I really don’t have time to engage in a dialogue with you about topics I’ve already discussed heavily in my writing. If you haven’t read my book, you shouldn’t be lecturing me on this topic. It’s pretty clear you haven’t read endgame. If you have read both of those, and are still writing this, then there is no way I would have a conversation with you about it either. Please stop commenting on my blog until you’ve done some more personal work in understanding rewilding by reading and reflecting the suggested literature.

“The” hierarchy is not something we here, or some group a few hundred times as large, could dismantle directly, even by going to war in the most literal sense. That would be a program doomed to defeat, and it could well turn its participants into the very thing they were seeking to destroy (e.g. a hate culture with a new hierarchy). “The” hierarchy will crash on its own as a result of hypercomplexity and ecological overshoot. This is inevitable. (And we should be quite clear about the fact that the process will be ugly and nasty, and we ourselves might not survive it.)

The importance of working examples is that they provide models for ways of living that will work after the collapse: much as hunter/gatherers have no shortage of food while nearby agriculturalists starve after a crop failure. Working examples also improve the Darwinian chances for their members.

As well, working examples enable their members to transition to a non-hierarchical culture. This is a more difficult task than it seems, as it entails shedding the baggage of the cultures we were raised in. Consider the examples of neo-tribalism that have failed in one way or another: it’s not easy to get this right, and it’s particularly difficult when faced with subsistence pressures. Based on those factors alone, it could be argued that we’re not even adequately prepared to handle the transition if the whole civilization crashed tomorrow or next year.

This is a multi-generational process; we need to be thinking in long timelines and do the tasks that are meaningful at the stage where we find ourselves.

Yeah Dan. Haha, it’s totally fan fiction!!!

Thanks Eugene! It’s like, I read that book (and all of Quinns others) so many times… It’s like a part of my brain. I can just switch into “What Would Ishmael Say”, even if it goes against things Daniel Quinn said (such as “resistance doesn’t work”).

Georgio,
Living by example is fine, but it doesn’t dismantle hierarchy, which is the force enslaving all of us to work for Civilization.

Based on your disgust with hate-culture, I have to assume you’re not suggesting that people take to violence and the mindset that accompanies it.

But if someone is willing to go to war, with all that entails, and at the same time rejects the culture of hate: Then it becomes a no-brainer to ask them to do something else: stop *consuming.* Disengage as far as possible from the consumer/taker culture, liberate themselves from their captivity. Live the example, inspire others. Reach out, make it spread.

Hahaha, seriously an awesome chapter. Love it.

I loved the picture, too.