet swings along as always, and we discover our great big wide world is only really a little planet after all. Gene Roddenberry dreamed otherwise, but it is really the only home we've got. We're not rich enough to afford a vacation home elsewhere. Let us therefor be houseproud, and attend to our resources wisely.
Amen.

[savethehumans]

Appreciate your viewpoint, spudbuddy. Afraid mine has come to a much shorter conclusion:

MOST PSYCHOLOGICALLY LIBERATING KNOWLEDGE: It is too late to do anything about the converging catastrophes Kunstler writes of in "The Long Emergency."

MOST PSYCHOLOGICALLY PARALYZING KNOWLEDGE: It is too late to do anything about the converging catastrophes Kunstler writes of in "The Long Emergency."


It's the Ultimate Schitzo Experience!

Makes me just want to somehow (honest and aboveboard) have enough money--while money is still worth something--to keep going until it all falls to pieces (which should, IMHO, be in the next 5 years or so). Don't have enough money to reach the new year. Don't/can't work any "conventional" job due to health problems which I don't/can't afford to have checked out and don't/can't qualify for free health care (ain't the USA grand?). Don't wanna die, but it's a likely possibility that I'll be "checking out" by the new year, barring a miracle.

And no, this isn't the litany of one who just found out about all this stuff that's coming. Known about global warming/climate change about 10 years now; always known about overpopulation; learned of P.O. around 3 years ago. So I've "adapted" and "accepted" all this news (as much as that is possible).

Not meaning to whine. I'm likely not to be around much longer, anyway. For those of you who are, I'd encourage you to work toward spudbuddy's attitude. If humans actually survive and rebound from what's happening/about to happen, his attitude is the one that will make the difference between a positive future and mere existence.

Thanks for the post, spudbuddy. Godspeed to you!

[grink1tt3n]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('savethehumans', '
')Makes me just want to somehow (honest and aboveboard) have enough money--while money is still worth something--to keep going until it all falls to pieces (which should, IMHO, be in the next 5 years or so). Don't have enough money to reach the new year. Don't/can't work any "conventional" job due to health problems which I don't/can't afford to have checked out and don't/can't qualify for free health care (ain't the USA grand?). Don't wanna die, but it's a likely possibility that I'll be "checking out" by the new year, barring a miracle.

[savethehumans]

No, I don't mind. I'm 51. You?

[Lighthouse]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('savethehumans', 'A')ppreciate your viewpoint, spudbuddy. Afraid mine has come to a much shorter conclusion:

MOST PSYCHOLOGICALLY LIBERATING KNOWLEDGE: It is too late to do anything about the converging catastrophes Kunstler writes of in "The Long Emergency."

MOST PSYCHOLOGICALLY PARALYZING KNOWLEDGE: It is too late to do anything about the converging catastrophes Kunstler writes of in "The Long Emergency."...

[WildRose]

Hi, Spudbuddy. Thanks for your thoughtful post.

It's been about a year and a half since I stumbled across the oil depletion crisis, my first reactions having been shock and anxiety. I guess I have imagined that after all the initial turmoil goes down and after a period of shaking out and adjusting, there may be a simpler, more peaceful way of life awaiting us. Of course, there are so many scenarios, how can one be sure which to prepare for? I've been able to single out a few things on my to-do list: prepare for an emergency, reduce debt, separate wants from needs, keep my eyes and ears open. Psychologically, I think I push the most unpleasant thoughts away from the surface, especially because I have kids; I want to prepare and protect them but at the same time really enjoy these years, as they may well be our best.

The society we've created with abundant oil really is something, isn't it? Suburbs - big houses, no lawns, lonely kids, neighbors that are strangers. The houses are filled with all of the things families have been enticed to buy, at the cost of never having time to spend with each other. The expectation among young people to have all of this material wealth is so great that some are willing to sell drugs and take each other out in turf wars in order to have it.

My kids don't have a lot, but they aren't in need of much. I do wish, though, that their childhoods had been as free-wheeling as mine. When I was a kid in the '60's, I spent some time in Europe and then returned to Canada. I was free to explore the neighborhood with my brothers and my friends, bike riding, picnics in the woods, walking to school and back without ever feeling unsafe. I remember endless days outside, rushing home to tell my mom about something I did or saw and then running back out again, returning only for meals. Things changed, though, and my kids couldn't have that space. First, it was older kids that made playgrounds unsafe for younger ones. Then there were incidents of near-abductions too close to home. The traffic became so heavy that there was no safe place for kids to bike-ride alone; mom and dad always had to come along. Even the local YMCA became a place where fights and drug deals went down. The result is that my kids have only recently, as teenagers, gained more freedom to move, with mom or dad still being present to drive them whenever it's getting late. Sad, I know.

My dad grew up in a small town in Ontario during the 40's and 50's and enjoyed that time immensely. Life was very simple - school, chores, spare time swimming in the canal, diving off the bridge, skating all day in the winter. He took the odd job now and then to make a few bucks but never worried about what he was going to buy. He rarely heard about any act of violence. This was a small town, but even the large city I live in today was very different only 20 years ago. What a difference our materialistic, oil-driven society has made!

I wish I knew all that lies ahead, Spudbuddy. I'd like to see a collective decision to powerdown, cooperate, have meaningful leadership in our government. I would like for my future grandchildren to have a childhood more like my dad's and mine, on a planet that is thriving.

That's where I'm at. I wish you all the best.

[spudbuddy]

I believe it will take good strong leadership on every level, from national all the way down to municipal, to get us through the transitions we will ultimately have to face.
I believe all the spry octegenarians among us old enough to have childhood memories of the Great Depression will have something much better to do, and a greater role to play in society than to be shoved aside in old age homes.

I believe the cream can rise to the top in the face of adversity, and that there's a whole lot more cream out there than instantly meets the eye, folks!

We are told (supposedly by our betters) that the only economic model which can sustain us is the one that requires constant growth. I say horse hooey!
We are described globally as a society gone soft in the middle, one that cannot give up its big box store plastic kewpies, its easy living, its cheez-doodled self-absorption, its wasteful overconsumption on all levels.
Soft in the middle?
It is in the very middle that the toughening up has already begun.
Any shrewd economist will readily admit that the so-called soft easy-living middle is fast disappearing. What is described as middle class these days is rapidly ratcheting upward well into the lower echelons of what not long ago would have been referred to as strictly upper class. They are a conspicuously consuming lot.
But they are not our majority, not by a long shot!

And in our winter of discontent, we discover a media that no longer speaks for us, or hardly to us, for that matter.
A number of years ago, when Granny D walked across this land (to protest a ridiculously warped electoral process, among other things) a remarkable thing happened. She discovered the true nature of her nation, out there on the road.

Now, if an 89 year-old can do that - what can the rest of the best of us do? Spiral down into third-world style anarchy and chaos?
Hardly.
I've said it before - it's a helluva upheaval we face in the years to come...however many years the dreamspinners on Wall Street can keep their party going -
But it's a helluva adventure too. It's up to us to decide ( and all over the world, too) just how we're going to play it out.
Deep down and buried inside some of the changes that must come (if we are to survive at all - not just as a nation, but as a viably sustainable planet) are glorious opportunities to re-capture some of what we've lost, that should never have been lost in the first place.

Any fool could tell you that it is unwise to gamble the rent money at the casino. That way lies a short trip to bedlam.
Well....(I rest my case.)
Until we see ourselves as a society capable of taking the reins and affecting positive change, it's easy to convince ourselves that we're on the fast track to destruction.

To Wildrose -

What really jumped out and grabbed me about your post - was the reference to lonely kids and neighborly strangers (strange neighbors?)
Now that - toots a horn, don't it?
Kids with a few thousand e-buddies, but they don't know by name the people who live next door.
Neighbors that fall exhausted straight into tv land's celebrified McSocialed and Starbucked flavor of the enfranchised week, more real to them than all the Rockwellian ghosts that even still haunt the back alleys and schoolyards of their own communities.
Little boxes on a hillside, made of ticky-tacky (but now they're bigger - super-sized!)
We spent a lot of money to make our world ugly.
That earned a lot of profit for the fools and charlatans that spun a good yarn and would convince us even yet that we got what we wanted, and if not, then what we deserve.

It can cost considerable less to buy back a bit of beauty.
After all, simplicity is an artless grace.

Good minds are bent on that very project, now. They will soon be joined by legions. If you close your eyes and just listen for a minute, I believe you can hear a good head of steam gathering...

[MD]

You could easily rename this thread as "Lamentations for America".

All that was good, is no more.

[gampy]

Thanks for the post Spud. I think you crystalized the sentiments of many.

I could blather on for hours about the hideousness of suburbia, strip malls, and vast tracts of good land turned into asphalt, so that Joe Blow can buy a piece of plastic manufactured halfway across the globe
for less than what it cost, in real terms, to make.

Ugggh.

The plight of the pedestrian in our society is terrible. God I hate cars.

[JustinFrankl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('spudbuddy', 'A')nd in our winter of discontent, we discover a media that no longer speaks for us, or hardly to us, for that matter.

[spudbuddy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gampy', 'T')hanks for the post Spud. I think you crystalized the sentiments of many.

I could blather on for hours about the hideousness of suburbia, strip malls, and vast tracts of good land turned into asphalt, so that Joe Blow can buy a piece of plastic manufactured halfway across the globe
for less than what it cost, in real terms, to make.

Ugggh.

The plight of the pedestrian in our society is terrible. God I hate cars.