Amen

Fall out shelter, circa 1957

John Michael Greer is a writer on a surprisingly broad range of subjects. He is also a popular blogger on the American side of cyberspace. Greer's main blog is called The Archdruid Report. Despite its name, it says relatively little about the Druid Revival (the spiritual current with which Greer identifies), concentrating instead on broadly political issues. Greer believes that modern civilization is in terminal decline, the ultimate cause of which is peak oil and our inability to transition to a more sustainable economy. Those seriously interested in Greer's take on peak oil and its consequences should read his books “The Long Descent” and “Decline and Fall”. I happen to agree with Greer on a number of points, and have therefore posted relatively extensive reviews of these books elsewhere on this site. By contrast, “Collapse *Now* and Avoid the Rush”, is mostly directed at the author's hardcore fans, since it only contains blog posts which are still available free of charge at The Archdruid Report. This is strictly for people who can't stand screen reading, or perhaps want to support the author financially. I suppose I just did! ;-)

A few themes stand out and are worth mentioning. One is Greer's conviction that the long descent of modern society has already begun and is irreversible. An ordered transition to a more sustainable system was still possible during the 1970's, but with the onset of peak oil circa 2005, this small window of opportunity was effectively closed. The future is a bleak cycle of progressively worse economic crises, wars, pandemics and technological break-downs, interspersed with seemingly more “stable” periods during which people will (wrongly) imagine that the worst is over. Greer believes that most Americans will live on a Third World level by 2050. Industrial civilization as such will probably survive for another two or three centuries, but with a diminishing resource base much of its current complexity and bureaucracy will disappear. Nor will it be of much benefit for the majority of the population, which Greer believes will dramatically shrink anyway.

In some of his books, Greer nevertheless proposes a kind of political program to make us better equipped to deal with the situation. It's based on political decentralization, a relatively high level of local self-sufficiency, voluntary associations á la the Freemasons to replace current government programs, and a return to a more “Jeffersonian” democracy. In other books, including “Collapse *Now* and Avoid the Rush”, the emphasis is rather on purely individual survival. People who learn already today to get by on less, grow organic food or learn a useful handicraft, will be better equipped for the bumpy road ahead than the oil-dependent majority. Besides, Greer believes that it's hypocritical to preach simple living while not practicing it yourself.

While Greer is a “pessimist”, he also rejects literal apocalypticism, seeing it as the flip side of the optimistic belief in Progress. Just as the optimist doesn't feel he has to change his exuberant and ecologically destructive lifestyle, the believer in apocalypse can also sit idly in Suburbia doing exactly nothing – either Jesus (or the Space Brothers) will save us, or we're doomed anyway by forces outside our control, so why not eat, drink and be happy before the inevitable extinction event? Greer rejects conspiracy theories (including the film “Thrive”) for pretty much the same reasons: they always blame some convenient scapegoat for our troubles, creating the illusion that everything will be fine if we just get rid of whatever “cabal” the particularly conspiracy theory scapegoats. In reality, *we* are collectively responsible for our present predicament, and while we can't turn it around, we can at least adapt to it, individually or locally. This takes hard work, the kind of hard work which believers in apocalypse or conspiracy work overtime to avoid...

Greer's sources of inspiration are many and varied. In a recommended reading list, he prominently lists “Limits to Growth”, Catton's “Overshoot”, Spengler's “The Decline of the West” and Johnson's “Muddling toward Frugality”. Being a Druid Revivalist and practicing magician, Greer is also a big fan of fantasy and science fiction, something more down-to-earth characters might perhaps find annoying or shocking. His blog posts frequently make parallels between our current predicament and Tolkien's “Lord of the Rings”. One posting is titled "The Glass Bead Game", after a famous novel by Herman Hesse. Even our old fiend Conan the Barbarian makes a brief guest appearance.

Interestingly, a kind of cautious optimism shines through in one of the Archdruid's syfy-inspired postings, “The Next Ten Billion Years”. While the posting is occasionally a bit tongue in cheek (the “eleventh and last intelligent species” to appear on Earth has intellectual pastimes similar to those of Greer himself), it does hold out the hope that someday, somehow, an intelligent species will evolve that won't burn through the fossil fuel deposits at breakneck speed, instead learning to use them wisely. (In Greer's scenario, this species turns out to be descended from crows!) More importantly perhaps, it also holds out the hope that humanity can construct a global civilization without reliance on fossil fuels in the first place. While “Collapse Now” never explains how, other books or blog posts by Greer remind us that towns, oceanic journeys and international trade existed long before the industrial revolution…

“Collapse *Now* and Avoid the Rush” isn't a very upbeat book (unless you have a wry sense of humor), and it will definitely rub most people on both sides of the political spectrum the wrong way. Perhaps it will “collapse” a few brains here and there. Still, it's ultimate message is nevertheless one of hope, although a hope of a special kind. Life will go on, somehow somewhere, even without us. However, some of us can still chose to enter the life stream and follow it, at least part of the way. If that should be seen as good or bad, presumably depends entirely on your spiritual presuppositions. I admit that mine cry out for more! But that, it seems, is the subject on an entirely different book…