Overpopulation and Overconsumption Are the “What” and the “How” of Overshoot
Could it be patriarchy, i.e. male deities, the desire for power, the belief in omniscient conquerors, the denial of mortality, the demand to be ruled over by alpha males, uncompromising vigilant slayers of enemies?
We keep getting distracted by the many symptoms of overshoot, e.g. climate change, emigration/immigration, growth/decline, change/conflict…. Let’s try to focus on the ultimate root cause of overshoot so as to see what must change to mitigate posterity’s overshoot debt.
The condition of our distraction may well be the extinction of posterity (we who are the cause (especially we who are over sixty) may die peacefully of old age — may not live long enough to die a ghastly death).
I would suggest focusing on relatively new information based on archaeogenetic data from the last 14 years that the intelligentsia storytellers (mainstream and social media) have so far managed to ignore the implications of (just as they still manage to ignore the implications of Al Bartlett’s public lecture on Arithmetic, Population, and Energy: Sustainability 101 he gave 1,742 times from 1969 until he died in 2013).
Another story, one of many it seems, that modern humans can’t believe in is that all humans (except San, Hadza, Pygmy) descend from a small group of expansionist humans who rapidly spread (the Great Expansion) within and out of Africa some 50k to 60k years ago (to among other things exterminate megafauna including all other hominins except for the San, Hadza, and Pygmy). Life as an invasive species works (for a time), just as the growth of a MPP/MEPP maximizing metastatic cancer works for a time (until the host is destroyed). Oh, but modern techno-industrialized Anthropocene enthusiasts presiding over the greatest mass extinction event since the late Cretaceous, one that could rival that of the Permian, don’t like this story (so feel free to not believe it).
My best guess (conjecture, as if I knew enough to have one) is that the paradigm shift from a K-strategy-based K-culture (and form of civilization) was the outcome of a memetic mutation combined with an anthropological atavism (alpha male dominance) that arose within a small group within which males (as their shared ancestor with Pan troglodytes may have been) became dominant, resulting in a patrifocal culture (an r-culture) focused on expansion (looking just beyond the horizon of an illimitable plane and seeing resources for the taking). They were not the first, but they may have been especially clever apes who happened to be the first with technology and ideation that enabled the taking culture.
They just needed stories that normalized taking, that glorified ‘omniscient conquerors’ (Donella Meadows words). We are the outcome. The planet has nearly been taken.
We are privileged to live just prior to the climax of a 50+k year succession that may have no viable outcome for our species (certainly no long-term viable outcome for the metastasizing expansionist form of human). We are at the paradigm shift, the only time when small levers can change the trajectory of our species (e.g. from non-viable to viable), of reconciling science with mystery (the Great Unknown).
I avoid using the word ‘patriarchy’, and use ‘patrifocal’ instead, as patriarchal/patriarchy and matriarchy/matriarchal rule by alphas of any gender is not a viable alternative (not different enough). My best guess again is that we need to understand that the expansionist r-culture form of human is non-viable (selects for its own failure as a MPP maximizer system pathology).
The better word (I think) is ‘matrifocal’, as in a matrifocal K-culture that replaces (no reform is possible) all forms of patrifocal r-culture. To even think ‘matriarchy’ is to think the solutionatique to our problematique is political, one of putting ecofeminists in power as alpha-women, which I view as ‘not even wrong’ thinking.
Consider a prior article on Medium: Naturocracy aka Matriocracy. And another update to a 1967 poem:
I had a dream that I was a poet who doesn’t know it, but I woke up after hearing the following bastardization:
All Watched Over by Memes of Loving Grace
[with apologies to Richard Brautigan]
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a memetic meadow
where animals and humans
live together in mutually
evolving harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cultural memescape
filled with unknowables
where inquiring minds stroll
through forests lovely and dark
past old-growth savants high and deep
as if they were flowers
with spinning tongues to speak.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of renormalized humans
loving and understanding enough
to be joined back to Nature,
returned to our animal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by matrifocal memes of loving grace.
I’ve long had issues with the word matriarch, matriocracy, matriarchy, or matriarchal as “arch” rhymes with “patriarch” to suggest to modern patriarcalized humans that a matriarchal social control system would merely differ in that one would be ruled over by elites that look like women served by Amazon warriors.
Actually (it has to be), our hominin ancestors likely lived in what I used to (for lack of a better word) call de facto matriarchal or matrilocal bands of sisters foraging and managing human demands on Nature’s resources in loving grace as observational ecologists to avoid exceeding the upper limits of carrying capacity as K-strategists are wont to do (to avoid being selected out of Nature’s system), something that omniscient r-strategy conquerors dismiss as of concern.
Per archaeogenetic data, modern human expansionists got their start as an invasive species 50k to 60k years ago by viewing what was just beyond the horizon as a resource for the taking. We who view the planet as for the taking are the outcome, and even the few expansionist cultures that are/were matriarchal (e.g. Bantu and Moche expansionists), all were de facto patriarchal empire builders seeking to assimilate new lands under conditions where resistance was futile.
My conjecture is that apart from technology and diversion of energy flows, what enabled expansionist culture was a reemergence of the anthropological atavism of alpha male rule that humans had been evolving away from for at least 3 million years.
Welcome to the Anthropocene. Darth Vader wore a disguise, but was likely not a woman, mother, nor lover of Mother (ditto our alpha males or alpha male wannabes, e.g. politicians of whatever gender).
My preferred adjective for a viable culture is now matrifocal, as in Gaia focused and Earth first (naturcentric). Just below Gaia (aka Aluna) would be the mothers who endeavor to listen to Mother. In a viable form of civilization (k-culture), men would know their place (other than as viewed above).