Perhaps the collapse of society would not be such a bad thing

Industrial tragedy.

Look at what’s happening around the world. Just look, for once.

We love to shield ourselves from the horrors of this world, love to avert our eyes, put a lid on it. With ‘we’ I mean us in the Western world, of course, for most others are faced with such terrors on the daily. We will be, too, soon enough. Don’t worry about it.

How many children died in Palestine in recent weeks? Do you even know? Do you even care? I’m not trying to antagonize you, it’s only natural to grow apathetic. Staring the truth in the face for long enough would crush us all. There’s only so many videos of mutilated children one can bear, and apathy and cognitive dissonance are, after all, the defining features of our society for a reason.

Long ago, we have reached our ecological limits, have overshot the earth’s capacity to regenerate. Our consumption and population surpass what this planet’s biosphere can provide by multitudes. Since then, we’re treading on borrowed time, struggling to keep the house of cards afloat when every little gust could topple it all. Another economic crash, peak oil, resource depletion, climate change, more forever-wars, whatever, are all just symptoms of the same disease: call it capitalism, to keep it simple.

Here is a graph on ecological overshoot expressed in terms of how many earths equivalent of natural resources are consumed by humanity each year. Yes, we now require 1.75 earths to even sustain ourselves, and ‘Earth Overshoot Day’ happens earlier with each passing year:

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Even requiring the natural resources of one entire earth would be far, far too much. It leaves nothing for the rest of all that lives.

How many species went extinct in the last year?

Our economic system is built on debt and never-ending growth on finite resources. A contradiction in and of itself. No one likes to think about such things as politicians happily announce ever more GDP growth as if that were something to celebrate. Where do they think growth is coming from? Thin air? Space? The absurd magic of the market? There is no such thing as sustainable or ‘green’ growth. Electric cars are still fucking cars; they still require unfathomable amounts of resources and labor, and children still mine rare earths to fuel them.

Do not get me started on intentional poverty, inequality, alienation, and so on. I’ve discussed all of these topics at length in previous essays.

In the face of everything, the question of whether we should just abdicate comes up naturally. Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, was right in claiming that “The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.” (What he did was, of course, despicable. He is a terrorist, no doubt about that.) But more so than that, it’s been a disaster for all else that lives on this planet.

If we presuppose that life has inherent value and meaning (a philosophical question), then we are, let’s be blunt, destroyers, annihilators, extinguishers of said value. Why do we pretend we are not? Just look at the numbers, for fuck’s sake. It’s plain as day.

To cite from the WWF’s Living Planet Report 2022:

The Living Planet Index (LPI)—which tracks populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians—reveals an average 69% decrease in monitored wildlife populations since 1970. The 2022 LPI analyzed almost 32,000 species populations. It provides the most comprehensive measure of how they are responding to pressures in their environment.

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I mean… what the actual fuck?

In the face of this, almost everything else becomes irrelevant. Henry David Thoreau is screaming in his grave (I love that guy), and our ancestors would spit in our faces (I’m pretty sure about that).

It’s not only that we have created an alienating, depressing, and lonely dystopia for ourselves, no, we are also dragging everything else with us. All is sacrificed — ecosystems, the animal world, the people of the Global South — on the altar of Western material comfort and ideological supremacy.

Still, we pretend that everything is alright and go about our lives as if the world would not drastically change in just one or two decades from now. And… why wouldn’t we? Is there any sense in panicking now? It’s all pretty much done, isn’t it?

Well, yes and no.

The current socioeconomic system will collapse in the coming years and decades. It already is, in many ways, and there’s no changing that. It’s too late.

But we should still be angry! Furious! We should still be raging in the streets, even if it’s no use. Because we have not done this. We were all merely born into an already sick system; we had no choice but to adapt and conform. We are greedy, individualistic, and isolated because our artificial surroundings demand it. To be a good person in this world is to be weak, a pushover, one others will abuse. It’s better, as a man, to be stoic, unfeeling, hyper-masculine and, as a woman, to be like the man. The corporate world thrives on it.

But back to anger: there’s not much sense or inherent purpose in life, so why not take revenge on the few at the top who sustain this system because they benefit immensely? The wealthiest 10%, according to a Guardian report, are responsible for nearly half the world’s CO2 emissions:

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A single private jet trip from the likes of Taylor Swift negates your lifelong efforts to live ‘sustainably.’ You should still try, of course, for your own consciousness’ sake if nothing else, but, also, rage! (For legal reasons I will state that violence is not the way. Every single concession to the working class and every civil liberty you enjoy has been won by inherently violent revolutions, but, yeah, just ignore that.)

We have only this one life and they made us spend it in this. This is the true tragedy of our existences. The belief that material comfort and living to the age of a hundred can substitute community, purpose, belonging, nature, peace, freedom!

It’s all made us very numb. Every second person you meet is a sociopath now. Sometimes, I wonder if I am too, despite the fact that events such as the escalation in Gaza make me cry, on occasion, and sleep poorly. Even the writing I am doing here seems very self-centered and narcissistic. It probably is. After all, we are — to a degree — just products of our crumbling environment. Whenever I tell people I’m an anarchist (it happens rarely, for I have no patience in dealing with people’s bullshit), I am met with tirades on ‘human nature,’ inherent greed, yadda yadda yadda. Man, a better environment would yield better products, don’t you see? Humankind has thrived because we adapt to literally everything, even an utterly soulless socioeconomic structure in which sociopaths thrive. Why have you no imagination? Fucking capitalist realism, driving me insane.

One last thing:

‘Hoping’ for a collapse of industrial civilization carries with it the fact that billions will suffer and die, predominantly those who are not responsible. But, my argument goes, those people are overwhelmingly suffering already. Is the ‘slow burn’ and silent suffering we are experiencing right now better than ripping the band-aid off? If you believe in objective morality, ponder that.

I don’t think there’s a correct answer; I just think that I prefer the option that leads to a desirable existence faster, preferably before the last animal is dead. It will happen anyway, is the point, and, right now, we could still choose when and how exactly (though we won’t). We could still degrow in a ‘humane’ way if such a thing were possible. And, also, still drag those who are responsible through the streets, burn those fucking yachts and mansions — all without actually physically harming anyone, mind you — for we are just animals, in the end. Why did we ever think we were special?

The tragedy is the innocents. And if all those wars illustrate one thing, it’s the humbling realization that no one actually gives any fuck about fellow human beings suffering. So, please, at least end the industrial scale of it and let ecosystems breathe. Thoreau was right. About everything.

Antonio Melonio

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