Thanks to the good people of the Guardian, the Ecologist and Treehugger, there’s been a lot of talk about the Dark Mountain Project around the internet today. So it seems like a good time to restate a few things – and clear up some misunderstandings.
This project is not about “doing nothing” or “giving up”. It’s about what we do, after we stop pretending that the way of living we grew up with can be made sustainable, if only we go on enough protests or change enough lightbulbs.
This is not all about poetry. It is about recognising that climate change, resource scarcity and the precariousness of our social and economic systems present a cultural challenge as well as technical and political challenges. It’s not just our lightbulbs that need to change, it’s our ways of looking at and making sense of the world. But the questions we’re asking are drawing responses from engineers, designers, scientists and policy makers, too. It turns out that it’s not just writers who are fed up with a version of environmentalism which expects us to go on pretending.
This is about asking what will go on working, if and when the ways of doing things we grew up taking for granted let us down. That includes everything from the stories we tell ourselves about our place in the world – through to the most practical questions about how we meet our basic needs.
This is not, as one commenter put it, about treating “very real social mechanisms as mere intellectual abstractions”. Within the Dark Mountain network, there are people working hard on solutions to real social problems – but who also value the ability to distinguish between “very real” basic needs and socially and culturally-constructed ideas about what makes life “liveable”.
As an illustration of that, I wanted to share one of the pieces that will be published next month in Dark Mountain Vol.1. ‘Black Elephants and Skull Jackets’ is a dialogue with the engineer and infrastructure expert Vinay Gupta – and the designer of the Hexayurt emergency shelter. For some context on Vinay’s work, check out this video – and, if you wish, contribute to Science for Humanity’s Hexayurts for Haiti fundraising campaign:
You can read or download the full interview, but here’s one of the passages that stands out for me:
A third of the people on the planet [live] with really serious daily personal problems like no dental care beyond having your teeth pulled with rusty pliers.
This is poverty – and it’s everywhere…
Now, think about the kind of will-to-blindness it has taken us all to build our consumer paradise while all this is going on around us. That blindness, that wilful ignorance, is what climate change threatens. But it did not start with climate, it started, as everything on earth does, with poverty.
All of these people who discovered climate recently? They’d been ignoring poverty their whole lives. The denial is cracking, and it’s going to be messy, but do not assume that the environment is all that’s under the rug.
For me, Vinay’s work – whether with grassroots NGOs, squatters or the US DoD – gives one answer to the question, “What do we do after we stop pretending…?” But it’s not the only one. There are far more directions in which these questions can lead than can be contained in a manifesto.
That’s why we’re bringing together UNCIVILISATION as a lived experience, a gathering of people thinking about this stuff and acting on the basis of their thinking. For those who can make it to Llangollen early, Vinay will be hosting a free five day Dark Mountain Camp from Monday 24th to Friday 28th, which will be a chance to really dig in to these ideas and practical skills for navigating difficult times. And whether you can come to that, or just to the weekend itself, I look forward to the different voices and experiences which you’ll be bringing to the conversation.
As Paul says in the Guardian article, “Once we stop pretending that the impossible can happen, we are released to think seriously about the future.”
I was struck once again, by the hostility that comes to the fore whenever something like Dark Mountain challenges people’s assumptions. This knee-jerk strained and dramatic tone, reached just because someone mentions that all might not work out as the optimists hope – even when it is stressed that this does not automatically assume a pessimistic stance – is the strongest sign that we need to pursue the kind of examination and exploration Dark Mountain represents. This emotional fragility, this brittleness of attitude and quickness to anger does not bode well for the time when it gets harder and harder for more people to go on pretending.
We’ve lost the social restraints that used to keep such petulance at bay. People were once embarrassed to lash out in pique or panic. Such reactions don’t lead to discussion and consideration of differing viewpoints, they just telegraph a closed individual more concerned with the fragility of their construct and maintaining their assumptions at all costs.
Polemic is a failed tactic, just look at your elections to see daily examples of that. Unless someone begins to work at establishing a new norm with basic standards of mutual respect and a willingness to challenge one’s own assumptions, not just an “opponent’s,” then we will be facing dark days indeed.
These changes require a cultural evolution. This won’t happen unless we begin to work at it, to learn how to strengthen our tolerance for shocks and develop a maturity so we can find effective actions that take actual conditions into account instead of continuing to pile wish onto bluster onto denial and projection.
The alternative is just more of the same. A public discourse in which everyone holds onto their particular forms of denial and wishful thinking while pushing anyone with any difference of opinion away.
I’m sure this comment will be eagerly misconstrued as well, panic is a hard thing to deal with, it’s so much easier to repress, misunderstand and stay mad.
“Humans are not the point and purpose of the planet” from the DMP manifesto. This statement has a negative effect on the manifesto and the ideology of the movement. Humans seeking to evolve civilisation to improve the existence of humanity and live more in harmony with nature, albeit perhaps in a changed climate and environment than at present, do so because Humans are the point and purpose of the planet. It is only the awareness of the Human mind that gives ‘Life’ any value.
Thanks for this post Dougald – I’m enjoying how the Dark Mountain project is growing and strengthening more tentacles, by taking exercise against some of the wilder (deliberate? panicked?) misrepresentations that have been knocked around.
Antonio – I too am struck by the hostilities you observe, and find them maddening or frightening, depending how resilient I’m feeling that day. But I also believe that the very extremity and brittleness of these reactions, are a symptom of the world outlook of the infuriated definitively reaching a breaking point. ‘They’ know somewhere inside their strenuous denial that the bubble is bursting, hence the gloves are off because reasoned argument with other perspectives is becoming too threatening.
This is indeed is reason enough, as you say, to keep pushing to work at what the Dark Mountain and kindred initiatives can become. I also wonder what resources might help to catch those who are so brittle and angry, if we meet them on the road after their world has finally fallen; knowing that those could be difficult and dangerous encounters.
Andy. You write:
‘Humans are the point and purpose of the planet. It is only the awareness of the Human mind that gives ‘Life’ any value.’
This is a deeply depressing thought, at whichever level you choose to read it. And wrong. Wrong for me, at least, and for many others. Right for you, perhaps. But this is one of the core attitudes which has led us to this pass. It won’t get us out of it again – or if it does, it will be into a world barely worth living in.
Part of being an intellectual is to be misunderstood. Part of writing online, especially controversial, revolutionary subject matter, is to set yourself up for all kinds of criticism, both fair and unfair. Paul, you seem to have adopted the Johnny Rotten method of responding, but it might be more effective to kill your ruder detractors with level-headed kindness (or ignore them) even when they insult something very dear to you which you are understandably sensitive about. Hope that doesn’t sound too trite.
I laughed at some of the lampooning in the Guardian comments section because, besides being funny, it was fair – perhaps not to your actual ideals, but to the way you have communicated them. I appreciate the way the manifesto, etc are written, but parts are existential, esoteric and a bit out there for a lot of people, including the dedicated Guardian comment brigade. I had to be patient, reflective and hunt for more info before I got a better perspective on what it is DM is about. I still haven’t made up my mind on it, but the realism is refreshing and the prospects are exciting. You may have captured the zeitgeist of the not-too-distant future. At the very least you’ve struck a chord with me, despite the guitars and the poetry
I agree with the starting point that western civilisation is likely to melt-down over the next few decades. I’d like to suggest a better manifesto:-
1) Save what you value
2) Party while you can.
The first has been carefully crafted to remove cultural bias. Some may wish to save bio-diversity, some may wish to save Art or Artefacts, others knowledge, even religious dogma. The key is the individuals decides for themselves.
The second is acknowledgement that not only is there nothing to be done to maintain our unsustainable civilisation, but also that the impact of an individuals activity does not significantly exacerbate the situation either!
e.g. If you don’t fly around the world, the fuel you save will be burnt by someone else anyway!
The New Noah
I admire DMP’s frankness about humanity’s prospects. The vitriol you encountered is a result of a serious disconnect between DMP’s assumed future and the general environmental movement’s.
Just because you all eschew fantasies about magic cure-alls and utopias does not make you doomsayers.
Just because you all see the paramount importance of storytelling as a cultural mechanism does not render you impotent poets, or failed writers.
Just because you all are preparing for the worst does not assume you think it is for the best.
You do not need to post affiliated videos to hastily affirm your commitment to improving the world. The human world is leaking flammables and is set to burn. Let the world know how little stock DMP has in the environmental movement and our species as a whole. Continue passing judgement on our prospects; it’s high time SOMEONE did, for every day they grow dimmer.
And please consider expanding your efforts in the United States. I know personally that there are many likeminded individuals here who would benifit from your message.
Mike – thanks. This is a good summary. I agree we don’t need to be defensive, and shouldn’t be. On the other hand, DM can be a hard project to explain to people, and it’s always good to clear up misunderstandings. As for our efforts in the US – well, we don;t really have any, but would love to hear from Americans who would like to start up a DM splinter on your shores.
Graham – I always approach Guardian comments intending to respond with Zen-like reasonableness, but it rarely works. It’s like looking at a toilet wall covered in personal insults. If people are going to be insulting … well,let’s just say I sometimes have less patience than I should have. Also, I enjoy insulting people in return
But I’m glad you have got a bit more perspective on DM As I was saying above, it’s a hard thing to explain simply, and it also fluid. It’s not for everyone, either, but it is sparking off some very interesting stuff indeed. I do think we are ahead of our time, and I say that not out of arrogance but because I can see many other approaches like ours springing up, and I can see the green movement dying in public. Something has to give. Interesting times …