Modernity actually and always aspired to Total Autarky in relationship with Nature : reducing all Biology and Life to a matter of Geology, making absolutely everything , including Life itself, synthetically out of rocks - the famous "air,water and coaltar" of 1940s chemistry.
But until that glorious day, Modernity knew it got its energy from non-renewable energy sources.
It was non-renewable in a peculiar sense of that phrase, at least in today's eyes.
Modernists didn't really feel that the world itself was about to run out of coal, gas and petroleum - not at least for many many centuries to come --- but they all fretted that their nation - and their's alone - would soon run out, before their enemies or competitors did.
This is what gives that special frenetic, panic-stricken, edginess to the supposedly optimistic Age of Modernity .
Could their nation learn how to break up atoms to produce endless amounts of energy and new elements, before their country ran out of its reserves of fossil fuels ?
Ultimately, Modernists like Hitler and Stalin and Churchill believed that the only real energy in reality was human mental energy, the Triumph of the WILL, but until the human mind unlocked the secret of the atom, petroleum would have to serve a very poor second....
Showing posts with label non-renewable modernity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label non-renewable modernity. Show all posts
Feb 24, 2012
Vita Con Mensa: 1939-1945
Did anything else happen between 1939 and 1945 besides WWII?
Was there ever a possibility that the world could have gotten along more or less in peace, muddling through, between 1939 and 1945?
Is there a possibility of an alternative history for 1939-1945?
I think that Martin Henry Dawson's tiny natural
penicillin project(1939-1945) ,offered one such alternative.
An alternative approach for the civilized portion of Humankind to take to Nature and other weaker/poorer/darker Human Beings than the hostile approach they did take.
So then 1939-1945 offers the possibility of two intertwining, parallel, stories - the big (unsustainably evil) one that the Modern World did take and the alternative small (sustainably decent) path that Dawson's team chose to trod.
'Begin by Comparing and Contrasting' , says every teacher - and it seems a good approach to take here as well ....
Was there ever a possibility that the world could have gotten along more or less in peace, muddling through, between 1939 and 1945?
Is there a possibility of an alternative history for 1939-1945?
I think that Martin Henry Dawson's tiny natural
penicillin project(1939-1945) ,offered one such alternative.
An alternative approach for the civilized portion of Humankind to take to Nature and other weaker/poorer/darker Human Beings than the hostile approach they did take.
So then 1939-1945 offers the possibility of two intertwining, parallel, stories - the big (unsustainably evil) one that the Modern World did take and the alternative small (sustainably decent) path that Dawson's team chose to trod.
'Begin by Comparing and Contrasting' , says every teacher - and it seems a good approach to take here as well ....
Feb 23, 2012
NON-RENEWABLE MODERNITY: R.I.P. 1873-1973
It was the Age of the Fossils ; it was the Age of the Moderns.
Non-Renewable Fossil Fuel powered Modernity and when the Fossils ran out the door, so did Modern Man.
Modernity, severely wounded in its own self-inflicted disaster of WWII , finally died during the Energy Crisis of 1973.
Modernity just ran out of steam and just ran out of energy : at least it ran out of endless amounts of nearly free energy - the given that Modernists seemingly took for granted.
Still isn't it a little jarring, maybe even a little ironic , n'est pas ?
This unexpected yoking together of Modern Modernity and Ancient Fossils: oil and water, chalk and cheese.
Well it seems that way to me, but the Modernists (cum Climate Change Deniers) are notorious for having no sense of the ironic.
Maybe they figure that's a job best left for the PO-MO crowd.
Non-Renewal Modernity had a best before due date and 1973 said it was well past due.
This era's energy will not just be renewable energy, it will also be highly dispersed and highly decentralized - it will be as SMALL as Modernity was characteristically concentrated & BIG.
The r-selected will inherit the K-selected Earth, so to speak.
I hope, soon ,to read some books that place Modernity's (economic) demise with the Fossils' departure in the Fall of 1973.
That would be a pleasant break from all those authors that simply repeat the old wheeze that Modernity died (morally) in the hellfires of Hiroshima and Auschwitz in 1945....
Non-Renewable Fossil Fuel powered Modernity and when the Fossils ran out the door, so did Modern Man.
Modernity, severely wounded in its own self-inflicted disaster of WWII , finally died during the Energy Crisis of 1973.
Modernity just ran out of steam and just ran out of energy : at least it ran out of endless amounts of nearly free energy - the given that Modernists seemingly took for granted.
Still isn't it a little jarring, maybe even a little ironic , n'est pas ?
This unexpected yoking together of Modern Modernity and Ancient Fossils: oil and water, chalk and cheese.
Well it seems that way to me, but the Modernists (cum Climate Change Deniers) are notorious for having no sense of the ironic.
Maybe they figure that's a job best left for the PO-MO crowd.
Non-Renewal Modernity had a best before due date and 1973 said it was well past due.
This era's energy will not just be renewable energy, it will also be highly dispersed and highly decentralized - it will be as SMALL as Modernity was characteristically concentrated & BIG.
The r-selected will inherit the K-selected Earth, so to speak.
I hope, soon ,to read some books that place Modernity's (economic) demise with the Fossils' departure in the Fall of 1973.
That would be a pleasant break from all those authors that simply repeat the old wheeze that Modernity died (morally) in the hellfires of Hiroshima and Auschwitz in 1945....
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