Welcome to the Dark Ages!
Does it feel to you like things are getting worse...?
Not everything, of course: somewhere right now a child is learning to read; some particular robin is having a good-worm day; a lonely person is meeting a new friend, and they're laughing together. Random little improvements are inevitable in a big world.
But in this big world, doesn't it seem like a lot of really important things are getting a lot worse? Fast? That’s how it appears to me, at least. That’s what I see, and it looks like a long-term trend with no end in sight. It looks to me like the beginning of a dark age.
What do I mean by a dark age? Basically a time when things aren't going well for us and people like us. When things are going badly for our whole way of life. In fact, things are going badly for the whole planet and most of the humans, animals and plants on it.; and it will probably get worse. A dark age is a time of loss, failure, a time of retreat and contraction.
This isn't bad news. I mean, it is, but that's not what this book is about.
This book won't tell you exactly what's getting worse or exactly how bad it's gonna get. I will summarize some of the worst problems, just to make sure we're on the same page; but if you want to know more, you'll find plenty of other places to learn facts about problems.
Neither is this book about fixing all those problems. Chances are, you already have your own ideas about what needs to be done, and you're probably already doing what you can to improve things.
And this book will not try to either evoke or diminish your strong feelings about those problems. You're already feeling what you feel -- depression, guilt, worry, indignation, resignation, anger, panic, rage, or anything else -- and you don't need prodding toward feeling it more. Or toward feeling it less.
This book doesn’t concentrate on the bad news; but it doesn’t offer good news, either. There's no hope for better days to be found here.
Reality, instead.
This book is about what is.
Fine. There’s the beginning. So far, so good. “You”, the reader, are someone who’s troubled: uneasy, discouraged, probably scared, maybe even a little panicked . “I”, the author, have something to say to you: I hope I can make things a little better -- not by changing the big world; and not by recommending escape or denial of what’s truly going on out there; but by reminding you of a resource you can use to make your life better, even in spite of everything that might be going wrong.
My elucidation of this “resource" is loosely based on a myth about the historical Dark Ages of ce 500-1000: the idea that learning, culture and civilization itself were preserved, through a bleak period of ignorance and loss, by monestaries — small isolated self-sufficient religious communities that were able to maintain a high level of functioning despite the general degredation of culture at large.
Oasis
The coming of a dark age is like the spread of a lifeless desert. Any bright spot in a dark age is like a desert oasis. And for each of us, in this coming desert, there IS an oasis — where we make it.This oasis is a community. Living in the oasis means simply being with people we like. We might find a perfect community and join it. Or we might make one, gathering to us those we want. We don’t have to live with them; we might just have coffee with them. Or talk about books. We might worship. Study. Make music. Shoot hoops. But once we have an oasis, we can let it completely support us. In our oasis, we can thrive.
(But I should be more clear: the oasis community isn’t exactly just people we like; it’s people we love. Love is what makes a community into a dark age oasis.)
Our oasis need not be large, or important, or productive: its purpose is not to expand into the larger world, changing minds and winning converts, attacking and countering the darkness everywhere. Its purpose rather is to create a safe and bright haven within the darkness. The oasis is a living space, not a working space. The work of confronting a dark age still has to be done, the work of fighting the encroaching darkness — speaking truth, showing justice, choosing the good, preventing harm, helping the innocent.
Living in an oasis is not an alternative to going out to do the work. Living in an oasis is a way to make the work possible.
Basically: survive without being pulled down by the growing chaos, by basing your existence in the shared life of an enlightened community.
So here’s the first problem. I absolutely don’t intend to encourage escapism. I want you — us — me, actually — to remain completely engaged in reality. I have to stay part of the big world, committed to making it better, doing my work “out there” — while I draw my energy from a higher-functioning source, my community. An oasis is about refocus, not denial.
And the second problem: an oasis also isn't about exclusion. My oasis isn’t better than anyone else’s, and mine isn’t created at the cost of any other. This is how a dark age oasis is different from any other membership group that I might currently belong to (or might join as a response to gathering darkness): most identity groups create their identity in relationship to (or more likely, in opposition to) some other differing or opposing group. Their identity is dependent on the difference, and so the difference (and, usually, the resulting conflict) MUST be maintained in order to preserve the group’s identity, and often even its existence.
An oasis, on the other hand, is self defined and non-dependent. (But I really wonder how to successfully explain this…?)
Inclusive Exclusion
So we have oases — communities, small groups of like-minded people — who probably believe, act, and live very differently from each other. Each group is living true to their own ideals; and it’s certain that some of these groups’ ideals are in severe disagreement with the ideals of others. Doesn’t that cause division? Polarization? Conflict? Fighting? Isn’t that exactly how we’ve been living recently — for a long time, actually — and isn’t that divergence a big part of what’s gotten us into such bad trouble?
Not exactly.
Consider a nuclear family that you are a part of, or were at one time: now think about breakfast.
That family probably had a typical and usual pattern for breakfast — what foods were available and what you preferred, the approximate time of day, a place where food was eaten, who was there, who obtained the food, how it was prepared or set out. Now think about not just the physical facts of the food, but also your ideas about it: what food was good, what was not, when it should be eaten and how much, what activities were and were not appropriate during breakfast, how did the people act toward each other?
Now consider the “breakfast” typical to some family of aborigines in the Amazon jungle, or in outback Australia. You can be quite certain of major differences — not just the food, its substance and origin, but also the beliefs, attitudes and actions surrounding that food.
Two families living their own lives, unknown to each other. Two different groups, each with its own discrete boundary, with no direct contact or even direct knowledge of each other, and very different realities. You wouldn't be likely to agree with their food choices or behaviors, nor they yours; but what does it matter? There’s no ideological conflict. No contested space where fighting happens. No Breakfast Wars.
Why?
Exactly because it doesn’t matter. How they have breakfast in the Amazon or Australia doesn’t matter to you. You have no reason to want to change them.
(I'm ignoring the larger contexts: there are of course levels at which these two breakfasting families DO matter to each other. If our breakfasts consist largely of beef raised on burned rain forest that was stolen from native tribes, then our breakfasts certainly do matter to them! And if theirs consist of bush meat causing decimation of an endangered species, then theirs might matter to us. And conflict might ensue. But that’s not my point.)
What I’m saying is that at a very basic level, division, disagreement, polarization, and eventually conflict, are caused NOT by the differences themselves, but by the “mattering” — by our attachments (of some sort) to the differences.
This doesn’t imply that “mattering” is wrong, that caring about something important is bad, or that I should never try to get someone else to change their behavior.
It does suggest, though, that groups with vastly differing ideas can coexist peacefully, if they don’t do all that “mattering" on each other.
(In one way, this non-attachment is even easier in the contraction of a dark age, because I already know that I can’t “make progress”: I can’t succeed, win, improve the whole world: it’s not going in that direction. At best I’m in a holding pattern, surviving while things are falling apart. I’m freed from the demand and expectation for forward motion.)
If I want the dark age oases — mine and others — to be safe and nurturing places to live, then part of my energy has to be put into creating that safety, and that means preventing conflict, and that means holding a certain space of non-attachment.
And here’s where I really get in trouble. I would hope that the concept of oasis could apply to all manner of communities — different structures, different purposes, encompassing people of all different beliefs, faiths, goals, intentions, and political dedications. However, the concept demands certain minimum requirements: the non-attachment I’ve just mentioned, and accompanying acceptance of diversity and unconditional acceptance of other oases; love and compassion toward group members; and desire for not only survival but thriving and advancement. I’m afraid those requirements for an oasis exclude (ironically) groups of certain kinds of people. Harsh.
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