Wow. The rate at which our environment, economy, political system and social safety programs are collapsing is accelerating much faster than anyone expected. My intension in writing these blog posts is to help me understand what is happening, what crises need attention. Explore possible solutions. And hopefully stimulate others to act to address these urgent problems.
We need to mobilize people to work for change. That requires accurately identifying what the primary problems are. Then discover ways to address those problems.
It is an understatement to say I have not been successful in this process. For example, over forty years ago I realized I could not own a car. I knew fossil fuels were not renewable, so we needed to protect those reserves for future generations. The effects on air quality were obvious from the smell and sight of clouds of smog, this being before catalytic converters.
It was obvious, to me, that we needed to do everything we could to reduce the use of fossil fuels. But either that was not obvious to others, or they chose to ignore the dangers. I tried all the ways I could think of, but it is clear nothing worked.
I was intrigued when I read the article cited below about different levels of reality. That might help me understand my failure to convince others to reduce fossil fuel consumption.
Anyway, we have three or four levels of reality that we should be discussing all the time because they’re incredibly important. But, generally speaking, American politicians and media don’t talk about the deeper layers. In fact, they only talk about the surface layer.
So, using this past presidential election as an example: Layer one was — Who’s going to win? Biden or Trump? That’s the surface layer. It was fair to talk about it and fair to debate it. But if we stop at that and don’t dig deeper, we don’t actually know anything about reality. It would be like licking the top crust of an apple pie and saying, “I get it. It tastes like crust. It’s dry and crumbly.” But in fact, you still have no idea what an apple pie is.
Now let’s move on to layer two (which is already a layer beyond what your mainstream corporate media will ever report on). Layer two is the slightly deeper understanding that American oligarchs win each election no matter what. They win it in multiple ways — one is by making sure progressives, socialists, libertarians, anarchists, communists, etc. are purged from the process. The other way they dominate every election is with cold, hard cash. And the third — perhaps the most important way — is that our system simply does not pass anything through the government that isn’t beneficial to the business community.
Wow. Sounds like layer two is kind of important. But nope, the mainstream media will never mention it. They pretend it’s not happening.
THE FOUR LAYERS OF REALITY — AND WHY WE’RE ONLY ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT ONE By Lee Camp,Scheer Post, October 22, 2021
There are at least four different aspects of our daily American lives that affect everything from how we think to where we live.
With the trashing of political norms by the previous administration, the capitol insurrection, the difficulty in passing Biden’s agenda, etc, more people are becoming aware of the second layer.
Layer three: Capitalism and environmental collapse. Under our current economic system, the most powerful people (the corporatocracy) will eventually own everything. It’s inevitable. The gravity of capitalism pulls everything towards corporate hegemony. Every time. In every way. You can sometimes score roadblocks that slow them down, but that’s all it does — slow them down. As they take control, the environment — the NATURAL WORLD — will be destroyed.
So that’s what talking about level three looks like. It’s talking about the economic system and its global impact. And yet again, the corporate media will pretty much never have that discussion.
THE FOUR LAYERS OF REALITY — AND WHY WE’RE ONLY ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT ONE By Lee Camp,Scheer Post, October 22, 2021
I’ve been studying, writing, and talking about capitalism and environmental chaos for years now. Fossil fuel energy powers our capitalist economy. Any effort to curb production for environmental reasons has been doomed to failure. The country has witnessed the continued violent, militarized response to those working to protect water and Mother Earth.
Level four — Now we really get deep. Level four is the true analysis of our reality. And there are a lot of different topics in level four.
Or level four could be something like, “Why do we live the way we do — in single-family houses or apartments? We live inside seclusion boxes, hardly interacting with our fellow humans except at our wage slavery jobs where we go, ‘Hey Jim. At least it’s hump day’ or some dumb crap like that. What the hell is this existence?”
That’s level four. It’s getting pretty deep into the philosophical realm. But so why don’t our media think the most basic questions of our existence are important at all? They don’t think it makes sense to occasionally talk about level four?
But can’t the deepest echelons of our reality ever come up in the mainstream narrative?
We are left at level one because it serves as a beautiful distraction. Never talk about the deeper economic system. Never talk about how nations are used to divide us. Never talk about how corporations own our society. Media only reports surface level reality.
THE FOUR LAYERS OF REALITY — AND WHY WE’RE ONLY ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT ONE By Lee Camp,Scheer Post, October 22, 2021
Activists I know understand capitalism is responsible for environmental chaos. But as I said, I’ve had no success in convincing others of that. Or those who do know are unwilling to consider alternatives. Don’t want to make changes that diminish material possessions and services.
What are alternatives? Mutual Aid is a framework that can replace capitalism. The premise of Mutual Aid is the opposite of capitalism, supremacy, and materialism. Mutual Aid is based on a horizontal, or flat hierarchy where everyone has a voice. Everyone can participate in building their community in ways that help each member. The immediate survival needs of everyone are met by a structure not based on money.
This idea of levels of reality is useful for me. Because our society is stuck on the surface reality, it is difficult to get people to the level of capitalism and environmental collapse.
I’ve caused a lot of tension when trying to get people to understand justice work cannot be successful if the work is constrained to the surface level. Many are upset, for instance, when I suggest lobbying elected officials is a waste of effort.
This is a diagram I’ve been working on to try to visually depict these ideas.
See also:
Capitalism https://landbackfriends.com/?s=capitalism
Mutual Aid https://landbackfriends.com/?s=mutual%20aid
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