Fight Like An Animal

In these difficult times, it is important to remember that no matter what we do, it should be entirely based on what the Very Powerful Magi wrote on the Ancient Scroll that they entrusted to the Nine Elders. 

Movements for climate and ecological survival have largely eschewed talk of taking CO2 out of the sky. For good reason. We don't know if it will work and it shifts the focus away from ceasing the damage. However, if we have already crossed climate tipping points, it's probably a good idea to begin looking at our options: the uncertain, the dubious, and the overtly evil. Here, we examine emerging GHG removal potentials, the underlying worldviews that allow and prohibit different sectors of society from discussing them, and the value systems evident in how ecological issues are framed.

Start by reading climate plans, then write your own. Get a zoning map, change it in Photoshop, and release it to the media. Blockade something. Establish parallel institutions. In this episode, we will use an oil train blockade in Portland, OR to illustrate some principles of fighting for ecological survival which can be applied in diverse contexts. 

Elephants are changing. The various traumas of extermination—witnessing the deaths of their companions, developing in atypical social structures—are making elephants more aggressive. In this episode, we discuss the relationship between resilience and adverse experience, the developmental plasticity of thresholds for aggression, and the notion of an envelope of stress tolerance. Faced with a panoply of intensifying, existential threats, we ask where and when people will find the rage that elephants are finding.   

"Climate denial" has the specific connotation of outright denial such a thing exists, but what about all the other forms of denial? The human mind has a general tendency not to come to terms with overwhelming input. The institutional and grassroots political responses to climate change, in most cases, are also forms of climate denial. Here, we examine the psychology of confronting unbearable truths, searching for cultural systems that can allow us to face our fears and thus affect outcomes. This piece originally appeared in Dark Mountain #15. 

Academic constructs, valid or otherwise, tend to diffuse into our culture at large. How has this impacted social and political conflict? Quite a lot, and mostly badly. In this episode, we look at climate activism, movements against police violence, and the book White Fragility to illustrate the huge range of contentious issues which are still burdened by the legacy of 20th century social sciences and the opposition to human nature. We see how even though scientific debates about human nature have largely ended, the rhetorical devices used in them are very much alive, with real consequences.   

In this episode, we trace the journey of 20th century social sciences through innumerable versions of the nature vs. nurture debate, talk about how the denial of human nature led scientists to torture baby monkeys, and do a blow-by-blow analysis of Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault's famous 1971 dialogue on human nature, describing how the reasoning Foucault employs is the precursor to many of the frustrating and ineffective aspects of contemporary political movements. 

Because anthropology describes the observed range of human variation, as well as constants in human life, it is inextricably linked to the project of describing what is possible for a revolution to achieve. This episode examines cross-cultural universals, technological thresholds, and hierarchies. We assess the notion that small, egalitarian societies are such because they consciously subdue the impulse to domination, that there is no fundamental discontinuity between "traditional" and "modern" people, and that traditional societies, also, were shaped by social movements. 

Renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead's research in Samoa challenges perceptions of human nature. The podcast explores ideological conflicts in social movements and the importance of clear visions for a better society. Discussions on human behavior, cultural observations, and debunking myths about human population differences provoke thought on nature versus nurture debates.

A CIA counterintelligence chief once described his world as a wilderness of mirrors. In this episode, we ask how ecological and egalitarian movements can navigate this wilderness. The internet is opening information warfare possibilities to non-state actors, Cambridge Analytica is influencing elections, and Western media is striving for ever-greater hyperbole about the influence of Russia. Is it time for movements to use the same tactics against the powerful that the powerful have long used against movements? We examine the time-honored strategy of divide and conquer, FBI campaigns of disinformation, the psychology of subterfuge, and more.