Conservation & Activism

This is a topic that’s been featuring in my mind quite a lot recently. Maybe it’s because I’m at that age where I am surrounded by students, and an environment of learning breeds awareness for causes. Animals, ecology, civic responsibility, the arts, the conservation of human rights, the education system, the usual stuff that people care about and won’t tolerate when it gets kicked in the gutter. Personally I think a lot of it is wasted effort. I think someone would make more of an impact breeding an artificial food staple and introducing it to the human population than they would picketing outside a fishery, and even more impact than blowing that fishery up. I think in a lot of cases of extinction humanity needs to be seen as a natural predator and the only way we’re actually going to keep those animals alive is by storing them in a stable artificial environment. I think a lot of things that will probably piss off a lot of people, because I’m not very romantic about the idea of keeping the Earth and its contents in stasis. Life changes. Extinction is an indication of that change.

But mostly I have a problem with the face of activism because I’m not an altruist. I don’t have any invested interest in sacrificing my time telling other people how to run their lives. I’m only really concerned with mine, and that’s something I do care about a lot. I do recycle, compost, and I save electricity when I can. Thanks to an entomologist friend of mine I’m keeping a close eye on the progress and possibility of entomophagy (can’t wait to take the plunge and eat my first bug) as a protein substitute. I set aside extra time when I drive places so I can roll down hills. I’m really excited about the possibility of investing in solar power, and I’m setting aside a wad of cash I’d also like to spend on books to make sure it gets done. I believe that as a core principal the idea of renewable energy is a good one, not for the environment, but for the individual. The problem common to fossil fuels isn’t only that it’s destroying our planet through the accelerated process of chemical breakdown and energy release, but also that it’s destroying the idea of liberty by making us increasingly dependent on centralised resources. Here in The City we’re run by sole-shareholder corporations acting under governmental direction, and we’re viewed as clients when taxes come round and citizens when they can’t serve up their merchandise. I imagine a city where governmental services are considered a secondary option, with our primary reliance on home generators and resident-controlled water storage. A world where we’ve taken these matters into our own hands so we don’t have to get petitions and media awareness and deal with every civil worker strike that comes along every few months. We’re fighting these wars as a collective because they affect all of us, but they affect all of us because humans have given up on the idea of independence.

And that is the real crime that’s going on. There’s maybe a handful of people with Think for Yourself written on their placards, only a few dozen who don’t want you to join their movement but start your own. You want to talk about conservation? Let’s talk about the schizophrenics and the hyperactives and the delusionals who are being drugged into placidity by those who fear madness. Let’s talk about a generation bred on jingles and catchphrases, who’ve learnt advertisements like flashcards for a pop-quiz test they’re never going to take. Let’s talk about the needs of the many, the thoughts of the many, the opinions of the many over the lives of the few.

You want to see extinction? I see a world where ideas are dying in favour of quick quips and memes. It’s worse than poaching. It’s something viral, something stupid, something pithy that laughs as it goes, devoting its time to amusement and comfort. The cessation of thought. It’s hard to grasp because it isn’t physical, but I know you know what I’m talking about. You can see it around you at a party when no-one’s sober and it’s all mumbling and giggling and blank stares, and swaying to the music, but nothing else. You can see it across from you when someone’s messing with their phone instead of talking, because these days you just change the channel if you don’t want to see something, or because they’d rather be invested in something they can switch off if it rubs them up the wrong way. Hell, it’s something you can see in yourself because you do it too, and because you’re always sitting there with your emotions and assessments, trying to look your coolest, trying to work out what people think of you, trying to feel good and sexy and uninhibited, trying to lie to yourself and say you don’t think about that stuff. I think all of us feel these things, but only a few admit it and resist it. The rest just want the comfort of unity. Completion.

I’ll tell you now, I don’t want to be comfortable. I want to constantly break down and spill out and explode, because that destruction is proof that there’s ‘something’ inside of me to destruct and it’s what I see rapidly depleting in outsiders. I am an activist, but I’m also a tiger shark, a white rhino, a panda bear. I’m fighting for my right to exist as an idea. Even in the certainty of an artificial world. Let’s be straight and call it a zoo.

What people don’t realise is, it’s the same thing. That battle they’re fighting and the one I am. They both start with awareness. An awareness of what’s happening to the world, and later, the awareness that they are responsible for changing it. Then comes the divergence between my kind of activism and their kind. Because on their level they’re still trapped in the world of memes and petitions and union strikes. They’re still a centralised movement, with everything depending on oneness and community and a single governing body, with the idea that acting as something complete and big and faceless they will have the power to save the whales and the starving poor and the sinful youth of the modern age. And it has about the same effectiveness as our electrical providers, whose power blackouts are legendary.

If you want to save the world, please just go home. Switch off your radio so it can stop telling you to save electricity. Stop buying fish and cow meat and cook an organic, bug-filled meal for you and your friends. Stop looking at funny memes and cartoons on the internet, put on some music and draw something, write something, make something yourself. If you expect your neighbours are poachers, kill them. There are several useful guides on how to do so online. Destroy the corrupt and plutocratic film industry by resorting to data piracy, and put the money you’d use to watch movies into a clean energy fund to improve your residence. Flush your meds and learn to live with yourself and your nature. Never stop being aware of the problems out there in the world, but never rally under the banner of power or community. Just have a few good friends, maybe a cheerleader or a gypsy or a cowboy, who expose you to what effect you’re having on the world by what you do and do not do.

This is not a banner. This is not a cause. This is one small placard reading Think for Yourself. Take from it what you will, and carve your own sign into yours.